Image from DBS Jeyaraj.com. This article was first published in Hulftsdorp Law Journal, Colombo Law Society (2014) Introduction The term sovereignty is frequently confronted with hostile claims. Human Right and Anti Corruption Movements are often challenged by various groups with different notions and ideologies on sovereignty. The purpose of this brief article is to examine […]
Photo courtesy AFP/ISHARA S. KODIKARA At the post match conference after the third test against Pakistan, the captain of Sri Lanka said that his team lost; not because they were too negative in their approach to the game, but on the contrary, because his batsmen weren’t defensive enough. His words not only failed to convince, […]
This is part of an exercise where Fulbright Scholars were requested to write a letter, for their 60th Anniversary, to the President referring to what they learned through their exposure to the US political system during their stay in USA. Dear President Rajapakse, I am addressing this letter to you as part of a project […]
I spent some time with 12 visual artists and 1 dancer, from Sri Lanka and India, at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo today, who are part of an interesting and pioneering artistic collaboration between the two countries, from the 18 – 23 January. The artists work in the open near the hotel’s pool. Anyone […]
The launch of Short & Sweet, Sri Lanka’s first hint fiction anthology, will take place exactly a week hence in Colombo. Details of the book as well as the venue for the launch can be accessed here. You can also follow key updates around the launch via an event page on Facebook. Perera-Hussein Books, the publishers […]
Sumanthri Samarawickrama Jayaweera is a Lecturer at the University of Moratuwa. Sumanthri was part of a panel discussion at the presentation of Visual Diversity in Sri Lanka, a book on design, at the Goethe-Institut late last year. She spoke about the evolution of the Sinhala script and typography, and this is also where our conversation […]
Image from WS Police The idea that an offender of the law ought to be judged by a court of their peers is the idea which defines “Youth Court” a legal body consisting of students of the Senior Secondary and Collegiate level age range to which I have belonged to for three years. Youth Court […]
Photo courtesy Vikalpa The 20 most read posts on Groundviews over the course of 2013. Numbers in italics indicate pageviews since the article was published, accurate at the time of publication. CHOGM 2013: A lie well told 14,463 Coercive Population Control in Kilinochchi 13,476 Mohammed Irshad’s story and the banality of violence in the Rajapaksa […]
Photo courtesy The Agenda A few days ago, at the wedding of two Sri Lankan Muslims, both of whose families hail from Mannar, families forcibly evicted from their homes by the LTTE in 1990, a married Sri Lankan Muslim woman, a doctor by profession, cut a slice from the wedding cake after the bride and […]
Image courtesy Riversoft Partnerships in tyranny Jesus was born under the rule of tyranny. Absolute power was held by the Roman Emperor who ruled conquered regions through local agents. Herod was one such agent. So long as he ensured that Roman supremacy and interests were not challenged in Judea and the Roman coffers were filled; […]
Photo taken from 30 Years Ago exhibition in Colombo, held at the Park Street Mews in late July. See the project website here. Groundviews published 142 articles over 2013. Our Facebook fan page grew by over 4,000. Our Twitter feed, the most probing, interactive and engaging of any media related Twitter account in Sri Lanka, […]
Photo by Adrian Steirn/Nelson Mandela Foundation/Getty Images via Huffington Post Despite his lifelong commitment to Non-Violence (except briefly against unmanned institutions such as power stations) Mandela was proclaimed a Terrorist by President Reagan, and remained on the Terrorist Watch List under successive Presidents till 2008. Mandela was released from prison in 1990, won the Nobel […]
Mahinda Rajapaksa paying his last respects to the remains of the former South African President late Nelson Mandela. Photo via official Twitter feed. Dear Mahinda Rajapakse, At the outset , I would like to tell you one thing. I regret very much that we have never met and not had the opportunity to share our […]
Both the LinkedIn and Twitter profiles of Harsha Purasinghe note that he is Founder & CEO of Microimage, Microimage Mobile Media and WSO2 Mobile. He is in short a serial technology entrepreneur since the time he was in school, and the story of how his success came about is an interesting one. We begin our […]
Photo credit Amantha Perera, IPS The current dialogue between development and devolution is taking too much time, getting too drawn out. Very little information on the process is available for effective public dissemination. In the meantime the space between the two positions is beginning to be occupied by ‘squatters’ with the Prabhakaran ethos. Having spent so […]