Photo courtesy Vikalpa September 8, 2010 marked a watershed event in the constitutional history of Sri Lanka. The enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution on this ill-fated day brought to…
Photo credit AP Much has been said about the recent decision of the Government to end the Emergency in Sri Lanka. Some welcomed the move and others are yet to make any…
(Deng Xiaoping) It is ironic, is it not, that those Western voices and Lankan liberals who believe that there is a democracy wave sweeping the world, that democracy is dying if not…
[Editors’ note: An edited version of this article appeared in the Daily Mirror today.] “The existing constitution is more than enough for us to live together. I don’t think there…
R Sampanthan is a Member of Parliament and leader of the Tamil National Alliance andIllankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi. The recently concluded Local Government (LG) elections provided evidence, if evidence was needed, of a divided polity. Amidst…
[Editors note: Full text of speech delivered at the Justice Palakidnar Memorial Oration in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 24 July 2011 by former President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Photo from…
Photo credit: Eranga Jayawardena / AP, taken from Christian Science Monitor In his most famous and controversial work, Prof Samuel Huntington listed Sri Lanka’s armed conflict as an example of his key…
Photo courtesy Amal Jayasinghe | Agence France-Presse The stage is set to appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee in order to formulate a political solution to the north and east crisis. During a…
Image via BBC The 18th Amendment, we were told, would make the President more accountable to Parliament. The Editorial of the noted back in the day, By making it mandatory for the…
Crime of “Dissent” & of Murder Killing of Roshen Shanaka Ratnasekara, a factory worker in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ), Katunayaka gives a signal to the country on how peaceful protesters would…
[Editors’ note: An edited version of this article appeared in the on the 26th of May 2011.] The above two extracts from the Joint Communique issued by the External Affairs Ministers of…
The author (centre) with Ambassdor Terry Miller, Director Center for International Trade and Economics and Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow Heritage Foundation and some guests at the talk delivered at the Heritage…
Photo courtesy Deborah Philip It was my sense after May 18, 2009 when the LTTE was defeated that Sri Lanka was missing an opportunity to redefine itself as part of a kinder,…
, edited by Tissa Jayatilaka, is the commemorative volume published by the Bandaranaike Museum Committee to mark fifty years since Mrs. Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike’s first accession to power on 21st July…
In March 2010, launched a unique initiative online to ascertain what citizens perceived and accepted as democracy in Sri Lanka. To date, 74 people have submitted 42 ideas and cast 596 votes, but what do YOU think?…
