First journalist to come under Good governance regime censorship

by Kelum Shivantha

( October 8, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Renowned journalist Bandula Pathmakumara alleges that he is the first journalist to come under the good governance regime censorship.

He made this claim, participating in the inauguration ceremony of the first youth national newspaper in the country “APPLE”.

Pathmakumara further said he had hosted the ‘Mul Pituwa’ program on Swarnavahini for nearly 12 years.

However he said that he had to leave the programme with the victory of the good governance regime.

It was Swarnavahini that stopped his programme – Karu

When we contacted Deputy parliamentary and Media Minister Karunaratne Paranavithana regarding the public allegations made by Bandula, he denied any involvement by the government in the removal of Bandula from the Mul Pituwa programme.

He said as Swarnavahini is a private media institution, and the decision to remove Bandula was taken by the management and the had no hand in it.

When inquired from Swarnavahini management regarding the removal of Bandula, they claimed that as the programme was running for many years, its ratings had dropped and Bandula was removed with the intention of making changers.