Suggestions to improve Parliamentary system

It was agreed that the current Parliament had deteriorated and been greatly devalued in relation to its predecessors. Many thought this was not particular to Parliament under the 1978 Constitution, though the situation became worse under that Constitution. Devaluation began with the Constitution of 1972 when absolute power was concentrated in the National State Assembly (as Parliament was than named). For the first time executive, legislative and even judicial power were concentrated in the legislature. This supreme power of the National State Assembly meant its unrestrained use by the parties that commanded a majority.

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I will not be ‘polythening’ this Vesak

The Morning Inspection – Malinda

A little boy makes a vesak kooduwa with great effort. He makes the frame, pastes the saukola (tissue paper), makes the frills and pastes these too, fixes a candle, lights it and hangs it on the branch of a tree. It is a pretty picture. It rains. There is wind. The vesak kooduwa catches fire. The little boy is distraught. Time passes. He moves from child to adult to middle-aged and old. He acquires things, loses things and in the evening of his life remembers the vesak kooduwa. The images of its making and its burning, the joy and the sorrow flash across his mind. The lesson is impermanence.

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Reflections on the end of the conflict

A year ago the Government officially declared victory over the LTTE in one of the most extraordinary counter-insurgency campaigns in recent times. The endgame of the conflict, particularly from January to May 2009, saw the bloodiest fighting, often with the presence of tens of thousands of civilians that the LTTE desperately used to fend off its inevitable defeat. Since then, new evidence has become public that offers further insights into the final months of the country’s secessionist civil war.

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