විදේශ ප්රතිපත්තිය නිවැරදි කරගැනීම
The government appears to be retreating from its strongly anti-Western foreign policy, built on the belief that world power is passing to China. That shift, Ivan argues, is neither imminent nor China’s alone, since India is also rising, and the US works to weaken states aligned with rival powers. A small country on a strategic sea lane should stay out of rival camps, stay friendly with all, and above all keep India’s trust. He recalls how J.R. Jayewardene’s hostility to India, including an insult to Indira Gandhi, led India to back Tamil militants, halt the Vadamarachchi operation and air-drop supplies, and how India’s support was decisive in the final war. Having promised 13-plus, Sri Lanka must either deliver or offer a credible alternative, and build friendship with Tamil Nadu as well as New Delhi.
විශාඛාව හා නිදහස් අධ්යාපනය
Ivan reproduces the list of charges — Rs 8,320 for two years, including a security fund, electricity and prize-giving — that Visakha Vidyalaya’s principal asked A/L students to pay at once, and asks whether this applies only to elite schools or to all. Even then, pupils will spend thousands a month on tuition. He describes a neighbour in Galle, a former military policeman now driving a three-wheeler, who spends almost all his earnings on tuition for his two daughters, who are home only at night. If children cannot pass exams without paid tuition, he concludes, the free school system is failing in its basic duty.
දියර කිරි හා කිරිපිටි
The government’s answer to the dairy crisis — raising the price of powdered milk and the import duty to Rs 92 a kilo — may ease farmers’ problems but will mainly burden consumers and fill the Treasury, unless the revenue goes to dairy development. Urging people to drink local liquid milk instead of imported powder is an appealing patriotic slogan that ignores habits, Ivan argues: the country produces only 15% of its milk and spends Rs 36 billion on powder imports, so the goal must be to produce all its milk powder at home from large farms with high-yielding cows, with long-life milk made locally. He also suggests curd-based dishes and drinks on Indian lines, a cheap nutritious national meal, promotion of wild boar meat, and easing gun rules for farmers to control crop pests.
ඉතිරි කිරීමේ බැංකුවේ කම්බා හොරකම
On the chairman’s orders, the National Savings Bank agreed to buy 13% of The Finance Company for Rs 390 million from four individuals — two of them directors — at about Rs 50 a share when the market price was Rs 30–32 and the real value perhaps under Rs 15, handing them some Rs 140 million. A senior officer alerted the Treasury Secretary and the President and the cheque was stopped, but the sellers were paid through Sampath Bank. The chairman, Pradeep Kariyawasam, is a political appointee and the husband of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, whom the government had placated with state posts for him when it passed her over for Asoka de Silva. Ivan warns that the case cannot be handled fairly, recalls how Sarath N. Silva destroyed the judiciary’s standing, and says no ethnic solution matters without a trustworthy judiciary.
හොඳම විසඳුම 13ද?-
India, the West, Tamil leaders and devolution advocates treat full implementation of the 13th Amendment as the best solution, but Ivan argues it was built for the North-East Tamils alone, on the unproven idea of a traditional Tamil homeland, and imposed on a reluctant J.R. Jayewardene under Indian pressure. Citing G.H. Peiris’s study of the Eastern Province and K.M. de Silva’s critique of separatist ideology, he says the homeland claim has never been rebutted, and warns that a solution resting on it will leave others feeling deceived. Sinhala and Tamil leaders should each apologise for their wrongs. He proposes village councils modelled on India’s panchayats, district councils able to merge into provincial and regional councils by popular consent, a smaller Parliament with a Senate, a human-rights charter, information rights, and strong election and anti-corruption commissions.
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.
පෙරටුගාමී පක්ෂයේ ස්වයං විවේචනය
Amid the decay of every party, Ivan reviews the newly formed Frontline Socialist Party through its 445-page book on the JVP’s path from 1978 to 2012, billed as a self-criticism but really a critique of its parent party. Its young members are committed, he says, but their thinking still lives before the fall of the Berlin Wall, ending with Lenin on the dictatorship of the proletariat. The book romanticises JVP culture without asking why idealistic youth became executioners in 1988–89. He traces a thread through the JVP’s history: after Wijeweera’s disappointing 273,248 votes in 1982, the party never found a leader the public would accept, backing Rajapaksa in 2005 and Fonseka in 2010 for want of its own candidate — a dilemma rooted in race, caste and religion. The FSP must put knowledge before action.
එළවළු සහ කිරි හරක්
Like vegetable farmers at the New Year, dairy farmers are now pouring away milk as Nestlé, yoghurt makers and the state-owned Milco limit purchases. Ivan argues that the government’s enthusiasm for food production, including the Divi Neguma home-garden drive, lacks a plan for surpluses. He suggests changing eating habits — more vegetables, soups, juices and local fruits such as jambu — linking tourist hotels with supplier villages, building storage through large companies, and national crop planning on the Israeli model with an eye to export markets in the Maldives and the Middle East. For milk, citing a dairy expert, he proposes large company-run farms with high-yielding cows on the country’s abandoned paddy land, leased from owners, to produce powdered milk at home.
ප්රතිසන්ධානය හා ගෝඨාභය සාධකය
Ivan rejects Uvindu Kurukulasuriya’s website report that at a dinner with Minister DEW Gunasekera he had plotted to save the government and blamed Gotabaya Rajapaksa for every problem; the report, he says, rested on a third-hand source. The talks were among many long one-to-one discussions he held with politicians of all sides to test support for a national programme to rebuild the state and nation, which he believes many would accept. Leaders need not be ideal — South Africa’s transition, Cromwell and Lenin show that — so the chance must not be missed. He credits Gotabaya Rajapaksa with the war’s strategy, with bringing Sarath Fonseka forward, and with resettlement and rehabilitation, but says abductions, including of Frontline Socialist Party activists, and extra-legal drives against drug dealers are squandering that honour; he must adapt to peace or lose everything.
දේශපාලන පාදඩකරණය හා කළු සල්ලි
Sri Lanka, Ivan warns, is falling into the grip of criminals and black-money barons: only 4% of criminal cases end in conviction, against 70% in India and 85% in Europe, because witnesses are unprotected, police corrupt and courts compromised. He traces how the JVP and LTTE insurrections led politicians to arm private security gangs drawn from local criminals, how rival underworld gangs rose and fell with changes of government — killings that foretold each change — and how criminals became MPs and councillors without abandoning extortion and drug dealing. Election costs have exploded, from one lakh in 1989 to 500 lakhs for a district seat, so parties and presidents depend on black money repaid from public funds. He calls for spending limits, audited accounts and caps on donations.