The Online Safety Act: A Trojan Horse for Authoritarianism
The draft of Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Act, published last week, is draconian, dangerous, and it should come as no surprise, also dumb. I’ve not studied any vocal support of the draft,…
gvtop
Anti-Terrorism Bill Version 2.0: Still Worse Than the PTA
On September 15, the government published an Anti-Terrorism Bill, referred to as the ATA. The Bill is presented as a revision of an earlier version that was gazetted in March 2023, when…
Unthinking Nation
It was the spring of infatuation. Millions of Sinhala voters saw Gotabaya Rajapaksa the way he saw himself, a colossus among men, a king reborn. He and his acolytes had spent much…
Re-Imagining Democracy in Sri Lanka
We at the BCIS began to conceptualize and plan this publication on the experience of democracy in our country at a time when the Sri Lankan people were on the verge of…
Health System Needs Urgent Support to Save Lives
Sri Lanka’s health system continues to face extreme challenges in the aftermath of the economic crisis and continued lack of health system strengthening. While some of the urgent threats such as power…
Sri Lanka’s Channel 4 Problem
Perhaps I have been a little provocative in my choice of title. It’s not Sri Lanka that has a Channel 4 problem, it’s the Sri Lankan government. But in this corner of…
Government Attacked for Lack of Accountability Ahead of HRC Sessions
Lack of accountability by the powerful undermines the rights of numerous Sri Lankans, according to a hard-hitting report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk. The situation of…
Debt Restructuring, Austerity and the IMF: a Panacea or an Exacerbation? Part 6
The IMF programme needs to be used to negotiate debt restructuring with commercial and multilateral creditors. It would create space to spend on priorities such as food and fuel. However, the country…
Elephants, Egos and Rain
It is in these months of Esala and Nikini, when the drought reaches its maxim that the first rain making festivals began. Rituals to appease the rain gods were initiated by the…
Pyromaniacs on the March
“Patriotism,” wrote Ambrose Bierce in is “The combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.” Patriotism is not the last refuge of the scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson…
Tracing Roots and Winning Rights: the March of the Malaiyaha Tamil Community
Two hundred years ago, the first groups of women and men were brought from southern India by the British colonial rulers to Sri Lanka to work in the hill country plantations. They…
Sri Lanka’s Commission Addiction
The last few weeks have seen increased media coverage in a relation to a government proposal to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for Sri Lanka. At face value, this seems…
The Statue of Tara: It’s Time to Come Home
She stands tall at the heart of the British Museum’s South Asian exhibit. In all her gilded bronze glory, her eyes search passing spectators, although the jewels which once adorned them have…
Saving the Leopard from Slipping into Extinction
In 2021, the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society (WNPS), Sri Lanka’s oldest such organisation (the third in the world), with the aid of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), persuaded the government…
What Happened in 83 Wasn’t a Riot: It was Murder
In 1983, a series of bloody riots swept Sri Lanka, marking the start of the country’s 26 year brutal civil war. Intermittent unrest had been occurring since the late 1950s and state…
