Sohan Vipulananda

🇱🇰| Undergad⚖️|Journalist |Toastmaster |Cricket enthusiastic| குடியேறும் நாட்டுக்குத்தான் குரலாக ஒலிச்சோம்..| opinions are strictly personal.

[Sanjee #GoodGovernance🇱🇰🇪🇸🇧🇪🇪🇷🇿🇼🇳🇦🇫🇮 @nomadic_sanjee]

There are racist, divisive posts using "Maitreyi Ramakrishnan" on Sri Lankan social media world.
Don't fall for it. ⤵️

#SriLanka

[Sanjee #GoodGovernance🇱🇰🇪🇸🇧🇪🇪🇷🇿🇼🇳🇦🇫🇮 @nomadic_sanjee]

Ealam Tamil is literally ලංකා දෙමළ. She is calling herself Lankan Tamil.

My impression is that these pages are trying to create divisions.Every person has a right to define their own identity. If she wants to call herself any thing that is her right. Live & let live Sri Lanka.

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

It is very annoying when you work on a story (and that entails a LOT of work, sourcing, resources, manhours and stress) and someone just lifts it off and publishes it. Some Sinhala papers don't even attribute it. Other platforms just throw in a credit and monetise it.

Yeah, I'm in a mood.

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

This is great reporting from @observerlk and a horrifying story.

"Investigators probing alleged fraud in the Aswesuma welfare payments at the Norwood Divisional Secretariat believe the case could be the largest such fraud detected in Sri Lanka to date, with suspected losses approaching Rs.30 million.

"The investigation has also uncovered allegations that State employees obtained Aswesuma payments intended for low-income families by using the details of elderly persons who had died, according to investigators familiar with the inquiry.

"One investigator described the Norwood case to the Sunday Observer as the “most serious and largest” Aswesuma fraud uncovered so far."

https://t.co/IuaZHOnd27

[Sajith @SVipulananda]

@_Naviya_ She is just going to get super famous because of our actions. Review bombing ? Cheap. After-all it’s the people of our country and state who made these people to flee and when they support their cause , you will label them terrorists.

[Prashanth Indrakumar @PrashanthIndra1]

𝗦𝗢 𝗖𝗟𝗢𝗦𝗘, 𝗬𝗘𝗧 𝗦𝗢 𝗙𝗔𝗥! 🇯🇵💔

Heartbreak for Japan after coming agonisingly close to creating history against India!

India somehow escaped a massive embarrassment by just 2 runs, while Japan can hold their heads high after pushing them right to the edge.
#JAPvIND

[M U M Ali Sabry @alisabrypc]

I am deeply concerned by the reported escalation of Anojan Sivarasa’s five-year prison sentence to a death sentence in Saudi Arabia. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry has not confirmed the reported death sentence, and the formal written judgment is awaited.

Respect for Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty and legal system does not require silence in the face of disproportionate punishment. A five-year prison term for an offensive social media comment is already excessive. Taking a human life for such an act would be grossly disproportionate, inhumane and unacceptable.

Reports that Anojan removed the comment within minutes and issued a public video apology deserve serious consideration. An offensive remark should not extinguish a person’s opportunity to repent, learn and rebuild his life.

As a Muslim, I believe deeply in Allah’s mercy. We invoke Him as the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. Those values must also guide our response to human failings. The ultimate judgment of a person’s faith and sincerity rests with the Almighty.

I respectfully urge the Saudi authorities to show mercy and grant Anojan clemency. I also urge the Sri Lankan Government to secure effective legal assistance and pursue urgent diplomatic intervention at the highest level.

Justice must leave room for compassion. Anojan deserves the chance to return to his family and rebuild his life.

[Just Badminton @BadmintonJust]

The Sri Lankan team attire for the Asian Games is just so amazing 🥵🔥

[Sohan Vipulananda @sohan_vipul]

@BimalRathnayake Hopefully Minister won’t say it in few weeks time that “Late 2026”

[Sohan Vipulananda @sohan_vipul]

@NivanthiNP @BimalRathnayake Ideally this is to take to a destination quick.
Stopping at every stop will take ages to reach the final destination…

[Bimal Rathnayake @BimalRathnayake]

Your safe, comfortable retreat-
Starting late September!

[Winfried Eamon Scheidges @celticarab]

@rangaba @NipunaDK As these flats are unlikely to be owned by East Asian scammers you should blame the landlords/owners renting out these flats to undesirables possibly criminals
Per statistics the average Sri Lankan cannot afford Colombo skyscraper apartments- but someone keeps building more ..

[Chaminda Dias @chami9539]

Name a bigger downgrade #SriLanka

From 👇🏻 to 👇🏻

[Colombo Insights (කොළඹ විත්ති) @colomboinsights]

Under Sri Lanka's Constitution, the Supreme Court is authorized to have up to 17 judges. As of September 2026, only 13 judges sit on the bench, including the Chief Justice. Four seats are empty, and they have remained empty for over a year. The first vacancy opened in June 2025 when Justice Gamini Amarasekara retired, followed in succession by Justice S. Thurairaja, PC; Justice Kumudini Wickremasinghe; and Justice Priyantha Fernando. One by one, the seats were vacated, and one by one, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake refused to fill them.

This is not an administrative oversight. It is a deliberate choice by a President who is systematically weakening the judiciary while publicly claiming to strengthen it.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has publicly condemned the President's failure to fill these vacancies, calling it "administratively irresponsible" and "deeply unfair to deserving judicial officers." The BASL warned that "the failure to make timely appointments to the Supreme Court not only affects individual judges but erodes public confidence in the judicial system as a whole." They have urged the President to act immediately, yet he has ignored them.

Consider the case of Justice Ganepola, a Senior Justice of the Court of Appeal who is fully eligible for elevation to the Supreme Court. Despite four vacant seats waiting to be filled, the President has denied him that promotion, an omission the BASL has flagged as a grave injustice. Or consider Justice Rathanapriya Gurusinghe, who retired from the Court of Appeal on September 1, 2026, after a distinguished judicial career, passed over for a Supreme Court appointment despite a formal recommendation from former Chief Justice Murdu Fernando herself. The BASL confirmed at his farewell ceremony that they were "fully aware that former Chief Justice Murdu Fernando, PC, had formally recommended Justice Gurusinghe for elevation to the Supreme Court." That recommendation was ignored. A qualified, recommended judge was permitted to retire without promotion while four Supreme Court seats sat vacant. The BASL described this as "a grave injustice," and they are right.

Now, here is where the hypocrisy becomes truly breathtaking. This same President, who refuses to fill four existing vacancies on the Supreme Court, is pushing the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution to extend the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 65 to 67 and Court of Appeal judges from 63 to 65. His stated justification? To reduce case backlogs and improve judicial efficiency. He wants the public to believe that the solution to delays in the justice system is keeping current judges on the bench for two extra years.

Yet if judicial efficiency were genuinely his concern, why has he left four Supreme Court seats empty for over a year? Why has he left four Court of Appeal seats vacant? Why did he refuse to promote eligible, recommended judges? Filling those eight vacancies across both courts would immediately increase judicial capacity by a far greater margin than extending any retirement age. The BASL itself has pointed out this glaring contradiction. The Church of Ceylon has stated that the backlog justification is "undermined by the unfilled vacancies." And here is the most damning statistic of all: approximately 95 percent of pending cases as of June 2025 were in the District Courts and Magistrates' Courts, not in the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal. Extending the tenure of superior court judges does virtually nothing to address the primary source of the backlog. The President's justification collapses under the weight of his own inaction.

When you leave four seats empty on a 17-member court, you do not just reduce capacity; you concentrate power. Every constitutional challenge, every fundamental rights petition, and every politically sensitive case is decided by fewer judges: individuals who can be more easily monitored, pressured, or selected for favorable bench compositions. That is precisely what was evident during the 22nd Amendment hearings, when the Chief Justice assembled a five-member bench while bypassing four senior judges, and the Bar Association's request for a full-court hearing was rejected. A full complement of 17 judges would have made such selective bench composition far more difficult. Thirteen judges makes it easy.

This is the pattern: refuse to fill vacancies to keep the bench small and manageable, then push an amendment to extend the tenure of the judges who remain, judges who are now being asked to rule on legislation that directly extends their own careers. It is not judicial reform; it is judicial capture dressed in the language of efficiency. The President does not want more judges. He does not want a stronger court. He does not want faster justice. He wants a court small enough to control and compliant enough to serve his political agenda. Every day those four seats remain empty is another day that agenda advances.

Fill the vacancies. Promote the qualified judges. Restore the Supreme Court to its full constitutional strength of 17. That is how you reduce backlogs. That is how you protect judicial independence. And that is how you honor the democratic principle that justice must be dispensed by courts strong enough to resist the power of any single individual, including the President.

#SriLanka #LKA #BASL @commonwealthsec @EUCouncil @EUCouncilPress @UNHumanRights @hrw @PMOIndia

[Johns. @CricCrazyJohns]

AURA: AJITH × VIJAY 🥶🔥

[M A Sumanthiran @MASumanthiran]

//Even more horrifying is what allegedly happened to two Tamil civilians in Vavuniya, Balraj Ram Prakash and Kumarasingham Vishnukumar. According to evidence reported in CID B reports, they were abducted in North of Vavuniya, their motorcycle was taken, and their bodies were subsequently found burned. Investigators believed the motorcycle was used in an attempt to create an LTTE connection to Lasantha’s assassination. The motorcycle was recovered after an anonymous ‘tip’ to the then  Inspector General of Police (IGP), who directed investigators to pursue the LTTE angle despite evidence suggesting involvement of a MI unit based in Colombo code named ‘Tripoli Platoon,’ which was also involved in several other crimes against journalists including the abduction and assault of Keith Noyahr//

[Kumanan @kumanan93]

A protest was held in Jaffna today, with political representatives and thousands of Tamil people gathering to call for an independent international investigation into the Chemmani mass grave. The organizers called on the United Nations to take responsibility for the investigation and expressed opposition to Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanisms.

#ChemmaniMassGrave

[Prashanth Rangaswamy @itisprashanth]

Without Vijay - there is no TRP .

Andrum , indrum , endrum !

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

1) Airbus provided Sri Lankan investigators with documents indicating that Namal Rajapaksa communicated directly with Airbus during the 2013 procurement of 10 aircraft for SriLankan.

2) An Airbus email dated March 23, 2013 reportedly states that the “President’s son” would present Airbus’s case for the aircraft sale to Cabinet through President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

3) Airbus representatives visited Sri Lanka and gave statements to investigators in support of the local probe.

4) Then Civil Aviation Minister Priyankara Jayaratne submitted a Cabinet paper on March 27, 2013, seeking approval for SriLankan Airlines to purchase the 10 Airbus aircraft.

5) On April 13, 2013, Mahinda Rajapaksa, then also Finance Minister, told Cabinet that SriLankan Airlines did not require Cabinet approval because it was a Companies Act-registered entity with an independent board empowered to make decisions.

6) Police told court that Namal Rajapaksa met Airbus delegations visiting Sri Lanka to discuss the deal.

7) When Airbus offered to establish a training centre in Sri Lanka as part of the large aircraft order, Namal reportedly asked that it be located in Hambantota, his electorate. Emails allegedly corroborate this.

8) Nimal Perera affidavit says Namal Rajapaksa had requested from him a foreign bank account number to receive money from a foreign consultancy, at which instant he had provided the Sabre Vision account.

9) Once the money was received by the Sabre Vision account, Nimal withdrew it and paid Rs 100mn to Mr Rajapaksa “in cash”, the affidavit states.

10) Namal maintains that he did not get this payment and that there is no physical or scientific evidence corroborating the alleged cash handover. His lawyers also questioned the credibility of Mr Perera and his statements.

Namal Rajapaksa has been in remand since September 4 in a CIABOC investigation into an alleged Rs. 100 million bribe connected to the SriLankan Airlines aircraft procurement.

Important: This case is still at the stage of reporting facts to Court.

https://t.co/NpSM2c0UCm

[H R Pasindu @HRPasindu]

Strictly implement parking restrictions along the road, basically restaurants who have violated CMC parking regulations are using the road for their parking. This is unfair on developers who follow the rule, spent millions to provide parking area within premises.