Rajapaksa family run the state airline 'SriLankan' gobbles up Rs. 60m a day

The SriLankan Airlines incurs a loss of nearly Rs. 60 million a day, reports by the Central Bank point out.
The airlines’ losses are increasing by the year and the increase of losses stood at 31 per cent in 2012.
SriLankan cites increased prices of aviation fuel, economic downturn in Europe and delay in expanding and modernizing its fleet of aircraft as the reasons for its continued losses.
However, other international airlines earn huge profits, with Emirates recording a 43 pc increase in its profit to 887 million USD in 2013.

"I Will Enter Politics Form Colombo" - Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said he will enter politics one day, at the discretion of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.  Speaking to Wijeya group's latest publication, 'Deshaya' Sunday newspaper, the Defence Secretary has said although he does not have personal interest in politics, he is ready to take up the challenge if and when the President wants him to do so.

Sri Lanka: President sons Luxury car bumped into a three wheeler and removed by the special police

One of the high luxury cars of president son Rohitha Rajapaksha`s car collection has bumped into a three wheeler 1stof this month. The car called as shelby GT500  is made by Ford company in America and comes under high luxury car range. Eye witnesses say that police special task force came to the scene within one hour and loaded the car into a lorry and went.

Sri Lankan state is undergoing a conversion to quasi-theocratic ethnocracy and Govt in to a clan based oligarchy

 Cartoon By Gihan de Chickera

Sri Lanka in Geneva: Frozen In Fixed Positions  by DR DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

With almost exactly a week to go before a crucial vote in Geneva, Sri Lanka seems very much on the back foot. While William Hague, the Foreign Secretary of the UK makes a direct appeal to the readers of ‘The Hindu’, presenting four points in support of his country’s call for an ‘international mechanism’, his counterpart Prof GL Peiris busies himself addressing a series of meetings, not in the member states of the UNHRC but in the Southern province of Sri Lanka.

Who is holding the President accountable for this colossal waste of public coffers?

Named after the President

Through The Republic Square and other media we learn that Mihin Lanka, the brainchild of Sri Lanka’s current President Mahinda Rajapaksa, lost 2.2 billion over the current financial year. As Colombo Page notes, “Civil Aviation Minister Priyankara Jayaratne made this revelation in response to a question posed by United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian Ravi Karunanayaka. The Minister noted that the losses incurred by Mihin Lanka for the financial year 2011/2012 were Rs. 1.9 billion and Rs. 3.2 billion last year.

Law College principal sacked for alleged ‘examination irregularities, appointed as Legal Director of the President

This week, Sri Lankans were privileged to hear that the Principal of the country’s Law College who was summarily sacked for what is mysteriously termed in public as ‘examination irregularities,’ the nature of which is familiar to any person with a nodding acquaintance with the legal sphere, has been appointed as the Legal Director of the Presidential Secretariat by President Mahinda Rajapaksa (see Daily Mirror, February 1, 2014).

Sri Lanka: Foreign service or family service?

DPL plum posts gone to ruling party relatives and cronies

Namini Wijedasa

An unprecedented number of positions in Sri Lanka’s once-respected diplomatic corps has been parcelled out to friends, relatives and loyalists of the ruling party, the Sunday Times has found.
This extraordinary rise in nepotism and political favouritism has spawned conspiracy theories with several popular websites stating that the Government intends to dismantle the Sri Lanka Foreign Service (SLFS) altogether. Alarmingly, several key missions around the world—including Washington, The Hague, Ankara, Frankfurt and Pretoria—at present have no professional diplomatic officers at all.

800 Tamil families displaced in Sampur lands being acquired for company owned by Rajapaksa clan

Meera SrinivasanA white, rectangular board with Sinhala and Tamil letters appears once every few metres along the iron fence around a huge expanse of land in the sea-facing town.
‘Ilangai Minsara Sabaikkuriya Kaaniyaagum. Utpravesithal thadai’ [This land belongs to the Ceylon Electricity Board. Entry is banned] reads the board. This is where a 500-MW capacity, coal-fired power plant will come up in a few years from now in a joint project between Sri Lanka and India.

Another Rajapaksha white elephant: Ravi K. says Govt. can’t pay back Sooriyawewa stadium loans

By Ashwin Hemmathagama

The Mahinda Rajap-aksa International Cricket Stadium at Sooriyawewa became the subject of heated debate in Parliament yesterday after the United National Party charged that the Government had stopped repaying loans borrowed to construct what he called a white elephant stadium.
UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake said four mega development projects in Hambantota opened amid much fanfare had provided Sri Lanka very little benefit.

Sri Lanka has 1.4 M Govt employees; one third of them are police and armed forces

Eran drops bombshell in P’ment over public finance

•     No evidence of Parliamentary control over finance, says Eran
•     UNP MP charges Article 148 has been violated in Legislature for four years
•     Claims bloating public sector stifling private sector growth, projects incorrect picture of unemployment figures
•     Budget split half and half between Cabinet of Ministers and Rajapaksa family: UNP
  

The Rajapaksas: who are Sri Lanka's ruling dynasty?

Sri Lanka's ruling family are mingling with the Commonwealth's elite as they host this week's summit in Colombo. Yet some of them have been accused of war crimes. So who are the Rajapaksas?

President Rajapaksa has been president of Sri Lanka since 2005, having been elected with just over half the country's votes. Since then his popularity has grown, largely due to the fact that, within four years of having come to power, he had ended the Sri Lankan civil war and had crushed the Tamil Tigers movement.

President Rajapaksa and the country under him are in a rush

The centre wants to hold

TUGGING on a red curtain, the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, opened a gleaming new toll road late last month. The $290m motorway links Colombo’s airport to the capital, 26 kilometres (16 miles) away, and like so much in Sri Lanka these days, it is funded by China. Soon it will be whisking dignitaries to a summit of Commonwealth leaders, which Sri Lanka hosts this year, on November 15th-17th.

Sri Lanka: a country ruled as a family business by four brothers

Left: Sri Lanka's defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Right: President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Photo: GETTY IMAGES/REUTERS

The four Rajapaksa brothers rule Sri Lanka, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the top  

 

By David Blair, Colombo

Sri Lanka is a country ruled by four brothers who have turned their country’s government into a family business. At the apex sits President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who won office in 2005 and was re-elected in 2010 after victory in the civil war.

Out of the 23 close relatives of senior politicians, who were in the fray at Saturday’s polls, contested on either UPFA or UNP tickets, 19 were elected.

Lands Development Minister Janaka Bandara Tennakoon’s son Pramitha Bandara Tennakoon secured the highest number of votes from the Matale District while the Minister’s cousin, Thilina Bandara Tennakoon, was elected from the Kandy District.

UPFA clan tree in PC Elections

The political arena has got agitated with the topic of government politicos’ relatives who have been given nomination for the Central and North – Western PC elections. We publish here a list of such relatives for the amusement of our viewers.

Weliweriya killings: Basil apologies for deaths while Gota defends military action

''Minister of Economic Development, Basil Rajapaksa, called for forgiveness from the public over the attack on the people’s protest in Ratupaswala, Weliweriya demanding clean drinking water.'' - Basil Rajapaksha
"There is a procedure for deployment of security forces in the absence of emergency. And, on any occasion, the mere presence of troops at trouble spots was enough to prevent untoward incidents. Unfortunately, troops reacted when missiles were thrown at them."  - Gotabaya Rajapaksha

State Secret Report no. 1: President has taken a 50% commission from the Norochcholai project

Norochcolai exclusive eThe Government Servants Against Corruption organization says with great responsibility that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had taken a 50% commission from the Chinese company that was assigned the project to construct the Norochcholai coal power plant.
Several senior government officials and some senior state officials who are now in retirement have formed a group that would release details corruption among the high ranking government officials. The reports are to be released under the name “state secrets” (rajya rahas).

Politically Motivated Cover Up of British Tourist Murder at Tangalle to protect Key Supporter of Rajapaksa regime

 Dean Nelson
 Khuram Shaikh, a 32-year-old Red Cross aid worker from Rochdale, had been in Sri Lanka to rest after an assignment in Gaza, when he and his Russian girlfriend were attacked by eight men in a hotel bar in Tangalle, on the south coast. One of the men accused of the attack is a prominent figure in Rajapaksa’s Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP).

On the periphery of a Failed State - Editorial, Ceylon Today

Sri Lanka's decline seen through the lens of international standards seems obvious and inevitable. The economic optics reflects the 'real' situation as opposed to those that are vigorously and spuriously marketed by the Central Bank and its 'pundits.' Over the last few years, the Central Bank has been floating statistics for public consumption, which though implausibly sanguine on paper, have been a tough sell for the average man on the street, for whom reality is the skyrocketing cost of living that makes three square meals a near impossibility, and the breakdown in the law and order situation which has given rise to an ugly culture of impunity.

Disembowelling the 13th Amendment Will Transform Veluppillai Pirapaharan from Failed Leader into Misunderstood Prophet.

Tisaranee Gunasekara
“Nemesis, the goddess of measure and not of revenge, keeps watch. All those who overstep the limits are pitilessly punished by her”.- Albert Camus (Helen’s Exile)
One of the most incisive analyses about Rajapaksa modus operandi was made not by a Sri Lankan but by an American Ambassador Robert Blake. Mr. Blake’s observations about how the Siblings operate have a particular resonance as the Rajapaksas plan to neutralise the last remaining structural obstacle to their power-grab: the 13th Amendment.