The Descent Into a Kafkaesque World
Sri Lanka will celebrate its 73rd independence anniversary on February 4 but for many years now, the day has become one to recount failures and the loss of achievements made during the…
Sri Lanka will celebrate its 73rd independence anniversary on February 4 but for many years now, the day has become one to recount failures and the loss of achievements made during the…
Photo Courtesy of BBC News Sri Lanka is led by a man who has, by his admission, two faces. In a more democratic avatar is Gotabaya Rajapaksa the President. Here, the individual…
Photo courtesy of Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect International and local human rights advocates urged the UN Human Rights Council’s Core Group for Sri Lanka not to be fooled into presenting a…
From Lithuania, Italy, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other many countries the plea is the same: bring us home. From cities and villages across Sri Lanka the plea is the same: bring…
Our country is ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse and our survival depends on equal treatment. Discrimination and violence against Tamils led to civil war and displacement. After the 2019 terrorist attacks, the…
The findings of the National Study of Prisons undertaken by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka have been discussed in numerous articles since its publication in December 2020. The study was…
Malathi de Alwis, friend, mentor, teacher, feminist, anthropologist, birder, foodie and the most amazing cook, passed away on January 21. As we mourn this utterly devastating, untimely loss of one of the…
The Sri Lankan government is likely to face an uncomfortable time at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session in February-March 2021. Strong criticism can be expected, in the light of…
Achieving a 92 per cent literacy rate, universal primary education, gender parity and free education including at the tertiary level, Sri Lanka should have literate, numerate and confident young people ready to…
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…
In his presidential election manifesto, Gotabaya Rajapaksa noted that “Sexual and Gender Based violence has increased in our country”. However, during his first year in office, little has been done to introduce…
Using the policy tool of a dedicated special economic zone for services, the Colombo Port City in Sri Lanka aspires to become an international financial centre after the pandemic in a bid…
Abolition is not a delusional cry for social chaos. It goes beyond the momentary, deconstructive approach of eliminating the police. Abolition calls for the active reimagining and recreation of a society in…
Photo courtesy of InfoLanka Kanagasabai Thevathasan is a 64-year-old prisoner I met while I was at the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. Twelve years have passed since he was arrested, more…
We watched the film, Funny Boy, directed by Deepa Mehta and adapted from Shyam Selvadurai’s 1994 novel, twice. We were surrounded by the numerous debates and controversies about the film. The first…