ස්වභාවික ව්යසන යන්ගෙන් වන හානිය උග්ර කරන දේශපාලන සාධක
The damage done to the Northern, Eastern and North Central provinces by the flooding is enormous. Measured against the tsunami the loss of life is far smaller and the loss of property is larger: tanks destroyed wholly or in part, newly built and newly repaired highways damaged, and heavy losses to paddy and vegetable crops.
අවිධිමත්භාවයට මහජනයා වන්දි ගෙවීම
Among the bad features native to this political system, one of the most important is that there is no orderly way of weighing the good and the bad of a state transaction — sometimes worth hundreds of millions — before final approval is given to it. The article works through the hedging agreements, the purchase of electricity from the private sector, and how risk and return are shared between the private and the state sectors.
විදේශ රැකියා හා මැලේසියාව
Foreign employment is one of the country’s main sources of income: it is the chief earner of foreign exchange, it lightens the weight of unemployment, and it is one of the main things easing rural poverty. Ivan asks for a policy that treats the recruitment agents as people who do the economy real service, and for a shift from sending housemaids to sending trained workers.
ගංවතුර, නායයෑම් හා ප්රාදේශීය පාලනය
The damage done by the heavy rain and the floods is enormous, worst in the North Central, Eastern, Northern and Central provinces. Close to nine hundred thousand people are affected and more than two hundred thousand are in camps; across five districts 116 tanks are wholly damaged and another 238 partly.
පොල්, කුකුළු මස් හා බිත්තර ආනයනය
Importing coconuts as a remedy for the shortage can be called a good and useful act; importing chicken and eggs to control their price cannot. From there the article turns to the spread of monkeys and wild boar, to animal husbandry and religious belief, and to a decision Ivan calls genuinely revolutionary — making vocational education compulsory for those who fail their O levels.
විදුලි මිල හා ප්රශ්න
Raising the price of electricity is destructive not only to ordinary people but to manufacturers and businesses. Widening the concession from 90 units to 120 relieves ordinary households and settles nothing for industry: in ceramics and similar trades electricity is about half the cost of production, and the rise limits what some industries can compete at.
වැඩවර්ජනවල සාධාරණත්වය!
The right to strike is a fundamental trade union right, Ivan writes, but it is a weapon to be used with social responsibility and at a decisive moment, not for narrow party ends. He reads the work-to-rule at petroleum, electricity and the ports as a campaign run through union structures for the coming election, and asks why parties confident of winning in January will not simply wait and settle the wage claims themselves.
ජීඑස්පී ප්ලස් බදු සහනය ආරක්ෂා කරගත යුතුය
Whether Sri Lanka keeps GSP+ is a measure of its diplomatic sense, Ivan writes: a member of an organisation is bound by the rules it agreed to or should leave. He points out that nothing done during the war is what is at issue, and that releasing the displaced, withdrawing the Yaksihiran indictment, pardoning Tissainayagam and passing a short law making the covenants domestically enforceable would settle it.
දකුණේ මැතිවරණ ප්රතිඵලය දෙස බැලීමක්
The government won the south well but less well than it had announced it would, which cheapened the win. Ivan reads the numbers as showing the president’s standing still strong, and argues that what the government must now protect is what the country is already receiving: settle the quarrels with the West, send home everyone in the camps except the LTTE’s active supporters, and let foreign aid flow.
සමගිය හා ප්රඥාව
The politicians are looking at the southern council election and the presidential one, while the country faces war crimes allegations, the GSP+ question and the displaced. Ivan argues these can only be met if the parties set their divisions aside — and that the voice the country used during the war does not suit the moment. We are no longer entangled with Prabhakaran, he writes, but with the powers of the world.