In a report on Sri Lanka presented to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2023, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had stated, “lack of accountability at all levels remains…
By all estimates, Sri Lanka’s economy is expected to grow around 1.5% in 2024, making inroads into reversing the economic contraction the country experienced since 2020. Sri Lankan authorities have reached a…
Thirty three years have passed since the eviction of northern Muslims. In October 1990, some 75,000 to 100,000 Muslims in the Northern Province, about five percent of the province’s total population, were…
Jewish Currents is a US-based leftwing Jewish magazine. Soon after October 7 Hamas attack, its editor, Arielle Angel, a vocal proponent of Palestinian liberation, penned a letter to the readers. “I watched…
I am sick and tired of people not taking a stand on Palestine because they fear it is a “complex” issue; they don’t know enough of the history, they are neither Israeli…
At Independence in 1948, Sri Lanka was second to Japan on most socio-economic indicators and ahead of South Korea on per capita income in 1960; it has since slipped behind most Asian…
Israel’s Western allies, the US in particular, believe that any investigation into Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip will “exacerbate tensions” and “undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution.” I…
Batticaloa cattle farmers protesting against the encroachment of outsiders into their grazing land have faced physical attacks and threats as tensions escalated. Their cows have been killed and land set on fire….
On October 4 it is 5,000 days since disappearance of cartoonist, journalist and human rights defender Prageeth Ekneligoda. It is also nearly 5,000 days since I first met his wife Sandya Ekneligoda…
United Nations Observances In 1985, the United Nations declared that the first Monday in October is celebrated as World Habitat Day. The purpose was to “…to reflect on the state of our…
In the 11 months just past, several media reports were busy portraying the events in the trial of Danushka Gunathilaka, the Sri Lankan cricketer charged with sexual assault and violence against a…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
