2014: Year in Review
published over 300 articles in 2014. Since its launch in 2006, the most amount of traffic to the website was generated over May this year, around the compelling content featured in the End…
Author: Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa
Liking violence: A study of hate speech on Facebook in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Brief The Centre for Policy Alternatives, the institutional anchor of , released today a report co-authored by Shilpa Samaratunge and I on hate speech online, looking at Facebook…
When press releases become propaganda
How the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2014 was reported in Sri Lankan media reads as a cautionary tale when dealing with press releases. The report was brought to my…
Invisible architectures: Thoughts on Walking Path
Franz Kafka, ‘Beyond the Law’ Designed and directed by Jayampathi Guruge and scripted by Ruwanthie de Chickera, ‘Walking Path’, performed recently at the Lionel Wendt offered an interesting critique of Colombo’s post-war…
Sri Lanka redefines “curfew” in Beruwela
Lest we forget, the Police imposed a curfew in Beruwela and Aluthgama on 15th June in an effort to stop the violence against Muslims in the area. The curfew in Aluthgama was…
Aluthgama violence: Where was Sri Lanka’s President?
Photo by Dinouk Colombage, via The horrible killings and destruction in Aluthgama on Sunday was blacked out by almost all mainstream media in Sri Lanka at the height of the violence and the morning after.…
Aluthgama riots and deaths: Vital updates
Photo courtesy BBC Update #3: 7.05am, 176 June 2014 A video with English subtitles of the BBS speech that incited violence in Aluthgama is now on YouTube. Also uploaded to the web…
Partnership to protect free expression online: Project Galileo
I am both proud and pleased to welcome the launch of Project Galileo by CloudFlare, for which the Centre for Policy Alternatives – the institutional anchor of this site – is a…
Happy Sri Lanka
Happy, by Pharrell Williams bills itself as the world’s first 24 hour music video. The song is extremely catchy and aired at least once a day, every day at the time of…
Response to article in Colombo Telegraph
An article published in the on its site – the comments section is a cesspool of bile by those hiding behind veils of anonymity – I would like to flag just two…
In conversation with Gihan de Chickera: Cartoons, politics and theatre
Gihan de Chickera, who I’ve known since our halcyon days at S. Thomas’, is an actor, with experience in both stage and film productions, though perhaps even more loved and followed for…
Launch of Special Edition: The end of war in Sri Lanka, five years on
In the corner of my room, there’s a large air-tight plastic bag I open once a year, and occasionally glance at with mixed emotions. It contains, carefully folded, all the newspapers I could…
In conversation with Lakshman Joseph de Saram
Lakshman Joseph de Saram is an internationally acclaimed Film Composer, classical musician & Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Colombo. We begin our conversation by looking at Lakshman’s childhood –…
Remembering Mel Gunasekera
Mel would have been deeply fascinated by the circumstances of her murder. She would have, even more than Nalaka Gunawardene, taken pains to explore why an ordinary man, a father, husband and…
2013 Round-Up
published 142 articles over 2013. Our Facebook fan page grew by over 4,000. Our Twitter feed, the most probing, interactive and engaging of any media related Twitter account in Sri Lanka, grew…