අර්බුදයේ තවත් වැදගත් පැතිකඩක්
Ivan argues that the courts, which should protect citizens from abuse of power, have also helped create the crisis. After Neville Samarakoon, Justice Mark Fernando tried to carry forward a creative tradition of fundamental-rights jurisprudence until the Kumaratunga era drove him out; Ivan recounts long conversations with him after his retirement about the 1978 constitution, which Fernando helped draft with Sarath Coorey and A.J. Wilson. Citing Sarath N. Silva’s near-confession over the Helping Hambantota case and Ranil Wickremesinghe on crossovers, he argues that the courts have distorted the law, and that the bureaucracy and the rich who control governments share the blame with politicians.
801 වැනි මිනිසා
Building on Alvin Toffler’s idea that people living today are the 800th lifetime since the hunting age, Ivan calls his children’s generation the 801st, who will live in a fully globalised world. Many Sri Lankans already work abroad, bringing in over US$4 billion in 2010, and more of the coming workforce will do so. He argues that education, certificates and the whole institutional system must meet international standards, that children need an international language, information technology and freedom from chauvinism, and that governance itself must change rather than waiting for politicians to find wisdom.
අධිකරණයේ හා විධායකයේ ගැටුම
After the university teachers, Ivan writes, the stage has been taken by judicial officers and lawyers, provoked by a thug attack on the Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission, who had been publicly criticised by the President. He argues that the 1978 system copied the American presidency without its checks, giving the president power to appoint judges and limiting judicial review. Neville Samarakoon, though appointed as a friend of J.R. Jayewardene, kept the court upright; the retreat came under Sarath N. Silva, whose misconduct his successors never corrected. The judiciary, he warns, cannot defeat the government within this collapsing system.
විශ්වවිද්යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සටන
Ivan sees the three-month strike by university teachers as another expression of the crisis of the political system. He argues that the education system itself has helped produce the crisis, turning out professionals whose self-interest holds back society, and cites misconduct by leading accountancy firms. He agrees that Sri Lanka’s spending on education, and on higher education in particular, is among the lowest, and backs the demand for 6% of national income, but warns that such demands, better salaries and depoliticised universities cannot be won within this corrupt system, which the teachers must learn to confront.
අනාථ දරුවන්ගේ ප්රශ්නය හා ළමා අපයෝජන
Ivan calls for better care of orphans kept in state-supervised children’s homes, noting that less is spent on their food than on prisoners’. He then recounts cases showing how the justice system favours the powerful over abused children: a High Court judge accused of abusing a young domestic worker who was reinstated to office; a children’s home at Beruwala run by hoteliers, whose exposure in Ravaya led to a criminal defamation case against Ivan; a teacher at a well-known school jailed for 30 years; and a monk whose case dragged on until his death. The system, he argues, shows no compassion for child victims.
දරුවන් බුද්ධිමත් කිරීමේදී නිවසේ තිබිය යුතු පරිසරය
Ivan argues that three decades of violence have damaged the country’s social psyche and that parents must shield children from the resulting culture, including what they see on television. Explaining how fast a child’s brain grows between four months and two years, he urges parents to care for mental as well as physical nourishment. He tells the story of John Stuart Mill, educated entirely at home by his father, learning Greek at three and logic at twelve, and while calling the experiment too harsh, draws from it the lesson that every home, rich or poor, should keep a collection of good books for children.
මරණය භීතියට හෝ කනස්සල්ලට හේතුවක් කරගත යුතුද?
Responding to comments overheard at the funeral of the poet Ratna Sri’s wife, Ivan accepts that some of his advice on family life suits the middle class more than the poor, and describes how his own mother lived with his wife in her last years. He then argues that retirement is a long stage of life, not a waiting room for death, and considers great deaths — Madduma Bandara, the Buddha, Christ and Socrates — as well as Gandhi and Tolstoy, who learned to cycle at 67, to urge older readers to live fully until the end rather than in fear.
ක්රමයේ අර්බුදය උග්ර කරන පළාත් සභා මැතිවරණ
Hearing Sajith Premadasa promise better welfare for the rural poor under a UNP president, Ivan reflects that no change of president can rescue a system that has outlived its time. Prabhakaran’s defeat left the traditional political system without its enemy and exposed its decay: an economic crisis alongside lavish infrastructure spending, chaos in the energy sector, and mass recruitment of young people into state jobs to buy support. Holding provincial council elections piecemeal before their terms end, he argues, shows how deep the government’s crisis is.
යහපත් දේශපාලන ක්රමයක් සඳහා සිහින දැකීමේ අවශ්යතාව
Writing during the 2012 provincial council elections, Ivan examines the electoral system created in 1978. Quoting Election Commissioner Chandananda de Silva’s report on the 1989 election, he argues that the system hands the party holding the presidency control of Parliament and the public service, and that open vote-buying and campaigns costing billions have turned elections into auctions. He recalls watching money flow to Chandrika Kumaratunga’s campaigns and Leslie Goonewardene’s refusal of foreign funds for his party, and warns that the country’s richest people have made their fortunes by funding politicians and now rule from behind the scenes.
දරුවන් ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Noting that his columns on life draw far more response than those on politics, Ivan continues the family series. Recalling how he mediated in a cousin’s mother-in-law dispute, he sets out four principles he taught his own children: married children should live apart from their parents; parents should not depend wholly on their children; mothers should stay home with young children; and grandparents should not be made into childminders. He writes of becoming a grandfather, cites Newton and Bertrand Russell, and urges parents to build cleanliness, order, honesty, self-confidence and courage in their children for a globalised world.