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The 13 th Amendment: UPFA Government is Heading for its First Defeat in the Parlaiment Sumanasiri Liyanage The virtual repeal of the 17 th Amendment as a necessary corollary of the enactment of the 18 th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the chauvinist forces in the South began to raise the possibility of further amendment to the constitution by using the two-third majority that the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) have in the Parliament. Their clear target has been the 13 th Amendment that introduced in 1987 for the first time in independent Sri Lanka a devolved system of government to make the government structure more democratic and decentralized many flaws of the new system notwithstanding. With the decision of the Supreme Court on the Divineguma Bill and the new issue on if the decision of the Provincial Governor can be considered as the decision of the Provincial Council, we witness today a reemergence of the debate on the place and future of the 1...

6 per cent GDP on education: from a fantasy to a real program. Sumanasiri Liyanage Of the four trade union actions, the Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) has been so far engaged in in its about three decades of history, the one that came to conclusion last week was the first that ended with no tangible material results. On the other hand, the last trade union action was of great significance for two reasons. First, it was the first strike action by the university teachers. FUTA had resorted to different activity frame as in previous three occasions, namely resigning from voluntary positions that the university teachers held in normal situation. Secondly, extending its 2011 strategy of taking the issue of education reforms beyond the boundaries of the university and to the general masses, FUTA this time highlighted more general issues of education reforms than the specific demands of its members. Hence FUTA was able to generate a broader discussion on the ...

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...