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I, the media!
 Indy Media came up with a brilliant line which I have quoted many times over the past 10 years: ‘BE THE MEDIA!’ What it means is that anyone and everyone can be the media, or to be more precise, be a media person, a journalist, as long as the person concerned has eyes that see that which is apparent and that which is not, ears that listen as well as hear, tongues that can turn word and in this and other ways communicate and share. Indy Media, in this call, says nothing of integrity or stands. I believe this is what has served to wreck the notion of media freedom.
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| Time: |
Wednesday, August 04, 2010 @ 11:37:13 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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737 |
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| 605 |
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World court on Kosovo: Lessons for Lanka
Students residing and schooling in Colombo had the bar to university entrance set higher in the mid 1970s, what with district and media wise standardisation the order of the day. For Arts students the Mt Olympus was the Faculty of Law, and those few who had done well enough were informed that they had qualified /been selected for the Law Fac. Getting their kids in over the high bar of standardisation was a dream for parents in Colombo. That year my name was on top of the list of Arts students eligible for the Law Faculty but as Prof Kamal Karunanayake, then registrar of the UGC would testify, I opted instead – over considerable parental pressure-- for Political Science at Peradeniya. The reason was a simple realisation that ‘law’ and ‘justice’ were two quite different things; that law was weighted in favour of the existing power structure and that politics, by contrast, would not veil reality so much as provide a key to the comprehension of the decision making core, which affected everything else including the law.
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| Time: |
Monday, August 02, 2010 @ 11:57:35 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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605 |
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| 610 |
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THE SELF-IMMOLATION OF THE UNP
‘Change’ and ‘Unity’ are the two competing slogans within the UNP. Sadly the issue is wrongly framed for either slogan to do much good. The question should be whether change or unity should come first. If unity precedes change, it will also preclude change. Unity is thus being deployed as a slogan to counter that of reform aimed at leadership change or leadership change through reform.
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| Time: |
Monday, August 02, 2010 @ 11:54:59 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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610 |
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| 541 |
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Yes, she was innocent, like a flower
 In the year 1996 or thereabouts, the third year students of the Sociology Department, University of Peradeniya were taken on a field trip to Thanamalwila. They were divided into groups and asked to study various aspects of the social, political and economic environment. One group had to investigate the unusually high suicide rate in the area.
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| Time: |
Thursday, July 29, 2010 @ 16:09:48 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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541 |
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| 749 |
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Tracking the Tigers’ Trajectory
’THE TIGER VANQUISHED: LTTE’S STORY’ BY M.R. NARAYAN SWAMY Reviewed by DR DAYAN JAYATILLEKA There are books that are a ‘must read’, and others that are a ‘cracking good read’. MR Narayan Swamy’s latest book on Sri Lanka,The Tiger Vanquished: LTTE’s Story (Sage Publications, 2010), is both. It is an objective, balanced, reliable and fairly authoritative account of the last war, its prelude and its aftermath. It should be read across the spectrum, by Sri Lankans and non-Sri Lankans interested either in Sri Lanka or the broader themes of insurgency, terrorism and ethnic conflict. The long introduction is the best single text I have read so far on the last war, from build-up and backdrop to its grand finale and present-day prospects.
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| Time: |
Monday, July 26, 2010 @ 13:26:53 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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749 |
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| 581 |
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I am a light polluter, how about you?
 What do you make of the number 29,321,302, and what of 6,538,367 and 5,838,381? Does 22.30% and 19.91% mean anything to you? Here’s the story. The first figure refers to the annual global Carbon Dioxide emissions, in terms of ‘thousands of metric tons’. The next two refer to the amount of Carbon Dioxide emissions by China and the USA respectively with percentages referring to the corresponding share of annual global emissions.
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| Time: |
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 14:37:28 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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581 |
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| 740 |
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New trends in Tamil politics
There are new trends in Tamil politics and a quickening of activity in Tamil political society. The Tamil Political Parties Forum is one manifestation while the visit of the TNA to India is another. The Tamil Parties Forum, an initiative of EPDP leader Devananda has succeed in drawing together most of the old EPRLF and much of the ex-Eelam Left, with a few prominent civil society activists and the odd ultranationalist thrown in. Its very existence is a quasi-miracle, given the fissiparous character of Tamil politics. The second type of activity has been the TNA’s interaction with the Government of India. There are efforts to call a meeting in Colombo or overseas of both tendencies, the TPF and the TNA. A successful ingathering too would be akin to a miracle, given the sectarianism that abounds.
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| Time: |
Thursday, July 15, 2010 @ 11:14:16 LKT |
Posted By: |
SaNDuN |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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740 |
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| 539 |
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On ‘acceptability’ and ‘responsibility’
 Words such as acceptable are predicated on sets of rules. If there were no rules or norms then everything would be acceptable or else everything would be unacceptable. Norms are notorious for being vague and therefore amenable not just for multiple interpretation but transgression with impunity as well. Rules are less airy. When they are concretized as ‘law’ they are granted form. They become defined by line and space. This means there is less room for interpretive variation.
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| Time: |
Monday, July 12, 2010 @ 12:27:07 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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539 |
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| 675 |
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Writer defends role in demise of Stanley McChrystal
 The man who, in effect, ended General Stanley McChrystal’s glittering military career says he thought he was “unfireable”.
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Saturday, June 26, 2010 @ 19:42:05 LKT |
Posted By: |
SaNDuN |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
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675 |
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| 709 |
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Would you be willing to let go of a few memories?
 A few weeks ago, my friend Renton De Alwis made a request. Books. He had devised a modest but potentially path-breaking scheme to give children in Kiula, Hungama, the reading habit. He had found that the issue is not one of there not being enough books (schools have libraries, as do temples, and most towns have public libraries), but that children (and indeed adults as well) are so entrapped in the diurnal of ‘learning’ (or ‘earning’) that they just didn’t have the time to visit such a facility, browse and borrow. Well, not that there is not enough time but a lack of incentive.
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| Time: |
Wednesday, June 23, 2010 @ 10:34:43 LKT |
Posted By: |
Sandun |
| Topic: |
Opinion |
Hits: |
709 |
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