Photo by Ama Koralage The ramifications of Sri Lanka’s civil war live on in the north, especially in the matter of mental health where the lack of human, physical and financial resources to address complex trauma and create a healing environment are sorely lacking. A study conducted in 2019 on the prevalence of mental health disorders in the north by ...
Photo courtesy of Foreign Policy Where do these words come from? From the bleeding River Jordan. From the Gaza sea bobbing with bodies and food packages. From the mosque in Rafah in the gunsights of a tank. From Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where limbs are amputated to save broken lives. From Nuseirat, Deir-al-Balah, Gaza City. Name your deconstruction site. Name your ...
Photo by Ama Koralage With the end of the war 15 years ago, thousands LTTE fighters surrendered to the government and were sent to rehabilitation camps, which they refer to as detention camps. The government considers over 11,600 former combatants to be rehabilitated and reintegrated. Out of nearly 12,000 rehabilitation programme participants, there were 594 children, 9,374 adult males and ...
Photo courtesy of NDTV A school in Nuseirat. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir-al Balah. These are the most recent places in Gaza to be memorialized later on a wailing wall. Here fourteen civilian women and nine children were murdered on June 5th along with alleged Hamas terrorists. The Israeli spokesperson said up to thirty Hamas used the three classrooms. Nobody ...
Photo courtesy of The Hindu Today is World Environment Day Climate change is one subject that has consistently dominated the world headlines over the past decade. Increasing consumerism fuels large scale fossil fuel usage and damages the natural environment. This results in a steep rise in carbon emissions leading to global warming and climate change, affecting all forms of life ...
Photo courtesy of DW President Ranil Wickremesinghe, unlike his predecessors, was not elected by the people of Sri Lanka. He was appointed by SLPP MPs to replace the ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Mr Wickremesinghe is working to build a popular base, asserting that he alone stabilised the economy through an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which led to ...
Photo courtesy of Bloomberg In 2021 Ajay Lalwani, a local news correspondent for an Urdu language newspaper, was sitting in a barber shop in Sukkur, Pakistan. Some gunmen drove by and opened fire, striking Lalwani in the stomach, arm and knee. He died in hospital. Ajay was a Hindu journalist known for exposing the misdeeds of influential local leaders. Naresh ...
Photo courtesy of Tashiya de Mel As both a developing nation and a biodiversity hotspot, Sri Lanka has to tread a delicate balance between conservation and development. The recent decision to degazette portions of the Vidattaltivu Nature Reserve (VNR) has caused grave concern, further damaging this delicate equilibrium and serving neither the economy nor the environment. Ecological significance and conservation ...
Photo courtesy of sajithpremdasa The Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) MRP provisional estimates of presidential election voting intent in April 2024 show support for NPP/JVP leader A.K. Dissanayake dropped to 39% levelling with SJB leader Sajith Premadasa. Support for President Ranil Wickremesinghe increased to 13% while a generic SLPP candidate trailed at 9%. The ...
Photo courtesy of Newscutter The latest estimates from Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) SLOTS MRP model show the SJB and NPP/JVP both having 34% support of Sri Lankan adults in April. Support for NPP/JVP and SJB has shown a modest increasing trend since July 2023. Voters’ support for UNP, SLPP, SLFP, ITAK, SLMC and other parties remain relatively unchanged. The ...
Photo courtesy of Colombo Times When the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was hosted by India a couple of months ago everybody sat up and took notice, especially those old enough to recall that once-revolutionary movement’s strident, even armed, anti-Indian postures in its turbulent, twice bloody, past politics. The public’s attention was drawn to this infrequent episode in inter-country ties since ...
Photo courtesy of Forbes I don’t want to be a pessimist, to darken your day, to add a fresh pack of stones to the load you carry. But I cannot help myself, not now, not tomorrow. Phosphorus on fire roars through my blood and I am screaming. Watch your back. Watch your front. An F-16 driven by an Israeli pilot ...
Photo courtesy of HRW When CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe asked White House spokesman John Kirby how many more charred corpses it would take for the US President to change his policy on Israel, Kirby’s reply was that he “kind of” took “a little offense at the question.” Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inadvertently called his supporters’ bluff when he ...
Photo courtesy of ICC The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan has requested a panel of three ICC judges to issue arrest warrants on five people, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant of Israel and Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Ibrahim Al-Masri of Hamas. Last week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling ordering Israel to “immediately halt ...
Photo by Ama Koralage For the first time, Sri Lanka’s presidential election in October will have three main contenders – President Ranil Wickremesinghe contesting under an independent symbol, the SJB represented by Sajith Premadasa and the NPP/JVP by Anura Kumara Dissanayake. There is speculation about a common Tamil candidate as well as rumours of Namal Rajapaksa coming forward as the ...
Photo courtesy of China Daily The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the major characteristics of the global context today and to point out a key implication for the Sri Lankan state. A glance at discussions in Sri Lanka shows that they are either dominated by the ideology of the global neoliberal political project that dominated ...
Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera I note the moral equivalence, one punishment for another although I don’t think we can fix history in a flash. Go back to days before October 7th or 8th. But then we must do what we can, to seize the moment, make leaders accountable for recent atrocities, get justice for civilians maimed, murdered, buried. As ...
Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera Three out of four Sri Lankan adults (75%) said that the country is heading in the wrong in April 2024 while almost none (3%) said it was on the right track. The number of people who say the country is heading in the right direction has remained very low (less than 10%) since SLOTS started ...
Photo by Ama Koralage Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard made an impassioned plea to the Sri Lankan authorities to meet its national and international obligations and find answers as to what happened to the thousands of missing and forcibly disappeared people. Having witnessed firsthand the anguish and suffering of mothers, fathers, wives, brothers, sisters and children after her visit ...
Photo courtesy of Travelling Translated On May 1, 2024 video footage shared on social media showed a Sri Lankan lawyer berating officials for outsourcing the issuance of visas to VFS Global at a congested Bandaranaike airport with long queues. What is the VFS controversy about? What did they do to our tourist visa process? VFS Global, headquartered in Zurich and ...
