අල්ලස හා දූෂණය
The challenge corruption poses to the country’s progress is larger and more tangled than terrorism was. Ivan traces the machinery from the old bribery department to the commission that replaced it in 1994, and then shows what it is up against by following a television station sealed by the defence ministry, a fundamental rights petition heard by the chief justice, and the chief justice’s own name on the resulting company’s board — entered in the register as a social worker.
අදහස් පළකිරීමේ නිදහසට තහංචි නොපැනවිය යුතුය
With the war over, Ivan argues, every restriction placed on expression directly or indirectly should go — including the freedom to criticise the government, which a government put in place by the people must hear. On the Press Council revival he finds neither option good, and points to India, where the regulator is built from the media organisations and Parliament together.
සමගිය හා ප්රඥාව
The politicians are looking at the southern council election and the presidential one, while the country faces war crimes allegations, the GSP+ question and the displaced. Ivan argues these can only be met if the parties set their divisions aside — and that the voice the country used during the war does not suit the moment. We are no longer entangled with Prabhakaran, he writes, but with the powers of the world.
ජාතික ගීතය හා දෙමළ සන්ධානය
The Tamil National Alliance’s councillors in Vavuniya took their oaths to the national anthem, which Ivan reads as an important signal. He traces the anthem’s rejection to the Vaddukoddai resolution of 1976, after which the Federal Party and the Tamil United Liberation Front stopped using it and the LTTE banned it in northern schools, and asks the alliance not to stop there.
විදේශ ප්රතිපත්තිය නැවත සලකා බැලිය යුතුයි
The foreign secretary was told to appear in person for a British visa, which the government reads as a breach of diplomatic courtesy. Ivan agrees the government’s position is right and argues that being right is not enough: a small country gains nothing by quarrelling with the Western world, and he recalls what calling Indira Gandhi a cow cost the country under Premadasa.
තිස්සනායගම් නඩුවේ තීන්දුව ගැන
Twenty years’ rigorous imprisonment for J.S. Tissainayagam has drawn the world’s attention as his detention did. Ivan argues that judges must sentence in proportion to the gravity of the offence and within the law, lists earlier judgments where that was not done, and notes that most of the complaints against Sri Lanka in Geneva were aimed not at the government but at the former chief justice — and that the country, not he, is paying for them.
සරල දේශපාලනයෙන් ඔබ්බට සිතීම
Every outlet but one spoke with a single voice over the Malabe abduction, and Ivan credits that with the arrests that followed. He turns to a pattern in the reporting of the suicide attacks — on Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, on the president, on Sarath Fonseka — in which the bomber was brought to the place by someone inside, and asks whether the parties can think past defeating each other.
කේ පී අසුවීම
Taking KP abroad and bringing him to Sri Lanka is a considerable victory, Ivan writes, not only because he led the diaspora’s notional state after Prabhakaran but because he ran the LTTE’s arms purchasing — and everyone in custody now talks. He notes that the low turnout at the two northern council elections shows the Tamil people’s unease is not over.
නිල බලය අයථා ලෙස පාවිච්චි කිරීමට ඉඩදිය යුත්තේ ඇයි?
Six junior officers have been transferred over the abduction and assault of a student at the Malabe technology institute, but the head of the Colombo crime division who directed it has faced nothing. Ivan argues the country needs as firm a policy towards educated men who abuse official power as it does towards uneducated criminals, and asks why the police chief has not acted on the defence secretary’s instruction.
දේශපාලන ක්රමයේ වෙනසකට කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
Forty thousand of the displaced have been resettled and the government means to finish in 180 days. Ivan asks that the camps at least be opened to members of parliament — nothing the state does should lie outside their oversight — and argues that with three elections ahead, the country is waiting for a change in the system rather than a change of government.