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?…
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?…
Image courtesy BBC Five years after the end of the war, Sri Lanka remains a post-war society that has yet to make the transition to a post-conflict society. While the violence has…
Submitted to as a response to Kalana Senaratne’s assertion that Buddhism does not have a means for contemporary political engagement, in The ‘Mad Monk’ Phenomenon: BBS as the underside of Sinhala-Buddhism. ### Being…
Photo courtesy Foreign Correspondents Association Sri Lanka Way back in the 1980s when I was on research work in Sri Lankan and based at my sister’s place in Wellawatte I received a phone…
Photography courtesy Dev Policy Blog Everyone called her a “Silly Idealist”. Some said it fondly, some with contempt, some with anger, and others even with disgust. But, she didn’t care. She truly…
Dear Majesty, My name is Silva. The Silva. I am common man. Very common. So common I am always voting for your Majesty and Your Majesty’s government. However, please be notified that…
Photo by AP, via VOA News It is five years now after the defeat of the LTTE. As the Government then claimed it marked the end of terrorism and the beginning of…
Photo by EPA/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA courtesy LA Times What follows is a brief rejoinder to my friend, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, whose use of the philosophy of Alain Badiou, in his recently published article “Plato’s Cave…
Photo courtesy MSF Like many countries, Sri Lanka is a nation struggling with a lot of problems. The prevailing negative trends on the island are well-documented and irrefutable. People talk about national…
Review of Welikala, Asanga, ed. 2 vols. Colombo: Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2012. 1-1038. ### “We seek your mandate to permit the members of Parliament you elect to function simultaneously as a…
“The general population doesn’t know what is happening and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know” – Noam Chomsky Introduction In the article published in May 2010, I concluded: The emphasis…
Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images, via Huffington Post – From ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez the writer par excellence has died. He was born…
Photo by EPA/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA courtesy LA Times ” Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebook 8 (1930-1932), 84. Russian Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu (PiR Centre Press, April 28th 2014, Moscow) -Nic Pizzolatto, I I write…
In the corner of my room, there’s a large air-tight plastic bag I open once a year, and occasionally glance at with mixed emotions. It contains, carefully folded, all the newspapers I could…
Exactly two years ago to date, Not In My Name (NION) – Sri Lanka’s first web based campaign against violent religious extremism – was created and launched, just under a week after…