Maha Amarasinghege Anandatissa de Alwis (21 August 1919 – 22 August 1996) was a Sri Lankan journalist, marketer and politician. He was the
Speaker of the
National State Assembly, a
Minister of State and the fourth
Governor of the
North Western Province of Sri Lanka.
Early career
De Alwis started his career as a journalist, serving as a war-time reporter. Later he served as
private secretary to
Sir John Kotelawala. He thereafter moved into advertising, working as a
copy writer with
Reggie Candappa
Reginald Sebastian Rodrigo Candappa (Tamil: ரெஜி கந்தப்பா) (1919–2003) was a Sri Lankan media personality and founder chairman of Sri Lanka's biggest advertising agency, Grant McCann Erickson.
Biography
Reggie Candappa ...
at
Grant McCann Erickson. He then left Grants to join
J. Walter Thompson
J. Walter Thompson (JWT) was an advertisement holding company incorporated in 1896 by American advertising pioneer James Walter Thompson. The company was acquired in 1987 by multinational holding company WPP plc, and in November 2018, WPP merge ...
. He left J. Walter Thompson in 1965, to take up the post of
Permanent Secretary
A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day ...
to the
Ministry of State, under
J. R. Jayewardene who was the Minister of State. De Alwis was the first permanent secretary appointed from the private sector. In 1970, when the
United National Party was defeated, De Alwis resigned as permanent secretary and established his own advertising company, ''De Alwis Advertising Company''.
Political career
A long-standing remember of the
United National Party, Anandatissa de Alwis had served as first editor of the party journal "Siyarata" and the first president of the All Ceylon United National Party Youth Front. He had also served as its General Secretary.
Anandatissa de Alwis contested the
1952 general election and the
1956 general election from the
Kotte electorate from the United National Party, but was defeated by
Robert Gunawardena
Don Benjamin Rupasinghe Gunawardena (12 March 1904 - 26 December 1971: si, රොබට් ගුණවර්ධන), popularly as Robert Gunawardena, was a Sri Lankan Marxist politician and diplomat. He was one of the founders of the Lanka Sa ...
. He was elected to parliament in
1977 general elections from the Kotte electorate and was elected as
Speaker on 4 August 1977 and served till he stepped down in 1978. During his tenor he was instrumental in shifting parliament to the
new parliament complex in
Kotte. He was thereafter appointed as
Minister of State by President J. R. Jayewardene. In 1994 he was appointed Governor of the North Western Province by President Wijethunga and served until 1995.
See also
*
List of Sri Lankan non-career Permanent Secretaries
This is a list of Sri Lankan non-career Permanent Secretaries; they are from different professions. The list includes doctors, engineers, journalists, professional politicians, university lecturers, lawyers, journalists, defence officers, and p ...
References
Speakers of the Parliament of Sri Lanka
Governors of North Western Province, Sri Lanka
Government ministers of Sri Lanka
Permanent secretaries of Sri Lanka
Members of the 8th Parliament of Sri Lanka
United National Party politicians
Alumni of Ananda College
1919 births
1996 deaths
Sinhalese politicians
{{NorthWesternLK-politician-stub