I appreciate Anoja Fernando’s response () and her reference to those of DLO Mendis and E de S Wijeyaratna. Was the Bishop’s reference to Buddhist and Hindus (and Muslims?) in Sri Lanka,…
Image courtesy Aaron Joel Santos The title of this article is a line from a beautifully haunting hymn written by Bishop Heber of Calcutta who, clearly, had an imperialistic mindset. He visited our…
Photo courtesy My good friend Somapala Gunadheera has made some thoughtful observations (, 10 Sept 2012) on the problems of University admissions, and noted that in my “ Tamil Language Rights in…
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…
This is a belated response to D.B.S. Jeyaraj’s article titled “Tamil Destiny is inextricably intertwined with that of the Sinhalese,” which I noticed only a few days ago. I not only…
There was an interesting work shop on ‘Conceptualizing Caste in Sri Lanka’ at the ICES on Tuesday 15th March 2011. It was noted that caste is a tabooed and under-researched subject in…
For nearly six decades since Universal Adult Franchise was introduced in 1931, our State Council/ Parliamentary elections have been on a First Past the Post (FPP) basis. The first Parliamentary election on…
It may be useful to begin by going back over 80 years to the time when , in the mid – nineteen twenties, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, newly returned from Oxford University, vigorously promoted…
‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ was the lead slogan of the French Revolution which has been an inspiration to many movements around the globe. Many political initiatives have claimed to be based on Liberty…
I remember visiting Jaffna in 1997. Local government elections were due. Several leading political figures had been assassinated in the preceding years, some by the LTTE, others by anti-LTTE groups. In the…
The venomous response of Devendra in the Island of 16th March does not merit a reply but I need to set the record straight. As I said in my original entry, “The…
A perceptive and sensitive Sri Lankan has noted; “It is reported that the people of the North, especially in the Jaffna district, have developed a feeling of dissatisfaction, disaffection and contempt towards…
Sri Lanka has been increasingly the scene of much ethnic violence. The Northern Muslims are the victims of the earliest large scale act of ethnic cleansing in our history. Close to 80,000…
The first opportunity that the population of this island had to vote in an election based on universal adult franchise was in the State Council elections of 1931 under the Donoughmore Constitution.…
The widespread indifference to the continuing misery of 280,000 interned IDPs, most of them already unlawfully detained for about four months without any charges, is a sad reflection on the moral values…
