Aluthgama riots and deaths: Vital updates
Photo courtesy BBC Update #3: 7.05am, 176 June 2014 A video with English subtitles of the BBS speech that incited violence in Aluthgama is now on YouTube. Also uploaded to the web…
Year: 2014
Partnership to protect free expression online: Project Galileo
I am both proud and pleased to welcome the launch of Project Galileo by CloudFlare, for which the Centre for Policy Alternatives – the institutional anchor of this site – is a…
CAN THE ANTI-MAHINDA CAMP THINK STRAIGHT?
Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Guardian A basic reason for the inability of the anti-Governmental forces, political and civil society, Oppositional and dissentient, to compete with the regime, still less supplant it, is…
Happy Sri Lanka
Happy, by Pharrell Williams bills itself as the world’s first 24 hour music video. The song is extremely catchy and aired at least once a day, every day at the time of…
A Papal prayer for Middle East peace and a visit to Sri Lanka
Photography by Getty Images, courtesy The Catholic Church has announced that His Holiness Pope Francis would be visiting Sri Lanka from January 13th to 15th, next year. Preceding the announcement, were visits to…
Let’s get rid of the ‘virtuous society’
Photo by ISHARA S.KODIKARA/AFP, via How many of you can honestly say that you have never visited a pornography website? I don’t have the numbers, but if I had to guess, only…
REALIST MODERNISM IN AN AGE OF KULTURKAMPF: A Review of Long War, Cold Peace by Dayan Jayatilleka
Image from YouTube video Dr Dayan Jayatilleka’s book, , now in its second revised edition of 2014, is one of the few book-length attempts by a Sri Lankan scholar to make sense…
Counter-Thuggery Doesn’t Pay
Out there, in the Northern parts of post-war Sri Lanka, anyone who cares to look will see a difficult situation prevailing. There live people who have not been re-settled in places they…
Revaluation of Values: Applying the Pullman Principle to Post-War Sri Lanka
Photo by LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/Getty Images via Al Jazeera America This past couple of weeks I’ve been rereading Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. I first picked up ‘Northern Lights’ (Book 1) in…
“We don’t understand it because it’s in Tamil”: The JHU’s comment on the NPC’s Letter
Image taken from video produced by I just came across an excerpt of a statement made by Mr. Nishantha Warnasinghe, the National Organiser and Media Spokesperson of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU),…
Tiananmen Square, Egg Wash and Tank Man: Reflections after 25 years
AP Photo/Jeff Widener, courtesy ‘s terrific photo essay ‘Tiananmen Square, Then and Now‘ In 2009, Canadian author Denise Chong published a book called . The main subject of the book is a…
POST-ELECTION 2015 SCENARIO: GOTABAYA’S ENTRY TO ELECTORAL POLITICS
Image courtesy The news, based on an exclusive interview, that Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa may formally enter mainstream politics by contesting Colombo at the parliamentary election () casts a significant light — some…
The Story of a Meditating Sri Lankan Man
The other day, on the banks of the Diyawanna waterfront close to the Sri Lankan Parliament, I noticed a man sitting in meditation. What a surprise? He is none other than my…
Response to article in Colombo Telegraph
An article published in the on its site – the comments section is a cesspool of bile by those hiding behind veils of anonymity – I would like to flag just two…
A modest proposal for the development of the Buddhisms and Tourisms also
Image via Last time I am writing opened letter. Peoples are reading it and telling me, The Silva, you are writing very intelligent things in support of Our Majesty and his country….
