Renowned Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, graphic designer and film critic. In 1967, Ray wrote a script for a film to be called The Alien, based on his own short story “Bankubabur Bandhu” (“Banku Babu’s Friend”) which […] ...
Ray Wijewardene (1924 – 2010) was an accomplished engineer, aviator, inventor, Olympian athlete and a public intellectual of the highest calibre. Although educated at Cambridge and further trained at Harvard, he preferred to introduce himself as a farmer and mechanic ‘who got his hands dirty’. His third death anniversary falls on 18 August 2013. It […]
This week, my Ravaya Sunday column (in Sinhala) carries the third and concluding part of my long exchange with the late Dr Ray Wijewardene, agro-engineer turned farmer and a leading practitioner in conservation farming in the humid tropics. Today, we discuss soil conservation in Sri Lanka’s hill country, restoring shifting (chena) cultivation to its original […]
Regular elections are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a vibrant democracy. There is much more to democracy than holding free and fair elections. The ‘sufficient conditions’ include having public institutions that allow citizens the chance to participate in political process on an on-going basis; a guarantee that all people are equal before […]
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I look at how to prevent death and disability caused by drowning in Sri Lanka. Around 1,200 people die every year in Sri Lanka from drowning — several times the number of deaths from dengue fever, but this distributed tragedy gets much less public and media attention. Most […]
Originally posted on When Worlds Collide, by Nalaka Gunawardene:Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 15 August 2014 Image courtesy Good Market website, http://www.goodmarket.lk It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong, cautioned the French writer and philosopher François-Marie Arouet (1694 – 1778), better known…
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I have adapted a long exchange I did in 1995 with the late Dr Ray Wijewardene, agro-engineer turned farmer and a leading practitioner in conservation farming in the humid tropics. The rest of this exchange will appear in future columns. See original English interview published online as: Who […]
June 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown on protesting students at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. There was one iconic image from that tragedy. It shows a solitary, unarmed Chinese man standing up against a column of battle tanks rolling down a street. In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I salute […]
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I continue my exploration of the global Slow Movement, which started with Slow Food in Italy in 1986, originally as a defiance of fastfood. It has since inspired other pursuits of doing things more reflectively and deliberately slowly – such as Slow Cities, Slow Reading, Slow Travel and […]
AMAZING SCIENCE comes to Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 4 July 2014 as part of the French Spring Festival organised by Alliance Française de Kotte in COLOMBO and its partners. Here’s the day’s program, to be held at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Independence Avenue, Colombo. I’ll be speaking on “Long shadow of Pulp Science Fiction: Popular […]
Besides being a political leader and social reformer, Mahatma Gandhi was also a prolific writer, journalist and editor for much of his life. He was the editor of three English weeklies, namely Indian Opinion (in South Africa during 1903-1915), Young India (1919- 1931), and Harijan (1933-1942 and 1946-January 1948). These journals, which he described as […]
I just took part in a public screening of HOME, the 2009 documentary that offers a new view of our planet — from slightly above. French photographer, journalist and activist Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his team travelled around the planet over 18 months to make this film. They filmed interesting natural and human-made locations in 50 […]
“To garner public support for their causes, the development community must connect with rest of society using everyday phrases, metaphors and images. That is a far better strategy than expecting everyone to understand their gobbledygook.” This is the central argument in my latest op-ed essay, just published on the Communication Initiative blog. Titled Crossing the […]
Originally posted on When Worlds Collide, by Nalaka Gunawardene:Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 5 September 2014 Small island nations are in focus this week, as well as throughout this year. The Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) was held from 1 to 4…
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I salute a fellow traveler in journalism and conservation who departed two years ago: Manel Tampoe (1927-2012). I wrote a tribute in English in September 2012, which appeared in Groundviews.org: Manel Tampoe: Perceptive Chronicler of Sri Lanka’s DDT Generation (This Sinhala column is not a translation.) මෙරට පුවත්පත් […]
S M Banduseela is widely recognised as Sri Lanka’s foremost translator of science and science fiction. Beginning in 1970, when he translated into Sinhala language The Naked Ape by zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris, Banduseela has introduced Sinhala readers to over two dozen world acclaimed titles. He is best known as Arthur C Clarke’s Lankan […]
Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) held a Public Forum on the Right to Information in Colombo on 17 November 2015. I was one of three panelists, along with Wijayananda Jayaweera and Gamini Viyangoda. The panel was moderated by TISL’s Shan Wijetunge. The meeting was conducted in Sinhala. After the event, a journalist from an English […]