People gasp for breath, eyes burning as the teargas canisters explode. Smashing bursts from police water cannon fling back protesters’ bodies from the serried metal barriers. Suddenly the roaring, massed, demonstrators melt…
World Environment Day is celebrated every year to highlight the importance of the environment we live in. This year the theme is only one planet but to Sri Lankans it would be…
The country’s recent economic and political woes have taken the spotlight away from the myriad cases of blatant environmental degradation going on every day. Big business interests, corrupt officials, unscrupulous politicians and…
Last week’s Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) inquiry into the Central Bank (CB) and the economic situation revealed some rather distressing, but not surprising, revelations. The complete politicization of the CB is…
Parliamentary democracy is a system of governance through which people share resources, provide for their own needs, enhance their own interests and deal with unexpected contingencies, as far as possible on their…
The caption was pure Qadri: piece of June 2020 might have been the first time it strayed into his public writing. But then, as he points out, appointing a taskforce to create…
There has been a lot of violence and also a lot of talk about violence in this last month. It shouldn’t come as a surprise because violence has underlined our Sri Lankan…
There are various dire predictions of the expected amount of paddy this Yala season, which will result in insufficient rice to feed the country, although there is some confusion as to how…
Despite all indications to the contrary, a single seat in parliament has disproved political assumptions that shape our opinion. Just weeks ago, it was unthinkable that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s political future could be…
The lion flag is waved for a historic first time on a mass scale in the Galle Face urban youth protest but the violent anti-protester attackers coming from Temple Trees also burnt…
The key objective of the 21st Amendment is to undo the undemocratic powers of the executive president and to expand the space for better governance. This would imply that no attempt will…
“Without gas, without kerosene oil, we can’t do anything. Last option what? Without food we are going to die. That will happen hundred percent.” Mohammad Shazly a part-time chauffer, Colombo (Reuters –…
Lenin once remarked that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. Much more than a decade passed last week at Galle Face. Beginning with Mahinda Rajapaksa’s desperate and…
As videos of helicopters taking off in the early hours of Tuesday May 10 appeared on social media, rumours swirled that some members of the Rajapaksa family had fled Colombo. While the…
Counterterrorism and protecting human rights has been a long standing dichotomy on a global scale. The same fate was experienced in the Sri Lankan context with the civil war and internal insurrections….
