Police investigation into crime: Not like buying homeware from the market
The Sunday Observer of December 6, 2020 carried in its front page in banner headlines, a news item on the Easter Sunday attacks; “INVESTIGATIONS TO BE COMPLETED SOON.” It quoted Public Security Minister Rear Admiral (Retd.) Sarath Weerasekera as telling Parliament that he would personally meet the Attorney General to review the progress of the [...]
Equal partners campaign: Engaging men and boys for gender equality
Sri Lanka ranks 90 out of 189 in the Gender Inequality Index (2019). Over the years, significant strides have been made to create equal opportunities for women, particularly in terms of free and equal access to education and healthcare. However, in the face of structural barriers and harmful societal norms that perpetuate gender stereotypes — [...]
Climate change could create 63m migrants in South Asia by 2050
BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The growing impacts of climate change have already pushed more than 18 million people to migrate within South Asian countries, but that could more than triple if global warming continues on its current path, researchers warned on Friday. Nearly 63 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 [...]
The ‘Indo-Pacific’: The concept, history and the struggle for dominance
Book facts Repositioning South Asia in the Indo-Pacific Region: Changing Geo-Politics and Geo-Strategies Author: Prof. Gamini Keerawella Publisher: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS), Colombo ‘Repositioning South Asia in the Indo-Pacific Region: Changing Geo-politics and Geo-strategies’ is the latest research paper publication by Gamini Keerawella, Professor Emeritus, and Executive Director of the Regional Centre for [...]
Anagarika Dharmapala: Tracing the trajectories of his pursuits
Book facts A NAME FOR EVERY CHAPTER: Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism By Bhadrajee S. Hewage ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates. Rarely has so much been written both in the West and in the East about the work of a ‘revivalist,’ that one would conclude there is nothing left to [...]
A memorable meeting with Podihamuduruwo at Gangaramaya
I refer to the Sunday Times article by the Ven. Aggamahapanditha Dr.Walpola Piyananda, Chief Sangha Nayake of America on the Sri Gangaramaya temple’s chief incumbent, the Ven. Galboda Gnanissara Thera, popularly known as Podi Hamaduruwo, on the occasion of the Podihamaduruwo’s 77th birthday on December 14. In my article I would like to recount my [...]
An old school engineer with impeccable character and integrity
Birthday Tribute Don Gunasena Athukorala: I would like to pay tribute to Don Gunasena Athukorala for his contribution to Sri Lanka’s civil engineering profession as an early practitioner, setting high standards for engineers technically and ethically. Don Gunasena was one of the pioneering engineers who joined the State Engineering Corporation (SEC) at its formation in [...]
The night Arafat, facing death threats, slept in UN chief’s office
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva — perhaps for the first time in UN history — providing a less-hostile [...]
Bull or bear in 2021?
LONDON – In two of my previous commentaries on the peculiar world of equity markets in 2020, I offered a bullish outlook for how events would unfold as the year progressed (with all due caveats for the market’s overall unpredictability). In the event, things have broadly played out as I anticipated, owing to a remarkable [...]