World Refugee Day and Refugees in Sri Lanka
June 20 is World Refugee Day, coinciding with a time Sri Lanka faces its most serious refugee crisis since 2014. Though not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967…
Easter Sunday Terrorist Attacks
Thicker Than Water
On April 21, 2019, the doctors working at the National Blood Transfusion Services woke to chilling news. A series of suicide bomb blasts had occurred across the island. As of June 11,…
Averting a Second Coup Attempt?: The Constitutional Principles Governing the Relationship Between The President and the Cabinet
President Sirisena is evidently unhappy that a Select Committee of Parliament has been appointed to investigate the circumstances that led to the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks. UPFA MPs have not joined the…
Held to Ransom: Capturing Fallout of a Fast Unto Death
On May 31, Parliamentarian Athuraliye Rathana Thero began a death fast in front of the Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy. His demand: the resignation of Minister Rishad Bathiudeen and Governors Azath Salley…
How our Education System Fails to Address Ethno-linguistic Tensions
After the Easter Sunday attacks, there has been a reinvigorated interest in education reform. Yet disappointingly, the sway of this discourse is too clouded by political gaffe for it to catapult towards…
The Terrorist, The Muslim and the Other
It was a casual Sunday breakfast, as I was making notes on refugees in Sri Lanka, when my partner, his eyes still peeled on his phone, exclaimed in shock that a church…
In the name of security: How the Burqa/Niqab Ban is Impacting Muslim Women
My neighbour, Maya, from a Tamil Christian family, usually attends the mass at St. Anthony’s Church every Sunday. But on Easter Sunday she didn’t attend the mass as her brother had returned…
Testing Muslims in the Month of Patience
Ramadan, the month of abstinence is when Muslims observe fast, voluntarily depriving themselves from all that are permitted to them on ordinary days. These abstentions are replaced with worship and acts that…
Silence and Solidarity
Featured image by Carl Court/Getty Images, via CNN Whatever people may tell you, whatever clichés are spouted in novels and TV broadcasts, silence isn’t deafening. It is, in fact, painfully empty, your…
Secularism or Barbarism
The blue, red, yellow, orange and white lights are on, as are the makeshift stalls selling lanterns. Yet few pause to see, haggle, buy. Vesak, so near chronologically, had never seemed so…
Random Musings
AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena What does ail thee Sri Lanka? Is it, as Bishop Heber once notoriously stated, that it is a land ‘? We could dismiss his views as those of a…
Madrasahs, Extremism and National Security
Photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe, via The nexus between Madrasah education and Islamic extremism have been in the global discussions ever since the emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This phenomenon emerged in…
Sensitivity, solidarity and social stability: A post Easter-Sunday reflection
Photo courtesy The message The worship had just reached the the affirmation of God’s intervention in history, when the police arrived. The officer was courteous but firm. The service had to be…
Security, Freedom and Co-Existence after the Easter-Sunday Attacks in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Getty via The Easter-Sunday attacks have changed a lot of things in Sri Lanka. It proved, if proof was indeed required, the sheer inefficiency of the present government. Some of…
From casualty to catastrophe
Photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for We hadn’t seen him in years, ever since he left to work abroad. So, on the day of his return, his mother invited the extended family…
