Photo courtesy of NBC News The title of this article is taken from a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood who has attained celebrity cult status recently due to her dystopic novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which presciently identified the female body as a central focus for the vigilance and control exerted by an autocratic patriarchal state. While researching this ...
Photo courtesy of Newsfirst Good governance means a system of governance that ensures economic efficiency guaranteeing economic stability throughout a nation. This economic efficiency can only be brought about by the observance of transparency, accountability and integrity in all areas of public life. That situation could be brought about only when the system is founded on the basis of the ...
Photo courtesy of NDTV Our country has collapsed. Government spokesperson Bandula Gunawardena announced that fuel supply has come to a standstill and fuel will be available only for essential services. These is no one to blame, no one to look up to. When Ranil took over the government, as there was no one else to do so, people had hopes ...
Photo courtesy of The Morning The arrest of several protestors calling for Sri Lanka’s president and his associates to step down amid the ongoing economic crisis, has drawn attention to the grave human rights situation which persists despite a ministerial reshuffle. Hopes that the regime had learnt its lesson, of a shift towards restoring democracy and responsible partnership with others ...
Photo courtesy of The Columbian Today is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture That Sri Lanka is a country where torture is rife has been well documented by several international organisations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) and Freedom From Torture. According to Freedom from Torture, despite being a top ...
Photo courtesy of NBC News Police brutality is very much a normal part of the abnormal way of life that exists in Sri Lanka just as attacks by wild elephants have become an usual part of life for people living in remote villages. How that came about has a history of its own and it is the same regarding the ...
Photo courtesy of Verité Research The young Sri Lankan cricket team has done the impossible and beaten the powerful Australian cricket team several times in the shorter formats of the game, giving Sri Lankans some much needed respite and cheer. The games have been played to packed crowds, notwithstanding lingering Covid spread threats, with TV viewership also reportedly high, demonstrating that ...
Image Courtesy East Asia Forum “All that is solid melts into the air…” Marx and Engels (The Communist Manifesto) The socio-economic edifice that is Sri Lanka’s informal sector is collapsing. According to the 2020 Labour Force Survey, informal sector accounts for 58.1% of the total employed. That is 4.65million people (62.1% of them male). Most have little formal education (nearly ...
Photograph Courtesy the News York Times I will try to balance the books, moral and historical ones, caused by migration, that give me a paycheck and put food and drink on the table, that keep my immediate family in form, moving ahead, that come up now as I think of malnourished kids in Sri Lankan hospitals, of mothers unable to ...
Photo courtesy of Saskia Fernando Gallery There is a lot of blood; faces grotesquely distorted, hands dripping red, bared fangs and dismembered body parts. Disgraceful alliances are mocked, leaders are lampooned and ridiculed and suffering and repression are starkly portrayed. The profusion of protest art in the form of paintings, drawings, cartoons and memes are fearless and unrelenting, flooding social ...
“March 25, 2009. I remember that day very well. How can I forget it?” “That was the day I saw my son for the last time. That was the day I last spoke to him.” “I wished that I could take him with me where I went, but he said, ‘I am surrendering to the army. Take care of my ...
Photo courtesy of Kannan Arunasalam Thousands of women across Sri Lanka are searching for missing their husbands, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. The long and tragic history of enforced disappearances goes back to the first JVP insurrection in 1971, continuing to the second one in late 1980s and persisting to this day despite the end of the civil war in ...
Photo courtesy of Anoma Wijewardene From a small, localised protest that began in the outskirts of Colombo, the aragalaya, or struggle, has flourished into a small village named GotaGoGama (GGG) complete with a library, first aid centre, cinema, legal aid office, university, recycling centre, community kitchen and art gallery. Vegetables and fruit trees have been planted, indicating that the villagers ...
Photo courtesy of Sean Amarasinghe “Suppose you kick out 17,000 Tamils employed by the government at the present. Suppose you tell them ‘Pack up your bags and go back to Jaffna.’ Suppose the Minister of Labor says ‘Give me 17,000 Sinhalese boys to take their place’ and he puts them in those vacant jobs. After that what is he going ...
Photo courtesy of AsiaNews Today is World Day Against Child Labour Our numbers are good, that is, if you glance at them and move on. We are proud to acknowledge that we have some of the lowest rates of child labour in South Asia. However, a close reading of the data will show that the statistics (1% of children between ...
Photo courtesy of National Review Colombo’s mayor, Rosy Senanayake, has cautioned that Colombo might run out of food by September. The prime minister has warned that Sri Lankans will not be able to eat three meals a day for too long. Meanwhile Colombo clubs continue their invites for special Mongolian dinner nights, traditional yellow rice Sunday lunches and weekend starter ...
Photo courtesy of Daily News In May 2022, over half a million 16 year old Sri Lankan children sat their O’Level examination. Passing this exam is necessary for them to continue with their schooling. This batch (referred to as the 2021 OL batch, as their exam was meant to be held in December 2021) was only 14 years old and ...
Photo courtesy of the The Sri Lankan Scientist Today is World Oceans Day The oceans around Sri Lanka are a vital resource for food security, trade and shipping, coastal livelihoods, tourism, coastal protection and national security. Its coastal and marine resources and biological diversity, as well as the coastal and marine environment, provide a range of critical ecosystem services that ...
Photo courtesy of New Indian Express There is a fallacy being promoted by the reconstituted Rajapaksa regime that political reforms such as the proposed 21stAmendment are not really necessary or at least have already occurred through the change of prime minister and a reconstitution of the regime and the need of the hour is urgent measures to resuscitate the economy ...
Photo courtesy of Amila Udagedara In May this year, a Sri Lankan living in Australia was seen tearing up a flyer on the Tamil genocide commemorations at a #GotaGoHome protest. He said, “Do you think there was a genocide? Why don’t you go to court? This is not a thing to talk about here,” before declaring that there was no ...
