ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ පරිවාස වැඩපිළිවෙළ
Ivan questions whether the JVP can win the five independent commissions by giving oxygen to a dying People’s Alliance government. He recalls its seats on the rigged North Western Provincial Council and support for PA provincial administrations, and gives the numbers: the government fell from a majority to 109 against 115 after Rauff Hakeem’s group left, and JVP support brings it back to 119. He argues that the pact’s ban on peace talks, privatisation and price rises clashes with the IMF standby agreement and risks another LTTE attack like Katunayake.
රට අඳුරෙන් අඳුරට
Power cuts have grown from one and a half to two and a half hours a day, adding to the political darkness, but were suspended on nights of cricket and presidential speeches. The editorial recalls the 1996 promises that there would be no more cuts, accepts that opposition to the Norochcholai coal plant was short-sighted, and says the real issue is government inaction: the Electricity Board had a surplus of about Rs. 8,000 crore in 1994 and now owes about the same.
හිතුවක්කාරකම් නිකම් ම බලා සිටීමෙන් පරාජය කළ නොහැක
The editorial says the President is playing with the country’s survival as political instability speeds economic collapse. She cannot govern without Parliament, which holds the legislative and financial powers, and had no right to prorogue it to avoid a no-confidence debate. With the opposition now in the majority and a large group from the government joining it, it argues that the People’s Alliance government is finished and that she must reconvene Parliament and let the opposition form a government, or bear the consequences.
අර්බුදය කුණු කිරීම
Ivan says the Katunayake attack has badly damaged a weak economy, yet the parties behave like crabs dancing in a warming pot. The crisis stems from the prorogation to block the no-confidence motion; the Speaker put his sister ahead of Parliament and the JVP’s factional approach wrecked the chance of an all-party reform government. With over Rs. 100 crore spent on the postponed referendum and Parliament due on 7 September, he warns that months more without proper government will deepen the economic collapse.
A sail through stormy weather
The attack at Katunayake has brought down a large part of an already weak economy, and neither the parties struggling for power nor the public seems to grasp how serious it is. They behave like the crab that dances in the pot until the water boils. One more such attack would be enough.
රටේ පැවත්ම සමග සෙල්ලම් එපා
Consumer prices are rising fast, trade is shrinking, manufacturing is collapsing, foreign investors are leaving and the stock market is falling, yet the government and parties are absorbed in the political crisis. The piece says the President, as Finance Minister, is ignoring the economy while Parliament stays closed, and that if she will not reopen it, MPs themselves have a duty to reconvene it and restore government, or all parties will answer to the public.
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.
Who was responsible for the Mawanella disaster?
There is a saying that if you go to sleep with dogs you wake up with ticks, and the government is in that position now. What happened at Mawanella, and who let it happen, is followed here from the local politics up to the immunity of the President.
JVP terror to the fore
The government is marking the anniversary of Vijaya Kumaratunga’s assassination as a general commemoration of those killed by the JVP, with a costly travelling exhibition and fresh legal action against those involved in the second insurrection. Ivan’s objection is not to the remembering.
Fifty three years of incomplete freedom
The fifty-third anniversary of independence falls today. The country was moving from feudalism to capitalism, and what was expected of independence was not freedom from colonialism — colonialism had produced only a modern nationalist state. National integration was the condition of real independence, and it was never met.