South Asia Citizens Web

There were three dramatic announcements on the evening of Friday 26th October 2018 from the Presidential Secretariat, which occurred in the following order: (a) the announcement of the withdrawal of the UPFA from the government; (b) the swearing-in of Mahinda Rajapaksa before President Maithripala Sirisena as the Prime Minister; and (c) the announcement that the President has informed Ranil Wickremesinghe in writing that he has been removed from the office of Prime Minister under Article 42(4).

While their right to ask for what they want to teach is part of their academic freedom but asking for removal of other books that they do not agree with is Anti-academic and destructive. Universities are meant for teaching and debating diversified ideas, concepts. Hundreds of thoughts must clash there. Universities are not theological institutes where only one religious ideas are taught.

It is nothing if not misguided to believe or suggest Shahidul Alam’s motivations were in any way mala fide, as he waded into the student protests in August to provide his own eyewitness accounts, taking advantage for the first time of that remarkable tool that has emerged for all story-tellers: Social media.

Video recording of a public lecture by the noted India journalist Hartosh Singh Bal in early October 2018

on 14 September 2018 at Ooty Literary Festival in Tamil Nadu Shanta Gohale was given the Ooty Literary Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. This is the full text of the keynote address delivered by her.