Scientists in Sri Lanka have developed mobile weather stations capable of capturing and transmitting near real-time rainfall data. Equipped with atomic clocks for precise time and date readings the devices log on to global positioning satellites (GPS) automatically. The devices are based on open-source technology and rely on local materials — at US$250, they are … Continue reading
The twelve people behind The Ramadan Project are good friends – some are even related. Four of them gather in a home in Colombo, after prayers on a Wednesday evening to talk about a project they hope will help change the way Muslims are perceived in Sri Lanka. By @mufarris Roadside cap stall. Eid rush … 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
Vimila Velthas lays out lunch on the table in the courtyard. She has prepared a traditional Jaffna meal – yam, coloured orange with the heat of chillies and cooked till creamy, a spicy fish and eggplant curry served with fat grains of red rice. Velthas presses her guests to eat more and scoffs gently at … Continue reading
The first time I ask Awantha Artigala for an interview, he laughs and says no. This is partly because we communicate in staccato, he in English (my first language) and me in Sinhala (his first language), each of us struggling to frame sentences. So the second time I ask, I decide to go through a … Continue reading
Earth hangs suspended over a stack of old magazines, in what used to be Arthur C. Clarke’s foyer. Parts of the aging space mural are peeling, but the sight is still pleasing to visitors entering the home of one of the 20th century’s greatest science-fiction writers. A floor above, past the green sign on the … Continue reading
Ashok Bajaj likes to keep his Presidents close and their First Ladies even closer. Washington DC’s best known Indian restaurateur presides over an empire of seven successful establishments in America’s power capital. Michelle Obama was seen dining at Rasika – one of the most awarded of the set – in a prelude to President Obama … Continue reading
As a soloist in the opera, Sean Panikkar has had to learn more than his fair share of foreign languages. Still, there’s never been one quite like High Valyrian. In the hugely popular Game of Thrones (GoT) series, Daenerys Targaryen’s handmaiden and trusted advisor describes it with reverence, saying “The gods could not devise a … Continue reading
Earlier this year, activists from the Cinema for Peace Foundation thought smuggling copies of ‘The Interview’ into North Korea via hydrogen balloon was a good idea. Adam Johnson doesn’t agree. The author is not against smuggling things in, in principle. He’d just rather the activists choose a different film. In the now widely criticised Hollywood … Continue reading
The walls of the gallery are bare, eschewed by the photographs for the office upstairs. I find them there, in the company of photographers Dominic Sansoni and Sebastian Posingis and writer Richard Simon. The trio are surrounded by the prints that sit patiently in tidy stacks, nevertheless succeeding in claiming a great deal of space … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 