The Oddyssey

By Poornima Weerasekara in Ambepussa “Kindness will help you make friends,” the bold print hung on a lime green wall is the first thing that grips your attention as one enters the administration building at the Ambepussa rehabilitation centre for ex-child combatants. Tucked away in a lush green alcove, in Wahawita Ambepussa, about two and [...]

There has been a rapid influx of Burmese refugees into the US since 2008 after the Department of Homeland Security decided to ease the regulations on “political asylum seekers” from Burma in late 2007. Earlier they settled in New York, Minneapolis and even Fort Wayne, Texas. But in recent times, more Burmese refugees are being [...]

The story brought the plight of 400 tsunami affected families from the East coast of Sri Lanka who were thrown out of their temporary shelters. The families, that had occupied the government administrative building in the area were demanding for permanent housing that was promised to them an year ago. Immediately after the story was [...]

During the last stages of the military onslaught into rebel held territories in Sri Lanka, in a bid to end Asia’s longest running civil conflict, almost 300,000 people were displaced. The international community was critical of the military administration of camps for the internally displaced, due to fears of human rights violations like extra-judicial killings [...]

Sri Lanka has been battling with both the World bank and the IMF, in a bid to push urgent energy sector reforms to the back-burner. The article explores how this “populist procrastination strategy” has threatened the energy security of the country. Warning signals on the energy crisis

This investigative article exposes how a corrupt government minister is attempting to override the county’s national flora and fauna protection legislation in a bid to allocate state land, that is designated as a protected sanctuary to a private developer. The land is a key watershed area to the primary source of drinking water to the [...]

Cricket has unified and inspired Sri Lankans across ethnic boundaries irrespective of religion, gender or age. Yet, an invisible line divides those who are deemed “able” vs. “differently-abled” even in this game. The article explores the silent hopes of deaf Sri Lankan school cricketers who aim to play at the deaf cricketing world championships. Silent [...]

Each dot on the map indicates an incident of violence of an instance when an election law was broken during the just concluded Presidential Elections in Sri Lanka on Jan 26th. The elections come in the heels of ending a 30 year long civil conflict that devoured thousands of lives in flames of communal violence, [...]