I make no apologies for returning yet again to the question of language rights. As I noted after my last visit to the North, for a series of Divisional Secretariat Reconciliation meetings, this remains one of the principal bones of contention in the Jaffna District. But it need not be, because the principles we should all be acting on are ...

BY OLINDHI JAYASUNDERE  Oct 3, 2012 UPFA MP Rajiva Wijesinha addressing a forum on the future of free education in Sri Lanka said there was a massive crisis in education which was due to a crisis in management and lack of productivity, and added that union demands based on wage hikes and increases in government spending were irrelevant. The forum ...

A couple of weeks back I wrote about the pernicious impact of our current electoral system on female representation in political bodies. The last week has convinced me more than ever that this system is the root of many of the evils that beset us, and that inhibit good governance. An obvious example of this was an article that referred ...

The National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 2011 – 2016 as well as the full series of  Sri Lanka Rights Watch are available at the Peace & Reconciliation Website. The Consultation with responsible government officials we convened last week, to expedite implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan, would I thought be easy, since the subjects to be ...

Expanded Version of the closing remarks of Prof Rajiva Wijesinha - Former Chair, Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, at the Closing Session of the CALD General Assembly, on the theme The Populist Challenge to Liberal Democracy Hon Sam Rainsy, Chair of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, Hon Vasantha Senanayake, our closing Keynote Speaker, colleagues and friends, though I ...

At many of the Divisional Secretariat Reconciliation meetings I have attended in the last few months, there has been harsh criticism of what are termed District and Division Development Committee meetings. Often I am told that problems are raised at these meetings, but nothing is done. Promises are made, but they are never kept. More recently, since I have again ...

The outcome of an informal consultation on promoting the Rights of Children held recently, with the Secretary to the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Empowerment in the chair, was a discussion document to assist with the formulation of policy in this field. The care of children must be part of a comprehensive programme with the basic goal of empowering ...

The National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 2011 – 2016 ( sinhala & tamil) as well as the full series of  Sri Lanka Rights Watch are available at the Peace & Reconciliation Website. At one of the discussions on the promotion of Human Rights that the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies has been arranging together with the Reconciliation Office, it was decided to ...

An important item on the legislative agenda over the last few years has been a change to the 1939 Children and Young Persons Ordinance. A few years back, when Milinda Moragoda was Minister of Justice, he had asked for reports in various areas where it seemed justice was not being served. Not all the committees appointed have reported as yet, ...

My worries about where America is leading us were increased by a recent visit to Tunisia, which I found fascinating. I also found it extremely sad, because tourism has suffered tremendously, since the Arab Spring, which it will be remembered began in Tunisia just 2 ½ years back. What happened in Tunisia seemed to me welcome, because the regime there ...

I have been wondering for some time about whether this column should also deal with the problems of university students. Last week, having found myself by far the oldest among the Sri Lankan delegates to a Conference on Indo-Sri Lankan relations held at Osmania University, and older too than most of the Indian participants, I realized I had to accept ...

Welcome address by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, Chair – Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats At the Workshop on Climate Change Setting CALD’s Climate Change Agenda Bangkok, November 28th – 30th 2011 I am happy to welcome all of you here to the first of a series of discussions on Climate Change, which the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats has embarked ...

Speech of Prof Rajiva Wijesinha At the debate on the Second Report Of the Committee on Public Enterprises October 10th 2013 Hon Chair The publication of this Second Report of the Committee on Public Enterprises is a momentous occasion, because it exemplifies how Parliamentary Standing Committees should conduct themselves in a manner that has not been apparent in Parliament for ...

Several papers, though interestingly enough not all, carried accounts last week of the failure of Vasantha Senanayake to propose the Constitutional Amendment that stood in his name on the Order Paper of Parliament on September 25th. It was not however registered that he had not withdrawn the motion, which was to introduce statutory limitations on numbers in the Cabinet. He ...

Text of lecture at a workshop at the Kotelawala Defence University January 20th 2013 In the second section of this talk I spoke about the different layers of government, and the lack of clear responsibilities for each of them, along with mechanisms to ensure coordination and avoid overlap. I advocated strengthening the relationship between the different layers and also laying ...

… an inflated idea of its own importance In addition to security considerations, there are several areas in which government is deeply involved. But we should not take what government does for granted. There is a natural tendency for any institution to have an inflated idea of its own importance, and this means that it will tend to take on ...

GL and Sajin meanwhile failed to take things forward in the other area which had been entrusted to them, in that they brought nothing from the negotiations to the PSC. It became such a joke that even representatives of the hardline parties asserted this and said it should be wound up. This made sense for nothing of what we had ...

Much has been reported recently about the various Public Relations firms government – or rather elements in government, since it seems that there has been no Cabinet approval for these ventures – have hired to raise our profile in countries which seem hostile to us. There have been a host of such firms in the United States, and one in ...

At the meeting last week of the Mutur Divisional Reconciliation Committee meeting, the Chairman of the Mediation Board reminded me of a suggestion made by the school principals I met during my last visit to Mutur. This was in 2008, while the conflict in the North still raged, but the East was limping back to normality. The principals were from ...

Expanded version of closing remarks at the Seminar on “Liberalism: It’s All About Freedom” arranged in Ulaan Baatar by the Civil Will Green Party of Mongolia together with the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung May 24th 2012 I was not expecting to conclude this seminar, but it is a pleasure to do so since ...