පූර්ණ ප්රතිසංවිධානයක අවශ්යතාව
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka’s schools of thought still see the ethnic question as they did while Prabhakaran lived, arguing only over how much of the 13th Amendment to grant. The root problem, he says, is the failure after 1948 to build a united nation and a democratic society to sustain the state and democracy inherited from Britain: Burghers were driven out, Indian Tamil plantation workers lost their citizenship, Tamils lost language rights, and the 1972 and 1978 constitutions completed the decay of governance. With terrorism defeated, the rot is visible and the moment has come to rebuild nation and state together. He sets out an eighteen-point agenda — from abolishing caste discrimination and fixing national policies to curbing corruption, criminalised politics and inequality — for a four-to-five-year national programme involving all parties.
දේශපාලන ක්රමය නිරුවත් කිරීම
Ivan argues that the collapse of the J.R. Jayewardene system, which N.M. Perera called a ‘hotchpotch’ of presidential systems, has only accelerated even under a popular President. Chandrika Kumaratunga seized control of public finance from Parliament and used Sarath N. Silva to break the independence of the judiciary; corruption and politicians’ reliance on local criminals for security did the rest. While Wijeweera and Prabhakaran threatened the country, the public could not see the rot; Prabhakaran’s defeat has stripped the system naked. Ivan lists fifteen recent ‘scenes’, from the Golden Key and Sakvithi collapses to the Tangalle murder of a British tourist, and calls on the President to lead a national reorganisation with all parties.
සටනකට පෙර ස්වයං විවේචනයකට
Responding to a public statement by a group of Tamil intellectuals led by the Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, which urges the Tamil National Alliance to reject the 13th Amendment, boycott talks and stay out of the Northern Provincial Council election, Ivan argues that they are again pointing Tamils down the road to ruin. Before any new struggle, he says, the Tamil leadership must honestly ask why the last one failed: the separate-state goal was a fantasy of the traditional leaders, the 1977 mandate was far from overwhelming, J.R. Jayewardene’s 1978 Constitution met many language grievances, and Prabhakaran killed more Tamils than the security forces did. Like Gandhi’s Congress or Martin Luther King’s movement, Tamils should seek equal rights within a Sri Lankan nation and a democratic society.
දඩිබිඩි එළවළු විප්ලවය
It is not a lie that vegetables carried in sacks are crushed and bruised and that the waste is large; investigations into it began as far back as the 1970s. The waste needs preventing, and the way it is being tackled is not good: first identify the problem properly, then find the right remedy, then explain its value to every party concerned, and then try it in selected places rather than nationally at one stroke.
අනුරුද්ධ රත්වත්ත
Anuruddha has died, and as a man who was close to him for a time Ivan thinks it important to set down a note about him. What follows is a personal account, including the plain observation that neither Anuruddha nor Chandrika appears to have had full confidence in the other when she was brought into the SLFP.
අන්තර්ජාල අරාජිකවාදය යුක්තිසහගත කිරීම
Two earlier articles argued that the ethics and the laws affecting the other media should affect websites too: that reporting in any medium must rest on true facts, that those wronged by reporting built on false ones should have legal relief, and that the internet should not have a freedom to work outside that tradition.
රාජපක්ෂ පාලනයේ හත් අවුරුද්ද
Mahinda Rajapaksa can be counted the most argued-about and the most powerful head of state Sri Lanka has produced since independence; before him that place belonged to J.R. Jayewardene. Five sections follow: social and family background, power and resolve, the lust for power, importance and power, and where it went wrong.
නීති ඇති කිරීම හා ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
The much-argued bill for the revival of underperforming enterprises and underutilised assets passed its first reading by a majority of 76 — 122 for and 46 against, with two parties in the government abstaining. That shows there is no common agreement about this law even inside the government, and the vote against was well short too.
විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ හා ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂ දේශපාලනයේ ශ්රාස්ත්රීය දුගීභාවය
Ivan opens with a telephone conversation with an educated man of some standing inside the UNP who is himself a subject of argument there, and the question he put to him. What follows is an account of the intellectual poverty on both sides, of the deceiving of party members, of family politics, and of the limits of the forward vision on offer.
දේශපාලන සංස්කෘතිය ශීලාචාර කරගැනීම
If the tragedy that came out of the unseemly clash at Kolonnawa between a government member and a former government member is not taken as the warning signal it is, and the changes that would bring the country’s deeply uncivilised political culture to a civilised place are not made without delay, the price the country will pay may be enormous.