Stumbling from One Annus Horribilis to Another
The newspaper headlines say it all – gas shortages, no money to import medicine, there will be no bread soon, staple vegetables are unaffordable, power cuts are starting and there is only…
Peace and Conflict
Urban Beautification, Military Design
“As an abstract political force, poverty is very useful; it scares and disciplines the working classes, keeps wages down…” Parenti, 1999 Visible urban poverty disrupts the gilded cityscape. It shatters the sanctity…
Batticaloa Bears Impact of Easter Sunday Attacks
Sri Lanka’s return to terror came on April 21, 2019 with the bombing of three hotels and three churches that killed 267 people and injured about 500. The trial of 25 men…
Desmond Tutu – An Inspiration and Challenge for Sri Lanka
Desmond Tutu was a black, South African, Christian male but in a world where colour, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, sexuality and gender matter, he transcended all of that to be a…
2021: The Year in Review
2020 flowed into 2021 with a continued air of uncertainty due to the unrelenting spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The third wave saw cases and deaths rise exponentially, taking the country’s healthcare…
Desmond Tutu: The Man Who Revived the Moral Universe
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who passed away this week will be counted among the great human beings who contributed to the political transformation of his own country and a person who revolutionised the…
An Unjust Justice System Needs to Be Changed
Two prisoners in Sri Lanka were recently released after being detained for many years, a harsh reminder of the ease with which people can be locked up on flimsy grounds. This has…
The 2022 Budget As I See It
The second budget of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government was presented on November 12 by his younger brother Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa. Cheer leaders and image builders claim the budget is extra ordinarily…
Historic Court Win for LGBTIQ Community
Thanks to archaic, Victorian-era laws that are still present in Sri Lanka, the country’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTIQ) community has been marginalised and discriminated against for over a…
Sri Lanka at High Risk of Democratic Backsliding
Daily Mail Samuel P. Huntington, an eminent American political scientist, predicted in his work “Democracy’s Third Wave” that there could be reversions in democratic countries due to unfavourable conditions to sustain democracy,…
Time is Running Out to Stop Sri Lanka’s Slide into Mayhem
As the world marks Human Rights Day, two years of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency and over one year of his government have seen Sri Lanka slide rapidly down the slippery slope to…
The Constitutional Roots of the Problem of Disappearances
There is a bagful of tricks that Sri Lankan governments have been using when it comes to the issue of revealing the truth and providing justice to the families of the disappeared.…
PTA ++: Learning the Wrong International Lessons
In the name of counter-terrorism countries enact repressive laws that restrict human rights. They claim these laws will make us safer. Yet, contrary to claims of increasing national security, the tendency of…
Gotabaya Rajapaksa: A Two Year Timeline
To coincide with the end of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s second year in office, the Centre for Policy Alternatives produced a video timeline detailing some of the defining moments of the President’s past…
Study Shows Civil War Caused Long Lasting Trauma in Birds
Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war left a lasting impression on humans and animals. For me, being part of this study gave me the opportunity to be the first person in my family…
