Maatram Women played a significant part in the growth and stability of the plantation economy throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Women were brought along with men by the British…
Poems are waiting in a queue. But that is alright. They are poems only, not people lining up for kerosene, or fish, or paper. or petrol. I write them in a…
We are tired, and we have cooking gas now, and fuel shipments have docked. So we will get back to the business of living and not worry anymore about the…
Free Joseph Stalin. Let Father Jeewantha Peiris walk out of hiding in peace to attend to his parishioners. Let Mahanama Thero stop on the side of the road to counsel passers…
Illegal arrests and illegal detentions do not only harm individuals – they also cause irreparable damage to the legal system as a whole. The recent wave of arrests of those who participated…
My country will survive corruption in parliament, arbitrary arrests ordered by the executive, bodies washing up at Galle Face, at the Beira Lake. My country will survive farmers shooting elephants…
Families in Sri Lanka are fast adopting negative coping strategies to deal with the economic crisis. A recently concluded Rapid Needs Assessment by Save the Children revealed that families are resorting to…
Mahatma Gandhi said that civil disobedience became a sacred duty when the state became lawless and corrupt. To the diehard protesters left at the diminished GotaGoGama, Gandhi’s words are at the heart…
Rediff Ever since the aragalaya began in April this year, Father Jeewantha Peiris has been a familiar figure in the forefront of the protesters, easily identifiable by his flowing black hair and…
This is not only about sitting on the verandah with a scotch and a pig in a blanket. This is not only about picking up the beat and dancing the…
Wijewardene We are taught to be modest, circumspect, wrapped under covers, demurring, scuttling away like mice. We are educated to be peons, servile class members, ambitions tempered, molded to fit the…
Arrests, amidst a wider crackdown on protesters in Sri Lanka, threaten progress in tackling the economic crisis. Although a show of repressive force may be intended in part to promote stability, in…
From all parts of the country, there are reports of arrests of people who participated in the protests that erupted against the hardships caused by the economic meltdown. For months people made…
Despite widespread condemnation of the arrests, intimidation and harassment of peaceful protesters by the state, activists and journalists continued to be targeted for reprisals for their part in the aragalaya. The repressive…
The political leadership of Sri Lanka has yet again demonstrated that even in the midst of the worst socio economic and political crisis the country has faced since independence, they do not…
