Clik here to view.
Ukraine Un-frilled: Blood, hypocrisy, myopia and bucks
War is about or can be about a lot of things. A common enough reason for war that cuts across territory and time is profit. Those who stand to gain or lose, consequently, almost always locate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The ugly who?
The adjective has been tagged to the verb ‘American.’ Over the past few weeks, it has been used when referring to Minister Basil Rajapaksa. Subjective. After all beauty is in the eyes of the beholder...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notes for a Sincerity Project: Elections, electors and elected
There are calls, obviously from oppositional elements, for snap elections. There are of course constitutional provisions for holding parliamentary elections and those who make such demands cannot be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notes for a sincerity project: the vasalas and brahmanas
The New York Times (NYT) is in a pitched battle with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). When it comes to misinformation, sleight of hand, slant and heavily editorialised pieces passed off as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spontaneity and its discontents
#beyondgotagohome #thewayforward Take any protest. Take any demonstration. They are never perfect. One could always find flaws in any such activity, regardless of whether or not one subscribes to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rev Fr Cyril Gamini: judge, jury, prosecutor and pernicious rabble-rouser
Rev Fr Cyril Gamini (RFCG hereafter) has found his voice. RFCG, after shooting his mouth and naming names in a zoom discussion, was duly complained about and required to make a statement. Having named...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The brink and beyond….
A line has been crossed. That’s the title of a note doing the rounds referring to the ongoing protests and specifically to the fatal shooting of a protester in Rambukkana. Yes, a line has been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A season of (il)legitimacies
Politics is about claims and counter-claims. It is about profit-seeking through exaggeration and pooh-poohing. It is also about wild extrapolation of conclusions wrought in echo-chambers. It is as much...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tomorrow, tomorrow and so forth...
Even in uncertain times, especially times of political turmoil marked by continuous and widespread agitation as well as unmistakable confusion regarding governance and indeed governability, there is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ලෙයට ලෙය වෙනුවට ආලය
මසක කාලයක් ගෝල් ෆේස් හි ගොඩනැගු ගෝටාගෝගමෙහි දහස් ගණන් තරුණ තරුණියන් මෙන් ම නොයෙකුත් මතවාදී ධාරාවන් නියෝජනය කරන අන් අය එකට බැඳ තැබූ සුන්දර වරපටය ආදරයයි. එකට එක් වී වැපුරුවේ ආදරයයි. යෙදුනේ හෙට දින රට හදන...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Aragalists and the challenge of re-mapping Sri Lanka
It was expected and yet shocking. Expected, because that’s what history has taught us: those in power, having enjoyed all the luxuries that come with power, and especially through abuse of office, are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
පුද්ගල චරිත මතුවේ, නිර්පාක්ෂික හැව ගැලැවේ, අරගලය ඉදිරියටම....
අදේශපාලනික අරගලකරුවන් සිටිය නොහැක. නිශ්චිත නොවුනත්, දේශපාලනික පක්ෂ සහ ඒවායේ අරමුණු සමග අනන්‍ය නොවුනත්, අරගලකරුවා දේශපාලනිකයි. අදේශපාලනික අරගලකරුවන් සිටිය නොහැකි නමුත් නිර්පාක්ෂික අරගලකරුවන් සිටිය හැක....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The BASL proposals: A review
Crises prompt proposals for management, recovery and future prosperity. Of the many we’ve seen, perhaps on account of public profile, the set of proposals submitted by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Personalities and Systems
‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,’ one of the more literary essays written by Karl Marx famously, contains many quotable quotes which are of course frequently used in contexts that have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Constitutional Reform: the wages of haste, sloth and expediency
There are certain rules of thumb with regard to constitutional reform. First, such exercises should never be predicated on political expediency. In other words, one’s allegiance or otherwise to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#Aragalayaleft?
‘Left’ in internet parlance refers, apparently, to an individual who has withdrawn from a group, for example one on WhatsApp created for like-minded people or those who share some common attribute (for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The ‘ada davase mahanakama’
‘Upasakamma ipaduna heena kule…’ (translatable as ‘[of] the devout mother who was born into a lower caste…’) is one of the songs in Nanda Malini’s ‘radical’ album ‘Pawana (The wind).’ While most of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The international community, the opposition and the people
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the worst President we’ve had. He’s the worst leader, counting all presidents, prime ministers, ministers, chairpersons of local government authorities and maranaadhara samithi....
View ArticleClik here to view.
#De-dollarize!
Sometime in the year 1992, an Economics student at the University of Peradeniya confessed confusion over a comment by Dr S B De Silva regarding multinational corporations. Apparently he didn’t have an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Recipes for co-opting and subverting #peoplepower
Ram Manikkalingam, Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam has sketched 'An Agenda for Change’ (Sunday Times, July 3, 2022). Now change is an easy and cheap term. For...
View Article
