Strengthening RTI Law: Some Suggestions
This short piece is a reflection on the recently adopted Right to Information Act. Certain aspects of the Act give rise to questions regarding its enforcement. These questions arise primarily in relation…
Year: 2016
What is happening? What can we do?
Featured image courtesy Time The overall picture that emerges from the January 09, 2015 revolution and the events that have already taken place and are taking place as a result of this…
From isolation to integration: addressing stigma on World Mental Health Day
The very mention of the town “Angoda” has widespread negative connotations, as the National Institute of Mental Health is situated there. This points to the wider issue of stigma that surrounds the…
INFOGRAPHIC: Paying the price for past extravagance
This week, it was announced that Sri Lanka would be paying as much as USD 170 million (Rs. 25 billion) to aircraft leasing company AerCap Holdings, in order to cancel the purchase of…
The murder of 600 policemen
In of 21 September 2016, Thivanka Perera posed the question “How about the widows of the 600 policemen?”. The rest of the article does not merit a response, but this question does.…
Corbyn’s Classic Win: A Global Inspiration To Political Underdogs
Featured image courtesy the Huffington Post “It’s all about conventional wisdom: The powers that be decide early on who is going to win, and they don’t want their narrative disturbed.”- Koenen The…
Harassment of human rights defenders even under ‘yahapalanaya’
Photo courtesy Sampsonia Way Today, 1st Oct. 2016, I came the Bandaranayake international airport in Sri Lanka to travel to London. I was asked by the officer at the immigration counter to…
RTI: a Reality Check
Featured image courtesy Tasman Council September 28 is the global Right to Information Day – a day of added significance to Sri Lankans this year since the country passed its own Right to…
Paradise Lost: The hidden costs of tourism development in Sri Lanka
August 27 is World Tourism Day. This year, the theme is “promoting universal accessibility.” decided to focus on sustainable tourism – and specifically, on how tourism development has impacted local communities. Tourism is…
Countering Sexual Harassment in the work place: Interview with Mihiri de Silva
Sexual Harassment in the work place is seen as a common occurrence. Compounding the issue is the fact that when sexual harassment victims do report such instances, they do not have a…
The Road to Nandikadal and the struggle for the military history of the Ealam war
Sri Lanka’s separatist war was one of the longest insurgencies of modern times. It was also one of the most destructive insurgencies in the region, causing the deaths of tens of thousands…
Incorporating International Crimes into Sri Lankan Law: The Need for Legislative Reform
Featured image courtesy Al Jazeera In a paper published recently, Eleanor Vermunt and I argued that international crimes must be incorporated into Sri Lankan law with retroactive effect in order to enable…
The View from Madinah
Around the debris of triumphantly post-war Sri Lanka, new research is churned out, state grant money proffered and secured, and security expert careers built around jihadi headlines, veil puns, and paradoxically hyper(de)racinated definitions…
A Reflection on Conflicts in Sri Lanka
Photography courtesy Dev Policy We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we make this reflection, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects, to…
Avoiding Superstitious Cures, Defeating Dictatorial Solutions
Photo courtesy OnLanka Sri Lanka, despite her soaring developmental ambitions, spends less than 1% of her national budget on research and development, an anomaly which was highlighted at the recently concluded symposium,…
