Author Archive
September 2, 2010 at 2:38 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
The President has proposed to make changes to the constitution via an urgent bill. The changes known as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, seek to remove the two term limit on being elected to the office of the President and the Constitutional Council under the 17th Amendment. As required under the Constitution, the President has referred the urgent bill to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court heard the Government’s arguments and the arguments of six intervening petitioners on Tuesday 1 September 2010. These changes have not been discussed in the public domain and they are sought to be made in secret. It is important to note that even at the Supreme Court hearing the intervening petitioners were only given copies …
September 1, 2010 at 11:24 pm · Categories: Colombo, Media and Communications, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Groundviews
Groundviews exclusively carried Jayantha Dhanapala’s response to erroneous and selective media reports of his submission to LLRC a few days ago, in which he promised an authoritative transcript of his presentation and of the question and answer session from the LLRC.
A covering note to the media from Mr. Dhanapala and the transcripts were sent to us today. Download the transcript here as a PDF, and another PDF noting the members of the LLRC here.
Interestingly, Shamindra Ferdinando, the News Editor of the Island newspaper mentioned on two occasions that he and his newspaper stand by the initial story on Mr. Dhannapala’s submission to …
September 1, 2010 at 3:13 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Groundviews
Rohan Edrisinha lectures at the Law Faculty, University of Colombo and is also a Director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. In this succinct interview conducted by Vikalpa today, Rohan flags serious concerns over the government’s proposed 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Salient points made by Rohan are,
- Significant problems with the process through which the Amendment was introduced – it was rushed, not consultative and couched in secrecy. Few outside government even had access to the proposed Amendment before it was sent to the Supreme Court.
- The Amendment goes against the promises in the President’s own Mahinda Chintanaya in 2005 and 2010.
- Completely undermines the 17th Amendment, with severe implications for, inter alia, the conduct of …
August 30, 2010 at 11:35 am · Categories: Colombo, Districts, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation, War Crimes | by Groundviews
Internal Armed Conflicts, Humanitarian Laws and the Curious Transformation of Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala by Kalana Senaratne on Groundviews flagged a number of pertinent questioning arising from the media reportage of Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recently.
On our Facebook page as well as through numerous emails sent to the Editors, many present at this session of the LLRC said that media reports, including those on the Ministry of Defence website of Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission were extremely biased and inaccurate. We publish below a response to these reports by Jayantha Dhanapala as well as his written submission to the LLRC.
…
August 23, 2010 at 2:33 pm · Categories: Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Groundviews
Interview III – Tissa Jayathilaka from Young Asia Television on Vimeo.
In this interview, Tissa Jayatilaka speaks about the Ceylon of his childhood and the experience of being part of the last batch of students enrolled at the University of Ceylon. Tissa also talks about the tumultuous period during the 1970s, the roots of the conflict and flags the opportunities as well as challenges facing post-war Sri Lanka.
Finally, Tissa speaks of academia, literature and his experience as one of the first members of the Council for Liberal Democracy, a think-tank that was founded in 1981, and of his friendship …
August 17, 2010 at 9:54 am · Categories: Development, Economy, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
Prof. Sumanasiri Liyanage, who has written to Groundviews regularly, teaches political economy at the University of Peradeniya, is a well-known political analyst, columnist and on the Board of the South Asia Peace Institute (SAPI).
We began our short conversation with the crisis facing the main opposition party in Sri Lanka, the United National Party, flagging serious issues others on this site like Dayapala Thiranagama have also noted. Prof. Liyanage’s critique of the party stems from his observation that in recent years it has lost sight of a political party’s raison d’être – the capture of political power as opposed …
August 11, 2010 at 12:08 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Groundviews
We last featured Rohan Edrisinha in February, just after the Presidential election on 26th January. Rohan, who lectures at the Law Faculty, University of Colombo and also a Director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, at the time flagged serious concerns over the implementation of the 13th and 17th Amendments, as well as the tragic irrelevance of the APRC in the process of constitutional reform.
These are also issues flagged in this video, where Rohan expresses his impatience with ideas such as the post of an Executive Prime Minister, which he notes is not just confusing, but dangerous to boot since …
August 11, 2010 at 11:30 am · Categories: Colombo, Media and Communications | by Groundviews
[Editors note: We reproduce below two open letters sent to the Editors of the Daily Mirror and Daily Mirror online respectively. The letters flag significant concerns over a marked lack of professionalism and violation of established media ethics by both the online and print versions of the newspaper. The letters are published for any responses that either of the Editors wish to send to Groundviews, and for others to critically engage with in what we feel is a vital and necessary debate on mainstream media standards in post-war Sri Lanka. The author of the two letters blogs at http://electra.blogsome.com.]
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Letter to Editor of Daily Mirror
Dear Ms. Liyanaarachi,
As the Editor of the Daily Mirror, I wish to bring to your …
July 22, 2010 at 12:01 am · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Groundviews
Released exclusively on Groundviews, this is a composite document compiled by Yogarajan and Kariapper and made public by them (read the full background to this document in their introduction).
Please note that as Nizam Kariapper pointed out to Groundviews, there is a mistake in the first page of this version of the report – the reference to June 2010 should read as June 2009.
- Download the complete report here.
- Download the executive summary of the report here.
July 21, 2010 at 12:19 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
Groundviews received the executive summary of the APRC’s final report today. Download the report here.
Salient features covered in the Executive Summary include:
- Nature of the State
- Form of Government
- Status of Buddhism
- Official languages and national languages
- Use of the English language
- Supremacy of the constitution
- Safeguards against secession
- Electoral system
- Power sharing
- Senate
- Community Council
- Distribution of powers between central and provincial
- National and provincial higher appointments council
- Amendment procedure
July 20, 2010 at 4:12 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Groundviews
This interview features Dr. A. C. Visvalingam, President, Citizen’s Movement for Good Governance. I ask him about his advocacy and activism in Sri Lanka, both during war and post-war. Mr. Visvalingam bemoans the fact that a number of articles, despite close ties to Editors and journalists, did not appear in the newspapers, and also speaks of the corporate sector’s risk averse nature especially around content produced that is critical of government and governance. He also speak about the need to introduce civic education in schools to bring about a greater awareness over the role and responsibilities of citizens. He goes on to …
July 10, 2010 at 6:51 am · Categories: Colombo, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, War Crimes | by Groundviews
The National Freedom Front (NFF), in a procession from Bullers Road, approached the Russian Embassy today and met with officials inside the premises. The second day of Wimal Weerawansa’s fast unto death (and the third day of NFF’s agitation in front of the UN in Colombo) saw him call a press conference in the afternoon.
In his physically weakened condition, what he said was not voluble enough to be captured by Vikalpa’s video camera. However, a woman’s strident and emotionally charged call to save his life at the end of the video captures the essential volatility of the situation in front of the UN, and …
July 8, 2010 at 12:07 pm · Categories: Colombo, International Relations, Politics and Governance, War Crimes | by Groundviews
Original photo here. More on the ground updates and photos from the Twitter feed of Groundviews:
July 7, 2010 at 3:14 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Gender, Identity | by Groundviews
Rosanna Flamer-Caldera is the Executive Director of Equal Ground. This interview was held soon after the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka said he was open to dialogue with the gay community, but “would not take any decision which could hurt the culture of the country”.
Almost exactly one year ago, India decriminalised gay sex. As the Times of India noted at the time,
India took a giant, albeit belated, step towards globalisation on Thursday when the Delhi high court delivered a historic judgement to amend a 149-year-old colonial-era law — Section 377 of the IPC — and decriminalise …
July 6, 2010 at 6:37 pm · Categories: Colombo, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, War Crimes | by Groundviews
Photos courtesy Vikalpa, and more will be added anon. Others taken by blogger Indi Samarajiva can be seen here.
Google has the latest updates from all web media, including tweets and blogs. Our curated Twitter news feed also features the latest updates from sources like @DMbreakingnews….
July 1, 2010 at 10:15 am · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Development, Diplomacy, Economy, End of war special edition, Foreign Relations, Gender, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Identity, International Relations, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Poetry, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation, War Crimes | by Groundviews
Download the 162 page compilation of content as a PDF in high quality (25.4Mb), or low quality (3.7Mb). The low quality version is good enough to read, but the photos will look and print much better in the high quality version.
From 19 – 27 May 2010, Groundviews ran a special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka. Over this week alone, the site received over forty thousand readers and exclusively featured over eighty thousand words of original content, one video premiere, over a dozen photos, generating over one hundred and fifty thousand words of commentary. Tens of thousands more have read …
June 14, 2010 at 5:47 pm · Categories: Development, Economy, Human Rights, Human Security, Identity, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Groundviews
From the psycho-social trauma and destruction of the social fabric in Jaffna after close upon three decades of brutal war to the challenges of post-war development, entrepreneurship and economic revival, these two interviews focus on two leading Tamil civil society activists who have lived in Jaffna from when the war was still raging.
Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan is the Principal Researcher at the Point Pedro Institute of Development and author of three well read articles on Groundviews. Our conversation was pegged to the socio-economic aspects of post-war scenarios in the North and East. Dr. Sarvananthan’s key ideas for post-war development are …
May 21, 2010 at 11:14 am · Categories: Development, End of war special edition, IDPs and Refugees, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Groundviews
Vikalpa, the sister site of Groundviews with citizen journalism in Sinhala, produced this mini-documentary on Jaffna a year after the war ended. Vikalpa also produced a series of interviews in Tamil, Sinhala and English on the end of war, that will be progressively made available on its YouTube channel, embedded below….
May 19, 2010 at 6:15 am · Categories: Colombo, End of war special edition, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Groundviews
One year after the war ended, when Groundviews invited contributors to contest and complement our understanding that peace is not just the absence of war, or the defeat of the LTTE, we did not expect the response we received. Over the next week, we will publish close to 80,000 words and content from over forty different authors, in prose, verse, photography and video. A leitmotif through all contributions is that a government supremely adept at winning a war is outrageously inept at winning peace. The authors, including former senior diplomats and civil servants, internationally renown, award-winning poets, gifted photographers, academics, economists, bloggers, novelists, human rights activists, …
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