Photo courtesy of Layla Gonaduwa For three months Layla Gonaduwa, a self taught, interdisciplinary artist, travelled around Sri Lanka to explore the concept of memory, home and migration. She explored symbiotic and discordant relationships between within communities and ecosystems. “The travelling was done away from the obvious urban suburbs and main towns, but in areas with less focus; the stories ...
Image Courtesy: Helvetas Today is International Day for Poverty Alleviation Sunila is a single mother living in a remote village in southern Sri Lanka with her three children. She occupies a dilapidated house and earns a living by making snacks for children at a nearby school. It has been many years since her husband left her and over the years ...
Photo courtesy of BBC Today is World Food Day A food shortage brewing for several weeks, coupled with a stagnant economy and indecision, has pushed Sri Lanka to the brink of a crippling crisis. It is ironic that Sri Lanka, which was known as the Granary of the East in the ancient times, will go into the history as a ...
Photos courtesy of Paradise Road When Ajantha Ranaweera was ten years old, his brother who was in the army went missing in action. Several years later, he was declared dead. There were no remains. On that day in 1999, he and his family began the difficult journey of coming to terms with what had happened. That journey from despair to bliss ...
Photo courtesy of The Straits Times The introduction of the Emergency (Provision of Essential Food) Regulation No. 1 of 2021 by the extraordinary gazette No.2243/3 by the President under Section 5 of the Public Security Ordinance was subject to many critical discussions due to the adverse impact that Emergency Regulations have on democracy and the rights of citizens. There was ...
Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera The proposed Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure Act No. 15 of 1979 will open up a Pandora’s box of serious abuses. In essence what the Bill proposes is to allow Magistrates to dispense with the personal attendance in court of a suspect or accused. The same principle ...
Photo courtesy of Ada Derana The Sri Lankan government has pledged to scale back its violations of the human rights in order to protect a valuable trade deal with the European Union (EU). Although ministers continue to deny wrongdoing, during a visit by EU officials they agreed to some changes including reforming anti-terror laws that have been used to target ...
Photo courtesy of Daily Mirror Today is International Day of the Girl Child While the lives of young girls in most countries around the world have certainly improved over the past few decades, there are still critical concerns that are unique to girls under the age of 18 such as female infanticide, early marriage and childbirth, Female Genital Mutilation, unequal ...
Photo Courtesy: AP News Today is the World Day Against the Death Penalty Today, when globally the call for the abolition of the death penalty is renewed and its inhumane and cruel nature is highlighted, we must recognize that the death penalty is one of the many tools of oppression used by structures of discrimination and violence. This article sets ...
Photo courtesy of CNN Today is World Mental Health Day Fear, isolation, depression, anxiety, financial worries and domestic tension due to the Covid-19 pandemic are some of the factors taking a serious toll on mental health in countries around the world. Researchers have found that there were an estimated 76 million extra cases of anxiety and 53 million extra cases ...
Illustration for the Memorial by Thilini Perera The numbers have always been names. It proves a firm reminder of the magnitude of loss and it is the realisation behind the creation of a digital space of memorialisation and remembrance for those Sri Lanka has lost in its battle with COVID-19. The trilingual Sri Lanka COVID19 Memorial is an effort to ...
Photo courtesy of BBC Once again, the country is in a state of emergency. This time, the President has proclaimed emergency ostensibly to ensure the public security and well-being and maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community in view of the prevailing emergency situation in Sri Lanka in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic now ...
Photo courtesy of Ada Derana A monk and a poet were born in a country Where only one of them was free. Is it the bruised that should be accused? For painting the target on their forehead? For writing lyrics that make your blood sing, Then arrest the mothers, whose lamenting For lost sons, year after year, makes you question ...
Photo courtesy of Newsin.Asia Today is International Day of Older Persons The world is ageing fast. Today there are 703 million people aged 65 or older; by 2050 the number will rise to 1.5 billion. According to population estimates and projections from UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’s Population Division, 1 in 6 people in the world will be ...
Photo courtesy of The Focus India We mourn the loss of Kamla Bhasin, feminist activist, writer, poet, mentor and friend who left us on September 25. Kamla has been a core part of influencing and collaborating with feminist movements in Sri Lanka since the 1980s. SANGAT, the South Asian feminist network, was imagined and given life at a workshop of ...
Photo courtesy of Read Photos There are photographs being shared on social media of charitable visits that are being made to elders’ homes. Some of the visitors are not wearing masks, an omission constituting criminal negligence during the ongoing pandemic. This is what we saw in the photographs: little old women with no hair dressed in mass produced, bright floral ...
Photo courtesy of Sri Lanka Brief Mr. Nadesu Kuganathan surrendered to the army in the last phase of the war in 2009 and released after rehabilitation in 2013 after four years. But after three months, he was re-arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Last week he was released again after eight years in detention without any charges. Mr. ...
Photo courtesy of Scroll.in Sri Lanka is emerging from another wave of COVID-19 and there is a sense of uncertainty that surrounds us. While Sri Lanka’s notable success of vaccinating its population at record speed with 50% of the adult population vaccinated by September 18, 2021,it has also given rise to sentiments of vaccine euphoria of which countries have been ...
Photo courtesy of AP “There has been enough death.” Colm Tóbín (House of Names) Hours after losing the presidency, Mahinda Rajapaksa climbed on to a windowsill in his ancestral home and informed a crowd of grieving supporters, “We must remember they got their majority vote from Eelam,” The Medamulana Declaration reframed the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa by Maithripala Sirisena as a ...
Photo courtesy of Rukshan Kuru-Utumpala Today is World Rivers Day “Rivers are the arteries of our planet: they are lifelines in the truest sense.” Mark Angelo World Rivers Day is celebrated on last Sunday in the month of September. Rivers provides us many goods and services. Yet the value of rivers has been ignored by both people and policy makers ...
