A-Z of Sri Lankan English: R is for rubber slippers
Image courtesy Odel They’re called . Here in Sri Lanka they’re most commonly referred to as rubber slippers; also bathroom slippers, and Bata slippers (or Batas). And some of us like to…
Image courtesy Odel They’re called . Here in Sri Lanka they’re most commonly referred to as rubber slippers; also bathroom slippers, and Bata slippers (or Batas). And some of us like to…
The latest news from the family-run, once independent island, is the appointment of a presidential committee to decide upon which recommendations to adopt regarding the erstwhile ethnic question, which has been subsumed…
Image courtesy Reuters Two Veask Poyas have come and gone and three years have sped by since May 2009 when the prolonged war with the LTTE ended. And we Sri Lankans are…
Original photograph REUTERS/Damir Sagolj It is always a curious and odd little matter, to witness how even Buddhists become so obsessively attached to ‘sacred’ lands and in protecting them, commit acts seemingly…
In the controversial Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 53 LTTE cadres who surrendered during the final days of the war in May 2009 are alleged to have been disappeared…
Top left to bottom: Advertisements for Fair & Lovely, Clean and Dry Intimate Wash and Vaseline’s Fair & Handsome, from Recently, a close member in my family gave birth to a beautiful…
This is in response to the comments to my previous post – Dambulla Mosque Attack: Is there a hidden hand? At the time of writing this, there were nearly 50 comments displaying…
After the email update reproduced below was sent on 2nd May, less than a week after the Not In Our Name initiative was launched, Deshabandhu Jezima Ismail, senior lawyer and HR activist JC…
A lion carries a dead wild boar in his mouth. He is walking through the grasslands, victorious after the hunt. On the dead boar is a crudely imprinted crescent moon and star.…
Photo courtesy Hemant Buch via JDS In a piece published on on 29 April, Ms. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK) makes many pertinent observations on religion and society in South Asia. Underlying all her arguments…
Navin Weeraratne’s photo essay around the recent violence in Dambulla has already been shared widely on Facebook, and elsewhere on the web. Describing himself to us as “an amateur photographer, toy painter,…
Photo by author The current controversy on the identity and significance of the series of mounds linking Rameshwaram in India with Mannar in Sri Lanka has attained international attention due to a…
Photo by Massimiliano Clausi, courtesy SAJA Secularism implies the relationship between Religion and Politics, more specifically between Religion and the State. The concept of secularism has drawn its sources from the philosophy that…
A week ago, we disgraced ourselves. Racist louts, some in the garb of Buddhist monks, engaged openly in speech and behaviour so violent, even those who led it were forced to suggest…
Photo courtesy Vikalpa The outcome in Geneva last year (March 2011) of the voting on Sri Lanka’s conduct of the war and related human rights record was very clearly in favour of…