“From dethroning English to planning for a Trilingual Society”

Language and Social Process in Sri Lanka 1956 - 2011:

English has been present in Sri Lanka for over 200 years. But by 1956, it was estimated that only about eight percent of the people were able to read or speak English. Though the British had controlled the coastal areas for 152 years and the whole country for 133 years, it is to their shame that they had failed to deliver English language skills to 92 percent of the population, and that too in a small country like ours.

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Kabul street children struggle to survive

In crowded downtown Kabul, nine-year-old Ahmed looks like any other energetic salesman hawking plastic bags for 10 cents a piece, darting in and out of snarled traffic to chase after pedestrians. Except the child peering out under a woollen hat, striding around in a blue jacket and jeans is actually Khatera - a girl sent onto the streets by her father to earn desperately needed money.

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Discriminating about dictators, strengthening democracy

A recent article in the British media asserted ‘their crimes against humanity live forever - but death always catches up with dictators, one way or another’. That startlingly meaningless statement was given teeth with the claim that ‘the way dictators meet their end often lingers as the defining image of their cruel lives’, a notion illustrated with pictures of the gruesome deaths of Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Mussolini and Nicolae Ceausescu. There was also a picture of the Japanese war leader Tojo after he tried to commit suicide, along with pictures of the dead Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao Ze Dong.

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Dr. Hector Fernando worked for the marginalised

The death anniversary of Dr. Hector Fernando, a champion of the underprivileged and a former MP for Negombo fell on October 21. The well-known physician, he was a veteran in the Leftist movement in Sri Lanka.

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