Praying for Rain
A school in Nuseirat. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir-al Balah. These are the most recent places in Gaza to be memorialized later on a wailing wall. Here fourteen civilian women…
Year: 2024
Climate Change: How Serious is Sri Lanka?
Climate change is one subject that has consistently dominated the world headlines over the past decade. Increasing consumerism fuels large scale fossil fuel usage and damages the natural environment. This results in…
The Folly of Delaying Elections
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, unlike his predecessors, was not elected by the people of Sri Lanka. He was appointed by SLPP MPs to replace the ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Mr Wickremesinghe is working…
Under Threat: Minority Journalists in South Asia
In 2021 Ajay Lalwani, a local news correspondent for an Urdu language newspaper, was sitting in a barber shop in Sukkur, Pakistan. Some gunmen drove by and opened fire, striking Lalwani in…
Reconsidering the De-gazetting of Vidattaltivu Nature Reserve
As both a developing nation and a biodiversity hotspot, Sri Lanka has to tread a delicate balance between conservation and development. The recent decision to degazette portions of the Vidattaltivu Nature Reserve…
Sajith Premadasa and A.K. Dissanayake Tied in Voter Poll
The Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) MRP provisional estimates of presidential election voting intent in April 2024 show support for NPP/JVP leader A.K. Dissanayake dropped to…
SJB and NPP/JVP Neck and Neck in Voter Poll
The latest estimates from Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) SLOTS MRP model show the SJB and NPP/JVP both having 34% support of Sri Lankan adults in April. Support for NPP/JVP and SJB…
Sri Lanka and India’s Regional Dominance
When the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was hosted by India a couple of months ago everybody sat up and took notice, especially those old enough to recall that once-revolutionary movement’s strident, even…
Target
I don’t want to be a pessimist, to darken your day, to add a fresh pack of stones to the load you carry. But I cannot help myself, not now,…
After Rafah
When CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe asked White House spokesman John Kirby how many more charred corpses it would take for the US President to change his policy on Israel, Kirby’s reply was…
ICC Warrants and ICJ’s Order: Do They Matter?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan has requested a panel of three ICC judges to issue arrest warrants on five people, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant of Israel and Yahya…
Presidential Elections: A View from the North
For the first time, Sri Lanka’s presidential election in October will have three main contenders – President Ranil Wickremesinghe contesting under an independent symbol, the SJB represented by Sajith Premadasa and the…
Sri Lanka in the Current Global Context
The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the major characteristics of the global context today and to point out a key implication for the Sri Lankan state. A…
On Burial and Punishment
I note the moral equivalence, one punishment for another although I don’t think we can fix history in a flash. Go back to days before October 7th or 8th. But…
Most Sri Lankans Think the Country is Going in the Wrong Direction
Three out of four Sri Lankan adults (75%) said that the country is heading in the wrong in April 2024 while almost none (3%) said it was on the right track. The…