Easter Sunday controversy: By Shamindra Ferdinando Former Ambassador to Germany, Switzerland and ex-High Commissioner in South Africa, Sarath Kongahage, yesterday (12) alleged that British television Channel 4 had tricked him into discussing political developments with the focus on the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage. Claiming that the Channel 4 programme didn’t reflect what he had said […]

New laws contemplated by the government appears to have caused much concern among Opposition political parties for obvious reasons. The constitutionality of the proposed Broadcasting Authority Bill is expected to be challenged in the Supreme Court. The whole process of law making raised quite a stir in the wake of the recent shocking Supreme Court […]

BY GEORGE BRAINE This was early 1981, and the government was planning to start a state-run television service. Applicants were invited for an inaugural training course for producers, directors, researchers, and writers. I had applied, and was called for an interview. The interview was at the newly set up National Television Planning Centre, at Kirulapone. […]

By Rohini Hensman Sri Lanka’s claim to be a democracy has been tenuous for years, but the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution by parliament on 8 September 2010 dealt it a fatal blow. It changed Sri Lanka...

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 Dayan Jayatilleka What is the ‘main contradiction’ in Sri Lanka today? It is that between the very broad national base of support and sacrifice for the war and the resultant peace on the one hand, and the increasingly narrow character of the beneficiaries of the dividends of that popular peace, on the other. The war was national but the peace dividend and its distribution appe...