The Sri Lankan armed forced currently number 400,000 strong, the budget allocated to Defense spending is Rs. 230 billion (or 14% of our total budget has been allocated to the armed forces). Four years ago when the war was being fought our military budget stood at Rs. 200 billion (at that point it was estimated that the size of the ...

I drove to Dambulla today, and for those of you’ll who know me you’ll will know how much I hate the traffic here, and today I realised how much the roads of Sri Lanka have in common with a Formula 1 race. Just like a formula 1 race if you want to get to your destination on time, it’s important ...

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is taking place this week in Perth this week, and personally the whole summit seems to be a joke. Barely a month has passed since the UN summit in New York, and now the ‘worlds’ attention turns to this. Of course to make stuff interesting the summit needed some controversy; the UN summit had ...

For the past few weeks the talk around Colombo has been the end of free media with the buy over of The Sunday Leader and the subsequent resignation of its editor-in-chief Frederica Jansz. They are right, to an extent; free media in the country is slowly being encroached upon by political figures. Yet the end of this freedom of media, ...

So Mohammed Gaddafi is finally dead, or so the Western world will say, in only took several months of fighting and a serve bombing campaign by NATO to achieve this ‘feat’. On Thursday I spent the evening watching the news which continually showed scenes of, what they described as, ‘jubilation’. What I saw were crowds of men all carrying guns ...

The Indian Grand Prix was held today, and as an F1 fan I can promise you it was the last race I would want to see on my calender. For those who do not I am biased when it comes to India and their sporting events. This grand prix lived up to its expectations, and those expectations were pretty low. ...

A few Friday’s back the media and activists in Sri Lanka was caught up in the “Dambulla Mosque” incident. For those who do not know, it basically saw a group of near a thousand, headed by the head priest of the Golden Temple, storm a mosque and demand its demolition. They claim it was built on sacred land, the Muslims ...

I went to see Vesak the other night and really couldn’t recognise it. The crowds were massive, the lanterns and kuduwas numbers and for some reason everybody was wearing masks. I would really like if somebody could explain that part to me, last year when I went the crowds were big but the number of lanterns and kuduwas was higher. ...

I watched Transformers 3 recently and it was not half bad. Of course when I told people they looked at me with disgust, comments such as ‘OMG the story line was so lame’ or ‘how can you like that it is so unrealistic’. Well, yes, it is an unrealistic film and for a cartoon adaptation the story line will not ...

So it seems like the higher powers have decided that the cleanup of the Colombo city will continue with the stray animals. The continual removal of stray dogs from public areas have been going on for over a year, animal welfare groups have complained and on occasions have had results. However, the trend has not stopped, and despite local businesses ...

So interest increases surrounding the possibility of Fonseka’s release this weekend, on the other hand our attention is also on multi-million rupee parade to celebrate three years since the war is over. Once again, Sri Lanka is finding itself in a tug-of-war scenario between Fonseka and Rajapaksa. Of course, as is the case normally, all other issues have been aside ...

Sri Lanka will learn their fate on Friday in regards to the hosting of the Commonwealth games, and I certainly hope that we do not win the bid. But of course there are many about who are arguing that Sri Lanka should win it that it will ‘help our economic growth’ and ‘the commonwealth games will make Sri Lanka a ...

I took this photo a few weeks ago, and in a couple of days the city will be treated to a host of such men and women. Dressed in their uniforms, showing off their weapons and having the President  praise them to the heavens. The sad part is three years on since the end of the war and these ...

This will be the first of many blog posts documenting my journey in the United States. Before I go on any further, let me explain what I will be doing. Thanks to the US Embassy in Colombo and the International Center for Journalists, I will be in the United States covering the ongoing Presidential Election between Barack Obama and Mitt ...

Sixty-five years on since the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition a territory in the Middle East into a Jewish state and an Arab State, the state of Palestine has been officially recognised by the UN. While the state of Israel was admitted as a member of the UN back in 1949, it took the very people that created ...

People are more often than not inspired by greatness seen in mankind’s history, they will look to match it and live by its lessons. When does the time come that people stop looking back and start looking ahead? For me personally I have realised that all you can take from the past is lessons, but what you can take to ...

Sarath Fonseka was finally freed on Monday, scenes of celebrations were seen as supporters of the Former Army Commander surrounded Nawaloka, Welikada Prison and the High Court. However, his release has now left more questions than answers available. The two biggest questions that is on most people’s minds is why did Mahinda Rajapaksa suddenly agree to release Fonseka, after stalling ...

My last article on the Indian Grand Prix was attacked by an Indian the other day, and in his comment he mentioned that I was biased when it came to India. I feel I should set the record straight, I am biased when it comes to Indian sport. So why do I have this biased attitude towards Indian sport? Well ...

So Mother’s Day is today, and most people are looking to spoil their mothers with lunches/dinners or flowers or cakes and chocolates. For our mothers, this is a day that they can look forward to being spoilt by their families without having to worry about any work afterwards. I myself only found a place to take my mother out for ...

Australia’s ongoing test series in South Africa has been far from what Michael Clarke would have been hoping for. Coming off a series win in Sri Lanka, being one-nil down and struggling to win the second test is not a step up. The one thing this series has shown is that Australia is still a team in transition, and that ...