The Absent Minded Opposition
At a time when everyone is taking a stand on everything, abstentions only show that you don’t want to take a stand on anything. The SJB, the country’s main opposition, chose to…
Author: Uditha Devapriya
Peddling the Government’s Narratives
As of now, Ranil Wickremesinghe has three points in his favour. First, there is the IMF deal, which his government is more or less using as a shield against criticism of the…
President Wickremesinghe Has His Moment
Latina For President Ranil Wickremesinghe, March has been an exceptionally good month. First China gave its assurance for his government’s debt restructuring plans. Then his school, Royal College, won its annual cricket…
The (Geo)politics of a Bailout
China has backed Sri Lanka’s debt plan. To be more specific, as Bloomberg reported, it has “given assurances that it will support Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring.” This is a significant breakthrough and…
The President’s Month of Reckoning
The last week of February has turned out to be the busiest for President Ranil Wickremesinghe. On Tuesday he defended the government’s immensely unpopular tax policy at a tax forum organised by…
Gaadi: An Exercise in Near Perfection
Prasanna Vithanage’s Gaadi takes place in the last year of the Kandyan Kingdom. It begins with an encounter between Ehelepola Adigar and John D’Oyly and moves on to scenes of the two…
The Nation at 75
Sri Lanka celebrates its 75th independence day today. The event has provoked much debate and discussion. Coming on top of the worst financial crisis in the country’s post-independence history, it coincides with…
Putting the Petition in Perspective
The petition from 182 economists and development experts calling for the cancellation of Sri Lanka’s sovereign debt has provoked rather interesting discussions in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. W. A. Wijewardena calls these…
Sumitra: Last Emissary of a Bygone Era
My Lunches with Orson is the title of a collection of interviews that Henry Jaglom, a US avant-garde filmmaker, did with Orson Welles over a period of two years (1983-1985). It is…
Sri Lanka and the World: Towards a New Approach
Speaking in Parliament in 1996, Anura Bandaranaike dwelt on the legacy of his father and mother. He spoke of how the world had viewed Sri Lanka in their time and how it…
Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Politics of Incompatibility
A recent World Food Programme (WFP) report underlines the magnitude of the food crisis in Sri Lanka. The report shows that 36% of the country’s households are effectively food insecure while 76%…
In Retrospect: The Protests That Were
When I look back at 2022, what strikes me more than anything else is how agonisingly slowly it passed. The early days of COVID-19 had been slow enough. But 2022 broke that…
A Pivotal Shift in the Status Quo
The Mahanayakes of Sri Lanka’s three Buddhist monastic orders – Siam, Amarapura, and Ramanya – have written a letter to President Ranil Wickremesinghe. They have requested concessions on the recent electricity tariff…
Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Retrospect
Colombo was noticeably subdued when news of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation letter reaching the speaker of the parliament came out; perhaps because people were unable to buy them, there were no firecrackers. In…
The Future of the Aragalaya
Lenin once remarked that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. Much more than a decade passed last week at Galle Face. Beginning with Mahinda Rajapaksa’s desperate and…