Archive for the ‘Science and Technology’

Strengthening innovation in Sri Lanka: In conversation with Anushka Wijesinha

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Anushka Wijesinha is a Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka and is one of the most prominent voices in Sri Lanka today championing innovation. We begin by Anushka explaining what innovation means to him in a Sri Lankan context, and why it is so important to support it in post-war Sri Lanka. In talking about innovation as a system, he talks about the differences between Research and Development and innovation. Anushka is then asked whether he sees enough of that which he champions and sees as innovative policies, products and practices in Sri Lanka today. We then talk about the nature and indeed crisis within Sri Lanka’s tertiary education system – from ossified curricula to outdated pedagogy – as stymieing the growth and potential of innovation. Anushka then looks at how failure can be instructive for innovation, and whether cultures and countries that embrace failure are more innovative than those, like Sri Lanka, which censure…

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Eating properly and smiling: The evasive Valerie Amos on Twitter

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On 18th December 2012, at around 10pm in Sri Lanka, Valerie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator took to Twitter, ostensibly to answer questions related to the UN’s role, relevance and responsibilities regarding humanitarian aid and relief work. The event with Baroness Amos was announced via the Twitter account of, inter alia, UN OCHA, which also had a photo of her in front of a laptop, getting ready to face the questions. RT @unocha: .@valerieamos is now replying to questions from @alertnet and Twitter users around the world. #AskValerietwitpic.com/bn3zd4 — Groundviews (@groundviews) December 18, 2012 The event was conducted with the hashtag #AskValerie. Baroness Amos is (whether through office aides or by herself it remains unclear) fairly active on Twitter via @ValerieAmos. However, despite her own and OCHA’s familiarity with web based social media interactions, yesterday’s Twitter question time with Baroness Amos was a cogent example of how not to curate and conduct public debates…

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In memory of Ray Wijewardana

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Image courtesy Moving Images, Moving People! One day in year 2005, Ray visited the University of Moratuwa as the chancellor. I think it was an official meeting to organize an innovations exhibition showcasing the work done by the students. After the meeting, Ray wanted to visit my laboratory located in the Sumanadasa building. I was a bit scared to show it to Ray, because it was full of junk material bought to make field robots. The research lab had no windows. So it was a bit damp and smelly too. He just smiled when I warned him of such possible disappointments. No sooner he entered; he grabbed a chair, sat, and kept looking at the work in progress of a legged robot like a child being mesmerised by a favourite toy. “Why legs? Why not wheels Thrish?” he asked. I knew that he was trying to test me. I said “simply because they have to move on soft terrains in…

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A Child of Apollo Salutes His First Hero: Remembering Neil Armstrong

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Apollo 11 bootprint When Neil Armstrong took that first ’small step’ on to the Moon, at 10.56 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 20 July 1969, a quarter of humanity — following it live on radio or TV — collectively held their breath. In the next moment, our various divides disappeared…at least for a brief while. As Arthur C. Clarke – who covered the Moon landing for CBS network – later summed up, it was “one of the great divides in human history; we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin stepped out on to the Sea of Tranquillity. Now history and fiction have become inexorably intertwined.” History was not only made that day; it was also witnessed, instantaneously, by an estimated 600 million people on TV. Another few dozen millions worldwide tracked mission progress on short wave radio. In contrast, only a handful of local people – including a solitary amateur…

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Stand Athwart Censorship in Sri Lanka

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In Tom Stoppard’s superlative play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Ros shouts “Fire!” and when questioned by Guil, Ros reassuringly responds, “It’s all right – I’m demonstrating the misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists.” After surveying the audience with “contempt”, Ros says, “Not a move. They should all burn to death in their shoes.” Now consider the next example, which is as famous as it is hackneyed in free speech/expression debates. In 1919, Charles Schenck was convicted (under the Espionage Act of 1917) for writing and distributing literature that called for opposition to the draft in the First World War. (If one were to provide a précis of Schenck’s material, it would reveal a passionate request for draftees to exercise their rights and oppose involuntary servitude.) The most notable outcome of the case was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s attempt to define the limits of free speech: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a…

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The Green Revolution and Rio

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It has been many years of writing in the Sri Lankan media of the stupidity of the so-called Green Revolution that successive governments in Sri Lanka aided by their ‘knowledgeable ‘ scientists and bureaucrats have promoted. As it has been pointed out many times, the only winners in this deadly game were those who sold fertilizers, agrochemicals and the politicians and bureaucrats who received kickbacks from this lucrative trade. But the price that we pay as a nation is heavy, last year the fertilizer subsidy alone was over 50 billion rupees. Yet this same mob will now go to Rio to crow over what a wonderful job they have done for our nation and for the world. One supposes that being a Sri Lankan in Sri Lanka today is much like a North Korean in that country. The view of the public is totally disregarded, only the so-called ‘leaders ‘have the brains and the vision’ to take us forward. I…

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Surrendering Airwaves & Liberty to Nepotism

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TRC Spectrum Management website Frequency Allocation- A Grand Corruption? Understanding the State capture by Kleptocrats does not require a dedicated study; it is easily recognizable.  For the benefit of keen students of governance, let me begin this article with the definition of Kleptocracy: “A form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its ruling class at the expense of the wider population”.  Kleptocracies are mostly associated with authoritarian or nepotistic regimes.  In this article, I endeavor to examine some governance aspects of Sri Lankan style of frequency allocation with specific reference to TV rights. Television licenses and the right to own television rights for sports are turning to be one of the most abused resources. Why? Firstly, an average person does not understand the mechanics or value of transactions and therefore it is often abused by those who control them.  Secondly, secrecy of broadcasting is generally maintained at the…

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Sri Lanka’s Census 2012: What should have been asked? What could have been done better?

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Conducting a census is an important activity for any country as the data gathered from it would serve as the foundation for policies, development related activities and future planning of not only government institutions but also non state actors such as academics, development and aid agencies. The idea behind collecting feedback on the 2012 Census in Sri Lanka is to identify the positive and negative aspects of the census, and to encourage discussion on how it can be improved without merely identifying the faults. This year’s census was held after 30 years and covered the entire island. The importance of this census and the data it gathered is obvious to us all. Feedback on Census 2012 was launched in late March. Some initial feedback from people who shared their comments via the site and also via email follow. Enumeration stage – Enumerators for the Census 2012 underwent a training whereby they were briefed on the questions in the data collection…

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A Tale of Three Telescopes and a Blind News Media

Sir Arthur Clarke with his Celestron 14-inch telescope - photo by Rohan de Silva, circa 2001

Sir Arthur Clarke with his Celestron 14-inch telescope – photo by Rohan de Silva, circa 2001 Every newshound must survive a ‘lean news’ day. Most know what to do when that happens: sniff around, or dig deeper. But like our canine friends, newshounds too occasionally bark up the wrong tree or dig in vain. Pressures of feeding the 24/7 news cycle can be immense, especially when the war has ended and no cricket matches or ‘grease devil’ performances are on. On 27 September 2011, News First ran a story titled ‘Arthur C Clarke’s telescope sold by an assistant’. It said a ‘telescope owned by the late Sir Arthur C Clarke has been sold by an assistant for one million rupees’ through a newspaper advertisement. The buyer’s identity was not disclosed. The story added: “Astrologists (sic) say the telescope belonging to the late science visionary is a valuable artefact not only to Sri Lanka but to the entire world. They point…

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Subsidizing Addiction?

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‘Ware the mesmerizer he gives you flowers with his right hand and steals your gold with his left’ It was with this that I opened my article on ‘wildlife conservation’ in 1979. I was being confronted to a national extinction of the in-situ wildlife populations within anthropogenic ecosystems. In other words,  the huge diversity of our native wildlife that shared our gardens, ranging from the large Papilionid butterflies to the flycatchers, from the Osbekia bushes to the Vanda clumps, were doomed to extinction from our gardens by the indiscriminate use of agro-toxins promoted by companies, whose leaders were advising the nation on wildlife conservation. The result lies before us; our gardens are bereft of the biodiversity that they once contained. At that time sodium arsenate was the preferred weedicide, DDT was the preferred insecticide; not only did they it destroy the biodiversity in the areas applied, but over time grew to become toxic to humans. The danger of biological magnification…

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ICTs, science fiction and disasters: A conversation with Nalaka Gunawardene

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I last spoke to Nalaka Gunawardene on public television in February 2009. Nalaka’s varied interests and experience is hard to pin down, but the issues he most often writes on are anchored to science and technology, including information and communications technologies (ICTs). Nalaka blogs and he tweets, which is rare among the guests I have on the programme. He is a regular contributor to Groundviews, a public speaker and frequent commentator on other old and new media fora, including the Sinhala language media. A lot had happened since we last spoke, from natural disasters (Pakistan floods, Japan earthquake) to the heightened use of social media around the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the Royal Wedding. Also between the time we last spoke, Assange spilt the beans on US diplomacy and more recently, local media created mass hysteria with a botched attempt at covering untested science. All of these are issues Nalaka’s written on. At the beginning of the interview,…

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The Storyteller of Public Science

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Tambiaiah Sabaratnam (1932 – 2011) Veteran journalist Tambiaiah Sabaratnam, who has died aged 79, was a pathfinder and leading light in Sri Lankan science journalism for over a generation. Throughout his long association with the English and Tamil press, he advocated the pursuit of public science: tax-payer funded scientific research for the benefit of the people and economy. Having joined the Thinakaran newspaper in 1957 as a trainee journalist, he switched to the English media in the late 1970s and retired as Senior Deputy Editor of Daily News in 1997. His 40 years at Lake House — the country’s largest publishing house, nationalized in 1973 — spanned eight governments. In retirement, he remained active as a columnist, journalist trainer and author. He was a source of inspiration and encouragement to me during my early years in science journalism. Our paths crossed often in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he and I covered many of the same scientific events….

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WikiLeaks, Swiss Banks and Alien invasions

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A month ago, I wrote an open letter to the late Sir Arthur C Clarke, titled ‘Living in the Global Glass House’. It was inspired by the WikiLeaks cablegate controversy, which heralded a new level of transparency in international relations triggered by a disruptive technology – something Sir Arthur had predicted decades ago. I researched the essay over a few days in early December 2010. While following the unfolding cablegate saga with much interest, I looked up and re-read many published articles and speeches of Sir Arthur related to the social and political impacts of new communications technologies. I was already familiar with his thinking on the subject, but was still amazed to discover the extent of his prescience. And dismayed by how little his timeless advice was being followed. My essay was first published on 19 December 2010 by Groundviews.org; it has since been reproduced widely, and my own compact versions have appeared in a number of print media…

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Julian Assange’s turn for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011

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Photo courtesy Wired A week or so ago, a veteran editor cum journalist in a conversation on conflict and peace said, his choice for the next peace prize is Julian Assange. Agreed. But what qualifies a person for the Nobel Prize for Peace ? Alfred Nobel said it must be awarded to the person who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses” in his last will left dated, 27th November, 1895. Nominations for this most prestigious world prize for peace, from among 300 other prizes awarded around the world, is drawing to a close on 01st February, 2011. The question is, can Julian Assange of WikiLeaks be nominated and is he qualified for nominations? With Liu Xiaobo of China awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace this 2010 year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has, from the first Nobel Peace Prize…

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Living in the Global Glass House: An Open Letter to Sir Arthur C Clarke

Sir Arthur C Clarke - our reliable tour guide to the future

Colombo, Sri Lanka: 16 December 2010 Dear Sir Arthur, I write this on your 93rd birth anniversary. Just over a thousand days have passed since you departed. Like all true rationalists, you didn’t believe in any afterlife. So I don’t expect you to be somewhere there, ‘keeping an eye on us’. You did enough of that during your 90 years on this planet! But as the first decade of the Twenty First Century draws to a close, I find it helpful to address this to you, and to reflect on some of your timeless ideas. You not only had remarkable powers of prescience and imagination, but also remained upbeat that humanity will survive its turbulent adolescence. As you were fond of saying, you had great faith optimism as a guiding principle, “if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy”. Three years ago this month, I worked with you in drafting and filming your 90th birthday…

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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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