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A severe staff shortage is reported at the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL), where a total of 98 posts fell vacant out of the 118 posts approved for the Commission to perform its duties, according to the Auditor General’s Department. In the report evaluating the performance of the (...)
The Ceylon Federation of Labour (CFL) has warned against the Government’s move to amend the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Act as part of raising the retirement age as proposed by the 2021 Budget approved by Parliament last month.
CFL General Secretary T.M.R. Rasseedin in a letter to Labour (...)
After Priyantha was identified as a close contact of a recent Covid cluster he was sent to a quarantine centre in Polonnaruwa. At the end of the 14th day a ceremony was held at the quarantine centre where they were awarded a certificate to state that they had completed the mandatory quarantine (...)
Following the incidents in the Mahara Prison premises on 29 November, there are now discussions in the public domain of the pressing need for drastic prison reforms. Among the many limitations of the state prison system, the most acute according to many, is the overcrowding of the prison (...)
A new UNICEF Sri Lanka report recommends the establishment of a Universal Child Benefit (UCB) as a vital step to reduce the poverty and vulnerability faced by families and children in Sri Lanka, which for many has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Produced with support from the (...)
In an attempt to contain COVID-19, the number of children and youth not attending schools or universities is rising. With no end to the pandemic in sight, most of the world’s population had to make a sudden shift to the online world while adapting to new ways of learning and working.
The (...)
“And home isn’t here and home isn’t there” – Deborah Landau, The Last Usable Hour
Every story of ethnic cleansing is heart breaking. Some of them have been almost forgotten, overlooked in favour of others that were on a larger scale but they were just as driven by hatred and unsettling prejudices (...)
Over 50,000 of Sri Lanka’s free trade zone (FTZ) workers are at risk of exposure to COVID-19 as a result of the unexpected Brandix apparel factory cluster which at last count was at 1,034 confirmed cases.
Programme Coordinator of Dabindu Collective Chamila Thushari told EconomyNext that despite (...)
Apparel manufacturer responds to mounting allegations as concerns are raised Workers were sent home without conducting PCR tests Most workers were deployed from manpower agencies Rights group in FTZ complains poor living conditions and severe hardships Company says majority COVID-19 positive (...)
The plight of Sri Lankan migrant workers who died from COVID-19
The body of the Sri Lankan migrant worker Bandu who died of coronavirus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates — far from home — was kept inside the ambulance in front of the crematorium. A few of his work friends came by for a last (...)
Hopes Fade for a Reckoning With the Atrocities of the Civil War
Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war ended in a bloodbath in May 2009. Government forces decisively defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at the cost of tens of thousands of civilian lives. According to credible allegations, (...)
It is true that the era that ends with the introduction of the 20th Amendment cannot be considered as an era of democracy. However it was a period of struggle for democracy filled with mass struggles and out right treachery. Ranil was fortunate to get the support of Samasamajists and radical (...)
Although it happened over 20 years ago, Mahesh* (32) remembers every excruciating detail of that day.
“It was at my grandfather’s funeral. I remember feeling confused, at first, when [he] started pulling down my pants, and that turned into fear very quickly at what happened next. I was ten years (...)
Labour Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said that Section 38 of the EPF Act will be amended to enable Labour Tribunal presidents to hear the enforcement cases pending at the Magistrate’s Courts for several years to provide EPF benefits.
At present, there are many cases pending at the (...)
The proposal to abolish the 19th amendment to the constitution and to introduce the 20th amendment has been gazetted. According to the gazetted bill all but three articles in the 19th amendment will be repealed. The Provision to be retained are citizens right of access to information (...)
Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, have been implicated in egregious human rights violations against Tamils in the country, including accusations of crimes against humanity and genocide. Yet rather than being held accountable, the (...)
Sri Lanka is in a dilemma of tackling massive public debt restructuring in the next three months with an unprecedented debt load of Rs.3.05 ($16.4B USD) trillion for 2020, surpassing the earlier estimate of Rs.2 trillion ($10.8B USD), official data showed.
In light of urgent and unforeseen (...)
The proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution seems to have received much opposition given that the incumbent Government has made changes in a way that fortified the powers vested in the Executive President.
Below are excerpts of The Sunday Morning’s interviews with Opposition party (...)
“The preservation of a centralised regime that is gradually moving towards authoritarianism has been the central theme of the constitutional change.”
Commenting on the 20th Amendment draft bill, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the National Peoples Power is reported to have said that the (...)
When Justice AP Shah remarked recently that, ‘India is moving towards some form of elected autocracy’, he may have been speaking for the entire region and perhaps, swathes of the world in turmoil as it were.
Returning Sri Lanka ‘forward to the past’
But the fact that we are not the only (...)
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