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Sri Lanka government under president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has placed Over 700 officers of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) under a watch list at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), reports Colombo Gazette. Daily Lankadeepa reports that 704 CID officers have been barred from leaving the country. This order has been issued by the ministry of defence, which […]

Sri Lanka Brief Presidential Election Update No 02. Polarised vote The president elect Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) of SLPP and Sajith Premadasa (SP) of NDF respectively received 52.25% & 41.99 of the total votes polled in the presidential election held on 16 November 2019.  This numbers could be misleading. The result shows unprecedented level of polarisation […]

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has openly crticised the police officers who investigated and provided necessary information to  the Attorney General department to file cases. He has targeted SSP Shani Abeysekera & I.P. Nishantha Silva  for such crimes. Former director Criminal Investigation Department SSP Shani Abeysekara has been  transferred to lower level. I.P. Nishantha de Silve has left the […]

Gotabhaya Rajapakse [Credit: AP Photo] The international messages of congratulations sent to Sri Lanka’s newly-elected president, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, all underscore the fact that the strategically-located island is enmeshed in geo-political rivalries, centred above all on Washington’s determination to undermine Chinese influence throughout the region and prepare for war. Rajapakse, an ex-military officer and defence secretary […]

Author’s note: On the invitation of the Editor, I’ve written to the Sunday Island newspaper every week since late 2015. Not a single column since then was rejected or even significantly edited, until this one. As I noted on Twitter, the Editor citing “orders from above” said that my column would not be published. This isn’t the first time content […]

Gotabaya Rajapaksa is Sri Lanka’s new president. The former defense minister bested Sajith Premadasa, a serving Cabinet minister who focuses on domestic affairs, in elections last Saturday, riding a nationalist tide that backed his “law and order” platform. The return to power of the Rajapaksa clan could redirect the country’s geopolitical orientation toward China, a […]

Image: European Union (EU) election observers look on as election officials carry ballot boxes to be transferred to a main counting centre after the presidential election voting centres closed, in Colombo (AFP) Sri Lanka’s eighth presidential election, with a record number of 35 candidates vying for the highest office of the state, concluded on Sunday. While […]

Image: Gotabaya Rajapaksa met with  India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar on 20 Nov 2019. The Indian government expects Sri Lanka’s new government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to take forward the process of national reconciliation in order to meet the aspirations of the Tamil minority for “equality, justice, peace and dignity”. This was the […]

(Press Release 23.11.19) Regarding the removal of the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, SSP Shani Abeysekara As Sri Lanka Young Journalists’ Association (YJA), we are displeased that National Police Commission; an independent commission established by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution has made a decision to transfer the CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekara as the […]

The appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister consolidates the hold of the Rajapaksa family on power. The change was entirely on expected lines, after his younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, won decisively in the presidential election. Outgoing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose party’s candidate lost the election, submitted his resignation, thus enabling the […]

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Director SSP Shani Abeysekara has been granted a transfer by the National Police Commission today (Nov 21). Accordingly, SSP Abeysekara will now serve as the Personal Assistant of the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in charge of the Galle District. The move would see SSP W. Thilakaratna taking over as the Director […]

In his inaugural speech the newly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave an assurance that he will be the president of all, including all ethnicities and religions and those who did not vote for him.  This assurance is especially important as the recently concluded presidential election was divisive and along communal lines.  The National Peace Council […]

(AFP) Sri Lanka is set to have its first ever government run by siblings when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appoints older brother Mahinda as prime minister on Thursday, giving the powerful clan its second taste of power. Mahinda was president for a decade until 2015, during which time the family controlled more than two thirds of […]

The Parliament of Sri Lanka has 225 member seats. The 22 electoral districts elect 196 seats. Each party receives seats in proportion to the votes it received in that district. The remaining 29 seats are the “national list”. Each party receives national list seats, in proportion to the votes it receives islandwide. At first glance, […]

Image: Sri Lanka’s President-elect Gotabaya Rajapaksa waves at his supporters as he leaves, after the presidential swearing-in ceremony in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka November 18, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte. As was widely predicted, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), decisively won Sri Lanka’s presidential election on November 16. His opponent, Sajith Premadasa, of the United National Party […]

Image: Sri Lanka’s new president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, gestures after addressing the nation during his swearing-in ceremony at the Ruwanwelisaya temple in Anuradhapura on Nov. 18. LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES. Gotabaya Rajapaksa of the Sri Lanka People’s Front was sworn in as president of Sri Lanka on Monday, after defeating Sajith Premadasa of the United National Party […]

“Accepting our request and rejecting the call to boycott or to vote for a Tamil candidate and by voting for Mr. Sajith Premadasa the Tamil people have sent a clear message to the leaders of our country and to the international community, that the Tamil people are firm in achieving their rights, within a united […]

The Universal Children’s Day, celebrated on the 20th of November every year, is dedicated to recognizing the joys and innocence of childhood, and improving and protecting the lives of children. It calls for International corporation to strengthen and acknowledge the rights of every child in the world. The significance of the Universal Children’s Day of […]

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka constitution has to be changed and a 19th amendment should be abolished, Basil Rajapaksa, brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in a television interview. “It is my view that the 19th amendment should be completely abolished,” Rajapaksa, who formed the Sri Lanka Podujana Party of the new President said in an […]

Sri Lanka’s eighth presidential election held last Sunday has produced an outcome that has surprised the winners, the losers as well as the observers. The most obvious, and arguably disquieting, and utterly unanticipated trend that became immediately visible is the re-sharpening of the majority-minority divide in the citizens’ electoral choices across the country. Mr Gotabhaya […]

Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government must demonstrate that they will uphold human rights and rule of law, and ensure that Sri Lanka sustains its international obligations and commitments to justice and accountability, said the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) today. Gotabaya Rajapaksa faces credible allegations of involvement in war crimes […]

People’s democratic choices must be accepted, says the senior Tamil leader. Meera Srinivasan./The Hindu. It is unfair to attribute a “racist” dimension to the Tamil vote in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, according to senior Tamil leader R. Sampanthan. His remark comes a day after the results of the country’s biggest election were declared. The winner […]

“To help, without asking whom…” – Henry Dunant International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is a part of International Law and commonly understood as a set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict.  The accepted doctrine has been that IHL governs armed conflicts as lex specialis to Human Rights Law. […]

Asian Election observers faulted both private and State Media organisations for favouring their chosen candidates during the elections and suggested they should self-regulate themselves. The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), an international election observation organization based in Asia, observed that while the presidential election ended in a largely peaceful and orderly manner, it witnessed […]

(By Jon Lee Anderson ,January 9, 2011/ NewYoker) Gotabaya Rajapaksa received James Clad and me in a sitting room of hishouse, a British-era villa in a large garden compound in Colombo. The room was impersonally furnished with fifties-style blue settees and abstract geometric paintings, all government-issue. The Defense Minister was casually attired in a T-shirt, […]

With Gotabaya Rajapaska claiming victory in the presidential elections, how does one understand the Northern vote? The Northern electoral districts of Jaffna and Vanni with just around 5% of the population of the country are marginal in determining electoral outcome except in very close electoral races. Nevertheless, for a country that has gone through a […]

The people have spoken. President-elect Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been given a mandate by the people to govern the country for the next five years. The Elections Commission, public employees, Police and the voters deserve credit for the conduct of a free and fair Presidential Election where a record number turned out to exercise their franchise. […]

Image: Gotabaya Rajapaksa is one of the nine Rajapaksa brothers who have dominated Sri Lankan politics. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP. Even his own family nickname him “The Terminator”. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the 70-year-old retired lieutenant colonel who will be Sri Lanka’s next president, has built his reputation on being efficient and ruthless, whether that was in his role in […]

In the wake of his younger brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory in the presidential election 2019, former strong man Mahinda Rajapaksa issued a statement on their immediate plans. They include (between the lines  reforming or removing the 19th amendment,  action to deliver justice for the persons persecuted for  corruption  and human rights violations since 2015 and steps to stop Tamil […]

Image: Gotabaya Rajapaksa released an interview with Iraj on 14th November. Tough all campaigning for the 2019 presidential election came to an end at midnight on Wednesday (13), election propaganda activities continued widely over social media during the so-called “silent period” in direct violation of election laws. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter were […]