By P. K. Balachandran COLOMBO - While Sri Lanka’s connection with the Tamil country in South India is repeatedly mentioned in the island nation’s ancient chronicles, the Mahawamsa and the Deepawamsa, its connection with Kerala, which is…
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By P.K. Balachandran COLOMBO -  Before Sri Lanka became predominantly Buddhist following the conversion of the 3rd Century King Devanampiya Tissa (247 BC-207 BC), the island had an amazing assortment of religious cults, practices and…
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By P. K. Balachandran COLOMBO - UNESCO has set February 21 as the International Mother Language Day to stress the importance of the mother tongue and and multilingualism for achieving Sustainable Development Goals without leaving any…
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By Rebecca Conway RUMBUR, Pakistan — In a remote valley in northern Pakistan, hemmed in by sheer rock walls and high pastures, members of a tiny community gathered. The Kalash are a group of about 4,000 people who live in the mountains…
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By Sophie Haigney Anxiety sweat. Horsehair. Wet grass and soil after a rain. Sulphuric compounds from gunpowder. Eau de cologne containing rosemary, bergamot and bitter orange. A touch of leather. This might have been what Napoleon’s…
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By P. K. Balachandran When the famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited Sri Lanka between September and November 1344, the island was fabled for its wealth. It was a hub of international trade in the Indian Ocean, welcoming foreign…
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By P.K. Balachandran COLOMBO - When the British ruled Sri Lanka, peasant agriculture, with paddy as the main crop, was systematically destroyed to yield place to plantation-based commercial agriculture monopolized by them. Sri Lankan…
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By P. K. Balachandran COLOMBO - Friday November 20, 2020 was the 270th birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, South India’s greatest anti-British ruler and military leader who died fighting the British in Srirangapatnam near Mysore in…
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By P. K. Balachandran COLOMBO - On Tuesday (13), Reuters reported from Amsterdam that a beautiful ornate cannon, painted in blue and gold, which had been taken away by the Dutch from Kandy in 1765 could be brought back to Sri Lanka, at…
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BERLIN - Berlin's ethnological museum has returned two mummified Maori heads to New Zealand, marking the occasion with a ceremony and prayers in the German capital on Monday (12). The move was "a signal of reconciliation to the societies…
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