Banks’ Profits Up 111% The banking industry achieved a considerably high level of profits in 2010. Profit after tax amounted to Rs. 57.5 billion last year, a 111% growth in comparison to a Rs. 27.2 billion profit in 2009. The significant growth in profitability was mainly attributed to a higher increase in fee-based income, a ...

By Michael Roberts The old Premadasa Stadium was a monstrosity. The new one is far better on the eye though hardly a classic structure. Together with the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium at Sooriyawewa it was constructed in time for the staging of the World Cup. In this achievement both stadiums stand out sharply in contrast with ...

by Prof Michael Roberts The old Premadasa Stadium was a monstrosity. The new one is far better on the eye though hardly a classic structure. Together with the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium at Sooriyawewa it was constructed in time for the...

by Darini Rajasingham Senanayake On 4 February, Sri Lanka celebrated its 63rd birthday. After nearly three decades of armed conflict, it is now one of Southasia’s calmest and fastest-growing countries. Its social indicators, apart from the northeast zone, remain the...

By Mangala Samaraweera, M.P. It is with great alarm that the peace loving people of the civilised world witness the despotic regime of Muammar Gaddafi killing his own people, using heavy weapons and even fighter aircraft to bomb civilian targets...

by H.M.G.S.Palihakkara I wish to thank the hosts of this event for asking me to speak in memory of Professor J. E. Jayasuriya. To state that Professor Jayasuriya was an icon in the realm of education in Sri Lanka would...

By Amanda Morrow It’s often mistakenly called “Little Bombay”, but the lively neighbourhood that stretches from the rue du Faubourg-St-Denis north to La Chapelle is actually home to Paris’s Tamil community. The air is often fragrant in this quarter –...

By Dr. S. Narapalasingam PART I The baffling moves and actions on the political front of the potent government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, since the war ended conclusively mid May 2009 have been considered discretely by many analysts, ignoring...

By Malathi De Alwis On 18 May 2009, Sri Lanka officially declared the end of a 30-year civil war fought between. Sri Lankan government forces (GoSL) and Tamil militants, namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). Such a sea...

I grew up in America. I remember the huge grocery stores, the plentiful summer jobs, the feeling of hope and safety. I watched Sri Lankan President Premadasa being blown up on TV and it seemed very, very far away. Now I’m in Colombo and the spot where Premadasa died is a functional part of the ...

By Dr.Harsha de Silva Mr. Speaker, I am glad that important Ministers and Members from the Government side have come to listen to this speech. I must first state that I am happy to have been able to join the...

by Ranil Wickremesinghe By the 4th century BC, Asia had begun its first cycle of economic growth and power. This was the reason why Alexander the Great decided to travel eastward to establish an empire. At that time there was...

by Rick Westhead Toronto Star, South Asia Bureau TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA—The weathered wooden bench that serves as an open-air confessional booth at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church doesn’t enjoy much down time nowadays. It’s not that more people are...

by Mahinda Rajapaksa (Following is the full text of the address by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the United Nations General Assembly at New York on September 23rd 2010) “I have great pleasure in congratulating Your Excellency Joseph Deiss,...

By Sumanasiri Liyanage Why do we need laws? If all of us are law-abiding citizens, laws may become redundant. Someone has remarked that laws are needed to restrict and limit the actions of the heartless people....

by Dr.Rohan Gunaratne It is my distinct privilege to deliver the 13th Deshamanya Professor Nandadasa Kodagoda Oration this evening. Professor Kodagoda was an intellectual giant of our times. Born in Ahangama in the Galle District in 1929, he was educated...

By D.B.S.Jeyaraj The  tragic history of post-independence records that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have been subjected to mass-scale mob violence in the years 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983. The anti-Tamil violence of July 1983 was the most terrible and horrible of them all. It remains etched in memory even after 27 years. Twenty ...

by Pearl Thevanayagam The recently concluded war with all its human miseries such as loss of lives, widowhood, displaced and maimed civilians, orphans, destruction of properties and denigration of agricultural lands and the disruption to normal life throughout the island...

The electors in Sri Lanka operate on a very simple principle – they vote for those who work for them or at least pretend to work – and many do just that. The term ‘work’ in the Sri Lankan context, especially where elections are concerned is where those that seek office are seen as having ...

By Sumanasiri Liyanage Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian Revolution, once said that when a specific music is played, the issue is not which key is important, but when a particular key should played. The events unfolded in the past month or so have shown that Sri Lanka has made a new turn in its foreign policy. By identifying this new turn, I do not mean a paradigm shift in Sri Lankan...

With its foreboding lighting effects that appear to have been plucked straight out of Dante's dark epic Inferno-and cleverly devised one suspects to reduce its willing, and oftentimes unsuspecting, "victims" to submission-the BBC's HARDtalk program has attained a universal reputation...

by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake “Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than...