PolityLK
LightNews LightNews
politylk.bsky.social
PolityLK
@politylk.bsky.social
48 followers 3 following 100 posts
Polity is a left forum for democracy, feminism, and social change in #SriLanka. Submissions welcome at polity@ssalanka.org

https://polity.lk
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
politylk.bsky.social
PolityLK @politylk.bsky.social · Oct 9
Out Now! Vol. 13, No. 1 (2025), LKR800 from the Social Scientists’ Association and LKR1000 from Barefoot and Vijitha Yapa bookshops.
politylk.bsky.social
As #CycloneDitwah's aftermath unfolds, humanitarian relief is vital. Amalini De Sayrah has curated a list of mutual aid appeals across #SriLanka. If you can help, please do so —and stay safe. #FloodSriLanka2025

📷: AFP

tinyurl.com/LKfloods25
November 30, 2025 at 4:01 PM
politylk.bsky.social
In #SriLanka, history is not the past but perpetual present writes Ruben Thurairajah. Dutugemunu and Prabhakaran as embodiments of Sinhalas & Tamils; each side finding in the other’s hero, the proof of its own wounds.

polity.lk/ruben-thurai...
Ruben Thurairajah | Of Heroes and Villains: Dutugemunu and Prabhakaran
Ruben Thurairajah is a Yorkshire-based general practitioner in England; who also tweets https://x.com/RubenThurairaj and writes https://drruben.substack.com/
polity.lk
November 27, 2025 at 6:36 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Dead. P. Pushpalatha (44), mother-of-two. Production-line worker in a #SriLanka's 'garments without guilt' flagship firm. Ishankha Singha Arachchi reports on the campaign for truth & justice by her family and unions.

polity.lk/ishankha-sin...
Ishankha Singha Arachchi | Dying for the Target
Ishankha Singha Arachchi is an executive committee member of the Ceylon Mercantile, Industrial and General Workers Union (CMU), and a contributor to the Sunday Observer newspaper.
polity.lk
November 24, 2025 at 6:08 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
Appraising the first 12 months of the #NPP government, Janaka Biyanwila argues that with mixed success, it has attempted to expand the "politics of the possible" in an unfavourable conjuncture for progressive movements.
polity.lk/janaka-biyan...
Janaka Biyanwila | One Year On: Reading the NPP “From Below and to the Left”
Janaka Biyanwila (PhD., University of Western Australia) is the author most recently of Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North-...
polity.lk
November 18, 2025 at 6:08 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Appraising the first 12 months of the #NPP government, Janaka Biyanwila argues that with mixed success, it has attempted to expand the "politics of the possible" in an unfavourable conjuncture for progressive movements.
polity.lk/janaka-biyan...
Janaka Biyanwila | One Year On: Reading the NPP “From Below and to the Left”
Janaka Biyanwila (PhD., University of Western Australia) is the author most recently of Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North-...
polity.lk
November 18, 2025 at 6:08 AM
politylk.bsky.social
"There is no life without nature". Declaration (16.11.2025) of people's movements in Belem opposed to the logic and dynamics of an economic system that prioritises profit and private accumulation of wealth. #COP30

polity.lk/the-peoples-...
The People's Summit | Declaration of the Peoples’ summit towards COP30
We, the Peoples’ Summit, gathered in Belém do Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, from 12 to 16 November 2025, declare to the peoples of the world what we have accumulated in struggles, debates, studies, e...
polity.lk
November 17, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
The near doubling of women parliamentarians in #SriLanka owes to the community activism and left-feminism of 𝐺𝑒ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑢 𝐴𝑝𝑖 𝐸𝑘𝑎 𝑀𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑎 #NPP explains Kaushalya Ariyarathne MP, but challenges persist.

polity.lk/kaushalya-ar...
Kaushalya Ariyarathne | Gehenu Api Eka Mitata: Building a Women’s Political Movement in Sri Lanka
Kaushalya Ariyarathne (PhD., Colombo), a founder-member of the Progressive Women’s Collective, was elected to the parliament of Sri Lanka in November 2024, and appointed Deputy Minister of Mass Media ...
polity.lk
November 4, 2025 at 5:23 AM
politylk.bsky.social
The near doubling of women parliamentarians in #SriLanka owes to the community activism and left-feminism of 𝐺𝑒ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑢 𝐴𝑝𝑖 𝐸𝑘𝑎 𝑀𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑎 #NPP explains Kaushalya Ariyarathne MP, but challenges persist.

polity.lk/kaushalya-ar...
Kaushalya Ariyarathne | Gehenu Api Eka Mitata: Building a Women’s Political Movement in Sri Lanka
Kaushalya Ariyarathne (PhD., Colombo), a founder-member of the Progressive Women’s Collective, was elected to the parliament of Sri Lanka in November 2024, and appointed Deputy Minister of Mass Media ...
polity.lk
November 4, 2025 at 5:23 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
The protection order interrupts harm but stops there. Prasanna Pitigala Liyanage asks us to re-design #SriLanka's Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA 2005)--from a wall to a safe space for victim-survivors.

polity.lk/prasanna-pit...
Prasanna Pitigala Liyanage | Safety is Not a Wall: Beyond Protection from Domestic Violence
Prasanna Pitigala Liyanage is a senior lecturer in the Department of Integrated Design at the University of Moratuwa and a Chartered Architect.
polity.lk
October 30, 2025 at 6:31 AM
politylk.bsky.social
The protection order interrupts harm but stops there. Prasanna Pitigala Liyanage asks us to re-design #SriLanka's Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA 2005)--from a wall to a safe space for victim-survivors.

polity.lk/prasanna-pit...
Prasanna Pitigala Liyanage | Safety is Not a Wall: Beyond Protection from Domestic Violence
Prasanna Pitigala Liyanage is a senior lecturer in the Department of Integrated Design at the University of Moratuwa and a Chartered Architect.
polity.lk
October 30, 2025 at 6:31 AM
politylk.bsky.social
"Rakesfall is an extraordinary achievement in science fiction, and a titanic work of art.” Congratulations Vajra Chandrasekera ( @vajra.me ) on the award of the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction!
polity.lk/vajra-chandr...
Vajra Chandrasekera | “There is nothing inherently liberatory in the imagination, but it must be made so”
Vajra Chandrasekera is a writer from Colombo, Sri Lanka, currently visiting New York as one of the 2025-2026 Fellows of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York...
polity.lk
October 28, 2025 at 5:33 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
Kaushalya Ariyarathne breaks new ground in scholarship on gender and sex-work in South Asia, beyond binaries of victim-hood and empowerment, in a fine ethnographic account of #SriLanka's #Nachchi, writes Zahrah Rizwan.

polity.lk/f-zahrah-riz...
F. Zahrah Rizwan | Transgender Sex Work in Sri Lanka: The Politics of Nachchi Sex Workers. Kaushalya Ariyarathne. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
F. Zahrah Rizwan is a doctoral student in the Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Department at Ohio State University, USA. Her research interests include exploring the intersections of colonialism, ra...
polity.lk
October 22, 2025 at 6:58 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Kaushalya Ariyarathne breaks new ground in scholarship on gender and sex-work in South Asia, beyond binaries of victim-hood and empowerment, in a fine ethnographic account of #SriLanka's #Nachchi, writes Zahrah Rizwan.

polity.lk/f-zahrah-riz...
F. Zahrah Rizwan | Transgender Sex Work in Sri Lanka: The Politics of Nachchi Sex Workers. Kaushalya Ariyarathne. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
F. Zahrah Rizwan is a doctoral student in the Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Department at Ohio State University, USA. Her research interests include exploring the intersections of colonialism, ra...
polity.lk
October 22, 2025 at 6:58 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Will the new #Microfinance Bill be the latest knot in the noose for poor people in #SriLanka asks the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice? Why is the #NPP not consulting with women victims to eradicate the microcredit menace?

polity.lk/fcej-end-the...
Feminist Collective for Economic Justice | End the Microfinance Menace! No to the new Bill!
The Feminist Collective for Economic Justice is a collective of feminist economists, scholars, feminist activists, university students and lawyers that came together in April 2022 to understand, analy...
polity.lk
October 18, 2025 at 6:34 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Two decades since the #PDVA, how does it work for victim-survivors of intimate partner violence? Thahira Cader & Raaya Gomez talked to lawyers on hurdles in obtaining protection orders under the Act.

polity.lk/thahira-cade...
Thahira Cader & Raaya Gomez | Reflecting Back and Looking Forward: 20 years since the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act
Thahira Cader is an Attorney-at-Law and interdisciplinary researcher on issues relating to human rights, access to justice, and gender and development. She recently completed her Masters in Internatio...
polity.lk
October 14, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
Out Now! Vol. 13, No. 1 (2025), LKR800 from the Social Scientists’ Association and LKR1000 from Barefoot and Vijitha Yapa bookshops.
October 9, 2025 at 9:56 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Out Now! Vol. 13, No. 1 (2025), LKR800 from the Social Scientists’ Association and LKR1000 from Barefoot and Vijitha Yapa bookshops.
October 9, 2025 at 9:56 AM
politylk.bsky.social
A few columns, a press conference, pronouncements by the cassock-clad and saffron-clothed; suddenly, the streets are alive with suspicion and anxiety. Ruben Thurairaj on how moral panic is manufactured in #SriLanka

polity.lk/ruben-thurai...
Ruben Thurairajah | ‘Dead Catting’: Manufacturing Moral Panic in Sri Lanka
Ruben Thurairajah is a Yorkshire-based doctor in Britain’s National Health Service; who also tweets https://x.com/RubenThurairaj and writes https://drruben.substack.com/
polity.lk
October 7, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
20 years ago, the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act took force in #SriLanka. #PolityLK has a few yowls in store, but begin with this 2010 hiss from the Cat's Eye feminist collective.

polity.lk/wp-content/u...
October 3, 2025 at 6:58 AM
politylk.bsky.social
20 years ago, the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act took force in #SriLanka. #PolityLK has a few yowls in store, but begin with this 2010 hiss from the Cat's Eye feminist collective.

polity.lk/wp-content/u...
October 3, 2025 at 6:58 AM
politylk.bsky.social
FCEJ condemns the violence perpetrated by the state against the people of Mannar and demands that the right to energy be recognised alongside the right to a safe environment.

www.srilankafeministcollective.org/_files/ugd/0...
October 1, 2025 at 8:20 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Women from across #SriLanka call for a reformed family law and practice that centres equality, dignity, and safety for women and children. Read, sign, amplify, and organise, around the Women's Declaration.

polity.lk/suriya-women...
Suriya Women’s Development Centre | Family Law and Practice in Sri Lanka: Women’s Declaration
This Declaration was prepared through a collective process grounded in survivors’ lived realities and Suriya Women's Development Centre's long-standing work in the Eastern Province for over three deca...
polity.lk
September 23, 2025 at 9:46 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Has #NPP rule overcome #SriLanka's deeply embedded ethno-religious cleavages? Shashik Silva thinks not in his dissection of state responses to Sinhala Buddhist sentiment and nationalist mobilisation.

polity.lk/shashik-silv...
Shashik Silva | Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism and Political Legitimacy in Contemporary Sri Lanka
Shashik Silva is chief operating officer of the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka, with research interests in conflict and peace, local governance, youth political participation, and public ...
polity.lk
September 16, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by PolityLK
politylk.bsky.social
Two men once in power. Two men disgraced. In a striking comparison between Ranil Wickremesinghe and Boris Johnson, Ruben Thurairajah plumbs the depths of their hubris and its consequences #SriLanka #UK

polity.lk/ruben-thurai...
Ruben Thurairajah | Man in the Mirror
Ruben Thurairajah is a Yorkshire-based general practitioner in Britain’s National Health Service; who also tweets https://x.com/RubenThurairaj and writes https://drruben.substack.com/
polity.lk
September 3, 2025 at 7:21 AM
politylk.bsky.social
Join the Global Action for Gaza!
On September 6th, starting at 4pm outside the UN Office in Colombo.
September 4, 2025 at 4:03 AM