By Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada Emeritus Professor Ariyasena de Silva of Moratuwa University, writing in The Island (1st Dec. 2019) suggests the following. “[making] blocks one metre long and 0.5 m across … outside plastered with a thin layer of cement mortar … Compressing the garbage into a steel casing can also be done with a […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana The Indian government, by acting with strategic alacrity  managed a diplomatic advance in inviting the New President of Sri Lanka to Delhi, within the first breath of the new presidency. The new president, in accepting the invitation equally rapidly has shown his friendliness and openness for dialogue, at a time when Tamil […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana. According to news reports (e.g., Island 18-Oct.-2019), the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi”, a constituent party of the  The Tamil National Alliance” (TNA) has hurled a 13-point request letter into the political arena of the presidential stakes, even though the prospective president has been shackled by the 19th amendment crafted by the Jayampathy-Sumanthiran […]

By Prof. Chandre Darmawaradana. The former Governor of the Central Bank (2006-2015) has made proposals with the objective of  A new impetus to revive the Economy from 2020-2025” (Island, 25 Sept-2019). These include  (1) a new elliptical expressway parallel to the coast at a distance of about 40-50 km from it around Sri Lanka, (2) […]

Chandre Dharmawardana Pothuvil  පොතුවිල් is Tamil usage. Its earlier sinhala usage  was indeed පොතුවිල, possibly derived from Budhuvila Bodhivaalaබෝදිවාල. Let the sinhalese writers at least begin to call it by the sinhala form පොතුවිල and NOT POTHUVIL. Please see my discussion of the place name given inhttps://www.dh-web.org/place.names/#P The link takes you to the letter P. […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Today, even if you wish to dig a canal to provide water to rural people who are suffering from kidney disease owing to having consumed brackish well water contaminated with fluoride, an environmental impact statement is needed. Any major undertaking needs environmental impact statements. One of the reasons given for the cancellation […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, This is a very good analysis by Susantha Goonatilleke. We should agree that Sri Lanka, even more than India, has a strong historical memory, and the Mahawamsa falls in line with the Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, and the writings of Herodotus. The Indian Epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata contain far more myth than […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. Nearly 4000 metric tons of illegally imported hazardous garbage, contaminated with hospital waste and human organs have been found in Colombo’s free trade zone. The foul stench emanating from the illegal cargo had let the cat out of the bag! The Island Newspaper Editorial and writers like Dr. Ratnasiri (I29-07-2019, Island)  […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada June 23, 1983, known as Black July” was a day of shame for Sri Lanka where a government calling itself a Dharmista Rajya” (a Righteous Regime)  permitted, aided and abetted armed mobs to attack a section of its defenseless citizens — civilian Tamils.  The fact that there were looters or the […]

by Chandre Dharmawardana. David McKinnon, Canada’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka  has stated, on Canada’s National Day  that  Canada would continue to support conflict prevention efforts in Sri Lanka, where  it has been seen how hate speech and media can entrench communal divisions”.  Meanwhile back in Canada, successive Canadian governments have failed to understand how […]

by Chandre Dharmawardana While the country remains mesmerized and  paralysed by revelations of incredible security lapses, the failure to implement long-term plans for energy production, updating of agriculture and industry  to keep pace with climate change, population growth etc.,will cause irrevocable systemic collapse causing more prolonged misery than any sudden Jihadist shocks. Many of us  […]

By   Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada Newspaper  reports mention how the minister of Power and Energy  and the CEB engineers are trying to meet a systemic power shortage looming over Sri Lanka. The Easter Sunday carnage made everyone forget about the grave systemic problems facing Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka seems to lurch from one emergency to another […]

By  Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada Newspaper  reports mention how Mr. Ravi Karunanayake, the minister of Power and Energy had taken the initiative of contacting French and Canadian agencies regarding Sri Lanka’s  grave energy crisis. The Minister has even explored  awarding a Turkish company a tender to provide electricity from two power-ships. A sense  of desperation is […]

Chandre Dharmawardana It is often asked  why educated youth  coming from good homes” join extremist organizations.  Simple  references to  brain washing”, or the stupidity of the young are no explanations. There is no scientifically recognized   process called brain washing”.   It is also  naive to assume that  educated youth  join the IS (Islamic state)  to go […]

Chandre Dharmawardana Every one has by now heard of how a large number of cows have been imported in recent years, and how they had died causing severe problems to the dairy farmer. A recent report entitled Importing exotic cows which performed poorly under local conditions” by Ananda Wickremasinghe appeared in the Last Sunday Times. […]

Chandre Dharmawardana A 2016 talk by an engineer which may be accessed at: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0NEaPTu9oI&feature=youtu.be) gives a wake-up call” about-the danger of cell-phone use and Wi-Fi radiation. It is titled: Wireless wake-up call | Jeromy Johnson | TEDxBerkeley A Silicon-valley engineer turned technology-health advocate, Jeromy Johnson discusses our attachment to technology. This video is  once again […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada When construction workers excavating the site of the Sathosa Store  in Mannar  unearthed skeletal remains in  late 2013, they had accidentally found one of the largest mass graves in the country. Radio-carbon dating has now put the skeletal remains to the 15th -18th century. However, the TNA and a number of NGOs […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Some  technicians dressed like surgeons in an operating theater are working in a vast tower sealed from the environment. It is full of hydroponic shelves, lights, pumps and small robots  controlled by  clusters of computers. This is  ultra high-tech  agriculture (UHTA). We are in a modern agro-factory tower that has replaced the […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Imagine a space rocket whose controls are taken over by  zealots who are driving the rocket  straight into the sun due to ignorance  of its controls. Mission control detects danger and advises the pilot to correct the course. Rubbish, you technos and engineers  know nothing –  yes, we are having increasing glare […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. It is gratifying that several writers have taken up  the vital topic of pesticide use in agriculture (6th  of February, Island).  Dr. Ranil Sananayake (RS)  has claimed to  rebut”  what I wrote. I stated  that our soils are NOT laden with toxic agrochemicals, and that they support a thriving ecosystem full of  […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. Mr. Siri Pathirana,  a Farmer from Malsiripura” has responded (1st February,   Island”) to my article  (Island, 24 January).  Mr. Pathirana  recounts his memories about the poisoning of fish in a paddy field after the application of pesticides some 60 years ago (note that the word pesticide” includes herbicides, insecticides, fungicides etc., as […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada Sri Lanka has now woken up to the fact that the armyworm caterpillar, known locally as the Senaa caterpillar, has arrived in Sri Lanka and begun its march of devastation. This is what is known as a Grey Rhino” event – that is, an event whose coming  is  obvious but totally ignored […]

by Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. I thank the Lankaweb editor for publishing a  note about the recent unanimous re-affirmation of the safety of the herbicide glyphosate by a team of 20 Canadian scientists. See: http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/01/12/health-canada-concludes-new-review-of-glyphosate-herbicide/ When this news item appeared in the Lankaweb, two commentators responded to it. I felt that those comments should be responded […]

 Chandre Dharmawardana Last summer when a California School Gardener was awarded damages by a Court, various militant anti-GMO groups in Canada demanded a new review of Glyphosate. An independent panel of 20 scientists reviewed the latest material and their unanimous report has been released. Note that this approval covers  NOT ONLY GLYPHOSATE, but ALSO THE […]

Chandre Dharmawardana. The following BBC news item on how Indian Science is being influenced by quacks touting Hinduthvaya-Science  is extremely noteworthy, especially for south-Asian nations. In Sri Lanka we have influential intellectuals  like Dr. Nalin de Silva, one time Dean of’ the Kelaniya University who seems to have been  a  mentor to Venerable Ratana and […]

Chandre Dharmawardana What happened to CWW Kannagara happened to many legislators of limited means of that era who worked selflessly, without thinking of how they are to fend for themselves when they reach old age. They died poor although they were expected to maintain a high social standard. In deed, it is an irony that […]

By Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada. We live in a world where learned judges of a California court decided to award millions to a gardener who claimed to have contracted cancer on using a common herbicide, glyphosate, in tending a school garden. We live in a world where a California doctor addressed the Sri Lankan […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. Samalankulam or Smalang weva has been a place name that we had included in our list of place-names in the North and East (scroll to Samalankulam at the website: https://dh-web.org/place.names/index.html ).  This was made available to the public since approximately 2002 to 2006. Samalankulam had been listed in the 1982 Annual Report […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa Canada According to a news report, a scientific meeting of the Dept. of Agriculture (DOA)  was held in Peradeniya on the 6th and 7th   of September 2018 on  Agriculture beyond production”. One aspect  of this topic was bringing farm produce to the consumer with the minimum of waste. It is well known […]

Chandre Dharmawardana Many of you may have listened to the interview given on 5th November on the Pathikada-Sirasa program, with Bandula Jayasekera himself hosting the interview. The lawyer held the view that this government should have been allowed to continued to run its course, and gave mainly legalistic arguments, or arguments based on predicting the […]