Photo courtesy Hemant Buch via JDS In a piece published on on 29 April, Ms. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK) makes many pertinent observations on religion and society in South Asia. Underlying all her arguments…
Navin Weeraratne’s photo essay around the recent violence in Dambulla has already been shared widely on Facebook, and elsewhere on the web. Describing himself to us as “an amateur photographer, toy painter,…
Photo by Massimiliano Clausi, courtesy SAJA Secularism implies the relationship between Religion and Politics, more specifically between Religion and the State. The concept of secularism has drawn its sources from the philosophy that…
A week ago, we disgraced ourselves. Racist louts, some in the garb of Buddhist monks, engaged openly in speech and behaviour so violent, even those who led it were forced to suggest…
A week ago, a violent a mob of about 2,000 Sinhalese, including a group of Buddhist monks led by the Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, stormed and vandalised…
Whilst the country awaits the decision of the regime regarding which recommendations, if any, of the LLRC report it will implement, human rights and reconciliation continue to be challenged, by disappearances and…
The events in Dambulla over the past week, when Buddhist monks led the storming of a mosque, bear chilling resemblance to events in Ayodhya, India, on and around the 6th December 1992,…
The Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, one of the key figures in the on-going tensions in Dambulla over the presence of a mosque and kovil near his Temple,…
was sent a copy of what we were told was the deed of the mosque at the centre of an on-going controversy in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. We were also sent photos of…
Image courtesy BBC The storming of the Dambulla Mosque on Friday the 20th April and chasing away of the Muslim worshippers attending Friday prayers by a mob led by Buddhist priests is…
Frame grab from News 1st TV broadcast As noted by Raashid Riza, the Multimedia Editor of , Last Friday a mob of about 2,000 Sinhalese, led by a group of Buddhist monks,…
[Editors note: Also listen to podcast by author here.] The end of the war is certainly not the end of the conflict that led to the military confrontation between the military forces of Sri…
This podcast is based on penned by the author. As noted in the article, From the point of view of a post-war reconciliation that should accommodate the legitimate demands of Tamils in…
Photo courtesy M.A. Pushpa Kumara / EPA, via Photo Blog on MSNBC Poya must be one of the first Sri Lankan English terms to enter the vocabulary of foreigners when they arrive in…
Photo courtesy World Bank Something is of universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. This claim could mean two importantly different things. First,…
