Screening of ‘Our Brand is Crisis’
The film ‘Our Brand is Crisis‘ is deeply resonant in Sri Lanka. How it deals with the party political fabric and culture, electioneering, the propaganda campaigns of candidates and their respective parties,…
Media and Communications
Groundviews: Now on WhatsApp
Featured image courtesy Wired Following trends in social media use, is now enabling mobile updates via WhatsApp. To sign up, simply fill in this form and add the number specified within to your…
Where is journalist Subramanium Ramachandran 9 years after he disappeared?
Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Brief Subramanium Ramachandran, a Jaffna based Tamil journalist disappeared on 15th of February 2007 in Jaffna. Despite eyewitness accounts of being detained at an Army checkpoint and camps,…
Book Review: From Shame to Sin by Kyle Harper
Featured image courtesy Amazon (Adapted from Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’) To use a colloquial phrase, Buddhism has no special “hang-up” about sex; the third of Buddhism’s five moral Precepts carries no more…
On GLF and Evolving Culture
Featured image courtesy Amalini de Sayrah Last week saw the usually sleepy town of Galle come to life with the Galle Literary Festival. In a celebration of all things literary, Colombars descended…
Dialog Accused Of “Not Fully Cooperating” In Prageeth’s Case
Picture courtesy Sri Lanka Brief On October 29, reports surfaced on social media that corporation Dialog and the Sri Lankan Army were “not fully cooperating” with missing journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda’s case. The…
Pain Across Ethnicity: Remembering Crimes Against Journalists
November 2 marks the International Day to end Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. To mark this day, spoke to a cross-section of people, including editors and the family members of journalists killed…
The Enduring Relevance of Puthiyathor Ulagam
I When Govinthan penned (A New World) in 1985, the intelligence wing of a Tamil militant group was hunting for him across Tamil Nadu. Govinthan (real name: Soosaipillai Nobert) joined the People’s…
Final guided tour of ‘Corridors of Power’
JDA Perera Gallery, Horton Place, Colombo 22 September, 4 – 5pm, at the venue Exhibition ends today Led by the input of Asanga Welikala and in collaboration with Channa Daswatta, ‘Corridors…
Framing discourse: Media, Power and Democracy
PANEL DISCUSSION: ‘Framing discourse: Media, Power and Democracy’, 5.30-7.00pm, 20th September JDA Perera Gallery, Horton Place, Colombo Free & open to public. Parking available inside the venue. Seating limited. The architecture of…
Corridors of power: Drawing and modelling Sri Lanka’s tryst with democracy
15 – 22 September 2015, JDA Perera Gallery, Horton Place, Colombo Free and open to the public. No tickets. Limited seating at venue. Led by the input of Asanga Welikala and…
Coke: One; Media: Zero
Photo courtesy @dumindaxsb How Coke is undermining the media and Good Governance in Sri Lanka Almost all major mainstream media outlets in Sri Lanka are now owned, or partially owned by individuals representing…
Sri Lanka Parliamentary Election 2015: How did Social Media make a difference?
What role (if any) did social media play in the recently concluded Parliamentary (General) Election on 17 August 2015? Many are asking this question – and coming up with different answers. That…
Debating the Ancient and Present: A Conversation with Romila Thapar
Sasanka Perera, ed., . Delhi: Aakar Books and Department of Sociology, South Asian University, 2015, pp.75, INR.125.00 (Paperback). The ‘Past’ decides the ‘Present’ in India. The past is an everyday word, in…
Archives of General Election 2015: #SLGE15 & #GenElecSL
Over eight weeks, archived every single tweet tagged with either #SLGE15 or #GenElecSL. Once a week throughout the campaign period, these archives were released over Twitter for anyone to browse through or…