උපාසක සක සකේ කිකිළි බිජු දෙක දෙකේ
A short satirical note on Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva’s long Vesak article in Lankadeepa on the Noble Eightfold Path, which Ivan says never actually explained the path. If readers took the Chief Justice’s own life as the model, Buddhism would suffer the ruin the courts have. He compares it to magistrate Lenin Ratnayake’s cloak of piety, torn away once he was shown to be a fraud and rapist, and recalls the Buddha’s teaching on the transience of falsehood.
මාධ්ය ගුරුවරුන්ගේ දැක්මේ දුප්පත්කම
Ivan ridicules Dr Ariyaratne Athugala, head of mass communication at Kelaniya University, who told Dinamina that repealing criminal defamation would be a crime and complained that the media dwell on Rookantha, Chandraleka and Anoja Weerasinghe. Ivan notes that international bodies seek repeal, that the law protects only politicians and officials, and that other laws already cover defamation. He also mentions a Colombo University media lecturer who said on state television, after the North-Western poll rigging, that Sri Lanka had too much media.
මැතිවරණ දූෂණවලට ඉඩ නොතැබීම ආණ්ඩුවේ වගකීමක්
Local elections on the 20th in a limited number of councils will test the government’s commitment to free and fair polls. Ivan notes that monitors found malpractice at the previous local elections, blamed on government supporters, and that a promised inquiry committee including a retired Supreme Court judge was never appointed. Organised electoral fraud is always the work of ruling-party supporters with police acquiescence, and controlling it is a duty of government and society.
උපාධිධාරින්ගේ රක්ෂෂා ප්රශ්නය
About 30,000 graduates are said to be unemployed, and police reportedly attacked a group protesting at Temple Trees, while the government blames the JVP. Ivan points to a mismatch between university education and the job market, calls for rapid vocational training, notes the World Bank condition limiting the public wage bill, and argues that job growth depends on peace, so graduates should support it while the government hires on merit without political influence.
පැවැත්ම සමග කරන සූදුවක්
Ivan argues that the JVP is gambling its political survival by opposing Ranil Wickremesinghe’s peace effort as it once opposed the Indo-Lanka Accord. He recalls that the party called provincial councils a division of the country, killed people over them and then became their keen participants without apology, and now stays silent on the executive presidency and the President’s stalling of the 17th Amendment. Nationalism, he says, can wreck a settlement but no longer carries anyone to power.
The dilemma of independence
More than five decades have passed since independence, and the fifty-fourth anniversary has to be marked with sadness rather than pleasure. What the country has done with its freedom, measured against the neighbours who started level with it, is the subject.
නිදහසේ උභතෝකෝටිකය
On the 54th Independence Day, Ivan laments that freedom won without struggle left Sri Lanka without the attitudes or institutions to hold its communities together. Contrasting its record with Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India, he cites negative growth, 15 per cent inflation, war costs and some 100,000 deaths, and argues that no leader since 1948, Sinhala or Tamil, has won the respect of all communities.
සාහසිකකම්වලට වගකිවයුතු සියලු දෙනා නීතිය ඉදිරියට ගෙනා යුතු .
Voters defeated the People’s Alliance despite a violent campaign in which, the editorial says, the President and cabinet broke election law and the Constitution with the Chief Justice’s backing. It singles out the former deputy defence minister, whose paramilitaries it blames for intimidation in Kandy and the shooting of ten Muslim youths guarding ballot boxes at Madawala, and urges the new government to prosecute those responsible.
ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදී ප්රතිසංස්කරණ සඳහා සර්ව පාක්ෂික ආණ්ඩුවක්
The PA is close to collapse: SLFP factions are feuding, most of the SLMC and NUA are drifting away, and S.B. Dissanayake has demanded the President give up the Finance Ministry while promoting a national government under Ratnasiri Wickremanayake. The editorial notes the UNP deal with Rauff Hakeem, the no-confidence motion against Mahipala Herath and the stay on impeachment, and urges an all-party interim government to enact reforms rather than a UNP-dominated one.
ඇස්සට දත නියවීම
With educated youth unemployed, Sri Lanka is importing nurses from Kerala; the Health Secretary expects 5,000 to be needed within five years and private hospitals already employ hundreds. Government hospitals have 14,750 nurses against 30,000 needed, and pharmacists, radiographers and technicians are also short. The piece asks why students who miss medical entry are not trained for these jobs, noting unemployment of 13 per cent among women and 19.6 per cent among those with A-levels.