Features

Revisiting Parliament after 30 years

Published

1 year ago

2025/05/4

On a bright April morning in 1982 at an astrologically auspicious hour of 10.13 a.m., Sri Lanka inaugurated its new capital, Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte to a triumphant conch shell sounds and reverberating drums when a third of the construction of the new Parliament was over. President J.R. Jayewardene following an ancient tradition deposited nine different gems and followed other rituals to invoke the blessings of the deities on the building.

The site known popularly as Kotte has eventually become the sumptuous home of the Sri Lanka’s lawmakers. The historic Diyawanna Oya was reclaimed from what was a wasteland of marsh. A 300-acre lake was created on which now stands as one of Asia’s most famous architectural buildings – the Parliament of Sri Lanka.

It was designed by Sri Lanka’s best-known Architect, Geoffrey Bawa whoconceived and designed the whole complex. It stands as an elegant embodiment of the rich and cultural and aesthetic heritage of this land.

The one ton silver plated chandelier in the main Chamber and the skillfully carved mahogany wall outside the Members’ special entrance stand testimony to his work. Once a capital of Ceylon in the 15th century, it will be regarded as a return to the fortified city of Sri Jayawardenapura, Kotte. The idea behind this was to methodically ease the congestion of Colombo.

Today, the city of Colombo is still growing from the original one and half million population living there. The idea was to make it the administrative capital of Sri Lanka and it was so gazetted. The idea was to have the diplomatic missions,, Government Ministries and offices, hospitals and schools but sadly this has not happened as originally planned.

Whether the costly investment, will be justified is too soon to say, but it is certainly a good start. The Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) has bestowed on the new Parliament a Heritage award. Capitals in Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Washington DC, Bolivia have been developed as new emerging capitals.

The Member of Parliament for Kotte, Anandatissa de Alwis suggested the site to President Jayewardene after being told by Geoffrey Bawa that the site is the most suitable saying, ” if we are going to build a new capital, why not return to the capital of the Kings?”

When the Portuguese arrived in 1505, the shrewd Sinhalese tried to keep secret Kotte’s proximity to the country’s port in Colombo. They led the foreigners through a labyrinth of roads and paths on horseback stretching over a seven mile journey. But the Portuguese saw though this, as they could still hear their ships guns boom. Hence saying the popular saying “Parangiya Kotte giya (“Like the Portuguese going to Kotte”.)

The building has a huge copper pitched Kandyan roof to disguise its height. In the main pavilion conclave, layers of space on every level are articulated by rectangles of dark wood and glass. Even the stucco columns on the ground floor are unadorned and fuse easily with the simple wooden beams above.

The structure has a definite Eastern flavour and Bawa commented “We have a marvelous tradition of building in this country which has got lost. It got lost because the people followed outside influences over their own good instincts. I just wanted the building to fit into blocks. You must run with the site, after all you don’t wait to push nature out of the building.”

Rupert Scott writing in an Architectural Review states, “most important, the building appears to be in tune with the climate, topography and a culture” To stand at the entrance of the complex, besides the reflecting pools and terraced slopes of cascading water, it had to be kept in mind that for centuries the site was an absolute marsh.

Reclaiming the land and constructing and re-building on it fell to a consortium of two Mitsui companies, an international builder from Japan, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore along with a skilled labour of masons, labour force and carpenters from Sri Lanka. They completed the project in a very impressive period of 26 months. The real heroes of the project are the artisans and craftsmen of Sri Lanka, most of them unacknowledged, who helped create the magnificent work of art and sculpture.

The opulent Chamber, the focal point of the complex is covered with a shimmering tented ceiling made of thousands of small pieces of pressed aluminum linked by a tiny brass sequence. Suspended from the centre of the atrium is the enormous silver plated chandelier with over 500 bulbs in a double-palm motif designed by Sri Lankan sculptor Laki Senanayake. This young artist who’s mother sat in the Parliament of Ceylon was given only six month to create this wonder. Senanayake says “I could never have succeeded without the brilliant master thinker Edwin Perera and his competent craftsmen.

Eighteen silver flags, beams and standards of kings, temples and korales displayed prominently from tall steel posts are the craftsmanship of D. Wimal Surendra. He was responsible for this as well as for the massive silver door leading to the Chamber. The intricate carved square copper door is silver plated and decorated with an elaborate inscription with the words of the preamble of the 1978 Constitution in all three languages, English, Sinhala and Tamil are inscribed on the door. The walls flanking this ornate door are covered with the beautiful line drawings of murals by the late LTP Manjusri, a Magsaysay Award winning artist.

The story in the Salelihini Sandesaya, an eloquent legend of King Parakrama Bahu VI by a famous Sinhala scholar monk of the 15th Century is depicted here. The Selalihiniya was the bird chosen as the courier to convey the Kotte king’s supplication for a male heir to the deity Vibushana in the nearby city of Kelaniya. The understated elegance of the mural juxtaposes nicely with the lobby walls of the entrance for the members of Parliament.

This special entrance, usually off limits to the public, is surrounded by wall space covered with multi dimensional jungle scenes carved in mahogany by Mahinda Abeysekara. The interior of the main Chamber the centerpiece of the entire complex exudes luxury. The plush red carpet, the billowing ceiling together with black leather chairs for the Members are bathed in indirect lightening.

At the opening of the new Parliament, Dr. Anandatissa de Alwis MP for Kotte, defended such seeming extravagance by rhetorically asking “Is this unworthy of such a nation, who can look towards the world and say we are not made by treaty, we were not created by the United Nation Conference, we were not created at Potsdam, Zurich or Washington. We have a history of over 2,500 years of writing of poetry of sculpture of learning second to nobody except the most ancient civilization of my Dravidian friends across the floor of this House” –

These were truly historic and memorable words, uttered by the Member of Parliament for Kotte on this historical occasion. His valuable contribution of this occasion must be recorded and not forgotten.

(Excerpted from Memories of 33 years in Parliament by Nihal Seneviratne)

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

17 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

17 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

17 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.