Go Not Meekly Into the Rajapaksa Night
The 93 year old woman had died of Covid-19. Her body was brought to the Mathugama cemetery in a hospital ambulance, placed inside the crematorium, then hastily removed and returned to the…
Author: Tisaranee Gunasekara
Patriot, Bared
The Rajapaksas are at war. Not with the pandemic but with those who inform the public about the pandemic. Sudharshini Fernandopulle, the only minister who seems to possess a brain, a vertebra…
Birth Pangs of the Rajapaksa Satrapy
Days after the presidential election of 2010, the Rajapaksa siblings gathered to enjoy an evening of musical extravaganza. Organised by the state-owned ITN and titled (Victory Victorious), the show was billed as…
Where Journalists Self-abduct and Ecocide is Green
To mark the Global Climate Action Day, the youth wing of the Wild Life and Nature Protection Society put up a massive mural decrying ecocide. The President’s environmental-loving soul was lacerated by…
Geneva and Other Fateful Trysts
The Defence Secretary is shocked, outraged, and flummoxed. The National Security Council has discussed the ongoing environmental devastation. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men (airmen too) have been mobilised…
Cult and its Heretics
Image Courtesy of Women Working The tyranny of unreason does not stop at the borders of politics. It spreads its tentacles to every aspect of human life. In his first post-Trump media…
The Void in the Nation’s Heart
In early November 2019, a 45 year-old man in Northwest Sri Lanka sought divine assistance to find a wife. The intermediary was a former labourer who became a godman after his body…
A Year in Cloud Cuckoo Land
A pandemic with no end in sight, an economy that is unravelling, a fiscal abyss, a debt pile-up, an overwhelmed public health system – and the Gotabaya-Mahinda government is planning to build…
Covid-19, 20th Amendment and the Shadow of Chinese Dominion
“ On October 7, Sri Lanka officially informed the United Nations that the government of Gotabaya Rajapaksas has successfully contained Covid-19. On October 7, 519 Covid-19 patients were identified in Sri Lanka.…
And Then They Ruled Happily Ever After?
Photo courtesy of Twitter Think of it as the Rajapaksa fairy tale. Mother Lanka is captured by the messy and wobbly monster called Democracy. The Rajapaksa brothers and sons rescue her by…
The Rajapaksa Tidal-wave and the Anti-Rajapaksa Tsunami-wall
The Rajapaksas are in a hurry. They have a constitution to make and a country to remake. Currently, the road to both destination seems as wide and as clear as a super-highway.…
Stopping the Landslide
Basil Rajapaksa (Daily FT – 29.7.2020) Basil Rajapaksa is the Rajapaksa family’s thinking man. Unlike his brothers and nephews, he doesn’t shoot his mouth off. His remarks should be taken seriously, because,…
The Night on the Horizon
Phillip Larkin (Going) That was Fort magistrate Ranga Dissanayake speaking in open court, on June 24th 2020. The pictures the CID officials wanted to show possible witnesses just before an identity parade…
Politicising Archaeology, Militarising Virtue, Gaslighting the Electorate
Photo by Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo via HRW Arundathi Roy (Election Season in a Dangerous Democracy – The New York Review of Books – 3.9.2018) The Eastern province is the most ethno-religiously pluralist…
Election against Democracy
Photo by Tharaka Basnayaka/NurPhoto via Getty Images from It is a modern morality tale about the dangers of misusing the military, of militarising civilian tasks, of expecting generals to handle pandemics. By…