You are stateless – you can lay claim to no nationality, and no nation claims you. You may have been born into anonymity as one of the persecuted Rohingya in Myanmar, your life encircled by fences of camps for the internally displaced, your only option to flee across the border to another refugee camp in … Continue reading
Whether they agree with him or not, most scientists consider Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe a force to be reckoned with. His early career was marked by a string of honours – graduating in 1960 with a BSc First Class Honours in mathematics from the University of Ceylon, he went on to study at Trinity College and … Continue reading
To anyone who knows her, it is clear Jean Arasanayagam is her own most penetrating, most persistent interrogator. In a dance that her readers are familiar with, Jean asks the questions and then finds the answers in her poetry and prose, in fact and fiction. This is nowhere more evident than in latest collection of … Continue reading
The tragic suicide of a friend when he was 13 years old inspired Arun Ravi to develop Mevoked. He remembers his friend’s parents wishing they had only known of the despair their son was feeling. Decades in the making, Arun’s new app is an answer to them. When you install it – a basic version … Continue reading
The hot, dry month of March is particularly sacred to the devotees who flock to the Kannaki Amman kovils in Sri Lanka’s Northern Peninsula. The auspicious days of Panguni Thingal or ‘Mondays in March’ will come to an end somewhere in Mid-April but for her people, this Amman will always have something to offer. … Continue reading
There is a time in the wake of her great rage – after she has torn her left breast out, after she has called fire down on the city of Madurai – when a widowed Kannaki finds a moment of quiet by the banks of a river. Across from her boys are tussling, engaged in … Continue reading
Surrounded by masons at work, Tristan Al-Haddad is laying bricks. His white t-shirt isn’t quite as pristine as it was a few hours ago, his hands are coated in dust, grime and sweat beads on his brow. People driving by on Horton Place need only glance over into the grounds of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute … Continue reading
As you sit here, reading these words, trillions of neutrinos are streaming right through you; as if you were a sieve, they pass unnoticed through your clothes, through your skin and bone, through the chair you are sitting on and the floor of the room you’re in. They pass right through the Earth itself and … Continue reading
Some of the most interesting moments in Aaron Burton’s film ‘My Mother’s Village,’ come when people sit watching themselves. There, captured on the screen, they are as they were over 30 years ago. The passing of time solidifies in that moment, etched in to the very lines of people’s faces. Chandrawathie’s face now, for instance, … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] Sri Lanka plans to boost its science, technology and innovation (STI) strategy through a newly created, state-funded organisation that is dedicated to building a conducive atmosphere among all stakeholders. Ajit De Alwis, project director at the Office of Science, Technology and Innovation launched last month (1 February), told SciDev.Net that the organisation’s mandate was to “ensure effective coordination and … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 