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Drugs, Crimes and Politics Sumanasiri Liyanage While waiting at the airport lounge for Delhi bound flight, I was practicing a bad habit of eavesdropping to a conversation between two guys just sitting behind me. It appeared that they were from Negambo area as so much inside information not excluding rumors, half-truths and total lies had come out of their conversation. The focus or rather the starting point of the conversation was the search of a local politician Nimal Lansa’s house with the order of the IGP but without a warrant issued by the magistrate. Hence, one positive thing that came out through this event was that even the high-level politicians tend to accept a common ethico-legal norm that magistrate’s warrant is a requirement prior to the arrest of a person or search of a place. Will that norm be applied by the police hereafter in case of the arrest of an ordinary person or search of her/his house? Sorry, I am deviating from my topic. Why did the police special task force m

Crisis of global capitalism and OWS October 23, 2011, 6:43 pm   While we gather here to discuss the crisis of global capitalism, the workers, students, unemployed youth and other marginalized and excluded people in Western capitalist countries have begun a massive protest against banks, finance and insurance companies and stockbrokers. The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has gathered momentum as many big cities have organized their own OWS campaign. It has been reported that in Italy, protesters fought with the police. The fragile economies of almost all Western capitalist countries are yet to come out of the economic crisis that surfaced in September 2008 with the collapse of mega banking and financial companies. Growth rates were below one percent; inflation and unemployment rising. As one woman protester informed us angrily, "I have a degree, but I make coffee". People have expressed their anger over the system, the system that has failed to ensure a reasonable living standard a

  The meaning of Sarkozy October 16, 2011, 6:40 pm   One may wonder whether translating a book on an election held in 2007 in France and its results is of use and relevance to Sri Lanka. I think Vangeesa Sumanasekera’s effort is welcome for two reasons. As history has shown since French Revolution, French political events have universally significant theoretical and political ramifications. Secondly, if we substitute a name of a present or past political leader (like Obama, Blair, Bush or Mahinda Rajapaksa) who exercised governmental power for Sarkozy in the title, book still makes sense. Hence the book has a universal relevance. Alain Badiou, the author of the book, The Meaning of Sarkozy (MS) is a French Marxist philosopher. The first chapter of the book was written just before the 2007 French presidential election that made Sarkozy the president of France. The last two chapters were later developed in his recent book, The Communist Hypothesis (CH). Like in many countries, France ha