Groundviews

25/09/2025

Anushiya Sundaralingam, a Sri Lankan born artist based in Northern Ireland, presents Adrift, her first solo exhibition at Saskia Fernando Gallery, which wades through the quagmire of migration and is grounded in her personal experience of leaving her homeland during political unrest.

Sundaralingam, who is from Jaffna, migrated in the late 1980s amid the civil war. The emotional weight of the artist’s arduous journey continues to inform her practice with the recurring image of the boat serving as a metaphor for both departure and arrival. In seeking shared experiences of community and connection, her practice offers a poignant reflection on the uncertainty that shapes the lives of people across conflict zones worldwide.

25/09/2025

Geneva is where human rights record of Sri Lanka has come under regular and heavy scrutiny. Reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and discussions at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have generated local and international media coverage and heated debates in Sri Lanka.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/25/genevas-new-challenge-uns-committee-on-enforced-disappearances/

25/09/2025

How a Child Soldier Became a Double Agent

Ariaratnam, a former child soldier, shares his story of becoming a double agent for India. He recounts his time working with the Sri Lankan military from 199...

25/09/2025

Dr. Kasipillai Manoharan has left us but the imprint of his courage and moral clarity will remain. He was first and foremost a father, and through his devotion to his son Ragihar he became one of the most steadfast voices for justice in Sri Lanka.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/25/in-memory-of-dr-kasipillai-manoharan/

25/09/2025

Sri Lanka’s education system was globally renowned for its socially just achievements relative to low national income levels. The foundations of this achievement lie in the Kannangara reforms of the 1940s, which introduced free education from kindergarten to university. The policy emphasized social equity by ensuring that children from poor and rural families would have access to the same opportunities as their urban and wealthy counterparts.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/25/the-myth-and-reality-of-free-education/

25/09/2025

Anushiya Sundaralingam, a Sri Lankan born artist based in Northern Ireland, presents Adrift, her first solo exhibition at Saskia Fernando Gallery, which wades through the quagmire of migration and is grounded in her personal experience of leaving her homeland during political unrest.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/25/adrift-examines-the-quagmire-of-migration/

23/09/2025

The CIVICUS Monitor, a civil society platform tracking civic space around the world, has documented various violations of civic freedoms in Sri Lanka, including the targeting of human rights defenders, activists and journalists, efforts to control civil society, protests restrictions and the failure to support efforts to ensure accountability for violations during Sri Lanka’s 1983-2009 civil war, a media release from the organization said.

23/09/2025

The railway was not merely a new technological phenomenon because it didn’t merely transform what was possible. It changed what Sri Lankans could imagine about their country, their relationships with distant communities and their place in a connected world.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/23/technology-and-culture-the-agents-of-social-transformation/

22/09/2025

Before the election, the NPP promised a daily wage of Rs. 2,000 for plantation workers. Later, during the presentation of the 2025 Budget, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced that the government would intervene to ensure a wage of Rs. 1,700.
However, many months have passed since that announcement and the government has yet to deliver on this promise.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/22/estate-workers-wages-forever-promised-never-delivered/

21/09/2025

The extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit held in Doha to counter Israel’s bombing of a government residential complex in the Leqtaifiya District of Qatar, where negotiations over a US initiated ceasefire proposal were in progress with representatives from Hamas, ended as usual in chest thumping threats, condemnations and declarations against Israel but without any concrete agenda of action to stop the genocide and expulsion of Palestinians from their homes before annexing Gaza and the West Bank to create Greater Israel.

Visit the Link in Bio to read more.

21/09/2025

Caution was the dominant tempo of the first Dissanayake year, a conscious determination to avoid fast runs and great leaps. On the economy and on contentious areas like constitution making, this caution is comprehensible. But there were other, less fractious, issues and promises the administration could have addressed and didn’t – a failure that might have contributed to its May 2025 lacklustre performance.
https://groundviews.org/2025/09/21/a-chequered-year/

19/09/2025

Melani Gunathilaka on the environmental issues facing the people of Mannar.