Troubling, The U.S. Declaration of Independence
Modern, recent, European, the concept of the human being as a rights bearing subject dates only from around the seventeenth century. This in itself isn’t troubling. (Europe has given us good things:…
International Relations
Sri Lanka’s emergency assistance to Nepal and return of exiled journalists
Photo courtesy Asianews.it Sri Lankan government has announced that it had dispatched emergency supplies and support personnel to Nepal a day after the devastating earthquake and that there would be further materials…
Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers: Reflections from visit to Sri Lanka
Photo by DushiYanthini Kanagasabapathipillai I first visited Sri Lanka in 2003. I took leave from the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship for a short humanitarian stint with a Sri Lankan NGO during…
Dealing with two Asian superpowers: President Sirisena’s visit to China
Image courtesy Asia One Sri Lanka stands to benefit enormously by dealing positively with the two Asian super powers, India and China. The two countries are potential rivals. The two Asian whales…
The other side of Narendra Modi’s Sri Lanka visit
Photograph via Quartz Ever since becoming the Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy, Narendra Modi has concentrated on building strong diplomatic ties with foreign nations. The process began with the swearing-in…
FM Samaraweera Calls for Patience on Human Rights Front and Improved Sri Lanka-USA Relations
Photo courtesy MFA Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in his first visit to Washington, D.C. after assuming office addressed a full-house gathering at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) on…
Sri Lanka’s geopolitical importance to the United States
Image courtesy California Bangla During late January and early February 2015, Sri Lanka witnessed the visits of many foreign officials to the country. Prominently featured among them were the visits of the…
Charting a New Course: Sri Lankan Foreign Policy
Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images, via Time There could not have been a better time to be a student or a professional of International Relations in Sri Lanka, given the geopolitical dynamics…
In conversation with Dinesha de Silva Wikramanayake
Dinesha de Silva Wikramanayake is the Country Representative of The Asia Foundation. We begin by talking about what compelled Dinesha to join TAF, after, as noted on the Foundation’s site, two decades of…
Portraits of diversity from Myanmar vital for Sri Lanka
When the British administrator J.S. Furnivall coined the term “plural society” he was talking about colonial Burma to describe the extraordinary diversity of nationalities, ethnicities, races and religions that inhabited its cities….
Ramaphosa and Government’s Policy shift on Reconciliation
Image courtesy Several weeks after Cyril Ramaphosa, Vice President of South Africa and Special Envoy of President Zuma to Sri Lanka, arrived in Sri Lanka to assist us in our search for…
The slow wheels of justice and change: a Sri Lankan case study?
Image via Rights Now Five years since the end of the war, the state of affairs in Sri Lanka is likely to evoke feelings of frustration and despondency for most readers of…
Problems of success? Post-war Sri Lanka’s international challenges
Photo by Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images, via RightsNow Since the end of Sri Lanka’s thirty year-long war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the island is often evoked internationally in relation…
A South African effort at promoting reconciliation
General elections in South Africa concluded a few days ago and the results were a resounding reelection victory for the ruling African Nation Congress and the government of President Jacob Zuma. Twenty…
Political settlement or regime change!
Photo by AFP, via SBS (Not exactly Francis Thompson) This essay is premised on an ill-omened reading of the Geneva tea-leaves. What be this ominous message I see floating in the cup?…
