Groundviews

The ongoing brouhaha around the boat people ‘storming’ Australian maritime waters displays two tendencies in Australian politics and its cultural underpinnings. The first tendency, A, is the insidious influence of a long-standing hostility to potentially subversive foreign elements. Th...

Vietnam was the first country to be informed by Sri Lanka of its victory over the Tigers. It was from the on the record remarks of a top Vietnamese leader that I learned that. In their separate speeches of welcome, the President, Prime Minister and Secretary General of the ruling ...

Whilst it is not clear as to whether we would be voting in both the presidential and general elections on the same day, it is clear that we will be voting in at least one of them in the next three months, followed soon thereafter by the other. Most likely ...

Exactly three years after its launch, Groundviews published its 1000th post today. In it Dr...

Police Reform was the theme of a discussion organised by the Commonwealth Initiative in Delhi last week. Among the participants were senior police officers from South Asian countries including a few who are retired. Also present were many other persons interested in the issue...

Every year, when Deepavali rolls around, I feel a twinge of sadness creeping up on me. I didn’t dwell on it because it seemed indulgent and pointless. It’s not like we celebrated Deepavali in a big way when I was growing up in Colombo. And my family, we were not ...

Over the last couple of days there has been a significant amount of discussion back and forth about General Fonseka and the Department of Homeland Security interview. However, nobody seems to have asked nor answered the following simple questions; 1...

Introduction: The killing of the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Pirapaharan, has brought an end to a stage in the development of the Tamil National Liberation Struggle. There are many crucial lessons to be learned from this experience;- Lessons Paid in Blood...

J.S. Tissainayagam, who had been under detention since March 7- 2009, was convicted on all three charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) on August 31- 2009 by the High Court of Colombo, and given the maximum sentence of 20 years rigorous incarceration. In a symbolic and focal sense, ...

[Authors note: Edited text of a speech at the Jaffna Hindu College Old Boys Association (UK) Social Event: Kalaiarasi (31 October 2009)] Thank you very much for inviting me as Chief Guest. This is a new experience. Nobody has invited me to such a wonderful event before. There are four reasons ...

A young boy was drowned in broad daylight this week. Though not a single newspaper carried it, I’m told B. Sivakumaran was his name. He was “believed” to be mentally retarded and known for throwing stones at passing vehicles and trains. Approximately 100 people watched him die. One even managed ...

This is one of the subjects that has in recent years put me in constant confusion. To situate my confused status in its context, let me begin with a personal note. In the 1960s when I began my political praxis, I had very clear and precise a position on the ...