Sri Lanka is exposed as the worst polluter of the Indian Ocean. The new maps on human impact on the world’s oceans are now on the web (http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/globalmarine ). Although there had been regular commentary on the need of every government and various authorities to be cognizant of oceanic health, it was a shock to see the evidence that ...
On 25th July, Groundviews met with former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in Colombo to get her views on Sri Lanka’s present state of governance, plus a range of other issues, including – as is often today hinted at – the chances of re-entering active politics. This is the first in-depth interview she has given any media in over six and ...
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte, via Channel 4 News The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is due to start tomorrow. The last few weeks has seen series of violations of Human Rights and Commonwealth principles in Sri Lanka, which is the host country and expected to lead the Commonwealth in the next two years. Victims of human rights violations, their families, ...
Dear Majesty, My name is Silva. The Silva. I am common man. Very common. So common I am always voting for your Majesty and Your Majesty’s government. However, please be notified that I am only giving the back part of my name. Front part I am keeping to myself due to security reasons. I am also begging Your Majesty ...
Photo courtesy Euronews From 6 – 21 March 2013, Groundviews ran an online poll to ascertain opinions on the lasting impact of the unprecedented impeachment of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice. The online poll was hosted on Typeform.com. 177 responses were generated. The questionnaire can be downloaded as a PDF here. The full poll results, for statistical analysis and verification, ...
Image courtesy Colombo Telegraph J.C. Weliamuna is a well-known Attorney-at-Law, human rights activist and is this year’s recipient of the Citizens Peace Award. His acceptance speech flagged the degree to which democratic governance had eroded in Sri Lanka, in full view of citizenry, and the importance of protecting civil liberties by speaking out, despite the risk of doing so. ...
Photo by AFP courtesy Asia One Amidst strong indications following the Uva provincial election result that a panicked regime is planning an early presidential election, there has been a vigorous debate in the media about the consequences of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished the presidential two-term limit and removed other procedural restraints on presidential power. There ...
Photo courtesy Herald Sun Introduction Australia has recently been dealing with an upsurge of asylum seekers who have traveled by boat from elsewhere in Asia. The Jakarta Globe notes that, “While most boats originate in Indonesia, there has been a recent spike in attempted crossings from Sri Lanka.” In addition, over 250 Sri Lankans have been detained after having ...
Photography by Alefiya Akbarally and Kannan Arunasalam Inayet Akbarally tells the remarkable story of his great grandfather Careemjee Jafferjee and how he became the first member of the Dawoodi Bohra community to set foot in Ceylon believed to be around 1830. A “Peterite” thorugh and through, he reflects on the days when where you went to school trumped ethnicity and even religion. ...
Photo by P. Vijayashanthan The most vivid memory of violent conflict for me has been from July 23, 1983. I was 7 years old then, the same age as my twins today. Each time a word, something I read or hear takes me back to that day, the first image I see in my mind’s eye are white-streams from ...
To complement the launch of 30 Years Ago and focus on some of the issues the project is anchored to and inspired by, readers of Groundviews are cordially invited to attend four panel discussions on the 24th and 25th of August at Park Street Mews, Warehouse D in Colombo. We are particularly pleased to highlight the inaugural session, featuring ...
Photo courtesy Mel Gunasekera’s Facebook account Mel would have been deeply fascinated by the circumstances of her murder. She would have, even more than Nalaka Gunawardene, taken pains to explore why an ordinary man, a father, husband and day wage labourer was driven to kill her. How is that possible? How did this happen? She would have crunched the statistics, ...
Image credit PTI, via IANS While domestic politics took centre stage in Delhi this past March with the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) pulling out of the ruling coalition, far away from the mêlée, at the UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) 22nd session in Geneva the Indian representative made some very interesting remarks which gave us an insight into what ...
Image courtesy Maithripala Sirisena website It’s now 50 days since Sri Lanka’s new President took oaths on 9th January 2015. This is an attempt to reflect on the first 50 days of the new Presidency. It’s not meant to be comprehensive assessment of the 50 days, but a reflection based on my personal experiences, what I’ve seen and heard ...
In September 2013, Watchdog travelled to the Vanni[1] and met with survivors of sexual violence, women’s rights activists and representatives of women’s groups. This report is based on information provided during interviews conducted with them, Human Rights organisations based in the North and Colombo and Government sources. During our interactions with these groups, we learnt of a disturbing trend ...
The announcement that elections to the Northern Provincial Council will be held in September 2013 has raised eyebrows in some quarters and generated criticism in certain others. As one who unfashionably – and riskily—advocated the holding of that election soon after the decisive military victory of 2009, I find myself paradoxically in agreement with the decision not to hold ...
Udaya Gammanpila, Senior Member of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), courtesy FT.lk The country stands at a crossroad. A parliamentary victory for the JHU bill will complete the negative process which commenced with Sinhala Only in 1956 and the distortion in 1972 of the laudable shift to a Republic with mono-linguistic and mono-religious hegemony. If ’56 and ’72 were ...
Photo courtesy BBC I was born ten years after Black July. I am a Singhalese. A week or so ago, as the thirty-year anniversary approached, for curiosity’s sake, I did a small experiment. I asked some of my peers a question: “What do you know about Black July?” Of twenty-two Sinhalese, eighteen did not know what it was. I asked ...
After over an year in production, ‘Short & Sweet’, Sri Lanka’s first hint fiction anthology is almost ready to hit the bookshelves in Sri Lanka, and online bookstores. As noted in the original call for submissions on Groundviews in August 2012, “But before form comes content. Twitter’s @sixwordstories demonstrates that even as little as six words is enough, in ...
Anushka Wijesinha is a Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka and is one of the most prominent voices in Sri Lanka today championing innovation. We begin by Anushka explaining what innovation means to him in a Sri Lankan context, and why it is so important to support it in post-war Sri Lanka. In talking ...
