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…
Author: Lakshman Gunasekara
Fifth Estate: Paradoxes of Digital Power
World audiences remain riveted to phone, computer and television screens, shocked as we all are by the bloody carnality of the war in Palestine, the graphic horror gripping attention by its lurid…
Gaza: The Cruelty and Pain of Numbers
If a modern military combat involves a lot of high explosive such as large bombs and shells, the physical devastation of the area is profound. And the bigger the shell or bomb…
Press Freedom in Cyber Civilization
Brief Generations of Sri Lankans have experienced many curfews and states of emergency and also experienced the bloody harm suffered by curfew violators. But successive insurgencies spanning all parts of the country…
Crisis Agenda for the Vox Populi and Fourth Estate
People gasp for breath, eyes burning as the teargas canisters explode. Smashing bursts from police water cannon fling back protesters’ bodies from the serried metal barriers. Suddenly the roaring, massed, demonstrators melt…
Waving the Lion Flag
The lion flag is waved for a historic first time on a mass scale in the Galle Face urban youth protest but the violent anti-protester attackers coming from Temple Trees also burnt…
A Schizoid Political Culture
Attackers roaring obscenities, screams of victims, the thunk of metal poles on defenceless humans and the crack of smashed protester shelters all combined to almost drown out the Bhikkus’ serene chanting of…
Swan Song of the Fourth Estate?
The ballads and chants still peal across the windswept Galle Face Green as the protests continue and Gota Go Gama (GGG) flamboyantly, angrily, uproariously flourishes on what was once the marine esplanade…
Social Media Bares its Fangs
Will the regime fall? Will the Rajapaksas cave in? Will Gota actually give up? Or will there be a military coup to protect the regime? These and similar queries and speculations and…
‘Making Hay’ While Under a Contagion Cloud
Cricket nationalists should blame COVID-19 for the repeated abject failure of our nation’s First Eleven. Why not? COVID-19 has been officially blamed for the economic crunch as well as for the population’s…
Violence in Heaven, as it is on Earth
Crucifixion of two men, but not to exact a torturous death. The assailants in Balagalla, Kandy, last Friday, wanted a bestial vengeance solely by inflicting the intense pain of actual to a…
Managing Economic Inequity During and After COVID
When the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for economic sanctions against Sri Lanka, everyone over here sits up and takes notice. For the first time in years, the Government suddenly talks…
Is COVID Only an Interlude in Cycles of Violence and Conflict?
The European Union threatening our precious garment exports to that rich market? As we sit at home stuck in front of various video screens while the curfews, so-called ‘travel restrictions’ and ‘lockdowns’,…