30 Years Ago: Audio recordings of panel discussions
Photograph by Tehani Ariyaratne, from 30 Years Ago To complement the launch of 30 Years Ago and focus on some of the issues the project is anchored to and inspired by, four panel discussions…
Month: September 2013
July 1983, State Racism and Truth Commissions
Image courtesy Sangam To everyone who has not read them I recommend reading Izeth Hussain’s, articles of 31 August and 7 September in The Island, and my article in groundviews and in…
What is an economic migrant?
The governments of Sri Lanka and Australia have recently reached an agreement over how to define the flow of undocumented migrants between these two countries. Both governments seem to agree on the…
Assessing Local Governance in the Northern Province
Introduction In April 2013 Home for Human Rights (HHR) undertook a survey in the Northern Province. HHR hoped to accurately capture the opinions that the people have about the performance of their…
Media monitoring of Navi Pillay’s visit to Sri Lanka
Photograph courtesy UN Sri Lanka At the invitation of the Sri Lankan Government, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay visited Sri Lanka at the end of August in what was,…
Interview with Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke, Director of ‘Paraya’
Directed by Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke and produced by Mind Adventures, will begin its run on 18th of this month to the 21st. For any other theatrical production, that description would suffice, along with…
Announcing the De Zoysa-Sivanayagam 2014 Fellowship in Digital Journalism
On September 21, 2013, Sri Lankans Without Borders in partnership with will announce the launch of the De Zoysa-Sivanayagam 2014 Fellowship in Digital Journalism. As noted on SLWB’s website, Lasantha Wickrematunge led…
Northern Provincial Council Elections: A Pre-Election Survey
Image courtesy Sri Lanka Brief Provincial Elections in the Northern Province will be held on the 21st of September 2013 – the first time in 25 years. According to the Department of…
Coercive Population Control in Kilinochchi
Photo courtesy The Social Architects [Editors note: Please read by The Social Architects, which expands on this initial report and address the points made in the comments as well as in other…
A rejoinder to “Disarming the juggernaut of religious intolerance in Sri Lanka”
I recently read this article “Disarming the juggernaut of religious intolerance in Sri Lanka” on by Dynalogue – who consider themselves a non partisan, apolitical youth discussion group who have organised themselves…
Interview with Vimukthi Sahan at Paradise Road Galleries
This is an interview conducted by Janaka Samarakoon, the curator of www.cultura.lk, with the young artist Vimukthi Sahan on the occasion of his 2nd solo exhibition, now on at the Paradise Road Galleries,…
How will India facilitate a credible and independent investigation in Sri Lanka
Image credit PTI, via IANS While domestic politics took centre stage in Delhi this past March with the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) pulling out of the ruling coalition, far away from the…
Celebratory Memoirs of the Life of Comrade Sunila Abeysekera
Last Thursday, I was reading an article about Joan Jara, the widow of renowned Chilean activist, singer, songwriter and theatre director Victor Jara, and her family. They are seeking long-delayed justice for…
Madras Cafe: A timely interrogation
“There are events, facts from history” and according to the director Shoojit Sircar his film Madras Cafe (2013) is “fiction inspired from fact”.[1] And while the director claims that his film is…
Sunila Abeysekera: 1952 – 2013
Photo courtesy BBC World Service Sunila Abeysekera passed away earlier today after a long battle with cancer. Sunila has a profile on Wikipedia but reading it would deeply frustrate anyone who knew…