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Whither research (institutes)?
There are two questions. First, does research really matter or rather does research drive decisions when it comes to policy planning? Second, what is the role or research institutes or, put another...
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System Change: an Aragalist touch-me-not?
Such diversity! Such passion! Such innovation and creativity! Such courage and heroism! Such were and still are the encomiums floating around in mainstream and new media about the Aragalaya. Yes, there...
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The allegory of the slow road
Pic by Tharindu Amunugama Contour makes the bendsbends make for pausefeet stop and goand heart to footprint returns Roads are either slow or fast depending on road conditions, weather, traffic, the...
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Continents of the heart
Arseny Tarkovsky (9007-1989), father of the acclaimed filmmaker Andrei, a Russian poet and translator, once reflected on words. For him a word was nothing more than a skin,‘a thin film, an empty...
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Serendipitous amber owns the world
Someone once made a pertinent and funny comment about traffic lights. It may have been the character Mork (played by the inimitable Robin Williams) in the sitcom ‘Mork and Mindy’ where Mork, an alien...
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Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Knuckles. The meaning of the word can be found in any dictionary. Knuckles. It’s also a place, a vast space in fact but one which has been misnamed. There certainly is a series of peaks that resemble...
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Paul Christopher’s heart of many chambers
I believe it is in ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ that Gabriel Garcia Marquez talked of the heart’s many chambers. He may have been referring to Florentino Ariza when he wrote, ‘his heart had more...
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The universe of smallness
I don’t know if whoever said that the universe is contained (containable?) in a grain of sand was thinking about miniature art. I’ve heard of angels dancing on pin heads, but perhaps because I don’t...
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Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
A book written in Sinhala about Pablo Neruda and his work was launched in October 2016 at the Library Services Board auditorium. It was the second print of ‘Ceilan doopathe deepthimath hudekalava (En...
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Truth in 2031, reconciliation when and how?
The early versions of Udayasiri Wickramaratne’s celebrated theatrical piece ‘Suddek Oba Amathai (A white man addresses you) contained a short soliloquy, ‘Baya Vunu Minisek Oba Amathai (A scared man...
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Of love and other intangibles
Sunanda Karunaratne, poet, friend and author of ‘Pehenada Pahan (Brilliant Lamps),’ asked me a question upon reading my recent article ‘Continents of the heart.’ He was referring to a poem by Arseney...
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Between struggle and cooperation
Pic courtesy www.butterflycycle.blogspot.com Karl Marx never proposed dedicating Das Kapital to Charles Darwin, so Darwin could never decline it, as the tall story goes, perhaps . Marx did say that...
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Live and tell the tale as you will
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez wrote novels and short stories, some would add ‘of epic proportion.’ His ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ has been hailed as an epic account of Latin...
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Elections, democracy and monumental humbuggery
Sometime in May 2022, when it was announced that plans were underfoot to hold the delayed parliamentary elections, there was a hue and cry, mostly from the then Opposition. Key leaders of the Samagi...
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The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville
About thirty years ago one of the Sinhala newspapers, probably the Divaina, published a letter to the editor titled, if I remember right, ‘vayasata noyana tharunayo (young people who never grow old).’...
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Isaiah 58: 6-12 and the meaning of grace
['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]A...
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The ways of the lotus
['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]I...
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The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]...
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Books launched and not-yet-launched
['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]...
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A degree in creative excuses
['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]...
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