The Defence Secretary is shocked, outraged, and flummoxed. The National Security Council has discussed the ongoing environmental devastation. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men (airmen too) have been mobilised…
Photo Courtesy of BBC News Sri Lanka is led by a man who has, by his admission, two faces. In a more democratic avatar is Gotabaya Rajapaksa the President. Here, the individual…
Image Courtesy of Women Working The tyranny of unreason does not stop at the borders of politics. It spreads its tentacles to every aspect of human life. In his first post-Trump media…
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With the enactment of the Twentieth Amendment, Sri Lanka embarks yet again down the fraught path of authoritarian presidentialism. Whether this latest adventure ends in a democratic nightmare, or is as fleeting…
A pandemic with no end in sight, an economy that is unravelling, a fiscal abyss, a debt pile-up, an overwhelmed public health system – and the Gotabaya-Mahinda government is planning to build…
Today is the Global Day of Climate Action Themes of sustainability and environmental degradation have pervaded my work since 2004, long before climate change or the extinction rebellion became global political issues.…
The Jathika Chintanaya which emerged in the 1980s and matured in the 1990s continues to exert a considerable influence on mainstream politics and popular opinion here today. The movement’s contribution to historiography…
Basil Rajapaksa (Daily FT – 29.7.2020) Basil Rajapaksa is the Rajapaksa family’s thinking man. Unlike his brothers and nephews, he doesn’t shoot his mouth off. His remarks should be taken seriously, because,…
(written for the 21st Death Anniversary of Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam) This is the time to remember Neelan and Sithie Tiruchelvam. Along with Kumari Jayawardena, their living rooms were spaces where scholars and…
It has been 37 years since the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, a riot that set the country ablaze and sparked a 30-year long and bloody war. But even after nearly four…
July. Referred to as Black July to mark the pogrom against Tamils in 1983 carried out by Sinhala mobs. Pogrom is a Russian word meaning ‘to wreak havoc, to demolish violently’, that…
Although the war ended a decade ago, the ethno-political and social fractures from violent conflict endure. On no other day are they more apparent than on May 18. Often, what we see,…
Photo courtesy A not-so-young man walked into the room of Lasantha Wickrematunge two decades ago. The man had nothing but a recommendation from his own father when he asked Lasantha for a…
Image courtesy PRINCETON – When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, I did not join those who took to the streets in protest. I thought it important to respect…
