Leslie Goonewardene as General Secretary of the LSSP in the early days of the party -- image via A S Goonewardene - Fair use, via Wikimedia Commons By Shiran Illanperuma Ninety years ago, on 18 December 1935, a handful of young people came together to establish the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). Leslie Goonewardena, General Secretary of the LSSP from 1935 to 1977, later wrote that the party was founded because “there was a void to be filled”. On th

A Brandix factory floor in Sri Lanka -- image via a Brandix corporate video screenshot By Shiran Illanperuma Sundays at Paramasivam Pushpalatha’s home used to be a much livelier affair. It was her only day off from the factory and so she would pack seven days of domesticity into one. Her husband, Govindasamy Sivakumar, would sometimes take walks to avoid the hustle and bustle of the house being turned upside down in a frenzy of cooking and cleaning. “She had the strength of t

Rehman Abubakr, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Shiran Illanperuma Sri Lanka has undergone one of the sharpest and fastest...

Image of the arrest via video screenshot on X By Shiran Illanperuma “Don’t worry, I will control the situation”, former president Ranil...

Indonesian poster for the Bandung Conference, 1955 -- public domain image via the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Indonesia By Shiran...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on April 5, 2025 -- image via X By Shiran...

Trump with his tariff chart -- public domain image By Shiran Illanperuma On Thursday, 3 April, Sri Lankans woke up to the alarming news...

The maiden budget by Sri Lanka’s new government reflects the limitations of austerity and the need to reinstill confidence in ideas of...