Archive for the ‘Media and Communications’

Groundviews wins prestigious Manthan South Asia Award

Manthan 09 Logo

21 December 2009, Colombo, Sri Lanka: We are honoured and extremely pleased to win a prestigious Manthan Award South Asia under the e-news category. The award was presented to us at a ceremony held in New Delhi on Saturday, 19th December 2009. The Manthan Award South Asia is organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation with the support of World Summit Award (WSA) and the Department of IT (DIT) of the Government of India. The award recognises the best digital and technology innovations to empower communities and is South Asia’s biggest event on ICT for masses, governance and rural development. The grand jury’s evaluation of the site noted, “What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It’s a new age media for a new Sri Lanka… Free media at it’s very best!” This year, Groundviews was the only Sri Lankan initiative featured in the e-news category and also the first Sri Lankan initiative to win an award in this category….

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Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma (1923-1994): A Passionate Champion of Public Science

Cyril_Ponnamperuma analyzing a moon sample at NASA

On 20 December 2009, we mark the 15th death anniversary of Professor Cyril Ponnamperuma, one of the best known scientists produced by Sri Lanka during the Twentieth Century. He was both an internationally recognised researcher on the origins of life on Earth, and an early promoter of science and technology for development. His interests and involvements transcended his own discipline and homeland. He worked closely with the Pakistani Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam to promote science and infrastructural facilities in developing countries. Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, director of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India (and now chair of the UN climate panel, IPCC), said upon Ponnamperuma death: “I don’t know of another single Third World scientist who has done so much for developing science and technology capacity in developing countries.” Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, in 1923, Cyril Andrew Ponnamperuma had his early education in Sri Lanka and India, and switched the chemistry after a first degree in philosophy. He…

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On Lasantha Wickremetunge, media freedom and human rights in Sri Lanka: Interview with Dilrukshi Handunnetti

“Governments usually don’t take notice of silent majorities” says well known investigative and environmental journalism Dilrukshi Handunnetti in this video interview with Groundviews. To commemorate Human Rights Day 2009 (falling on 10 December) Groundviews interviewed a number of leading activists in Sri Lanka to find out their perspectives on current challenges facing human rights in post-war Sri Lanka. In general, activists featured were asked to comment on the Sri Lankan State’s protection of human rights, the nexus between human rights and human dignity and opportunities for greater human rights protection over the coming years. Dilrukshi is a lawyer by training having specialized in international law. A journalist for over 17 years, she has extensively covered the areas of politics, conflict, environment, culture, and history and gender issues. The interview focussed on media freedom and the freedom of expression in Sri Lanka. Dilrukshi flagged the use of the reprehensible Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) post-war and against independent media through the…

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Reading election polls: To be misled or to be empowered?

Our past experience about elections in Sri Lanka confirms that there was hardly anything that parties and candidates did not exploit for their advantage. In the eve of elections, the incumbents in high postings often remembers to offer government jobs, pay hikes to the people who they think are their potential voter bases. Since independence every party and its candidates exploited the government’s food-rations and other welfare programmes shamelessly to expand their voter bases. In addition, parties always try to make an impression that they are certainly winning the upcoming election assuming that the victory vibes would attract the ‘floating voters’ towards them. Therefore, during the election campaigns it is quite normal to see astrological predictions or comments in support of particular candidate or a party.  One of the latest instruments that politician used to indicate their victory is the election polls. During the 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2005 election campaigns, politicians and parties exploited pollings to mislead people for…

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Prospects for post-war human rights in Sri Lanka: Interview with Sunila Abeysekera

To commemorate Human Rights Day 2009 (falling on 10 December) Groundviews interviewed a number of leading activists in Sri Lanka to find out their perspectives on current challenges facing human rights in post-war Sri Lanka. In general, activists featured were asked to comment on the Sri Lankan State’s protection of human rights, the nexus between human rights and human dignity and opportunities for greater human rights protection over the coming years. This video features Sunila Abeysekara, an award winning Sri Lankan human rights activist. The interview was conducted over a Skype video call. Sunila talks about, amongst a number of other vital issues, the current state of media freedom and the freedom of expression, a fundamental difference between human dignity and human rights protection plus prospects for a greater emphasis on human rights in post-war Sri Lanka. Also see: Human Rights in Post-War Sri Lanka: Challenges and opportunities The rights of the disabled in Sri Lanka: Marginal or mainstream? Repost This…

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The rights of the disabled: Forgotten and forsaken?

Of the more than 6 billion people in the world, the UN estimates that more than 500 million of them are disabled. That is approximately 8%. In the early 1900s and before, little knowledge and awareness existed about people with disabilities, so much so that  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not even mention the rights of the disabled. However, since then awareness and activism concerning disability has increased tremendously with the UN alone, in ensuring that the rights of people with disabilities are met on a global scale, championing and adopting numerous measures. Following these international developments, the National Council for Coordinating the Work of Disability Organizations (established in 1989) in Sri Lanka, began discussions about the necessity for legal provision to safeguard the rights of people with disabilities. On August 9, 1996, a Bill was presented to Parliament and was passed unanimously on September 17 that same year entitled the Act for the Protection of the Rights…

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The Travelling Circus on video: Looking at war and IDPs through theatre

Obligingly recorded by Young Asia Television at the request of Groundviews, we are pleased to present a full-length video recording of a technical rehearsal / run-through of The Travelling Circus, produced by Mind Adventures, directed by Tracy Holsinger and recently staged in Colombo. An in-depth review of the production is published on Groundviews here. Total playing time is 52 minutes. The production divided opinion, with some liking it and others, with equal passion, disliking it. This full-length video of the production (even though it is a technical rehearsal) records for posterity one of the first theatre productions in post-war Sri Lanka interrogating vital yet often marginalized issues such as psycho-social trauma and human displacement due to war. Those who missed the production in Colombo, including those in the diaspora, are strongly encouraged to watch this video and leave their comments. We were also told that some at the edge of the audience couldn’t hear what was said on stage due to poor…

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100 days in hard labour and counting: The plight of J.S. Tissainayagam

Today is Human Rights Day, which honours the UN’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, the first global enunciation of human rights. Today is also the one hundredth day Tamil journalist J.S. Tissanaiyagam will spend imprisoned doing hard labour. He has already spent over six hundred days in prison. On 31 August 2009, Tissa was sentenced by the High Court in Colombo to an incredible twenty years of rigorous imprisonment under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Nimalka Fernando, a leading human rights activist, called the judgement a travesty of justice, a position Groundviews unequivocally endorsed and associates itself with. As the eminent International Commission of Jurists noted, Tissa’s case, “…raises a number of concerns regarding fair trial standards, including the judge’s interlocutory decision to allow into evidence what counsel for Mr Tissainayagam described as a forced confession, and subsequent denial of the accused’s right to appeal this decision. The [ICJ]…

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THE RAJAPAKSE REGIME AND THE FOURTH ESTATE

Authors note: This is the first of two articles. The second is in draft form and is tentatively entitled ‘The Rajapakse Regime: Plus Points, Minus Points’. It may appear first in print form, but that remains to be seen. The Rajapakse regime has been in power since April 2004 and has received a bad press in many Western countries in recent years. Such comments have often aroused Xenophobic reactions within some segments of Sri Lankan society. This parochial response merges with the rabid hostility to (selected) NGOs in some political circles. Rather than dwelling in a parochial miasma, the Rajapakse government should ask itself WHY, why such a bad press? One answer is clear: it is the prevalence of the “white van” phenomenon in Sri Lankan society. This is a convenient trope that highlights (a) the cluster of disappearances, and acts of abduction that have occurred over the last five years; and (b) the number of media personnel, some 34…

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Visualising key speeches and submissions of Sarath Fonseka

SF Temple Speech - Small

Now officially a Presidential aspirant, erstwhile Army Commander Sarath Fonseka has, since late October 2009 made a number of verbal and written submissions regarding his candidacy and political life after retirement. In October 2009 he made a speech at a Buddhist Temple in Washington DC. On the 12th November, he handed in his resignation addressed to the President. On 27th November, when it was an open secret that he would contest the Presidential elections, he gave an in-depth interview to the Daily Mirror newspaper. For the first time, the following visualizations of Fonseka’s key submissions to date, using the web based Wordle, reveal the most frequently used words in each of them. Visualisations such as this obviously have their drawbacks for serious semantic analysis. For example, the former General’s interview with the Daily Mirror was a clear and controversial break with the Executive’s avowed belief that post-war, there are no longer any minorities or majorities in Sri Lanka. On the…

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We will reap what we sow: Sri Lanka’s Presidential contenders

In a one dimensional interview with the Daily Mirror, General Sarath Fonseka outlined his grievances before the people and we got an idea why he is running for the highest office in the land. It was a litany of personal woes. Just about the whole interview was about what has been taken away from him by the Rajapakse brothers since the end of the war. More specifically, the interview dealt almost exclusively with the issue of reducing his security detail. To give him credit, he knew exactly how many personnel, support staff, vehicles and special forces were involved in providing security for the President, the Secretary of Defense, his nemesis the former Navy Commander, wife of Lakshman Kadiragamar, the current Commander of the Army, one Brigadier and so on. He also knew how long former heads of armed forces had stayed at their official residences after retirement and the diplomatic posts bestowed on them. In between, almost as an after…

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Media, Civil Society and Social Mobilisation

by Arjuna Ranawana[i] and Anupama. M. Ranawana[ii] Think to that place that this country has now come to, – the chaos of impunity, the failure to protect human rights and the hysteria of nationalism;  It is a moment, we must understand in which we pause and reflect. Something has ended, it must be grieved well and then what must be created after must indeed be a result of deliberate and well planned progression, not of fractured regimes. In the creation of a state and of a political space, one reflects constantly on the relations of power and the nature of power itself. At the very least, it is an area that has become an unending point of discussion for many of us engaged in writing on the situation in Sri Lanka.  In a previous deliberation made by one of these writers and featured on this very website, a few exploratory thoughts were made on the idea of state building (state as…

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Confessions of a Digital Immigrant

Mediasaurus and new media

My daughter Dhara, 13, finds it incredible that I had never seen a working television until I had reached her current age — that’s when broadcast television was finally introduced in Sri Lanka, in April 1979. It is also totally inconceivable to her that my entire pre-teen media experience was limited to newspapers and a single, state-owned radio station. And she simply doesn’t believe me when I say — in all honesty and humility — that I was already 20 when I first used a personal computer, 29 when I bought my first mobile phone, and 30 when I finally got wired. In fact, my first home Internet connectivity — using a 33kbps dial-up modem — and our daughter arrived just a few weeks apart in mid 1996. I have never been able to decide which was more disruptive… Dhara is growing up taking completely for granted the digital media and tools of our time. My Christmas presents to her…

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In Praise of the Devil’s Advocate

This article is a tribute to those devil’s advocates who were hurt or killed just because they asked questions “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it” said Voltaire after reading Rousseau’s Social Contract in 18th century France. We respect the courage and honesty of Voltaire and other leaders of the time for they laid the foundation for an enlightened century.  Medieval  dogmatism, prejudice and narrow mindedness was set aside at the political level to allow for more mature acceptance of questioning and criticism.  This laid the foundation for recognizing the individual and the concept of the democratic ideal. Contrast that with the 21st century political dictum first uttered by George W Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 – “If you are not with us you are with them” a line followed closely by the Sri Lankan government as it fought the difficult war with LTTE. By extension, asking questions is…

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Lazy Academics and a Diaspora Without Direction

The recent Amnesty International sponsored forum “Sri Lanka: Human Rights Issues and Media Representation” held last week in Melbourne was a missed opportunity. The forum could have signposted the strategies needed to pressure the Australian Government to do more to improve human rights and freedom of expression issues, and to bring the Sri Lankan Government to account on its horrific human rights record. Instead, the forum ended up painting an ‘us versus them’ picture and pitting the Tamil diaspora against its Sinhala counterpart.  This could have been avoided if the presenters were more mature and more informed about the situation in Sri Lanka. The majority of the people in the room were from the Tamil diaspora, who along with others concerned about human rights and equality, were probably expecting some guidance from ‘expert’ presenters on how to respond not only to what was happening in Sri Lanka, but also the meanness of the Australian Government. Damien Kingsbury focused his talk…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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