Views - 1298 Wednesday, 8 May 2019 00:00

After a brutal 30 year civil war, LTTE was finally crushed by the military in May 2009. Since then, Sri Lankans were enjoying the peace dividends for the last 10 years despite multiple challenges on different fronts. The Easter attacks have revived t

Views - 1157 Wednesday, 8 May 2019 00:00

In my eighties, do I look forward or backward? On Easter Sunday, 21 April, I was numb with grief but my mind went racing with multiple thoughts. Let calm descend over me to take stock of the situation. This reprehensible dastardly act was the work of

Views - 224 Wednesday, 8 May 2019 00:00

It takes two hands to clap and make a noise, and what a deadly noise did Sri Lankans hear during that fatal Easter Sunday? In the first part of this analysis, the Muslim leadership’s hand was identified and discussed. The second part looks at the h

Views - 282 Wednesday, 8 May 2019 00:00

Easter Sunday 21 April was a fateful day for Sri Lanka. It was the day that animalistic instincts of a few individuals conquered the rights of scores of humans who wanted to live peacefully. I am not qualified to analyse the ideologies behind those e

Views - 219 Tuesday, 7 May 2019 00:00

A comparatively small, disproportionately dynamic, unbelievably influential group calling itself ISIS is seeking to impose a totalitarian version of Islam on the world. To fight an idea, we must understand the idea. The common-sense approach demands

Views - 282 Tuesday, 7 May 2019 00:00

Easter Sunday carnage has left the country in a dilemma leaving all of us in a state of anxiety with a feeling of general insecurity. The events have shaken the peace loving world and brought our country to a virtual dead stop. Focus of attention on

Views - 443 Tuesday, 7 May 2019 00:00

The well-coordinated suicide-bombings on Easter Sunday 21 April that left over250 people dead was a catastrophic failure. The world has learned a great deal about how to thwart terrorists since 11 September 2001. A crucial lesson is that it is vital

Views - 4716 Monday, 6 May 2019 00:10

The Annual Report of the Central Bank for 2018 analysing in minute detail the state of the country’s economy today and outlining the prospects for the next five years has just been released (available at: https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/en/publications/eco

Views - 475 Monday, 6 May 2019 00:00

The Easter carnage that consumed the lives of nearly 250 innocent worshippers and bystanders including children, opens another chapter in Sri Lanka’s post-colonial bloody history of communalism and majoritarian rule. Unless one is prepared to accep

Views - 629 Monday, 6 May 2019 00:00

According to Human Rights Watch there are some 1,600 asylum seekers in Sri Lanka and they need the urgent protection of the Sri Lankan Government as committed to the UN when they were accepted as refugees. They include Afghans, Iranians and Pakistani

Views - 957 Monday, 6 May 2019 00:00

The Sri Lankan Government brought into effect a ban on full face coverings by an Emergency Regulation on 29 April. Difficult and serious questions have arisen on the scope of this ban as well as its impact. In this short piece I offer four arguments

Views - 504 Monday, 6 May 2019 00:00

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Education has said that all schools will be reopened on 6 May after all the security units reach a clear consensus on the security situation in every school. Anyway, just now I got a message that grades 1-5 are going to open

Views - 1091 Monday, 6 May 2019 00:00

I live in Negombo and know many who lost their lives in the Easter tragedy that engulfed serene Sri Lanka. There was surely no repetition of ‘black July’ or ‘dark Digana’. It is amazing to see the restrained response of affected masses withgr

Views - 617 Saturday, 4 May 2019 00:10

“…it is not the doctrine of the founder per se but the socio-politico milieu which a religious doctrine inhabits that can give it the horrible potential for intolerance and violence…”

Views - 1418 Friday, 3 May 2019 00:10

Sri Lanka appears to be trapped in a vicious circle of wretchedness, not easy to escape from. Of the post-independence period which spans little over seven decades, the country has passed through a dismal backdrop of cruelty and savagery, swimming in

Views - 1101 Friday, 3 May 2019 00:00

In the midst of the sad situation our country is presently facing we saw the positive news of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) deciding to appoint Kumar Sangakkara as their president for one year from October. According to reports this is the first

Views - 492 Thursday, 2 May 2019 01:25

Communication theories in crisis situations will suggest to us many strategies by way of catastrophe management, activating contingency plans, deploying promotional campaigns, etc. All efforts being made after a damage of this magnitude are to bring

Views - 619 Thursday, 2 May 2019 01:21

I’m a few thousand miles away from my motherland as I pen these thoughts. A routine and simple visit to family living overseas, rich with the promise of fun and laughter, has turned into sleepless nights and constant monitoring of news sites and ch

Views - 244 Thursday, 2 May 2019 01:15

Dust is settling down in Sri Lanka after one of the most devastating and heinous terrorist attacks against Christians and foreign visitors (civilians) on 21 April. It was supposed to be a day of glory and celebrations for Christians world over. Howev

Views - 497 Wednesday, 1 May 2019 00:00

As it always happens, the politicians have started giving excuses and passing the buck. I believe it’s time we (the general public) without keeping quiet think of a democratic manner how we could expose the present set of politicians (every one of

Views - 1164 Wednesday, 1 May 2019 00:00

It is momentous and is of very great importance that the subject of “Shari’ah” is to be perceived and analysed dispassionately and in an impartial manner as well as to be understood with knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Trying to make scurri

Views - 357 Tuesday, 30 April 2019 00:00

Ceylon was known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. We failed to take it as a tourism promotion tagline and lost it to another country. After many years of being in limbo a professional who developed tourism for Singapore as the Lion City was hired as

Views - 4008 Tuesday, 30 April 2019 00:00

It was not only Sri Lanka that was shaken from the Easter attack but also the world. The lights on the Eiffel Tower were switched off, parliaments around the world observed a minute’s silence. US President Donald Trump made a special comment to the

Views - 1343 Tuesday, 30 April 2019 00:00

It was quite difficult at the beginning to understand how we failed as a nation to protect the precious lives of our own people and foreign tourists from brutal terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday. However, it is now becoming clear to the whole world

Views - 1117 Monday, 29 April 2019 00:20

As heads roll (or not, in a prime case), and political ambition among other ignoble motives sees state responses to last Sunday’s carnage descend from the supercilious to the surreal, many questions remain in the minds of Sri Lanka’s average citi

Views - 5133 Monday, 29 April 2019 00:10

Call for rising above narrow prejudices or biases The gruesome killing of unsuspecting civilians in Sri Lanka by an extreme Islamic group connected to Islamic State or IS last week has been roundly condemned by local – religious, political, and civ

Views - 1013 Monday, 29 April 2019 00:07

On Easter Sunday, my wife and I attended the Easter Sunday Mass at 6.30 a.m. at All Saints Church Colombo 8, then visited Cinnamon Grand, and returned home by around 9.15, only to hear reports of explosions in three churches in Negombo, Batticaloa an

Views - 432 Monday, 29 April 2019 00:00

The security of the Nation, in particular from 2015 onwards, has been compromised and the political process as well as the politicians have failed to keep Sri Lanka safe for its citizens, and our visitors. This view has been expressed by very ordinar

Views - 2142 Monday, 29 April 2019 00:00

The names of many of those believed to be behind the bombings appear freely in the Tamil press. The English press, however, has a deferential silence because the names are of important politicians, even ministers and governors. This silence has to en

Views - 450 Saturday, 27 April 2019 01:01

Evil originates not in the absence of guilt. Evil originates in our effort to escape it. I cannot recall who said it. But it addresses our current predicament. Yes. I am punning on the fact that Hemasiri Fernando was a colossus in the local Olympic m