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कुपोषण की वजह से होने वाली मौतें राज्य व्यवस्था के माथे पर कलंक का टीका हैं। लेकिन शासन-प्रशासन की बढ़ती हठधर्मिता के चलते इन मौतों पर विराम नहीं लग पा रहा है। कहावत है कि सोते को जगाया जा सकता है लेकिन सोने का ढोंग करे व्यक्ति को जगाया नहीं जा सकता। प्रशासन द्वारा जानबूझकर […]

In May 1993, a UN sponsored election was held in Cambodia to elect a government. The country had faced a civil war after Polpot’s catastrophic revolution. At the time, a large part of the country was under the State of Cambodia, of which Hun Sen was the head. His party was one of the two […]

In her presentation to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the Universal Periodic Review the Foreign Minister, Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar painted a rosy picture of the progress that Pakistan has made over the past four years. However, it was what Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar did not talk about that raised the ire of […]

SDPI’s study on poverty shows that every third Pakistani is living his life below the poverty line. This is very shocking revelation for all of us. About 58.7 million out of 180 million Pakistanis are living below the poverty line. This below the poverty line population is living 52% in Balochistan, 33% in Sindh, 32% […]

(This is Part II of a series of articles on the problems of religious minorities in Pakistan) With its reelection to the Human Rights Council Pakistan must now show the world that it is serious about fulfilling its international obligations. One area that needs urgent attention is the violence committed against religious minorities, in particular […]

The impeachment is not about the individual that is Shriyani Bandaranayake, the Chief Justice. The real issue is about ending the position of the judiciary as a separate branch of the state. What is now being faced is a momentous transformation of the very structure of governance in Sri Lanka. It is the final completion […]

The constitutional wisdom of a people is the last resort that the people have when they are faced with constitutional peril. It is an almost unanimous opinion in Sri Lanka that the country is faced with constitutional peril due to the 1978 Constitution. The first attempt to deal with this problem was in 2001, when […]

Pakistan was reelected to the UN Human Rights Council with a thumping majority vote. It was one of the highest votes received by any country and it somehow managed to do this with a human rights record that shows little compliance with the pledges made in 2008. The ongoing excuse for the continuation of human […]

Mr. Sarath N. Silva has taken three different positions in regard to the impeachment of the Chief Justice within a quite a short time. Initially, he said that, under the provisions of the 1978 constitution, even a Chief Justice who gives justice to others has no way to get justice. Then, while attending a funeral […]

An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: 1000 days after the disappearance of Pradeep Ekenailiagoda, Sandya writes to President Rajapakse Appeal on behalf of families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka to: His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksha, President of Sri Lanka, Presidential Secretariat, Colombo 02 Hon. Chamal Rajapaksha, The Speaker of Parliament, Parliament […]

India, the largest democracy in the world, today is slowly becoming the worst democracy in the world. The notion of democracy in the country today has got limited to just voting once in five years that is if you still do so. Otherwise the state today is nothing less than dictatorship, dictatorship of the select […]

When I talked to a Sri Lankan friend about the killings of prisoners which happened yesterday and tried to convince him that people should demand justice, his instance reply was, “ Dhang justice naah” (now there is no justice) . In the past, this expression meant that there were serious concerns about justice. However, now it […]

Basil Fernando Humankind has at least a few millenniums of experience in keeping prisons. It is part of the unfortunate predicament of humanity that there is this need to have prisons. However, over these long years, through bitter experiences, humanity has learned to lessen the suffering involved for the inmates of prisons and to make […]

Mr. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, has declared November 10, a global day of action in support of Malala and girls’ right to education. Malala Yousafzai, an ardent campaigner for the right of education for girls, was shot by Taliban while on her way home from school in Swat valley, in northern […]

Basil Fernando The Chief Justice (CJ) has refuted all allegations made against her contained in the much publicized impeachment motion filed in parliament. (File Photo of the Chief Justice, Mrs. Shirani Bandaranayake) The CJ’s legal representatives have said in a letter “In the circumstances, in summary: (a) Our Client has declared all her operative bank […]

A comparison with the Titanic is most appropriate. Titanic at the time was thought of as a wonder ship that could never sink. It was not expected ever to perish. Sri Lanka also was considered a wonder. It was expected to be an example to other countries. It was expected to prove that democratization of […]

The Chief of Army Staff, General Kayani, while addressing a group of officers at the General Head Quarters (GHQ), has unambiguously threatened the judiciary, parliament, politicians and media that their criticism of the actions of some retired generals will not be tolerated. He provoked the soldiers in such a way so as to instill a […]

A reflection on the 16th murder in Kahawatte, gruesome violence in Galle and the petition for impeachment The 16th murder of a woman took place at Kahawatte last week. The woman is said to be 65 years old and was staying alone in the house until her son came back, when she was brutally murdered. […]

The Rajapaksha Regime, through its parliamentarians, handed over an impeachment motion to the Speaker, the elder brother of the President Rajapaksha against the first woman Chief Justice of the country. It appears that the Government of Sri Lanka is in a mighty hurry to “get rid of the Chief Justice” so that a major obstacle […]

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which ended all the debates and discussions on the 17th Amendment, brought an end to all independent public institutions in Sri Lanka. From that point on, only one institution remained outside the complete control of the executive president. That was the judiciary. True, that institution itself had been seriously […]