By P. K. Balachandran

India hopes to gain by exploring the moon and delving into the depths of the ocean

As August 23 approaches, 1.4 billion Indians are waiting with bated breath for their moon craft Chandrayaan 3 to make a soft landing on the southern side of the moon and send back data on the composition of its surface. Simultaneously, under a project christened Samudrayaan, India is working on a project to put a manned submersible called “Matsya 6000” 500 meters below...

20 August, 2023

Indian triple train crash occurred despite improved safety record

After the horrendous triple train collision in the Eastern Indian State of Odisha on June 2 in which more than 280 were killed, few would believe that the Indian Railways had actually brought down accidents steeply between 1970-71 and 2021. A paper presented by two railway officials at the Fifth World Congress on Disaster Management, says that accidents decreased from 840...

11 June, 2023 0

The geopolitics of sanctions

The US sanctions against former Sri Lankan Navy Commander and present North Western Province Governor Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda and the Canadian sanctioning of former Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa earlier, are portrayed as measures to enforce human rights. But, in fact, human rights are but a veneer, a fig leaf, to cover geopolitical...

30 April, 2023 0

The Council of University College, Colombo

Takeaways from the history of Colombo’s University College

Public-spirited and progressive Ceylonese such as Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam pushed a cautious British Establishment to set up a University College in the island Although Ceylon came under British sway 43 years before India (the island had been fully captured in 1815 while India had held on till 1858), a Western-style university education system was introduced in Ceylon...

23 April, 2023 0

Key issues in Indo-Pacific security collaboration

The diversity of the region and the ambiguity in relations with China are obstacles to Indo-Pacific unity. In a strong pitch for Indo-Pacific unity against China, Dr. David Brewster of the Australian National University told a gathering at the Bandaranaike Institute of International Studies (BCIS) here on March 25, that to have a “sustainable” foreign policy, Sri Lanka...

2 April, 2023 0