IDPs: Detainees and Escapees
“Nearly 20,000 escape from IDP centres was the headline of an English language broadsheet yesterday. The strap line read –“Most believed to be LTTE cadres”. The article quotes the SSP for Kandy…
Disaster Management
Doing the Right Thing: Freedom for Vanni IDPs
[Editors note: An edited copy of this article appears in the of 27th September 2009. This is the full version.] It was a relief to hear that the government was at last…
A botched Tsunami Early Warning test – Lessons for the future
The following is an except from a letter I wrote about the recent Tsunami Early Warning Test last week. I hope the readers of find it interesting. I have to preface this…
First images: The flooding in Menik Camp and the increasingly dire situation for IDPs
These are the first images of the flooding in Menik Camp, where over 260,000 IDPs are interned. was first to break the news on Friday that flooding on account of torrential rain was…
Breaking News: IDPs in Zone 3 and 4 in Menik Camp affected by flooding
Reports received by this evening indicate that torrential rains in Vavuniya throughout the day have severely affected IDPs interned in Menik Camp, particularly in Zone 3 and Zone 4. Other unconfirmed reports…
Sri Lanka: The best humanitarian crisis business destination
It will not be long before areas in the north and east will be declared Industrial Zones or BOI areas, opening up opportunities for development. But wait; business is already going on…
Calling a spade a spade: Michael Roberts’ ‘moral relativism’
Dear Sanjana, I am responding to Michael Roberts’ two articles , and since about half of article-B was devoted to the counter offensive aimed at Lionel Bopage and me, I do hope…
Painting the tomb white
The disturbances in Sri Lanka are slowly drawing to an end. I call it disturbances as many times we have heard the authorities say that it is not a war. But if…
Tears
I have never felt the same about blue frothy waters and ebb and tide since learning how your mild self could turn and gush hiss and spit washing out her tomorrows, her…
The roving barge at Galle Fort
On the loose since 12th May 2007, I spotted this Iranian barge banging against the Galle Fort ramparts just opposite the Fort Dew guest-house, adjacent to the Buddhist Temple, over the weekend.…
Reasons I love Mihin Lanka Airlines…
By Under Dog Let me count the ways: I love the way you worked for the benefit of the nation by busting through 1.4 billion rupees of public funds in 9 months.…
Use Of SMS By Govt For Vital Information Dissemination
The growing use of SMS for information dissemination was discussed earlier on Groundviews, and I would like to mention a recent development. At least one government department has been pro active and…
I/NGOs: Mea Culpa… Your Culpa… or Our Culpa?
Shanaka Amarasinghe Nearly three years have passed since the devastation of Boxing Day 2004. Those three years should have sufficed for grief to transform into resolve, for shock to become measured response…
Lessons from Nagapattinum: Post-Tsunami and the Panchayat
In Vilunthamavadi, one fisherman said he saw a baby goat tied to the sand swept atop a 100-foot high water tank, 50 meters away in the blink of an eye. In P.R.…
SMS news alerts during emergencies – The experience of JNW and the tsunami warning of 13th September 2007
Chamath Ariyadasa The coverage by the media of yesterday’s earthquake near Indonesia might be of interest to some readers, and as the editor of JNW, Sri Lanka’s first SMS news agency, I…