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Some Facts / Speculations/ Doubts arising out of the Bandaranaike Assassination

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  Some Facts / Speculations/ Doubts arising out of the Bandaranaike Assassination I was among a group of teachers from SAC who stood in a queue for over six hours, in sun & rain, to pay our respects to the late Prime Minister, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, when the remains were lying in state at Horagolla in September, 1959. The mood in the country was one of extreme sadness. Many in the queue around us strongly desired that the perpetrators should receive the maximum punishment. Death Penalty At the time of the assassination the death penalty was suspended on the initiative of PM Bandaranaike himself  (JRJ did the same later) . A Commission of Inquiry on Capital Punishment was thereafter appointed in 1958 with Australian Professor of Law , Norwal Morris as Chairman & Professor T. Nadarajah & Sir Edwin Wijeyaratne as members. In 1959 just before the assassination, Sessional paper XIV of 1959 was published wherein the majority view was that the suspension ...
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Gal Oya Valley Scheme, American Participation & Downstream Development

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   Compiled by KK De Silva,  an employee of the RVDB,  1967-1979 Introduction   Sir James Emerson Tennent, Colonial Secretary from 1845 to 1850, at page 432 of his book,  Account of the Island of Ceylon … .. Vol. II says that on a visit to the Horra-bora Tank (Soraborawewa ), then in ruins, he was so impressed with its magnificense & potential for rice cultivation that after subsequent inspections of other ancient tanks in the Northern Division , he proposed in 1848 that measures be taken to restore important ancient reservoirs by legislative action; his proposal was approved, but action delayed due to unavoidable circumstances, possibly the 1848 uprising, & legislation was introduced later, when Sir Henry Ward was Governor, by way of the Irrigation Ordinance No. 9 of 1856 . Soraborawewa was restored in 1876. (Arumugam,1969). The Irrigation Department was established by the British in Ceylon on 15 th May 1900 & it h...
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