Green Gold Rush in the 21st Century:

Sinharaja, the jewel in the crown of Sri Lanka’s natural forests, was once rescued from the jaws of destruction by a highly controversial selective logging project implemented in the 1970s primarily for the manufacture of plywood to make tea chests and furniture. At that time, this epic feat was achieved thanks to a collective effort by a cohort of dedicated environmentalists, religious leaders and scientists, both local and overseas, who were able to convince the then government that the long-term benefits by conserving this magnificent forest far outweighs the short-term foreign-exchange saving/earning project, whose sustainability was questionable. Looking back over 34 years, this decision to save Sinharaja from selective logging at the scale it was planned had not only been a visionary accomplishment, but was also a forerunner to several land-mark decisions taken by the successive governments towards conservation and sustainable development of our natural heritage for the benefit of current populace without compromising the survival of the future generations.

"Contrary to the opinion generated by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce praising the revival of the stalled CEPA negotiations, Mawbimalanka urges the Government of Sri Lanka to draw attention to matters beyond the realm of trade & mutual political goodwill.

We would like to point out that the CCC membership is made up of non-Sri Lankans & multinationals. Thus the CCC is dominated by large scale traders interested in only developing their trades. With only a few industrialists as members the voice of the trading community dominates quorums purely based on the advantages accruing to them & do not echo the voice of Sri Lanka.

Outspoken UNP MP Harsha de Silva said the UPFA would never humiliate those crooks near and dear to the leadership as long as they remained faithful to the incumbent administration.

The consultant economist said: "‘Name and shame’ is a way of discouraging certain wrong activity and has been used for a long time in many countries.

``Recently the law enforcement agencies contemplated releasing photographs of some women, including victims, for ‘acting’ in pornographic movies."   

It is true that a power crisis has emerged. This information is given to the general public by the people with knowledge, people without knowledge as well as the people who wish to distort the truth. People get confused and worried with the wrong understanding of the facts. As usual the Minister of Power & Energy is pointed by the media, cartoonists and also the politicians. Therefore, I decided to relate my story.

It is true that there were some unscheduled power cuts in different places of the country. Usually power is interrupted in two ways. The first one is the pre-informed scheduled interruptions for urgent maintenance work and the second one is the power intrruptions and failures which take places from time to time due to accidents. There are over 1000 like these incidents island wide in a day. The majority of them is in the medium sized incidents.