𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝑾𝒂𝒊𝒍 ( දුක් ගන්නා රාළ )

Every time a serious crime is reported in the country, the subsequent revelation that there is a politician or someone close to him or her is involved is a common thing to hear these days. Interestingly, it is only one political party that participates in such incidents, which is worth noting. One incident was a group of robbers trying to snatch a hefty sum of money being brought to be deposited in a bank by a businessman, and the other was a group of hooligans savagely beating some students attending a tuition class. In both cases, the direct involvement of the politician and/or one of his/her close relatives is evident. If the public feels that the law and the apparatus there to enforce it are either inactive or not taking an impartial stand, taking the law into their own hands will be inevitable soon. History is littered with atrocities committed by lynch mobs in other parts of the world, but luckily, nothing of that nature has ever been reported in Sri Lanka. The formation of lynch...

It is not a secret that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has never made any profits. The public must always chip in by paying more taxes to cover their expenses by pumping money from the government coffers. Another generator at the Norochchole plant has been shut down, and social media is rife with news that a 10-hour power cut is on the cards. If that is true, the CEB income will be further reduced by more than 40%, and how do the authorities plan to bridge the gap? Naturally, increasing taxes and tariffs is the only way they know, and we have no say or control over the matter. How about reducing the salaries of the CEB, including the minister who is responsible, by at least 30% to bridge the shortfall? If for some reason, when a household income drops, either the household will use their reserves to supplement the shortfall or take measures to reduce their expenditure accordingly to meet the situation. In the case of CEB, as I said from the beginning, they have no reserves whatsoev...

It is obvious that there is some behind-the-scenes work involved in the recent coal tender revocation. Calling for a new tender allows opportunists to gain an unfair advantage and deceptive gains once more. How to avoid such an incident occurring in the future is as paramount as securing the next consignment before the country falls again into total darkness. Failing to fulfil the contractual obligations is a good reason not to release the deposited tender fee by the party who got it awarded. The other steps are to ban and blacklist the company in question for life for participating in future tenders. Blacklist the chairman and other company directors. The purpose of the second measure is to avoid the same entity resurfacing under another name with the same bunch of crooks posing as directors etc. Furthermore, those who have been blacklisted for a certain period will automatically lose their credibility and will not find any more directorships in other companies. If no such blacklist e...

Taking one’s own life and or assisting another person to end his or her life has never been endorsed by the Buddha.  If that is the clear teaching, how come someone dressed in robes and claiming to be a monk openly threatens the authorities with immolation, if the electricity tariff for places of worship is not reduced? It is clearly stated in the basic code of monastic discipline that the punishment for such an act is ex-communication for life. Hence, there is no ambiguity in the teaching and why the concerned authorities are still silent and not taking the appropriate action against this person in robe. The Original Post.

Colonial subjugation is no secret to many in the Indian subcontinent, and Sri Lanka is no different. Talking about how much they have presumably looted from us is of no use now, after seven decades of independence. There are many numbers circulating on many social media platforms suggesting the wealth taken away from us runs into billions of dollars. How those numbers have been computed has no significance, but I have yet to see any credible number of the absolute value of the things the masters left behind for our use. When the masters left, they left the country with no foreign loans taken in our name, and instead left a surplus of money in the treasury. In fact, it is a known fact that Ceylon was able to loan some large sums of money to the United Kingdom to enable them to pay back some of the money borrowed to run the WW II effort. They left us a functioning democracy. very viable education, health, and legal systems. Functioning rail and road transport systems. Many airports are d...