I discussed recently three of the four problems with regard to women raised in the last round of meetings of Divisional Secretariat Reconciliation Committee meetings. The fourth I thought had to be looked at separately, because it seemed extremely serious. This was an issue raised by one of the Women Development Officers, about a complaint made to her by a ...
I have now had an opportunity to go through the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee that looked into the conduct of the Chief Justice, and its contents amply confirm the position I have advanced, namely Shirani Bandaranayake has not always acted properly She should not be impeached With regard to the first point, the main problem is her getting ...
I wrote a couple of weeks back about ‘nasty personal attacks on the UN leadership in Sri Lanka during the conflict’ and noted that long ago I had ‘suggested that we should highlight the positive input of senior UN officials and question the UN as to why their reports had been ignored’. This was prompted by a report by a ...
Reconciliation and the role of India Presentation by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP At the Observatory Research Foundation Delhi, December 13th 2013 I must admit to being deeply worried about the current state of relations between India and Sri Lanka. I contrast this with the excellent situation that obtained in 2009, when India was the chief component of the protective ...
As indicated in the suggestions I advanced in these columns for Parliamentacy Reform, I had had no great regard for Parliamentary Consultative Committees as they function now, because they rarely contribute to policy making, which should be one of their prime concerns. An exception initially seemed to be the Education Committee, which way back in 2010 began to consider the ...
Speech of Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP in Parliament Mr Speaker, it is an honour to speak in this debate on the report of the Committee on Public Enterprises, given how much it has accomplished. Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of its Chairman, the simple but brilliant idea of dividing into sub-committees given the amount of work, and the dedicated commitment ...
The response below was sent to Tim King of Salem News, who posed the question cited. I am most grateful to him for contacting me, because many foreign journalists are content with simply consulting members of the Diaspora (almost exclusively Tamils supportive of elements if not all of the LTTE agenda) and Tim writing to me I think helps to ...
In my book on Political Principles and their Practice in Sri Lanka, which Cambridge University Press in Delhi published a decade or so back, I wrote that ‘Undoubtedly, the most important function of a government is to ensure the security of its people.’ People needed to ensure their safety from external threats, and they also needed security from others within ...
Text of a presentation by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP, at the Kotelawala Defence University seminar on August 22, 2012 I intend in this paper to look at the different areas in which social integration can be promoted in Sri Lanka, and in particular the manner in which institutions such as the Kotelawala Defence University can contribute to this process. I ...
Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Sneezy (Part 1) The reason Mohan gave for the Secretary of Defence being annoyed with me in June 2009 was a matter that was to prove an enormous bone of contention over the next few years, namely the claim advanced by some in Sri Lanka that there had been no ...
The last couple of weeks have seen momentous changes. Basil Rajapaksa has been to Delhi and Shivshankar Menon to Colombo, reminding one of the very successful manner in which relations between the two countries were conducted during the conflict. Even before the visits, the President announced the long delayed elections to the Northern Provincial Council, a move that Basil Rajapaksa ...
In a forceful critique of attempts to amend the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, the Secretary General of the Liberal Party, Kamal Nissanka, also made no bones about the fact that the current Provincial Council system had many flaws. Though the Liberal Party has always been in favour of devolution, we have also noted that there are several things about ...
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. Because of both the National Human Rights Action Plan, and Reconciliation work that involves meetings at distant Divisional Secretariats, over 50 in the last year, I have become deeply ...
There is much discussion now on the independence of the judiciary, and this is essential. The politicization of the judiciary in the last couple of decades has been disgraceful, and we must take forceful steps to ensure that political controls, and even political influences, are minimized. But we must also register that there is more to Good Governance than that. ...
Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Sleepy (Part 1) Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Sleepy (Part 2) Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Sleepy (Part 3) Meanwhile GL was also making a mess of the other task that had been entrusted to ...
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. I wrote a couple of weeks back about the Participatory Budgeting initiative that is currently being conducted in selected local government bodies, after hearing about it at the South ...
I have noted previously that I think the 18th amendment is a vast improvement on the 17th. Interestingly, when I first began explaining my views on the 17th amendment, there was little comprehension amongst Sri Lankans about my fundamental objection, that it was inappropriate for an elected Head of Government who was also head of State to simply rubber stamp ...
Many allegations are now being traded with regard to corruption, but sadly there is no discussion about measures to get over the problem. We seem more inclined to concentrate on allegations for political purposes rather than institutionalizing preventive measures, remedial measures and also measures that will give early warning. I am very sorry about this since one of the reasons ...
I was deeply saddened earlier this month to hear of the death of the marvelous Engish actress Geraldine McEwan. I had got to know her 30 years earlier, shortly after I joined the British Council, when she toured Sri Lanka with her one-woman Jane Austen show. I had been determined to take the tour all over the country, but by ...
Presentation at a meeting of the Pakistan Liberal Forum - Islamabad, 11th September 2012 I am grateful to the Pakistan Liberal Forum for having invited me to speak today at your seminar on Challenges for Democracy in the upcoming Elections. Though you have suggested I present a regional perspective, it would be more practical I think for me to talk about ...
