Bodu Bala Sena Organisation (BBSO) President and All Ceylon Jamiyyathhul Ulema (ACJU) General Secretary ,call for dialogue in interviews with Chandani Kirinde and Hansini Bandara The recent upsurge in tension between the Sinhala and Muslim communities in the country has prompted the Government to set up an all-party Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to study the emerging trend in religious fundamentalism …

An entrepreneur, teacher, mom and volunteer, Fathima Farook has had to put up with shameful taunts for nothing more than her choice of garb.   Fathima Farook has a pleasant round face and warm dark eyes. If you buy her pakoora or aloo masala at the Evergreen Brick Works Farmers Market, though, you’ll see her eyes but not her face. …

The greatest challenge Sri Lanka will face in the next decade is the rise of communal and religious extremism, cautioned Professor Rohan Gunaratna. After 30 years of bloodletting, the idea of promoting narrow ethnic divisions ended in May 2009. If anyone wants to instill racial and religious prejudice, suspicion and hatred and be a future Prabhakaran, the Government should look …

Says French President Francois Hollande, joined by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi West Africa’s poverty stricken but mineral rich former French colony of Mali has been in the limelight since early last month. Political crisis in Mali was triggered since January 2012 when the people in the north, Tuaregs, staged an armed conflict and declared a separate state .It …

The RQ-7B Shadow 200 tactical UAV is wheeled off the runway after a reconnaissance mission in Iraq Aug. 11, 2008. Credit: U.S. military/public domain UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 2013 (IPS) – The “drone”, one of the eminently controversial lethal weapons deployed by the United States in its war against terrorism, is obviously a dirty word in the U.N. lexicon. So …

After Sri Lanka came under the rule of British empire by the agreement signed on 2 March 1815, they did not bestow independence upon us, but through riots occurred in 1818 and 1848 and subsequent political activities we have gain national, religious, social, cultural, political and economical independence. People who lived under imperial power with many sufferings were well aware …