By Rohana R. Wasala When I pen these words, average Sri Lankans are still sleeping. I am ahead of them and awake. That is because of the time zone difference between where I live and Sri Lanka, my country of birth. As usual, as the first thing I do in the morning, particularly these days, […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It may look unfashionable or even indecent to write about Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) in these days of ‘reconciliation’ politics. But that is due to the deliberate distortion of facts by vested interests. So I beg my readers’ indulgence. The Anagarika has been consistently misrepresented by antinationalists as a Sinhala supremacist, a […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Ref. ‘Compulsory training to instil discipline, not jeopardise freedom of choice’ by Rear Admiral (Rtd) Dr Sarath Weerasekera/The Island/September 4, 2021. It is a response to an earlier opinion article of mine under the title ‘Candour without caution dangerous naivety’ (July 29, 2021). Thank you, Dr Weerasekera, for your lavish compliment […]

By Rohana R. Wasala A small country like Sri Lanka with no economic or military power has only two things to its credit – sovereignty and self respect. If we lose sovereignty and self respect, we lose everything.” The late Lakshman Kadirgamar, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1994-2001), quoted in THE CAKE THAT WAS BAKED AT […]

By Rohana R. Wasala (continued from August 28, 2021) Misrepresentation and distortion of history by colonialists and separatists The independence or dominion status that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon to foreigners) was granted by the departing British colonials was not more than a hangover from the British imperialism of the previous one and a half centuries […]

By Rohana R. Wasala (continued from August 23, 2021) Sri Lanka and supranationalism Every Sri Lankan government since independence has acted on the tacit understanding that, while remaining politically independent of India without being overawed by its size or strength, Sri Lanka should maintain friendly relations with its big northern neighbour at all times. But […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Definitions I would be the last to use the words ‘nation’ and ‘race’ interchangeably in the modern Sri Lankan context as some appear to do nowadays. There was a time in the past when in most countries, the two words could be used as synonyms. Each state was formed by a […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It is always in season for old men to learn. -Aeschylus, Greek playwright of the 5th Century BCE Partly to our dismay, gerontocracy has shownIts withered hands of a wizened old wizardBehind the recent cabinet reshuffle, muddle or mess,Moving ministers like pieces on a chessboard, changing,The configuration of portfolios, like pawns […]

By Rohana R. Wasala I have always strongly endorsed the necessity for actors to possess a reasonable degree of social responsibility. The actor who is adored by millions of people owes something to the society, which has given him an elevated and highly respected position. Dilip Kumar  Dilip Kumar was born in Peshawar (which is […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It was recently reported in the media that Public Security Minister Rear Admiral (Retd) Sarath Weerasekera had said that all young persons above the age of 18 years should be given military training in order to inculcate disciplinary values in them. He was speaking at the opening of a new police […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Few in the present government seem to understand that they are holding in their hands the hopelessly misshapen product – a generally weakened Sri Lankan state, that is, a country hamstrung in terms of its national security, economy, its internal cohesion, and external relations – left by the yahapalanaya molestation of […]

By Rohana R. Wasala The cue for writing this piece came from The Island editorial of (Saturday) June 26, 2021 entitled Presidency should be straitjacketed”, which is about the current controversy over the presidential pardon given to former SLFP MP Duminda Silva who had been convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Dilip Kumar died today, July 7, 2021. The following is a marginally updated version of a review I wrote of the legendary actor’s autobiography  Dilip Kumar – The Substance and the Shadow” immediately after its publication in 2014. The review was published in The Island Satmag supplement on October 04, 2014 […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Government MP Dr. Wijedasa Rajapaksa, a former Justice Minister and an ex-president of the  Bar Association of Sri Lanka, stated over a month ago that the Muslim  World League (owes) families of those who had perished or suffered injuries in the Easter Sunday terror attacks USD 5 mn.” (‘Wijedasa takes it […]

By Rohana R. Wasala  ………Please understand the global movement that becomes a cat’s paw of other individuals and groups who have nothing to do with your deep faith and your sincere desire to live your religion to the fullest to reach their selfish goals. Be brave enough to reject extremism. Rise up against schools and […]

by Rohana R. Wasala The report of the ministerial subcommittee appointed by the president on February 19, 2021 to study the Final Report of the PCoI on the Easter Sunday Attacks and to suggest how its recommendations should be carried out was handed over to the president on April 5 by its secretary Harigupta Rohanadheera, […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Sri Lankan Catholics, led by His Eminence Malcom Cardinal Ranjith, Bishop of Colombo, marked Black Sunday on March 7, with the participation of representatives from Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim religious communities, demanding justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks carried out by local Islamist Jihadists two […]

By Rohana R. Wasala All sensible adult citizens of Sri Lanka confidently hope that today’s youthful politicians will realise the importance of working together with their rivals in the national interest while maintaining their separate political identities, because, in the final analysis, all politicians of whatever party or faction they are affiliated to have no […]

By Rohana R. Wasala The 73rd anniversary of independence was officially celebrated in Colombo on February 4 with some of the accustomed pomp and pageantry associated with the event. Faced by the still rampant Covid menace and the looming economic and political crises, the current regime, which is still struggling to reach its cruising altitude, […]

Rohan Abeygunawardena ACMA, CGMA. When I was a kid while helping with homework, my mother told ‘’look at this eraser, it is made in England, but do you know this is made out of rubber from our country?’’ That was in early sixties. Then in mid-sixties my father showed me a newspaper heading ‘’Soviet Union […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy Sunday Island Signs are that anti-Sri Lanka forces at home and abroad are already gearing up for a wishfully devastating diplomatic assault on the country during the forthcoming 46th session of the UNHRC in Geneva in March 2021. Politicizing the artificial burial issue and the innocuous ‘peniya’ to resist/treat Covid-19 […]

By Rohana R. Wasala We have all read or heard Aesop’s fable ‘The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey’: A man and his young son set out taking their donkey to market to sell it there. Listening to different censorious comments of a number of people they encountered on the road, they first rode the […]

Rohana R. Wasala    Watching the 11:55 A.M. Hiru News/January 7, 2021 (Live Stream) I was dismayed by a news ticker in Sinhala characters that flashed intermittently during a news item that covered a press briefing presided by His Eminence Malcom Cardinal Ranjit, the Archbishop of Colombo, who was raising concerns about some environmental degradation […]

By Rohana R. Wasala I would like to kindly alert  readers to certain distorted versions of my articles,and forged documents falsely attributed to my authorship appearing in a fakeFace Book account created in my name by an unknown person, who is probably assuming a pseudonym. However, there are an unknown number of genuine social media […]

By Rohana R. Wasala A HAPPY PEACEFUL PROSPEROUS HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO  ALL LANKAWEB READERS INCLUDING THOSE WHO HOLD CONTRARY VIEWS TO MINE! Media secretary Viraj Abeysinghe of the Ministry of Health has issued a press statement warning against spreading false information concocted by certain politicians and websites regarding the subject of whether to bury […]

By Rohana R. Wasala According to a news item carried in The Island/December 28, 2020, Russian Ambassador in Colombo Yuri Materiy forewarned Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security Retired Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera that extremist Islamic terrorist organizations may channel funds to their Lankan counterparts on the pretext of extending COVID-19 aid. ‘In response the […]

By Rohana R. Wasala As evident in the social media, His Eminence Archbishop Malcom Cardinal Ranjit is taking heavy flak from certain quarters for urging the authorities to bring to justice the culprits behind the suicide bomb attacks on three churches and four hotels on Easter Sunday last year on the basis of the findings […]

By Rohana R. Wasala A heated exchange took place in parliament a couple of days ago (November 26 or 27) about the so-called Batticaloa Sharia University between Opposition MP Kavinda Jayawardane of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) and Minister of Education Prof. G.L. Peiris MP (SLPP), as reported on Hiru TV. Following is a rough […]

By Rohana R. Wasala I do not normally speak as a Sinhalese, and I do not think that the leader of this council ought to think of himself as a Sinhalese representative, but for once I should like to speak as a Sinhalese and assert with all the force at my command that the interests […]

By Rohana R. Wasala UN Resident Coordinator Ms Hanaa Singer’s outrageously meddlesome missive offering unsolicited advice on governance (November 12, 2020) to Prime Minister Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa, with copies to the Minister of Foreign Relations Mr Dinesh Gunawardane, and Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous  Medicine Mrs Pavithra Wanniarachchi hasn’t still elicited an official response […]