Sunday, 10 Sep 2023
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by Malinda Seneviratne
Rishad Bathiudeen, leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) is aggrieved. His grief is understandable. It would be unfair to expect anyone to be thrilled if his/her brother was arrested. He is upset. That’s natural.
He is upset that of seven people arrested over connections to a suicide bomber responsible for one of the Easter Sunday attacks, only his brother’s...
When China put Wuhan on a lockdown, the Western world cried out in horror, especially human rights outfits and those who believe China is the evil empire. Folks back home or rather the local equivalents of such people, associating China with the current regime, took up the chorus.
They’ve all gone on a self-imposed ‘lockdown’. The reason: well, it’s no longer a China-...
There are all kinds of collectives. Forums are essentially gatherings about ideas, i.e. their articulation, exchange and debate. So when a formal forum issues a statement one assumes that it is an outcome of deliberation. In general, there’s a lot to be said for discussion. It’s much better than ad hoc, arbitrary and careless assertions and prescriptions. I had never...
Reconciliation. That’s a word that’s been abused much. Just like ‘peace,’ in the heady days of the ‘Ceasefire Agreement’ (CFA) signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Velupillai Prabhakaran. The main problem of such terms is that they are open to multiple interpretation.
What ‘peace’ meant for the LTTE and of course its mouthpieces, including the TNA at the time, was ‘Eelam’....
A year ago, UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet made the following observation in her report on Sri Lanka (tabled on March 8, 2019):
‘On 29 May 2018, human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site in Mannar (Northern Province). Excavations, concluded with the support of the Office on Missing Persons, revealed a mass grave from which more than 300...
by Malinda Seneviratne
I wouldn’t blame anyone for believing that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact is dead. Indeed many thought it was...
Nation. National. Nationalism. Nationalist. They are words that make certain people react the way a cobra does when encountering...
The 17th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in October 2001. It took more than a year for it to be implemented, perhaps...
It would be unfair to ask people if they would like to go back to May 17, 2009 and tell us if they prefer that day, time and all...
‘When orthodoxy fails, heresy must come into its own’ — G.V.S. de Silva.Last week I wrote about the etymology of the word ‘...
There’s something that is not taught in Advanced Level economics. Well, a lot of things are ignored, but there’s always the valid...
It is a harvest festival, agreed. Source, however, is not the only giver of meaning. ‘Avurudu’ or rather the ‘Aluth Avurudda’ has...
What celebrities do and say get reported. Thousands follow them on twitter. They have fan clubs. Google their names and you’ll...
A time of concern or even of fear is also a time for reflection and regret. This is when we encounter ‘should have’ and ‘shouldn’...
A senior Swiss diplomat and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Jörg Frieden is on his way to help clarify to Swiss authorities what...
The final resting place of most authors is a dingy used bookstore, using a dusty shelf at the back end. Of course, whether they...
This is about a comment on a photograph. It was a family photograph of a father with his two sons and his only daughter. The...
There was a day in the year 1979 that broke my heart. It was a day on which the hearts of many Royalists, young and old, were...
On March 26, 1979, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka issued a new series of currency notes. It was called the ‘fauna and flora series...
Fifty six years ago almost to the day a man was killed. Now that’s not news. Every single day thousands of people are killed....
Dhammika Bandara is a man with many hats. Probably, best known as a ‘tuition sir,’ Dhammika is also a poet, a lyricist and a...
Elders fret over the state of the world and where it is heading. The young are optimistic. They will, they know, own the world...