Ray Wijewardene (1924-2010) often quoted these words by the English poet Robert Browning, embedded in the poem Andrea del Sarto. An engineer, aviator, inventor, farmer and a public intellectual of the highest…
Struggling to contain a spate of Buddhist-led attacks on minority muslims, Sri Lanka’s government imposed temporary blocking of social media and chat applications on March 7. This followed the reintroduction of Emergency…
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that close to 800,000 people die by suicide each year, with the majority of deaths occurring in low-income and middle-income countries. Many more attempt suicide. Suicide…
### America Elects a Fact-Free President In the presidential election this week, US voters just elected an unorthodox, unlikely and unpredictable head of state. There are many ways of analysing this result….
That is what a retired professor of mass communications told me publicly at a university media conference four years ago. I was a bit taken aback as he had no clinical training…
Sri Lanka wants to make a new Constitution in a radically different way. It is poised to become the first developing country in the world to ‘crowd-source’ ideas for making the highest…
Featured image courtesy vivalanka.com I shared those words one year ago on Twitter and Facebook through a simple web meme. At the time, it was very much an aspiration, as we Lankans…
Image courtesy Omlanka For someone who never belonged to any political party in Sri Lanka, Maduluwawe Sobitha thero (1942 – 2015) led an extraordinarily political life. The fearless and politically engaged Buddhist…
What role (if any) did social media play in the recently concluded Parliamentary (General) Election on 17 August 2015? Many are asking this question – and coming up with different answers. That…
Dear Mr President, Please accept my good wishes on your election victory on a platform for good governance, justice and fairness. During the past few weeks, we watched – first in astonishment,…
On the night of 8 January 2015, shortly after voting ended in Sri Lanka’s seventh presidential election, the streets of Colombo and suburbs were unusually calm. There was no curfew, but people…
Photo courtesy CNN A quarter century ago, as an eager first time voter, I cast my maiden vote for a young journalist friend who had recently taken to electoral politics. Lasantha Wickrematunge…
Photo by Vidu Gunaratna, AČK | Photography Kasturi was born in another century in what really was another country. It was called Ceylon, and the year, 1933. Two years earlier, exercising the…
So it was a known construction worker cum odd job man who killed senior Lankan journalist Mel Gunasekera. The man, hunted down within the same day Mel was stabbed to death in…
Our Sunday morning was shattered by the horrible news that journalist friend Mel Gunasekera was found murdered in her suburban home in Battaramulla. She had been alone at home after parents went…
