Rusted Metal, Bloodied Minds – Crisis and Struggle
When the GotaGoGama Protest site was attacked by supporters of Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 9, a row of tents were destroyed and burned to the ground by the rowdy gang that descended…
Author: Pranith Wirasinha
Catch of the Day, Year after Year: Mullaitivu Fishermen Battle On
A murder of crows peck at a katta karawala carcass outside a stretch of fishing wadiyas as the sun sets, leaving a long shadow over the Mullaitivu beach. Every now and again…
Bogaswewa: The Story of a Sorry Settlement
“This is the most shameless and ill thought out settlement of people in the history of this country,” says Anura Chandrasekara. He is a farmer, originally from Anuradhapura. He now speaks to…
One Thousand Moons, and a Thousand Moons More
News broke on the morning hours of October 18 that Shehan Karunatilaka had become the first Sri Lankan author since Michael Ondaatje to win the Booker prize. The following hours, days and…
Mapping Out Colombo’s High Security Zones
The government’s designation of public streets and government buildings in central Colombo as High Security Zones (HSZs) by invoking the Official Secrets Act has led to widespread condemnation at home and abroad…
GotaGoGama: A Learning Curve
GotaGoGama is gone. Gota has returned. Things have regressed in the past two months or so. The nucleus of Sri Lanka’s popular protests have ceased to exist. Its last days were a…
Stability Versus the Social Contract
Order and stability have been the key words defining the early days of the Wickremesinghe presidency. They are touted as being the mantra that will set Sri Lanka on the path to…
The Disappeared and the Struggle of Love
“1971 was for a few months. 89 for more than two years, and the war? The war went on for 30 years…10,000 in 1971, 60,000 in 1989 and in the war, of…
We want the Power of Equality, Justice and Love. Not Love for Power.
In late April, women from movements and collectives in the North and East marched into GotaGoGama in Galle Face to voice their concerns and issues in solidarity with the struggle in the…
Homo Digitalis and the Citizen Journalist
An interesting dimension to the current conflict playing out in Ukraine amidst increasing aggression and spirited defiance, amidst airstrikes, war crimes, sanctions and diplomacy are the varied approaches to the flow of…
Identities deemed Irrelevant: Land Issues in the Kuchchaveli Divisional Area
Censuses of the Trincomalee District taken through the various years will point out a slight numerical majority and minority in its various communities. Yet it is worth noting that no one ethnicity…
The Television President: Visuals and Symbols of Two Years of Gotabaya Rajapaksa
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa marked the completion of his second year in office much like how he started his term in November 2019, playing one of his greatest hits for the Sinhala Buddhist…
Sri Lanka-Bangladesh Cricket Rivalry: A Breeding Ground for Hate Speech and Islamophobia
Last weekend featured a double header at the T20 Cricket World Cup featuring four South Asian nations. The evening match played under lights was between two countries with a difficult relationship, diplomatically…
Literacy and the Dimensions of the Digital Divide
Literacy rates in Sri Lanka have hovered in the high 90s for the past decade or so, impressive figures no doubt; enough for the country to be publicised in official publications as…
Realistic or just Rhetoric? The Ban on Chemical Fertilizer
In early 2021, a survey conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, found that farmers faced food insecurity as a result of the measures that had been put into place to…