Interview

Colombo’s Galle Face Green became a symbol of democratic activism in Sri Lanka, for more than 100 days from April to July 2022 with young people in particular from across the country converging there to protest against a president, his family, and their government, whose corruption and short sighted policies were chiefly blamed for the …

“Galle Face was Important, but Not the Whole Thing” – Dileepa Witharana Read More »

University students are not new to political dissent and action, and the current wave of anti-government protests in Sri Lanka have been no exception. They have been actively denouncing many actions of the current government since early on, independently as well as in solidarity with other movements. In this interview, Hasini Lecamwasam from Polity speaks …

“People are starting to see that we were right”: Interview with University Students by Hasini Lecamwasam Read More »

On 4th April 2022, Independence Square was filled with an estimated 8000 people, possibly in one of the biggest political gatherings the square has seen in recent times. Most of them were young people reiterating the call reverberating through a number of smaller protests across Colombo in the month of March—for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to …

‘The Act of Protest is a Privilege’: Serika Siriwardhana from Yellow for Democracy interviewed by Treshan Fernando Read More »

A Sri Lankan delegation was in Washington DC over  the week of 18 April to try to secure up to $4 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other lenders to help the island nation pay for food and fuel imports as well as  restructure its debt. The last time the IMF provided a …

Sri Lanka: No agreement with the IMF!
Eric Toussaint interviewed by Sushovan Dhar Read More »

According to Eric Toussaint, debt restructuring has always been the result of economic and geopolitical calculation, rarely producing a favourable long-term outcome for the debtors; unless the creditors saw a strategic advantage for themselves in it. Sovereign debt “restructuring”, as it is now called by the IMF, the Paris Club and the big banking corporations, and more recently by the …

Restructuring, Audit, Suspension and Abolition of the Debt
Éric Toussaint interviewed in 2015 by Maud Bailly for CADTM Read More »

The government’s overnight ban on the import of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and weedicides, to make Sri Lanka’s agriculture “100 percent organic”, of 06 May 2021, caught everyone by surprise. No preparation had been made. Local production and supply of organic inputs was nowhere near the level needed for substitution. There had been no prior restoration …

‘Ecological Agriculture is a Political Question’ Read More »

This conversation was part of a panel discussion on Imaginative Geographies: The Place of Sri Lanka in Contemporary Sri Lankan Writing in English, featured at the virtual festival on Imaginative Geographies organised by the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College, London (UCL) on 5 May 2021. The panel was co-hosted by the Department of English, …

In and Out of Place: A Conversation between Shyam Selvadurai and Neloufer de Mel Read More »

During the first coronavirus pandemic lockdown in Sri Lanka for over two months, beginning 20th March 2020, workers in the export processing zones faced immense hardship as they were confined to their boarding houses without pay, or lost their jobs, and were unable to return to their villages. Many had no money to survive, and …

‘The government didn’t care’: Katunayake Free Trade Zone Workers in the Pandemic in Sri Lanka Read More »