මුහුණ සමග තරහට නහය කපා ගැනීම
The donor countries may reduce their dealings with Sri Lanka or drop them altogether, and nothing about that would be good for the country. Ivan understands why a guerrilla movement wants the state destabilised; what he cannot understand is southern parties working, knowingly or not, to the same end — the protest marches against foreign countries included.
අවශ්ය ව්යාජ වෙනසක් නොව, අව්යාජ වෙනසකි (මංගල සමරවීරට පිළිතුරක්)
Samaraweera’s reply avoids the arguments and re-describes the man making them: someone who thinks nobody else may change his mind, who has softened a hard position on the ethnic question, who is now propping up the Rajapaksas. Ivan answers each, and says what he actually objects to — a change of government that leaves the right to plunder intact, which is a false change standing in the way of a real one.
Dr. Neville Fernando and Lankan politics
A conversation from 1991 with Dr. Neville Fernando, recalled at his death, in which a government backbencher explained how Parliament was bought — and why, Victor Ivan argues, it has never recovered.
The reality of the system
Duty-free permits, super-grade vehicles and an assets law with two open loopholes. Victor Ivan uses the perks of Parliament to show how the system really works — including his own part in prising the declarations open.
නිදහසේ වාන් දොර ඇරීම
A fundamental change in the political system is essential to any good forward movement for the society and the country — and without overcoming the challenge Prabhakaran’s movement posed to the state, there was no possibility of making one. That challenge was itself something this corrupt political system enlarged: there was a problem before it, and this system turned it into a tangle that could not easily be settled.
පෞද්ගලික වෛද්ය විද්යාල ප්රශ්නය ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Replying to a Peradeniya medical student who objected to his earlier column, Ivan asks why
selling medical services is acceptable if selling medical education is not, and sets World
Health Organization figures for doctors, nurses and pharmacists per ten thousand people
against those of Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Korea and Europe. Two per cent of Sri Lankan
children who start school reach a degree, against forty in Korea; the state holds a monopoly
on universities it cannot fund, and twenty-two billion rupees a year leaves the country with
the students it turns away.
පෞද්ගලික වෛද්ය විද්යාලයක් ආරම්භ කිරීම හොඳ ද නරකද?
This article examines the controversy surrounding the government’s decision to allow the establishment of a private medical college by Dr. Neville Fernando. Countering the protests of student unions, the author argues that breaking the state monopoly on higher education is a progressive necessity. The piece highlights the severe shortage of state university placements, the massive outflow of national wealth to foreign universities, and the urgent need for a properly regulated private higher education sector.