Environmental activist Hemantha Withanage talks to Nalaka Gunawardene in Rio de Janeiro In early June, a group of 50 Lankan civil society organisations (CSOs) active on environment, development and human rights, issued…
In this second part of a long interview, South Asia’s first systems ecologist Dr Ranil Senanayake shares his views on many facets of biological diversity. He looks at the challenges involved in…
Systems Ecologist Ranil Senanayake in conversation with Science Writer Nalaka Gunawardene. For Part 2 of this interview, titled , click here. Dr Ranil Senanayake is a rare public intellectual in Sri Lanka….
Five years ago, on a visit to the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo, Hawaii, I played an interesting simulation game: setting off an undersea earthquake and deciding whether or not to issue…
The year was 1989. Margaret Thatcher and George Bush, Snr., were in office. Mikhail Gorbachev was slowly but surely dismantling the Soviet Union. The infamous Iron Curtain was crumbling under pressure from…
Assorted charlatans and religious zealots across the island of Sri Lanka must have heaved a collective sigh of relief when they heard that Dharmapala Senaratne was no more. He had made it…
When Dr A T Ariyaratne, founder and president of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka, turned 80 years on 5 November 2011, felicitations poured in from all over the world. This…
Emmanuel Titus de Silva, better known as Titus Thotawatte, was the finest editor in the six decades long history of the Lankan cinema. He was also a great assimilator and remixer –…
Steve Jobs would have been bemused by the many epithets assigned to him in the wake of his death on 5 October 2011. He was described variously an inventor, digital entrepreneur and…
Every newshound must survive a ‘lean news’ day. Most know what to do when that happens: sniff around, or dig deeper. But like our canine friends, newshounds too occasionally bark up the…
Ray Wijewardene in his study at Colombo home, playing with pet squirrel. Larger photo in the background is that of Sir Charles Hayward of Firth Cleveland Group. Photo courtesy http://www.raywijewardene.net. If I…
[Editors note: For an in-depth interview on Sri Lanka’s human-elephant conflict, see ] If those hardy Englishmen and Scotsmen who ran large tea plantations in Ceylon were far removed from the local people…
Photo taken during Boxing Day Tsunami, 26 December 2004 DON’T PANIC (always written in upper-case) was timeless advice that writer Douglas Adams deeply etched into the minds of all who read his…
Veteran journalist Tambiaiah Sabaratnam, who has died aged 79, was a pathfinder and leading light in Sri Lankan science journalism for over a generation. Throughout his long association with the English and…
A month ago, I wrote an open letter to the late Sir Arthur C Clarke, titled ‘Living in the Global Glass House’. It was inspired by the WikiLeaks cablegate controversy, which heralded…
