Day: 19 January 2018

BY Mirudhula Thambiah Northern Minister of Women Affairs, Ananthy Sasitharan said the International Community had taken a different stance over humanitarian issues in Sri Lanka, thus letting down the war-affected people. “We were under the impression that United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, would somehow help us to find a solution to our grievances. However, his recent stand and statements were in total contrast to the promises he previously made. I am of the view that further expectations will not result in anything…

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Northern Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran stressed on the need to find a political solution for the Tamils through an International legal framework. Wigneswaran was addressing a special meeting, convened by the Tamil People’s Council (TPC) under the theme ”informing people’. Prof. S. Swarnaraj (Former professor, Law Faculty, University of Colombo) who participated in the peace talks during the Norwegian peace facilitation period was also present at this special meeting which was held at the Jaffna Veerasingam hall on Tuesday (16). Chief Minister Wigneswaran said this TPC meeting was not…

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The FCID today informed court that it found Rs. 94 million worth properties belonging to former Ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga, while probing the financial loss incurred by the government when purchasing four Ukrainian MIG 27 aircraft in 2006. Filing a report, FCID Inspector Nihal Francis said Mr. Weeratunga owned an eight-acre land worth Rs. 40 million and a one-acre land worth of Rs. 25 million in Dompe and a luxury apartment (Trillium Residencies) worth Rs. 29 million in Borella. The FCID sought court direction on the land registrar to prevent the…

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Sandya Ekneligoda, the wife of disappeared journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda has handed over a letter to Army Commander Lt. Gen Mahesh Senanayake requesting his assistance in the probe into the disappearance of her husband. In the letter Sandya Ekneligoda noted that its been eight years since her husband had disappeared on January 24, 2010, but had received little or no help in tracing what had happened to Prageeth Ekneligoda. She accused the system of favouring the guilty while continuously penalising the victims. In her letter she said she respected the security…

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ECONOMYNEXT – The “politicization” of Sri Lanka’s central bank , the “corporate culture and ethos” coming from the Rajapaksa regime and ignoring stock scams at the Employees Provident Fund helped bond frauds to be committed from 2015, a Presidential Commission of Inquiry has observed. The commission inquired into a series of rigged bond auctions during the tenor of Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, where he was found to have interfered in auctions and policy rates while officials ‘supinely’ stood by. Perpetual Treasuries, a company connected to his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius…

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By D.B.S.Jeyaraj Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his misguided astrological and numerological wisdom held the seventh presidential elections on January 8th 2015. When the date was announced most people yearning for a regime change in Sri Lanka noted the symbolic significance of January 8th in a different context. It was on January 8th 2009 that Lasantha Manilal Wickrematunge , the well known editor of “The Sunday Leader” was brutally assassinated in broad daylight while on his way to work. Many of Lasantha’s family,friends,colleagues and readers had been consistently demanding that justice…

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