වර්ගවාදය හා නායකත්වයේ අර්බුදය
Lee Kuan Yew was right, this piece argues, that Sri Lanka failed because its leaders could not manage racial passions. Bandaranaike knew Sinhala Only without provision for Tamil was unjust, yet tore up his pact with Chelvanayakam under pressure from militant monks; Dudley Senanayake lacked the courage to see his own pact through; J.R. Jayewardene legislated District Development Councils but could not bear to see the TULF win Jaffna. Mahinda Rajapaksa had the golden chance after the war and let it pass. The Northern Provincial Council election is a silver lining, if leaders on all sides stop inciting their people.
මැරෙන්නට ඉඩ හැර බලා සිටීම
The chronic kidney disease killing people in the former border villages of the North Central Province draws less attention than stray dogs or cattle bound for slaughter, the paper says. At the very least the government should supply water through heavy-metal filters — not a Rs 35 million tank at Padaviya fed from the same groundwater doctors warn against — and, if no quick cure is found, resettle people on safer land. A society that lets them die, it concludes, is not a human one.
නීතියක් නැති රටකට!
With the impeachment of the Chief Justice reaching its climax, the paper sets aside ordinary reporting to list, in twelve numbered points, the consequences of pressing ahead in defiance of rulings by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. It rejects the government’s comparisons with the Philippines and Westminster, warns that a new Chief Justice installed over a lawfully protected one would bring repression and chaos into the courts, and predicts damage as grave as the 1982 referendum and Black July.
තේ කර්මාන්තය නගා සිටුවීම
Tea, the editorial recalls, transformed Sri Lanka: it brought South Indian labour, roads and railways, and created the fortunes of low-country families such as Jeronis de Soysa, whose descendants’ wealth funded schools and hospitals. Nationalisation under Sirimavo Bandaranaike failed, and land-reform holdings became a pool for politicians’ land grabs, while privatisation sold estates cheaply. Smallholders from the south saved the industry, with double the yields of large estates. Since plantation workers’ children are leaving, the editorial proposes making workers smallholders on inalienable land, with companies limited to processing and marketing, and urges value-added exports on the Dilmah model and strict laws against blending inferior tea, as India and China turn to domestic consumption.
කොමිෂන් සභා නිර්දේශ
Publishing the Lessons Learnt Commission’s report, and holding a census to find the true number of those who died in the final war in which the LTTE was defeated, can be counted two very important forward steps.
සේකරගේ ප්රහේළිකාව ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
The article on the Sekera puzzle and the interpretation of the communal crisis brought a number of telephone responses, and this is Ivan’s answer to them — including a correction he is careful to make gently about the answer Professor Sarath Wijesuriya had given him.
දඩිබිඩි එළවළු විප්ලවය
It is not a lie that vegetables carried in sacks are crushed and bruised and that the waste is large; investigations into it began as far back as the 1970s. The waste needs preventing, and the way it is being tackled is not good: first identify the problem properly, then find the right remedy, then explain its value to every party concerned, and then try it in selected places rather than nationally at one stroke.
අධිකරණ ස්වාධීනත්වය ගැන හෙළන කිඹුල් කඳුළු
More than 150 lawyers have signed a resolution calling for a general meeting of the bar association against the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the wrongs done by the retired chief justice while he held office — and the first signature on it, according to the newspapers, is that of a candidate for the presidency of the association at the coming election.
උගත් පාඩම් කොමිසම හා උගතයුතු පාඩම්
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s report has been handed to the president, and what it finds and recommends is not yet clear. It is a commission that drew international attention: the British foreign secretary said Sri Lanka should show its honesty by making the report public, and the government says it will be put before parliament in December.
දුමින්ද සිල්වා හා අධිකරණය
The judiciary can be counted an important factor in the tangles of this country. As Harold Laski said, the courts are the mirror that reflects the degree of political civilisation in any national society — and we did once have a judiciary of that kind.