lankatraveltime

Watalappan and Amaraweera dreams  Former minister of Disaster Management, though he could not manage any disaster, threatened on a television that he can topple the government. The known fact about Mahinda Amaraweera is his servitude to his former boss Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers. This is the man who said that he has exploited enough for a few generations and his stomach was already full, and what he wanted more is Watalappan (some desserts). So he urged people to vote his boss to power to feed his greedy stomach with some watalappan and warned the voters not to bring the opposition to power as they could exploit public property in a manner worse than that of his clan did for the last 20 years. It is true that UPFA still has the majority in parliament. But he should know that there is a tug of war between UPFA coalitions and its main party SLFP. Therefore, SLFP cannot topple a government of its own unless its coalitions push it to do so. The other importan...

China needs not to worry about political change in Sri Lanka  This is a misleading article. The writer, either does not know the true facts behind the Chinese backed infrastructure development in Sri Lanka or he is worried about China becoming unpopular among ordinary Sri Lankans as China directly worked with a single family, and allowing them to rob out of Chinese funds working here. The ordinary people are compelled to pay this debt for generations to come. However, China should not worry about the defeat of one family - Rajapaksa. China can renegotiate with the new incumbent instead and continue their business and other investment because Sri Lankans well understand the economic potential of China. At the same time, the new administration will not be stooge to the West as Rajapaksa propagandists tried to convince the voters during recent election. Therefore, this sort of articles, written without sufficient research, would further disappoint Sri Lankans. They,...

Another climate change conference started yesterday here in Doha. It has been given full ceremonial look by Qatar and the Qatar who took over the chairman's seat declared that this was a golden opportunity for the people to protect the planet earth. Well we all appreciate Qatar's initiatives, and support its efforts therefore urge the high carbon producing nations especially the most industrialized nations to take the lead. When the Copenhagen summit was held in 2009, I was in Brunei, and in that small country with about 300000 people, we journalists took special interest, reported and wrote opinions on the developments of the conference. Brunei with a small population and small in size,I appreciate its ruler's commitment to protect the country's forests. Its main revenue comes from petroleum but the country contribute its share towards carbon cutting effort. If a country reserves over 70% of its land cover for forests, it should be a genuine model of protect...

Walking on public roads in the outskirts is a death knell. Many young drivers are at the wheel while using mobile phone or eating (not during Ramadaan). They never head for pedestrians, and the road network is like a cob-web. It is everywhere, you cant imagine from which side the demons arrive, and they never use signals. When you want to cross the road, wait at a bumper until they rush, or put your hand on and stop them before you enter the road. Yesterday, I saw an old gent stopped his car, even not at a bumper, and gesturing a man to cross, that was on Muither Commercial street.

Clashes in the Muslim countries  over the You Tube video clip insulting Prophet Mohammad did not reach Doha. The rulers and people alike are wise enough to understand the real circumstances, so they were not mislead such as their counterparts in many other countries. I think there is some ulterior motives by producing this video clip, pre-planned, and those engineered it, could have achieved their target. Insulting any religious should be condemned in its all forms.

A visit to Iran Salaam, said a resident greeting us in Niavaran street Tehran in the morning. We too reciprocated saying Salaam. Another Tehranian stopped near us and asked ‘Pakistani’? When we said we are from Sri Lanka, he said ‘Oh best tea country’ and went away. The two of us wanted to chat longer but the language barrier stood in our way. We saw him leaving looking back at us again and again. We waved till he disappeared into a by lane at the end of the Niavaran Street. The average Sri Lankan, like a friend of mine who had unfounded fears on Iran, are compelled to think of Iran as a country where strict rules of Islam have deprived people of their democratic freedom forcing them to live under pressure. This impression has been inculcated in the minds of many people in other countries as well by the international media backed by certain enemies of Iran in the Western world after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini imposed...