The Wounded Girl in the Gaza Strip: The Need for a New Approach
Photo by AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, via Yahoo! News A news article published on Yahoo on July 18, 2014 had an image of a little girl of about one year old. She was…
International
BRASSED OFF
PTI Photo, via In 2014, the year when Bollywood’s most popular ‘item’ song featured an Indo-Canadian porn star lip-syncing a song called ‘Baby Doll’, India elected a conservative Hindu chauvinist as its…
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…
The Sri Lankan Muslim Diaspora Dilemma
Image via Transcurrents This past week, incidents in Sri Lanka and abroad have illustrated the dilemmas facing the Sri Lankan Muslim community and its Diaspora constituents. These incidents though isolated in occurrence…
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…
The unlawful arrest & deportation of a British tourist
Photo via BBC A close look at the series of illegal steps taken by law enforcement authorities Ms. Naomi Michelle Coleman, a British Tourist with wide travel experience in many Buddhist Countries…
Lankan Muslims in London and Political Myopia
AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via There was a protest that took place yesterday by a group of Sri Lankan Muslims in Britain outside the Sri Lankan High Commission in London mostly regarding the…
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?…
Sri Lanka: Post-Geneva, Post-Provincial Council Elections
Photograph by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images via Al Jazeera Post- Geneva and post- PC elections, some clarifications are in order because the resolution, locally, came to be obscured by the fog of elections and…
Dangerous defeat in Geneva
Image courtesy Wikipedia “The passage of the resolution marks a historic moment…” Having lost the crucial vote in Geneva and opened the door to an international investigation, Sri Lanka is now in…
Why the Government of Sri Lanka fails internationally
This is among the many important challenges to the “democratically elected” Government of “democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka” (GOSL). There may be various answers but let me offer five reasons why…
From Canada to Colombo, can’t stereotype my thing yo
I need a cigarette. In another impulsive moment, I had made the irresponsible decision a few months ago to become a social smoker. I do not particularly know what that means but…
The Lalith Weeratunga Presentation
Image courtesy ITU video Though I cannot say the same of his companions on the voyage, my friend Lalith Weeratunga embodies a rare combination of intelligence, ability, affability and civility. He made…
Meetings across acrylic, canvas and dance: India-Sri Lanka Artists Week
I spent some time with 12 visual artists and 1 dancer, from Sri Lanka and India, at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo today, who are part of an interesting and pioneering…
