IndiGo’s catastrophic meltdown has devastated India’s literary festival season. International authors stranded for days in chaotic airports, keynote speeches cancelled, cross-border dialogues destroyed. Over 1,000 flights grounded—not by technology, but by shocking mismanagement and greed. India’s cultural reputation lies in ruins as the world’s writers witness our aviation nightmare firsthand.
In Delhi, there lived a critic- his name was Venkat Swaminathan. I was in touch with him from the time I first moved to Delhi in 1978 until 1982. In 1979, he sublet a room in his house to me. Generally, I don’t ask anyone the usual ‘Indian’ questions, such as, where they work, if they are married, how many kids they have, or whether they own or rent their house.
‘Brussels, Naked’ is an experimental novel in the form of twelve interconnected novellas, each named after municipalities or neighbourhoods in Brussels, and each with a different narrator. It covers a period of fifteen years and is built around three main arcs: the life of Iris, Brussels itself as a protagonist and the EU crises, captured in the stories of ordinary people.
Themed on “Peace”, the short-story contest received a total of 72 entries from Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Kingdom of Eswatini, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Poland, Malawi, The Gambia, Sri Lanka, USA, Botswana and Tanzania. The jurors include Dr. Paula O. M. Otukile (Botswana), Camilla Bauer (Sweden), Henry Akubuiro (Nigeria), Rupasinghe D. Pramudith (Sri Lanka), and Alexander Nderitu (Kenya).
A summarised interpretation of the country’s ocean economy and marine habitat since the end of colonialism is as follows. To date, the use of the Indian Ocean has been limited to what it was used since antiquity, namely trading and fishing. Many natural riches on the oceanfront have been neglected while the communities that should have been reaping the benefits are stuck in a vicious financial cycle.
Sri Lankan politics is a thing of its own making. It is the unholy combination of good, bad, evil, and ugly. Machiavelli would have re-written “The Prince” had he had even a slight glimpse of Sri Lankan politics.
What is needed now would be to formulate long-term strategies to avoid such a crisis from happening again and to establish ironclad food security for the country. There are a few thoughts towards this end.
What is evident is that walauwas were the houses of the Kandyan chieftains and the Low Country mudaliars. In contrast, the average citizen’s home was known as a ‘pela’, ‘palpatha‘, ‘maduwa‘, ‘kutiya‘ or ‘geya‘. The home of the village chief, the native doctor, vidane arachchi, mudalali, and so on was the ‘gedara’.
Just as much as the Houthis are not your ordinary rebels, the Sri Lanka navy is also not your ordinary naval force. Sri Lanka’s navy is a battle-hardened, experienced, formidable force that has proven the purpose of its existence many times throughout history for the people and the state it protects.
The Asian Review 