Protecting the Environment in Times of Economic Turmoil
World Environment Day is celebrated every year to highlight the importance of the environment we live in. This year the theme is only one planet but to Sri Lankans it would be…
Colombo
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…
Protecting and Preserving the Environment Against All Odds
The country’s recent economic and political woes have taken the spotlight away from the myriad cases of blatant environmental degradation going on every day. Big business interests, corrupt officials, unscrupulous politicians and…
COPE Inquiry Reveals the People Who Brought Sri Lanka to its Knees
Last week’s Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) inquiry into the Central Bank (CB) and the economic situation revealed some rather distressing, but not surprising, revelations. The complete politicization of the CB is…
Parliamentary Democracy: Re-living a Myth
Parliamentary democracy is a system of governance through which people share resources, provide for their own needs, enhance their own interests and deal with unexpected contingencies, as far as possible on their…
Comrade Q – An Incomplete Sketch
The caption was pure Qadri: piece of June 2020 might have been the first time it strayed into his public writing. But then, as he points out, appointing a taskforce to create…
Anatomy of Violence
There has been a lot of violence and also a lot of talk about violence in this last month. It shouldn’t come as a surprise because violence has underlined our Sri Lankan…
Ranil: Return of the Master
Despite all indications to the contrary, a single seat in parliament has disproved political assumptions that shape our opinion. Just weeks ago, it was unthinkable that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s political future could be…
Waving the Lion Flag
The lion flag is waved for a historic first time on a mass scale in the Galle Face urban youth protest but the violent anti-protester attackers coming from Temple Trees also burnt…
For a Change-Making 21st Amendment
The key objective of the 21st Amendment is to undo the undemocratic powers of the executive president and to expand the space for better governance. This would imply that no attempt will…
Preventing the Extinction of Species
Sri Lanka is home to about 900 species of vertebrates, about 960 species groups of invertebrates (mostly insects), 3,000 species of seed bearing plants and 1,750 species of lower plants. There are…
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…
Questions of Justice and Accountability
As videos of helicopters taking off in the early hours of Tuesday May 10 appeared on social media, rumours swirled that some members of the Rajapaksa family had fled Colombo. While the…
Supporting Urban Poor Families in Colombo
Low income settlements in Colombo experienced greater food insecurity even before the pandemic with 72% of households being food insecure[1]. Women in low income households in Colombo were more likely to be…
PTA Amendment Bill: A Facade for Backdoor Human Right Violations?
Counterterrorism and protecting human rights has been a long standing dichotomy on a global scale. The same fate was experienced in the Sri Lankan context with the civil war and internal insurrections.…
