I last spoke to Nalaka Gunawardene on public television in February 2009. Nalaka’s varied interests and experience is hard to pin down, but the issues he most often writes on are anchored…
Photo from Wikipedia The Ministry of Higher Education has decided to make compulsory for all university entrants a 3-week training in army camps (supposedly because they are the only places that can…
Photo courtesy The Schools Project Background Over the years, I have spent much time with children and teachers in schools running leadership programs not only in Sri Lanka, but also in Canada,…
[Editors note: See map of campus and university student related violence over 2010 alone here.] The university has been the most dependable and organic reservoir of full time political as well as…
Unhappy university students are marching in the Island of Brinka, and I met my good old friend Sivapuranam Thevaram at a pub in the ancient university city of Cowford to discuss this…
View Student unrest in Sri Lanka in a larger map. Recent months in Sri Lanka have seen a dramatic increase in the number of protests involving thousands of university students, many of…
Last May Sri Lanka ended its long drawn war, fought for over three decades with the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE). This month Sri Lanka is commemorating the first year after…
I experienced three disturbing scenarios within the last 5 months. In no particular order they are as follows. I recently visited Sri Lanka after seven years. End of it I was overwhelmed…
The unemployment rate in Sri Lanka is not exceptional when compared with other countries in the world. In fact, it might seem relatively low. On a list of countries ranked in order…
[ was informed that this open letter was penned on 20 January 2010, before the presidential election. Tellingly, efforts to publish it in the traditional print media before the presidential election, we…
On 20 December 2009, we mark the 15th death anniversary of Professor Cyril Ponnamperuma, one of the best known scientists produced by Sri Lanka during the Twentieth Century. He was both an internationally…
Sri Lanka is one of the few countries that provides students the opportunity of a free secondary education. More than 200,000 students sit for the GCE Advanced Level examinations in Sri Lanka…
[Authors note: Edited text of a speech at the Jaffna Hindu College Old Boys Association (UK) Social Event: (31 October 2009)] Thank you very much for inviting me as Chief Guest. This…
This note concerns the government gazette notification (available at http://www.dailynews.lk/2001/pix/GazetteS09-10-16.pdf) on the open competitive exam for recruitment to Grade III of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS). The SLAS is unarguably the…
My family like many Sri Lankan families is cricket mad. I am the exception. When Sri Lanka played Pakistan a few days ago, my family lived and breathed cricket and it seemed…
