China will be even worse. This level of Economics is beyond me.
I'm a steady supporter of NPP. I think that even if AKD is the President, we will have no choice but to go to the IMF. That's because of the mess made by the Rajapaksas and Ranil.

Anyway, Razick has been arrested, so we're all right on that score. I've now heard him speak – excellent Sinhala, although his own language is Tamil.

So, I've been reading about the “ Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamath”. It is clear that they are a most unsavoury lot, who want Sharia Law to be administered among “their people”. I cannot agree with what I have seen Dr.Rajasingham Narendran say about this group in some place which I cannot now recall. Dr. Narendran appears to be an elderly gentleman who speaks out fiercely when he has to. However, I cannot agree with him that tolerance should be shown to Abdul Razick of Maligawatte. Dr. Narendran says that Razick has done no harm to a person from any other community. He is “only” trying to administer Sharia Law among his community. No, this cannot be! If a girl who is little more than a child is forced to marry a much older man (who immediately proceeds to father a child); that cannot be tolerated in our country. The girl is a Sri Lankan citizen, and should be entitled to certain minimum degrees of protection.

Most of the world is still praising our “Yahapalanaya” government for a much improved “Human Rights” ambience in the country, but we are now beginning to realise that things are beginning to go horribly wrong. In the name of religion, we are allowing people to get away with almost anything. I 'm having to spend a lot of time finding out about all sorts of groups and persons whom I knew nothing of.

Everyone will want the system that will benefit them - in the short term. There has to be compromise, but at the end of the day, some will get a little more of what they want than others. If the result is going to be outrageously unfair, future generations will pay for it. I say this as a Sinhalese whose just heard a Tamil say that most of their people are outside the country and that deciding electorates on the basis of population would not be acceptable to them.

Let's not over-exploit the temporary advantage that we have at this moment.

It is two days at least since Ed Miliband made his idiotic comment. While it is worrying that a man who has got some aspects of his election campaign so badly organised that he was given that silly, less than a minute script to speak out, could be the Prime Minister of a still important country, we should not go overboard. He is not racist, he's just incompetent.

Of course we must protest, and correct him. However, unless our response is more balanced and sane than his gaffe, we may just make unnecessary enemies.

This is a serious business, and great care should be taken in "meddling" in the internal affairs of another country, especially at the behest, not of the government of that country, but of the opposition.

However, in this instance, it is a welcome move. I do not know about legal justifications, but what has been happening in Male during the past week is so outrageous that somebody has to step in and cry halt. India has been dragging her feet; I am so proud of President Maithripala Sirisena for the action that he has taken. Honest man that he is, he has had the courage to act.

Thank you on behalf of all of us Sri Lankans who have so much in common with the Dhivehi Raj!

I have listened carefully to what MIA has to say, and I think it's O.K. for these to be her perceptions. In the run up to the elections I've been posting many comments. In those honest comments I was trying to say that we, Sinhalese, had to be reasonable in our attitudes to the minorities.

The problem with what the improved MIA says is that she doesn't seem to take account of the fact that “we” have to contend with an electorate which is overwhelmingly Sinhalese. We used to see this creature screaming hatred towards all Sinhalese; her performance here is much more rational.

Now, could somebody please suggest a feasible way forward? Maithripala Sirisena is emphatically not the same as Mahinda Rajapaksa. Tamils must try to understand him, and the task that he has before him. We must necessarily have parliamentary elections, and I tell the Tamils that nobody who wants to win an election in Sri Lanka can do so unless he/she is willing to shield the alleged perpetrators of war crimes from trial at The Hague. I think we (we all share a common identity as human beings, which is why the interviewer - Jonathan Miller, isn't it? - shows concern for what MIA is saying) have to now formulate a modus vivendi which will allow voices of reason to prevail.

Among the Channel 4 comments is one by Arya Nayagam which I found extremely disturbing. I've "researched it" on the web, and I've found this:
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/minister-maithripala-sirisenas-son-brandished-a-gun-at-unp-kris-balathazaar/

I'm still worried There are other Sinhalese who have done much more than I would dare. Please see this YouTube clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spBXxT5dVf0

Well, we all have to die once, and only once! However, the bottom line is this: MIA has spoken rationally in this clip. Even more rationality is needed to help us build a better Sri Lanka, and a better world!

This sterile argument of yours - that chairmanship of the SLFP should not go to Maithri after you had voted for the official SLFP candidate - is similar to the Rajapaksas saying that there were foreign forces who undermined them. It was no foreigner, but Mahendra Percy Rajapaksa himself - and no other public figure (astrologers excluded from such status) - who wanted elections now and not 18 months later.