සමනළ වැව හා හම්බන්තොට වරාය
When giant development schemes are made by decisions taken on the political power of politicians alone, disregarding expert advice, the destruction a country can suffer is enormous. Some geologists, irrigation engineers and civil engineers had heavy criticisms of the accelerated Mahaweli scheme, and it was begun in disregard of them.
ප්රමිතිය නොසලකන ජාතියක්
What has come out about the great railway accident at Alawwa on the 17th shows that those responsible gave no thought to the standards that must be considered when trains are bought and put into use. We have heard of motor cars made with fibreglass; we had not heard of railway power sets made with it. A car carries very few people and a train carries thousands.
යුද්ධය හා ජනවර්ග අර්බුදය
Written for the Tamil-language Veerakesari at that paper’s invitation, and it begins by placing its author: the man writing to a Tamil paper about what the Tamil people face after the war is not a Tamil but a Sinhalese — and not a Sinhalese born in a Sinhala area but one born in Batticaloa, who drove his pen to build Sinhala opinion in recognition that a grave injustice had been done to the Tamil nation.
ඉන්දියානු ඇමතිවරුන්ගේ වත්කම් විවාදය හා ශ්රී ලංකාව
After Anna Hazare’s satyagraha the Indian prime minister’s office published, on 3 September, the latest declarations of assets and liabilities of the 77 members of the cabinet, as a step towards rebuilding the public confidence that had collapsed. A research institute working on democracy compared them with what the same ministers had filed with the election commission in 2009.
වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
After Anna Hazare’s satyagraha succeeded, the Indian prime minister and the members of his cabinet published their declarations of assets and liabilities for the public to see. It can be read as a step to control the disillusion growing among people towards the leaders of the government — and as a very important by-product of the popular struggle against corruption.
මර්වින් සිල්වාගේ ගව මස් තහනම
The minister of public relations and public affairs told the Lankadeepa that the sale of beef in the butchers’ shops of the Gampaha district would be banned from next week — that killing and eating an animal which does such great service to agriculture is a great sin, and that the ban is meant to set the country an example from Gampaha in protecting the cattle resource.
මාලබේ පෞද්ගලික වෛද්යවිද්යාල ප්රශ්නය
A new crisis in the health and medical field is coming onto the stage around the private medical college at Malabe. Opposing a private university outright is one extremism, Ivan writes; allowing, in the name of permitting private universities, a shop system that sells degrees of no proper standard is another.
සරත් නන්ද සිල්වා හා සමාජ පාදඩකරණය
The Sunday Leader editor Frederica Jansz called the former chief justice a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and his long reply appeared in that paper at the weekend — answering not all her charges but only the few he could interpret to his own advantage. This is Ivan’s account of the rest.
දූෂණයට එරෙහිව හා තොරතුරු අයිතිය වෙනුවෙන් කරන සටනේ අවුල
India’s anti-corruption movement, and the satyagraha Anna Hazare carried out to bring the struggle to a logical end, finished by winning the object they had set — an independent anti-corruption institution under a public ombudsman. It has not been discussed enough in Sri Lanka, Ivan writes, and it can be counted the largest popular revolution in India since Gandhi’s.
සරත් සිල්වා හා තේරීම් කාරක සභාව
The papers report that the government has decided to appoint a parliamentary select committee to look into the wrongs done in the judiciary during Sarath N. Silva’s time as chief justice. He says it is being done to suppress the fight he is now carrying on against the government’s corruption, and that since he is a retired citizen the government has no power to appoint a committee to inquire into him.