by Chandre Dharmawardana, Courtesy The Island The signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord, which led to the establishment of Provincial Councils. by Chandre Dharmawardana,chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca The TNA is the main political party of the North. S. Shritharan was recently elected its leader and M. A. Sumanthiran, who is regarded by some as being barely Tamil”, as one […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana The Aragalaya came and went. The claim that we need a system change in Sri Lanka” has become the main legacy of that upheaval that brought Sri Lanka to the cusp of a violent takeover by organised left-wing or right-wing groups. The call for a system change” is nothing new. I remember how Mahinda […]

Chandre Dharma-wardana Credit: Global Justice Now (CC BY 2.0) What chemicals or environmental exposures are likely to cause cancer? That’s a complex question with a wide variance in views across the scientific community.  First, one needs to determine whether a substance or situation is likely to ever cause cancer. For instance, we know that drinking […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Courtesy The Island Image courtesy CGIAR Research Programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) According to newspaper reports (The Island 16 October [1]), an NGO carrying the acronym MONLAR has accused that the agricultural policies of successive governments have rendered millions of Lankans insecure”. It claims that as of today, 5.3 million people […]

Chandre Dharmawardana The claim that Champika “is a capable person” is based on (1) comparing him with many other MPs who are uneducated (2) that Champika has an engineering degree and so, he is “educated”. I think this assessment is incorrect. A person must be judged not only on his “degree”, but also on his […]

By Chandre Dharma-wardana The provincial government of Ontario passed a bill (Bill 104) implying that a genocide of Tamils occurred in Sri Lanka, and introduced a Tamil genocide education week” (TGEW) into the school system [1]. This implicit Genocidal Tag” on Sri Lanka will discourage many entrepreneurs from investing in Sri Lanka, at a time […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Courtesy The Island The title of this article, and some of the material are in what I wrote (The Island, May 6 th, 2013) when the then Rajapaksa government hiked the price of electricity on the May Day of 2013. A decade later, Wickremesinghe’s energy minister Wijesekera has increased the electricity tariffs, refusing […]

Chandre Dharmawardana The amount, 3.2 metric tonnes/ha claimed in a Sinhala article by Upali de Sarem (Jan 2023) using modern fertilizer is still very low compared to the usual yields in Sri Lanka (4-5 metric tonnes/ha). Furthermore, if optimal agronomy is used (as in Batalagoda or MahaIlluppallama research stations), 6-8 metric tonnesor more  may be […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Courtesy The Island Engineer Madinda Panapitiya (MP), writing about Using existing resources for agri-food sector in Mahaweli areas” in The Island (30-11-2022) makes a number of claims and suggestions. 1.    One such claim is that the main clients of irrigation projects (farmers)” are dying of diseases caused by indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals”? This is […]

Chandre Dharmawardana A 2015 U-tube  from 2015 has been resurrected because the Booker name is in the news  when the Booker prize awarded to Karunatilleke.  But the Booker Prize has hardly anything to do with the Booker and Tate industrial giant. The Booker price is funded by the fortunes of people like Ian Fleming (James […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana      (chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca) Although there is much talk of system change”, it is hard to find specifics of the new systems that are to be created. In the early seventies, Mahinda Wijesekera, the father of the present Minster for Power was a student leaders of the Vidyodaya University. As a key figure of the […]

Chandre Dharmawardana. It is not India, China or the IMF that has truly come to the help of Sri Lanka in a sustainable manner, by going beyond one-shot gestures or doing minor charitable acts. Everyone is ready to praise the IMF or the central bank or other institutions for their role in solving the forex […]

By CHANDRE DHARMAWARDANA Courtesy The Island chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca Although there is much talk of system change”, it is hard to find specifics of the new systems that are to be created. In the early seventies, Mahinda Wijesekera, the father of the present Minister for Power, was a student leader of the Vidyodaya University. As a key […]

Chandre Dharmawardana The Aragala Naayakayas (leaders) were going to attack the parliament.  Parliament is where the power of the people is entrenched. Try attacking the parliament in any country. That is regarded at an uprising against the state and equal to terrorism in every country without exception. Rosenberg is a German-Polsih Marxist acttivist who is […]

Chandre Dharmawardana මේ රට පාලනය කරන්නේ නූගත් පිරිසක්, හොරු රැලක් කියලා අපේ රටේ තරුණ තරුණියො කැරැල්ලක් ගැහුවා. Young people agitated claiming that the politicians are uneducated and ignorant. සෝෂල් මීඩියා වල ප්‍රසිද්ධ, ලියන, පේජ් කරන, වීඩියො හදන පිරිසක් මේ කැරැල්ලට එකතු වුනා. Social media people joined the agitation group “aragalaya”. ජනප්‍රියතාවය වැඩි හින්ද ඉබේම මේ […]

Chandre Dharmawardana It is easy to make allegations, especially now that every one has access to social media. But subsequently, no attempt is made to take them to courts by the enemies of politicians who make these accusations. See the book “Chavura Rajina”[Bandit Queen] on Chandrika Bandaranaike written by Victor Ivan indicting Chandrika. Only thing she […]

Chandre Dharmawardana But they are not there, no orgaization exists, to MAKE biodiesel, biogas, or plant manioc. Doing those is SIMPLER, easier, and more helpful to the country and the down-trodden people than doing all this agitation and sowing vindictiveness. Sri Lanka is supposed to be a Buddhist country. Whether you are a Buddhist or […]

Chandre Dharmawardana This alleged ‘unreliability of solar and wind energy’ is a matter brought up repeatedly by the CEB, and was also brought up by even knowledgeable commentators, like Dr. Kumar David, a professor of electrical engineering. The unreliability exists if you rely on the sun shining on one or two large installations. But, if […]

Chandre Dharmawardana The following article appeared in the newspaper morning.lk.I have added my comments in bold italic regarding the contents of the article. Chandre DW Banned pesticides in well water linked to declines in kidney function: Study By Beyond Pesticides (Beyond Pesticides is a non-profit organisation headquartered in Washington, D.C., which works with allies in […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana Courtesy The Island It was mystifying to read Professor Kulasooriya’s article Don’t deride Sri Lankan scientists”, (Island, 29/11/2021) because it is not clear who has derided Sri Lankan scientists. By Sri Lankan” scientists, did he exclude expatriate Sri Lankan citizens, dual citizens and others as being fair game for derision? For many […]

By CHANDRE DHARMAWARDANA Canada Courtesy The Island Not so long ago, Champika Ranavaka championed a hair-brained project known as Polipto”, to make petrol from waste polythene. Ranawaka also pushed the Toxin-Free Nation” programme, and one of his university mates ran a project with the acronym SEMA. It championed the new vision” from the presidential secretariat […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, writing from Canada Sri Lanka is heading towards an agricultural disaster similar to that created by Stalin who was guided by a so-called Dialectical Materialist” version of agricultural science announced by Lysenko, a party scientist”. Sri Lanka’s leaders also have ideologues who have various scientific and medical backgrounds and are ready to present justifications” for […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. Courtesy The Island The rationale for banning agro-chemicals in May 2021 and going all organic” was mostly the claimed (but false) poisoning of the food chain” by chemicals”. It was well known that organic farming even at its best can only supply a tiny fraction of any nation’s food requirements, unless […]

චන්ද්‍රේ ධර්මවර්ධන විසිනි කැනඩාව. උපුටා ගැන්ම The Island සංශෝධිත ගූගල් පරිවර්තනයක්. 2021 මැයි මාසයේදී කෘෂි රසායන තහනම් කිරීම සහ සියලු කෘෂි රසායනයක්ම කාබනික ද්‍රව්‍යවලට යාම” යන තාර්කිකත්වය බොහෝ දුරට ප්‍රකාශ කරන ලද්දේ “රසායන ද්‍රව්‍ය මගින් ආහාර දාමයට විෂ වීම” යන (නමුත් අසත්‍ය) විශ්වාස මත විය. ජනගහනයෙන් අඩක් අඩු කිරීම සහ සියල්ලන්ටම නිර්මාංශ වීමට බල කිරීම […]

By Chandre Dharmawardana.National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa and Department of Physics and Astronomy Université de Montreal. The largest drain on Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange earnings is in purchasing  fossil fuels for power and transport,  and in feeding  the 22 million people who depend on a mere million hectares of arable land, as compared to […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada Many English newspapers, and even some Sinhalese language newspapers have carried news items with headlines like Mullaitivu and Jaffna courts prohibit Mahaviru commemorations”,  Court orders to prohibit Mahaveer Commemorations”. To  unthinkingly  take over the narrative and vocabulary of the pro-Tiger activists and use them in news items and headlines is a corruption […]

චන්ද්‍ර ධර්මවර්දන විසිනි මේ නොබෝ දා පුවත් පත් වල පල වූ ශීර්ෂ තල අනුව මුලතිවු (මූලදූව ) සහ ජාපනය උසාවි මගීන් “මාවීර අනුස්මරණ උත්සව” පැවැත්වීම තහනම් කොට ඇත. එම අන්දමේ පුවත් පල කරන විට එවැනි ත්‍රස්තයන් ට  “මාවීර” වැනි ගෞරව පූර්වක නාමයන් නොදිය යුතුය. ඔවුන් හින්සාව සහ ත්‍රස්තයෙන් වියරු වැටුනු, එනම් පිස්සු වැටුනු, මාර චේතනා […]

Chandre Dharnawardana The 26th of November is the Birthday of the dreaded leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who was shot dead in 2009. Prabhakaran assassinated the elected leaders of the Tamil community in the 1980s [1], massacred other rival groups, suppressed dissent, and  hijacked the control of Tamil politics, to  launch a […]

Chandre Dharmawardana, National Research Council of Canada According to a news report (Island, 2-11-20), Mr. Chinthaka Rajapaksa, who is said to be the moderator of an organization known as  the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR)” claims  a high probability that the fertilizer currently released to the market were of low quality and high […]

Chandre Dharmawardana. Please listen to an interview of Dr. Mendis ((https://youtu.be/Lh4D4qGE854) which touches on US policy and Sri Lanka, and hear between the words.  See how a  Sri Lankan young man straight out of a Pollonaruwa school system gets educated in the US via a scholarship to becomes a complete supporter of the American Manifest […]