Prostituting media freedom
Media freedom, like all freedoms, is not something one can talk about in absolutist language. There are always caveats. There are always conditions. There are lines imposed and there are limits that...
View ArticleOn giving left and right
OMG, BTW, WTF and other three-letter ‘words’ which sound more like 4-letter words are relatively new. Time was when acronym was ‘short’ for proper noun, for example a political party; there was LSSP,...
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Re-dressing Victoria and other minor matters of CHOGM
[Kadawara moves from Ritigala to the London Eye just to survey the Common Welt] Let's celebrate subjugation There's only one thing 'common' about the Commonwealth: all members were well and truly...
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An anthem for youth who should not be doomed
The Commonwealth Youth Forum was inaugurated on Sunday November 10, 2013. The Sri Lankan delegation comprised among others representatives from the indigenous population, the community of differently...
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Keep friends close, enemies closer!
Medical professional and founder of MERCY Malaysia, Dr Jemilah Mahmood delivering the Keynote Address of the Commonwealth People’s Forum yesterday, outlined the challenges that civil society will have...
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Stewards of Empire
They are not named. Not because they are nameless, but nameless and countless because their victims were. They were the Governors who presided over theft of one kind or another and were brutal as and...
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No more tough-talk or talk-down
H.L.D. Mahindapala, in an article titled ‘Exact nuance of CHOGM’s success’ points out that under normal circumstances ‘a loose, scattered and wobbly institution like the Commonwealth should have...
View ArticleThe truth will set you free
There is a lot of irony in the Government mulling the setting up of a Truth Commission on the lines of the model adopted by post-apartheid South Africa just days after the Chairman of the Lessons...
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If the Common Welt is to be erased...
‘Crime and punishment’ is the title of a novel. Human society embraced the notion of punishment as a mechanism to facilitate cohesion by way of agreement or contractual obligation which turned...
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivers his welcome address
[In a parallel CHOGM, perhaps....]Fellow Commonwealth leaders, ministerial and parliamentary colleagues, delegates from around the Commonwealth, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I...
View ArticleFriends and enemies within and without the Commonwealth
by Chamara Sumanapala and Malinda SeneviratneRecently some media reports from Kenya claimed that the African nation was planning to canvass support for a boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of...
View ArticleA truly 'CHOGASMIC' week
Cameron fires from No-Fire Zone ‘Friendly journos’ provide human shield BBS wrecks another party UNP loses plotIf last week has a name it is CHOGM. A wit quipped, ‘CHOGASM’, and that would be an...
View ArticleCHOGM and post-CHOGM
Once the final CHOGM document is released we will be in post-CHOGM Sri Lanka. The Commonwealth hasn’t changed much since it was formed and given realities it is unlikely that the Colombo Summit would...
View ArticleThink with heart and feel with mind
The heart is associated with feelings and emotion and the mind with thought and reason. How did that come about, though? Did some people, appointed by a collective on account of proven intellect and...
View ArticleThe ways of discontent
There are riders without horses and horses without riders. There are classrooms and students that are not visited by teachers. There are also teachers waiting for non-existent students. There are...
View ArticleThe Champion of CHOGM and other tidbits
Manmohan Singh's CHOGM weekHe's the true CHOGM champion. Uncontested. Well, not really, for Canadian PM Stephen Harper did give him a good run for quite some time. Harper jumped the gun. He objected...
View ArticleDavid Cameron’s reverie during the long flight back home
[IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE CALLED ‘HUMILITY’]I came, no one can say I did not. I saw. I mean, I saw some stuff, didn’t see a lot of stuff and pretended not to see some of what I did see. I pretended to...
View ArticleThe free-n-frank that Cameron did not tell the press
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron was more of a presence on the sidelines of the recently concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Colombo. Indeed he tried to...
View ArticleGetting India 'right'
Now that the CHOGM circus is done, along with frills, clowns and performing monkeys, we can return to the man and country that had teased and taunted but in the end was hardly missed. That’s Manmohan...
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Thank you Murali for all the poetry produced with wrist and heart
[The media pounced on the name 'Muttiah Muralitharan' for reasons that had only a cursory reference to cricket. Made me recall all that he gave us, year after year after year. Took me back to the...
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