Photo courtesy BBC [Editors note: This was sent by the author directly to us. As a policy Groundviews does not republish what's already gone up somewhere else on the web. Making an exception in this case because of the context in Sri Lanka at present, and the need to get as many readers engaged with […]
Photo courtesy BBC Update #3: 7.05am, 176 June 2014 A video with English subtitles of the BBS speech that incited violence in Aluthgama is now on YouTube. Also uploaded to the web photos we received of the scale of violence in Aluthgama. More photos from Sri Lanka’s Foreign Correspondents Association below. Post by Foreign Correspondents' […]
I am both proud and pleased to welcome the launch of Project Galileo by CloudFlare, for which the Centre for Policy Alternatives – the institutional anchor of this site – is a global launch partner. As noted in CloudFlare’s blog post announcing the launch of the new initiative, Project Galileo’s goal is to protect free […]
Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Guardian “Finally Gramsci…. If we say – as Gramsci did—that the task of the Italian working class is to fulfil the tasks of national unification that the Italian people had posed themselves since the time of Machiavelli, and in some way, to complete the historical project of the Risorgimento, we have […]
Image from Happy Colombo “Sri Lanka” video Happy, by Pharrell Williams bills itself as the world’s first 24 hour music video. The song is extremely catchy and aired at least once a day, every day at the time of writing this on Sri Lankan radio. On YouTube, nearly 300 million have seen the original music […]
Photography by Getty Images, courtesy NY Post The Catholic Church has announced that His Holiness Pope Francis would be visiting Sri Lanka from January 13th to 15th, next year. Preceding the announcement, were visits to the Vatican by both the Sri Lankan Catholic hierarchy as well as senior government figures, both of whom extended the invitation […]
Photo by ISHARA S.KODIKARA/AFP, via The Telegraph How many of you can honestly say that you have never visited a pornography website? I don’t have the numbers, but if I had to guess, only a small number of you would be able to say that. So why pretend? Why pretend that you have never watched […]
Image from YouTube video Dr Dayan Jayatilleka’s book, Long War, Cold Peace, now in its second revised edition of 2014, is one of the few book-length attempts by a Sri Lankan scholar to make sense of our post-war condition and the policy challenges that we face. His take on all this, it can reliably be […]
Photo by LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/Getty Images via Al Jazeera America This past couple of weeks I’ve been rereading Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. I first picked up ‘Northern Lights’ (Book 1) in 2003 while at University in Scotland. My MPhil Thesis (completed in 2004) starts with a quote from ‘The Amber Spyglass’ (Book 3), and […]
Image taken from video produced by Vikalpa I just came across an excerpt of a statement made by Mr. Nishantha Warnasinghe, the National Organiser and Media Spokesperson of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), at a recent press conference of the party. This excerpt, which was available on a Sri Lankan news website, was titled ‘JHU […]
AP Photo/Jeff Widener, courtesy The Atlantic‘s terrific photo essay ‘Tiananmen Square, Then and Now‘ In 2009, Canadian author Denise Chong published a book called “Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship”. The main subject of the book is a friend of mine, exiled Chinese dissident […]
Image courtesy Business Today The news, based on an exclusive interview, that Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa may formally enter mainstream politics by contesting Colombo at the parliamentary election (Deshaya and Daily FT) casts a significant light — some may say shadow— on the character of the regime as it will emerge recomposed after that election which […]
The other day, on the banks of the Diyawanna waterfront close to the Sri Lankan Parliament, I noticed a man sitting in meditation. What a surprise? He is none other than my drinking partner from Bridgetown — the Sri Lankan Tamil fellow Sivapuranam Thevaram. I wondered what the thoughts of this meditating man were. Forgive […]
An article published in the Colombo Telegraph (see PDF here, the site itself continues to be illegally blocked in Sri Lanka by all ISPs) makes several allegations against me. This hasn’t been the first article on that site which has targeted me personally and Groundviews as a platform. It is however the most serious in […]
Image via Newston Last time I am writing opened letter. Peoples are reading it and telling me, The Silva, you are writing very intelligent things in support of Our Majesty and his country. We are proud of you. Even His Majesty is sending text message early in the morning saying well done! It is true […]