Features

‘Weli Park’, an old message revisited

Published

3 years ago

2023/04/2

by Ravi Perera

Breaking the urban disarray of the hectic Nawala-Nugegoda Road is the charming walkway commonly referred to as the “Weli Park”.The park’s immediate surroundings are oppressively commercial, hundreds of shops sitting cheek by jowl, selling hardware, tiles, bathroom fittings, interspersed with banks, eateries, one even selling pet food. Not a planned development clearly; one by one, all the dwellings with a road frontage have been turned into business places, buildings seem to have come up in defiance of regulations, standing monstrously in tiny plots of land.

Often an entire row of shops would be selling bathroom fittings; made in China, same thing, same price, only the discount varies! Like the rest of Colombo, there is inadequate provision for parking along the Nawala-Nugegoda road, forcing the vehicles to jostle for the few spaces available, obstructing the moving traffic. The competition for business is fierce, disfiguring the shop fronts are huge hoardings and glaring neon lights advertising their wares.

Then, unexpectedly there is this most welcome openness, a park on a slightly raised landscape with a right angle carpark extending from an intersection of the road. A gravel walkway runs inwards from the park along a canal with steep banks; the water is stagnant. Across the canal there are largish houses, of different shape and style; the fetid water creates a waterfront, apparently adding to the value!

The view however is only notional, in the design of many of the houses there is no suggestion of openness – forbidding gates, high walls, barred windows, tiny balconies; security concerns have overridden the aesthetics. The walkway runs on a straight line for a couple of hundred yards and then loops back, traversing between the stagnant canal and patches of mangrove whose waters merge with the swarms extending towards Kotte. A remainder of the wetlands that once defined greater Colombo, a good location for a walk.

Small in dimension, with less range than parks in other countries, the “Weli Park” and other similar recreational spaces that were created around the same time have nevertheless contributed towards making Colombo a more liveable place. They are popular, providing recreational spaces for the city dwellers, otherwise confined by the constraints of the metropolis; fresh air, lush greenery and the wetlands spread yonder.

And as it happens in nearly every Sri Lankan endeavour, there is a discordant note, by the entrance to the “Weli Park”, a public project created by State institutions, is a plastered concrete plaque commemorating its launch. Although after 10 years of standing in the sun, rain and humidity some of the wordings are now faded, the savagery of the message lingers in what is legible.

” The Urban Wetland Park is hereby vested in the citizens of Sri Lanka by His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and would remain a lasting testament to the glorious vision contained in the ‘Mahinda Chintanaya’ of ushering in modernity to the State, sound health to the nation and picturesqueness to the environment while bringing more lustre and grandeur to the renowned city of Nugegoda –Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Secretary Ministry of Defence and Urban Development on this 12th day of January 2013″

It is humiliating that we live in a country where such an arrogant uncouth message comes to be openly displayed, and of all places, at a small park meant for recreational activity. Such parks are standard features in every city of the world. This plaque at ‘Weli Park’ is a perfect metaphor for what the relationship between the rulers and the ruled in this country has become. A confounded people, utterly abject, willing to lap up any abomination with reverential gratitude.

A shameless glorification of the ruler’s benefaction coming from his own brother would have been an embarrassment in another culture. The 10-year gap between this grandiloquence and now, gives us perspective; the poor results, emptiness of the actors, the failure of these men and their methods. Sharply clashing with the trees and flowers of the “Weli Park ” is a rusting armoured car, World War Two vintage or thereabouts, reminding the park goers that he is also Secretary of Defence.

Who would presume to bring “more” lustre and grandeur to the “renowned” city of Nugegoda! Only a person who has never gone outside of Nugegoda, if in body, certainly not in mind! Words robbed of meaning, an indescript Nugegoda made ‘grand and lustrous’ by mere declaration! Where a better educated mind would have desisted, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then wearing the shoes of Secretary of Urban Development, foolishly glorifies his President brother, the source of his own power.

There is sanction for this unabashed exaltation of own family, D S Senanayake our very first post- independence Prime Minister manoeuvred to have his son Dudley inherit the premiership after him. That gave the go ahead to an ingrained attitude, something waiting to happen; father to son, husband to wife, brother to brother, politics became an heirloom, no surprise he is called the father of the nation!

The resultant culture has given rise to a deplorable national leadership, wholly occupied in self-perpetuation. Seizing every opportunity to exalt their supposed big deeds, even the most commonplace is made to sound like a benediction the people have received, because of them. According to our self-declared visionaries and doers, we enjoy democracy, the right to vote, public highways, irrigation schemes, electricity to even recreational parks only because they have gifted these to us. However, the country, economically, politically as well as socially has only deteriorated-relative to East Asia sharply, and now a steady decline even against South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh which are burdened with enormous structural issues including massive populations. We have become a non-performer, a country emblematic of failure.

This is not a failure that occurred overnight. Blunder following blunder, each act of omission more criminal than the last, every government outdoing its predecessor in covering up corruption. The Sri Lankan failure has gradually built up from almost the time of independence, when a peaceful nation with a reasonable economy was handed over to our leaders to govern. There is a wearisome sameness about our leaders; coming from a handful of families, invariably second or third political generation, same secondary schools (established by the colonialists, a fact proudly stressed), exaggerated religiosity (the rituals) or cultural adherences (white sarong in public), pretences of knowledge/ability (heavy sounding, jargon filled speeches) yet, it is only big talk followed by small deeds, a country otherwise mediocre in every way.

In the sweltering midday heat at the ‘Weli Park’ meanwhile, the sun beats down fiercely, young lovers seek relief under the shade of trees, the putrid water simmers in the heat and the old message on the plaque keeps growling.

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

11 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

11 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

11 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.