Draft Guidelines for Media Ethics
These are days of ‘ethics’ or rather days where ethics are questioned and recommended. President Mahinda Rajapaksa observed that there are those who come up with guidelines for ethical behavior in...
View ArticleAPPRECIATION
Vipulasena De Silva left a tender footprint He was unnamed. To me at least. That’s not unusual in a country where people of one’s parent’s age are either ‘uncle/maama’ or ‘aunty/anti/nanda’. He was...
View Article‘Wijeweera’s Daughter’
The title of a tragic novel that might never get written The families of failed revolutionaries (or terrorists, extremists and insurgents if you prefer that nomenclature) tend to be a far cry from beds...
View ArticleIf thuggery is to be arrested…
Theft in institutions of whatever kind, if it takes on the character of ‘business as usual’, has implications. It implies that there may be in-built (unidentified or ignored) chinks that facilitate...
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The Sampath Bank Poya-Ad
Everyone has something to sell. Everyone advertises. Some let their work and their being do all the advertising. Some don’t know that being is the best advertisement or don’t trust people’s ability...
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Jagath Chamila accepts an award and teaches an invaluable lesson
Jagath Chamila with his first drama teacher, Tissa Gunawardena [Pic courtesy gossiplanka.com]Jagath Chamila won an award. An international award. A prestigious award. Not a ‘certificate of merit’ or...
View ArticleBeware of approvers
Transgressions are often accompanied by approval. Approval comes in the form of justification. It can also take the form of dismissal through trivializing, i.e. of the ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘he was...
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Meanwhile in a parallel universe called Humility…
Keheliya says:First of all, please understand that I have a tough job. On the one hand I am a conveyor of Cabinet decisions. When I do this I am the first ‘point man’ for tough queries on these same...
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The President’s name and face
President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that if anyone has done anything wrong that person needs to be punished, whether or not the concerned individual carries a picture of the president on his or her...
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Meanwhile in a parallel universe called Humility…
Rajavarothiam Sampanthan and Susil Premajayantha bare their hearts Rajavarothiam Sampanthan says:Yes, I said it. I said that I was on the LTTE hit list before Mahinda Rajapaksa. In other words, the...
View ArticleThe pluses and minuses of the 13th Amendment
Thirteen. Thirteen Plus. Thirteen Minus. That’s the talk in the politico-ideological streets. It is almost like a rudimentary arithmetic problem. In July 1987 Sri Lanka may have been plus or minus or...
View ArticleBeing villagers in the larger village of humanity
Supreme Court judge turned politician, C.V. Wigneswaran, in the course of delivering the Chelvanayagam Memorial Lecture, quoted from the Purananooru, a text said to be 2000 years old: ‘Yaathum oore:...
View ArticleNever again!
Thirty years is a long time in the life of a generation. It is short in the life of a nation or a community. We live, however, not in that long time-span but the short, where memory matters and...
View Article‘Techniques’ of magical realism in ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’
A few weeks ago, somewhere in Australia, someone had to speak on the above subject. ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, perhaps the best known and most read of Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’...
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BLACK JULY: Never Again!
‘Black July’ is remembered and remembered differently and for varying purposes by those who remember. Whatever these differences may be there is commonality in agreement on one thing: it should never...
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Meanwhile in a parallel universe called Humility…
Barack Obama talks about the 13th AmendmentWhen Trayvon Martin (black) was shot dead by Mark Zimmerman (white) in February 2012, I said ‘If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon’. A few days ago, when...
View ArticleThose other Black Julys
Last week The Nationcommented on the events of July 1983, referring inter alia, to the context and how it helped shape the larger tragedy that unfolded. July 1983, referred to as ‘Black July’ has been...
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Meanwhile in a parallel universe called Humility….
Dayasiri the Entertainer makes a personal choice I came to Parliament because some 130,000 voters who voted for the Elephant, marked an ‘X’ before my name. They wanted me to represent them, and...
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Meanwhile in a parallel universe called Humility...
The priceless Madeleine Albright sobers upI helped write a report. On Sri Lanka. I lied. I regurgitated unsubstantiated claims which were based on numbers tossed around by terrorists and their...
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Fast in these fast times
We live in troubled times. We live in times where text is interpreted or rather misinterpreted to feed our prejudices. In this exercise not only is preferred text quoted out of context and...
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