It is indeed a great privilege to pen some thoughts and emotions that ran through my mind on one of the momentous occasions which Lester James Peiris and his wife Sumithra commemorate yearly. Although I am no film critic in the strict sense of the word but I dare say that I am a devoted […]

“Collective”- Bauddha Jathika Balavegaya (BJB) reborn!
“I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders.” — Leo Tolstoy
Ghosts from fifty five-years ago
The ghosts of the past, not from very distant one but from an era of exactly fifty five years ago, are invading our confused and troubled […]

“That is a slave’s lot – not to be able to speak one’s mind” — Euripides (Ion)
In Turkey, an attempt to uproot a public park and build a shopping mall ignited a tidal-wave of protests which is yet to abate.
No balls to stand up an condemn
In Saudi Arabia, innumerable Islamic sites are being annihilated in […]

The government’s ongoing bid to seek changes to the 13th Amendment prior to holding elections to the Northern Provincial Council has suffered a reversal with the refusal of some of the government’s coalition partners to go along with it. This is likely to be a temporary reversal. The ethnic
minority political parties that are part of […]

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
The pillar of success?
With the total flop of the one-day Island-wide strike of May 21, 2013, organized by the so-called joint-Opposition, the air went out of the balloon,
deflating the huge imaginary bubble that the Opposition had been blowing. […]

“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government”
(US Supreme Court on Pentagon Papers)
If the Rajapaksas succeed in turning their ‘media ethics proposal’ into law, Sri Lanka will have her very own Minitrue (Ministry of Truth). And the role of Lankan media will be redefined, from ‘watchdogs of democracy’ to ‘lapdogs of […]

The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people and answerable to the people
-Daniel Webster –Speech
On the question of an international independent process to assess progress as called for by the UN, the High Commissioner said that one needs to draw a distinction between an international process and an independent process. “We do […]

Graduates, faculty, family members and friends,
I’m honoured to be here with you on this fantastic day. Today, we celebrate your achievements, and, your perseverance. It is a magnificent time. You’ve done it!
Those of you graduating, have completed, an important chapter, in your own story, and in doing so, have become, a part of the rich […]

As the Sinhalese and Tamils, or more precisely the Sinhala and Tamil nationalists, will eventually learn, there were rather good reasons that the Temple at Delphi bore the inscription ‘Nothing in Excess’, while the Buddha urged a Middle Path and Aristotle, the Golden Mean.
Pincer move
Less than six months before the Commonwealth summit, the Government is […]

“Nemesis, the goddess of measure and not of revenge, keeps watch. All those who overstep the limits are pitilessly punished by her”.
Albert Camus (Helen’s Exile)
One of the most incisive analyses about Rajapaksa modus operandi was made not by a Sri Lankan but by an American – Ambassador Robert Blake.
Mr. Blake’s observations about how the Siblings […]