If My Story Could Be Yours Too
This story could be penned from many entry points. That would not make it any different, I guess. It would thus be good, or not bad, to start from the presidential elections…
Elections
In conversation with Dr. Harsha de Silva, MP
Interview III – Dr. Harsha de Silva from Young Asia Television on Vimeo. I recently spoke with Dr. Harsha de Silva, now a National List MP from the United National Party (UNP)….
Jaffna and the East today: Harsh ground realities, opportunities and challenges after war
Shanthi Sachithananthan, the Chairperson of Viluthu, has been featured several times on in the past, including an interview two months ago looking at significant developments in Sri Lanka after the demise of…
The Right NOT to Vote
Approximately one year ago on May 18th 2009, I wrote an article on Sri Lanka’s second “independence”, the spirit I fostered at the time is not reflected in this article one year…
A pseudo democracy in Sri Lanka
It is with utter frustration, one sees, the total apathy and fatality with which the educated and informed segment of Sri Lanka’s polity are succumbing to the despicable level of bad governance,…
Post War Muslim Minority Party Politics : Surviving Political Quietus
The decision by the leader of the National Unity Alliance (NUA), Minister Ferial Ashraff’s to join the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in February 2010 raises serious questions for Muslim politics in…
Voting for the ‘Undiscovered Country’?
Today, over 14 million Lankan voters get to elect a new government. They can also pick from among 7,620 candidates vying for 225 seats in the national legislature. The election campaigns for…
A choiceless election to elect a lumpenised parliament
This general election would bring about a parliament with a clear majority. Few if at all, would dispute that. While there is also talk of a two-thirds majority in parliament for President’s…
April 8: The best case scenario
The government wants a two thirds majority in order to replace the Constitution, it says. The UNP opposition hopes to form a coalition with other Opposition parties. It would be unhealthy for…
Confusing reportage over comments by the President: Propaganda or fact?
. The version on , published on 3 April, attributed contentious comments, outrageously derogatory towards the Tamil community, to the President in a rally held in Jaffna on 1st April. Two audio…
Interview with Ranil Wickremasinghe, Leader of the Opposition in Sri Lanka
Ranil Wickremasinghe is the Leader of the Opposition in Sri Lanka, party leader of the United National Party (UNP) since 1994 and for the up-coming parliamentary elections, head of the United National…
Parliamentary Elections, April 2010: An opportunity for voters in the North and East
I remember visiting Jaffna in 1997. Local government elections were due. Several leading political figures had been assassinated in the preceding years, some by the LTTE, others by anti-LTTE groups. In the…
Politics of Sinhala Nationalism: Underpinning of the UPFA Victory and Undermining of the Sri Lankan Nationhood
“Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by a world of enemies, one against all, that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It…
Ranil’s road, Mahinda’s map
Does the UNP and Opposition leader Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe suffer from a compulsion towards electoral suicide or is it a condition of political sado-masochism? Only someone who is politically suicidal or sadistic…
The TNA manifesto and Tamil self-determination in Sri Lanka
Here we go again, or should I say here they come again, or is it here they go again? In an opening scene in the movie 300, based on Frank Miller’s freely…