On 25th September 2012, the Menik Farm camp in Vavuniya, which at its peak, housed close to 300,000 internally displaced persons, was officially closed down when the Government of Sri Lanka relocated the last batch of IDPs. This formally marked the closure of all post-2009 IDP camps in the North of Sri Lanka. Termed ‘welfare villages’ or ‘relief villages’ ...
Photo courtesy @PresRajapaksa On Monday 7th October, the Tamil National Alliance, the only political party in the country to have comprehensively defeated the UPFA and captured power in the Northern Province, creating the first ever opposition controlled provincial council since the Peoples’ Alliance victory in the Southern Provincial Council in 1993, which also heralded the end of UNP rule an ...
Photo courtesy Wikipedia Through The Republic Square and other media we learn that Mihin Lanka, the brainchild of Sri Lanka’s current President Mahinda Rajapaksa, lost 2.2 billion over the current financial year. As Colombo Page notes, Civil Aviation Minister Priyankara Jayaratne made this revelation in response to a question posed by United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian Ravi Karunanayaka. The Minister noted ...
Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images, via A Sri Lankan Quest This is in response to the views expressed by “International Terrorism Expert” Prof. Rohan Gunaratna to Zahrah Imtiaz in the article titled “Don’t Withdraw Army from North: Prof. Rohan Gunaratna” published in the Ceylon Today of Sunday 15 February 2015, page 10. Security I do agree with Prof. Rohan Gunaratna that ...
Photo courtesy Xinhua Anxiety dominates the post-Geneva political climate in Sri Lanka, the result of a heady mixture of different reasons, which sees the ruling regime pursuing short-sighted solutions in order to neutralise. March turned out to be an eventful month for Sri Lanka domestically and internationally, with the passage of the UNHRC resolution, the arrest and detention of ...
Photo courtesy Vikalpa The most fundamental and important right a human being has is her right to life. This cannot be justified through first principles because this is itself a first principle. In common sense morality, it is granted that a human being has a fundamental right to life, and that this right trumps all other rights such as ...
First broadcast on aired on the MTV, Shakthi and Sirasa terrestrial TV channels in Sri Lanka from 23rd to 30th July 2008, Never Again in Sri Lanka featured 22 videos in Tamil, Sinhala and English on the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983 in Sri Lanka. The 30 second videos on the site featured well-known Sri Lankan civil society, film, teledrama, ...
Image courtesy ICRW ‘Are we not raped every day when we walk down the street and are leered at ? Are we not raped when we are treated as sex objects, denied our rights, oppressed in so many ways ?’ Archives of Manushi, written by Sohaila (1983) Sri Lanka reminds one of one’s gender. To be female in a public bus is to ...
Photo courtesy BBC [Editors note: This was sent by the author directly to us. As a policy Groundviews does not republish what's already gone up somewhere else on the web. Making an exception in this case because of the context in Sri Lanka at present, and the need to get as many readers engaged with this content] “In this ...
Image courtesy News First ‘We were anonymous, and even then I had the sense that cities were yielding; that they moved over and made room.’ ― Sheridan Hay, The Secret of Lost Things They are often warned that no conversation on reform in Sri Lanka is worth having unless had in the vernacular of the masses. They are constantly ...
As, in private life, the distinction is made between what a man thinks of himself and says, and that which he really is and does, so, all the more, must the phrases and notions of parties in historic struggles be distinguished from the real organism, and their real interests, their notions and their reality. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire…(p.35). ...
Sri Lankan TV journalist Kapila Chandana Kuruppuarachchi thought he was just doing his job when he tried to cover a clash between backers of rival political parties in late September. Instead, he says, a mob of pro-government supporters chased him for almost a kilometer before pelting him with stones. He was hospitalized with major bone and tissue damage to ...
Introduction When I went to Trincomalee last November with a few university friends I noticed a distinct unfriendliness in the air. While growing up, I often visited Trincomalee, because my cousins lived there. Now the Trincomalee I knew and loved from my childhood was no more. Something else had taken its place. Trincomalee today is a place where the collective ...
Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, President’s, is a Member of Parliament from the United National Party, and currently President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. In the past, Mr. Rajapakshe’s also chaired the Committee on Public Enterprises. No stranger to being in the headlines, Mr. Rajapakshe in late May tabled Private Member’s Bill in Parliament asking that Sri Lanka’s Constitution be ...
Photo courtesy Vikalpa And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones…. Is it not crystal clear, comrades that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of the human beings? George Orwell, Animal Farm, ...
On its website, Cargills Food City (one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and largest supermarket chains) notes, that it “has been recognized for its innovation in taking super marketing to the masses”. We wonder if said innovation includes interesting references to Muslims in items sold in its supermarkets? The term ‘hambaya‘ and its variant ‘hamba‘, in Sinhalese, is a well-known and ...
Reproducing historic article by Dr E W Adikaram At a time when few practise what they preach, Lankan scholar, writer and social activist Dr E W (Edward Winifred) Adikaram (1905-1985) was an illustrious exception. As a public intellectual, he had the courage of his convictions to speak out on matters of public interest — even when such views challenged ...
Directed by Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke and produced by Mind Adventures, Paraya will begin its run on 18th of this month to the 21st. For any other theatrical production, that description would suffice, along with perhaps details on where to get tickets and more information on the box plan. Paraya though is different. It’s not going on stage at the Wendt, ...
Do you remember what a large tree looked like? Once they were all around us, not just the forest giants like the Hora or Palu, but the fine old Mango and Jak trees that would have taken at least four or five men to girdle. The next time you leave the city on any road, look for those big ...
Photo courtesy Today The marauding Buddhist monks, who appear to be tied to a long political leash, have run out of control. They need to be stopped. But it is equally necessary to take a cold look at the complexity of the phenomenon that groups such as Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) have come to represent. This is no freak ...
