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Northern Province Election and the PSC Sumanasiri Liyanage Giving an interview to an Indian national newspaper based in Chennai, The Hindu , appears to have become a perennial practice of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In this interview, ( http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3624948.ece ) he has revealed that “We want to hold elections in September 2013. We are working towards it [the elections] in a systematic manner.” President Rajapaksa who has great liking for elections at whatever level and who has initiated recently preponing three provincial elections including the election of the war-ravaged Eastern Province has tried time and again since May 2009 to postpone the elections to the Northern PC giving multiple excuses. Of course one may easily find adequate reasons for the postponement of election in an area where a ‘dirty’ war was fought for nearly 30 years. Nonetheless, one of the principal measures that has been suggested to take to move in the direction...

India’s Vote at the UNHRC: What went wrong? Sumanasiri Liyanage One may justifiably argue that India’s vote in favor of the US Resolution against Sri Lanka happened to be the main reason behind its adoption in Geneva. India has been regarded as the undeclared moral leader of the Global South so that the countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America usually take into note what position India holds on important global and regional issues. I am sure that India’s vote surprised Sri Lankan delegates in Geneva and India’s explanation why It had decided to vote in favor of the US Resolution has not been clear and Indian Prime Minister’s letter to the President Mahinda Rajapaksa was apologetic, and not explanatory. If one reminds what the Indian External Affairs Minister said at a press conference after ending his recent visit to Sri Lanka, it was hardly to see any indication that India had an intention to take such a decision in March 2012. He was not critical at all over the lack of a time fr...

Academic Freedom and Quality of Education: Looking for a scapegoat December 4, 2011, 12:00 pm   After listening to an interesting, controversial and thought provoking presentation by Prof. Desmond Mallikarachchi at the International Philosophy Day Seminar organised by the Department of Philosophy, University of Peradeniya, I have decided to take up once again the issue previously raised by Dr Jayantha Dhanapala in his open letter and Comrade Carlo Fonseka’s response to it in The Island a couple of days ago although Prof Mallikarachchi’s presentation is not directly related to the issue discussed by two learned persons. The question Prof Mallikarachchi posed was: Is Mahavamsa a Meta-Narrative, i. e. a comprehensive and all-encompassing story? I must record in passing that the way in which the University of Peradeniya has treated Prof Mallikarachchi, an eminent scholar, after his retirement, is disgraceful. Is there a correlation between the quality of university education and the a...

Are Youth Back on the Path of Revolt? November 20, 2011, 7:36 pm   While young people all over the world are experimenting with new forms of social resistance, the young, energetic and brave 24 year-old daughter of the slain politician, Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra (BLP), Hirunika Premachandra in her interview with Sirasa, Kingsly Ratnayaka, proposed that in order to understand the incident that occurred at the local government election day, it has to be located in a broader political landscape of the island. The anger, grief and determination she displayed at the interview have demonstrated not only her personal feelings in the face of the assassination of her father but also the general anger and despair of the younger people today around the world. It was the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor aroused the young people in the Arab world to flock at short notice through text messages and social networks to streets, squares and other public places for prolonged protest...

State and expropriation of Property November 13, 2011, 8:05 pm   The assertion of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French anarcho-socialist philosopher, that property is theft (What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government) is well-known to students of political science. The word ‘theftocracy’ was used by Managala Samaraweera to denounce President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family and associates in the discussion on The Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and Underutilized Assets Bill (RUEUAB). As the term property is now used loosely, it is pertinent at the outset to define what I mean in the course of this article by property since the term is subjected to gross misinterpretation in the human right discourse. There are two kinds of property, exploitative and non-exploitative. If a person individually or as part of a family own a house for their living, the house can be put into the category of non-exploitative property while a house that is rented to get...

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...