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.
අනතරු ඇඟවීමේ නලාව නාදවීම
The threat to the fish market from the extortionists was overcome by a policy of using force against them to the maximum, and for that problem the approach was right — the fish traders approved it and so did the public. The article then asks what happens when the same reflex is applied to everything else.
විශ්වවිද්යාල හා පාසල් ක්රමය මුහුණ දී තිබෙන ගැටලු
University teachers are agitating for a 200 per cent pay rise, and their withdrawal from the administrative work they do voluntarily is pushing university administration into a crisis — and it has come up while the higher education minister is carrying out a programme to reorganise the university system.
අභ්යන්තර කුළල් කාගැනීම්
Not having enough internal unity is a large challenge Sri Lanka faced in the past and faces now, and it can be seen not in one place but everywhere. The country needs a strong government, and equally an opposition with the strength to control a government’s wrong actions; there must be a contest between them, and there must also be a mutual understanding for the common good.
ගාන්ධි නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාවට ගෙන්වා ගැනීම
Suppose Gandhi could be met, brought to Sri Lanka and asked to look into the country as it now is, and to give his guidance on the main problems it faces and how they should be settled. What analysis would he make of Sri Lanka, and what roads would he recommend to us for settling the first-rank problems we face as a country?
ඒකාධිපති පාලකයන්ට එරෙහිව අරාබි ලෝකයෙන් හමන සුළි සුළඟ
What will the large-scale risings against the autocratic rulers of the Muslim world — beginning in Tunisia, passing through Egypt and into North Africa and the Middle East — do to that world and then to the whole world? What is the social background of those struggles, and what are their main characteristics?
ඊජිප්තුව, ශ්රී ලංකාව හා දේශපාලන ක්රමය පිළිබඳ ප්රශ්නය
The risings in Tunisia and then Egypt have made the autocratic rulers of both countries give up power, and the wave may spread through the Middle East. Risings like these have happened before — Iran drove out the Shah, the Philippines drove out Marcos, eastern Europe followed the fall of the Berlin wall — and Ivan’s question is what any of them actually replaced.
වෙනස් වෙමින් තිබෙන අධ්යාපනය
Amid heated argument the shape of education is changing and being changed. Serious changes are visible in higher and vocational education; at school level Ivan can see no such change yet, and the national education commission’s proposals for what school education needs are still proposals.
වසන්ත සමයේ අවසානය
Because of the absolute power the presidency gives, leaders who reach it fall in love with the system as a matter of habit. But it was never properly made, and the oppression built into it works not only on the opposition and the public but on the president himself — and what a leader who reaches the office can see is only the sweetness of absolute power, never the poison hidden under it.
රටට වෙනස්කම් අවශ්යද?
Given how rotten the political system and state administration had become, Ivan writes, winning the separatist war should be counted a miracle — the armed forces and police included people working for the LTTE for money, which shows how far the institutions had decayed. The question now is whether to go forward with that rot or reform it. Every important part is corroded: legislature, executive, electoral system, courts, public service, public services, media. The President has accepted change is needed but has set out no philosophy beyond the voting system and cabinet size, and it is unclear whether he means to win two-thirds by agreement with the opposition or by buying its members across. Ivan lists what remains unresolved — the executive presidency, a German-style mixed electoral system, the constitutional council killed after the 17th Amendment, judicial power used oppressively, customs revenue of which perhaps a quarter reaches the treasury, and education adrift.