by Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, February 20, 2023 Many groups who identify as Indigenous don’t claim to be first peoples; many who did come first don’t claim to be Indigenous. Can the concept escape its colonial past? The term was shaped by social-evolutionist thinking; white settlers used it to designate the “primitive” other. Podcast… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
Elite Capture and Corruption of Security Sectors
by United States Institute for Peace, Washington, DC, February 17, 2023 Executive Summary Closing the Effectiveness Gap The objective of US security sector assistance is to help build effective, accountable, responsive, transparent, and legitimate security sectors in partner nations to address common security risks. Such action ultimately benefits US national interests, as when the United… Read more »
No Power Cuts and No Elections?
by A, Nillanthan, February 25, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate, with some improvement by the Editor.] The power cuts have been stopped since the 16th, but the electricity bill has increased by 66 percent. What does the government want to convey to the people through this? Stopping power cuts means you… Read more »
Essense of Entrepreneurship
by Raj Rajaratnam, Jaffna, January 14, 2023
Sri Lanka’s Duplicity on Promises to India
by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam via EINPresswire, New York, January 26, 2023 “History Repeats Itself First as a Tragedy, then as a Farce”. “Indo-Lanka Accord and Implementation of the 36 years old 13th Amendment.” Indo-Lanka Accord Gives India the Legal Authority to Intervene.” — V. Rudrakumaran NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, January 26, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/… Read more »
India’s Timely Help Ensured Sri Lanka’s Economic Survival during Crisis
:Sri Lankan envoy Moragoda by Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu, Chennai, January 26, 2023 India’s support to Sri Lanka during its economic crisis, that External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar underlined during his visit to Colombo last week has opened a new chapter in ties between the neighbours, says Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Milinda Moragoda…. Read more »
Reviving the Northern Economy in Sri Lanka
Speech made by Dr. Indrajit Coomarasamy Colombo, January 21, 2023 [Speech in English with an introduction in Tamil]
Thirteen Again?
by A. Nillanthan, Uthayan, Jaffna, January 29, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate, with some improvement by the Editor.] “This will not divide the country. According to the decision of the five-judge panel, especially regarding the 13th amendment, we are in a unitary state. I agree with power sharing. The provincial councils… Read more »
UPR Report on Sri Lanka
by UNHRC Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, February 1, 2023. Report presented to 53rd session of UNHRC, June 2023 G2303666.pdf (un.org) Video of Sri Lanka’s review, February 1, 2023 – Sri Lanka Review – 42nd Session of Universal Periodic Review | UN Web TV Video of adoption of the UPR report February 3,… Read more »
Sri Lanka Is Calm Again. That Doesn’t Mean Things Are Any Better
After an economic collapse and political upheaval, Sri Lankans have become resigned to leaner meals and reduced horizons. by Mujib Mashal & Skandha Gunasekara, New York Times, January 31, 2023 Reporting from Ibbagamuwa, in Sri Lanka’s North Western Province, and Colombo, the capital. On the surface, calm has returned to Sri Lanka since the South… Read more »
Spotlight on Puttalam
Aussie company buys Lankan ilmenite deposit for a pittance by Daily Mirror, Colombo, December 20,2022 The Sri Lanka Cement Corporation owned factories in Kankesanthurai, Puttalam and Galle. The factories in Puttalam and Galle were sold in 1993. The factory in Kankesanthurai didn’t operate due to the war. Although the Puttalam Cement Factory was sold the… Read more »
Is the Fish Thawed But Not in Yet the Pan?
by A. Nillanthan, January 15, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate, with some improvement by the Editor.] A nation is a great mass of people. Nationalism is the gathering of a mass of people. National politics is the method of a government to gather a mass of people. If we think on… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Failed Peace Process and the Continuing Challenge of Ethno-territorial Cleavages
by Asanga Welikala, p.255-274 in’Territory and Power in Constitutional Transitions,’ Oxford University Press, March 12 2019 Sri Lanka’s failed peace process and the continuing challenge of ethno-territorial cleavages Welikala 2019 Abstract This chapter examines why the peace process in Sri Lanka failed to find a constitutional settlement for the country’s ethno-territorial cleavage, and even enthroned… Read more »
The Sri Lankan Conception of the Unitary State
Theory, practice and history by Asanga Welikala, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo, June 2016 CPA-Working-Paper-1 Concluding Remarks In the years after the brutal denouement of the civil war, there was no progress with regard to reforms towards a reconciliatory and inclusive constitutional settlement for Sri Lanka. If anything, the post-war realignment of politics was in the… Read more »
India: The Last Battle of the American Revolutionary War
by John L. Smith, Jr. ‘Journal of the American Revolution,’ July 8, 2015 The next time you’re in a trivia contest and the question comes up, “What was the last battle of the American Revolutionary War?” the judges will probably be looking for the predictable answer of “Yorktown.”[1] That’s the neat and tidy answer, but… Read more »
Conflict Forced Them From Their Homes
Now the Military Is Occupying Their Land “Future looks bleak. Unless the Tamils get their lost land back, the Tamil areas would soon be colonised by Sinhalese.” by Jeevan Ravindran & Kumanan Kanapathippillai, VICE, New York, January 16, 2023 JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: Using a bat made of coconut tree bark, 15-year-old Gunasekaram Shatheeskumar was playing… Read more »
TNA: an Alliance Fraught with Challenges
Despite electoral losses and brickbats from rival parties and critics, the TNA keeps pushing for a political solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic question within the framework of a ‘united, undivided, indivisible’ country by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu, Chennai, January 8, 2023 For most of its two decade-existence, Sri Lanka’s Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has been… Read more »
Lanka’s Ethnic ‘Mountain’ and the Wee Mouse of ‘PTA Pardons’
by Sunday Times, Dec. 25, 2022 Carrots tossed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the form of release of a few Prevention of Terrorism (PTA) political prisoners and return of lands to displaced owners in the North and East have given rise to unseemly jubilation on the part of Sri Lanka’s Tamil political leadership or what… Read more »
The TGTE: Past Present and Future
by Usha Sriskandarajah, December 20, 2022 For the TGTE, Tamil Eelam is not a mere dream or aspiration or yearning or passion alone, it’s a commitment, an explicit, unequivocal and results-oriented goal that’s to be pursued and achieved using every peaceful means possible Text of the Keynote Address delivered by Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah, Member of… Read more »
All Party Conference, Division among Tamil Politicians & the Ethnic Question
by C.V. Wigneswaran, Colombo Telegraph, December 20, 2022 A Journalist from Colombo asked me: There seems to be a polarisation among you Tamil Politicians after the President invited you for discussions on the ethnic question. Some have condemned you “Et tu Brute” for attending the Conference. Do you think apart from dividing the Tamil politicians anything… Read more »