Shahidul Alam has long been gripped by the life of a woman he has never met. It’s been two decades since Kalpana Chakma was abducted, but Shahidul refuses to forget her. Standing at the threshold of his latest exhibition,Kalpana’s Warriors, the Bangladeshi photographer pauses for a moment. In the room beyond is the third in … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] Sri Lanka has made significant progress on maternal and child health but falls short on critical health services for vulnerable women, sexual minorities, the country’s at-risk population and those who live in former conflict areas, say the authors of a country profile on sexual and reproductive health. This two-part report on Universal Access to … Continue reading
32 years after the riots of Black July engulfed Colombo, there is perhaps only one place in the city where you can still see traces of the fires that were set that day. But that is not the reason why tuk-tuk drivers will throw you an assessing look if you ask to be dropped off … Continue reading
Jan Ramesh De Saram uses his phone as a torch, casting a small circle of light at his feet as he walks down the corridor. The passage ends in darkness, where bats squeak and flap their wings. A row of abandoned rooms are occupied only by an upturned chair or two, lonely rejects from the … Continue reading
When Asoka Handagama released his film Thani Thatuwen Piyabanna (Flying with One Wing) in 2002, he told journalists his plot had been inspired by a story that ran in the papers the year before. The story was about a woman who had lived as a man, marrying a young girl and earning her way as … Continue reading
In his most recent reincarnation, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a green hero. The former governor of California was in India last week to attend the 15th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), where he praised the Indian government for embracing the “solar revolution” and putting India on the path to increasing its solar energy capacity to 100 … Continue reading
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
A new study is among the first of its kind in Sri Lanka – and its hearing from men that makes it so. ‘Broadening Gender: Why Masculinities Matter’ tackles the subject of gender-based violence, asking men, who are statistically many times more likely to be the perpetrators, questions about if and when they first committed … 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
Considering the timing, it’s a pity Salman Rushdie isn’t giving interviews. It’s been 25 years since the fatwa that turned his life inside out was issued by the Ayatollah, it’s been 10 years since he founded PEN World of Voices Festival in response to 9/11 and it’s been two years since ‘Joseph Anton’, a memoir … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 