RCSS Certificate Course on Creative Diplomacy Faculty Bios

Imtiaz Ahmed is Professor of International Relations and Director, Centre for Genocide Studies at the University of Dhaka. Professor Ahmed was educated at the University of Dhaka, Carlton University, Ottawa, and the Australian National University, Canberra. He is also currently Visiting Professor at the Sagesse University, Beirut. Professor Ahmed is the recipient of various awards and honours. He has been a fellow in the following institutions: Ford Foundation Fellow at the University of Oxford; Asia Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi; Rockefeller Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation; Japan Foundation Fellow at the Yokohama City University; Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore; and Foreign Policy Fellow at the University of Maryland and College Park. He has authored, co-authored, or edited 18 books and 6 monographs. More than 110 research papers and scholarly articles have been published in leading journals and chapters in edited volumes. His recent publication is an edited volume titled: Human Rights in Bangladesh: Past, Present & Futures (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 2014). His forthcoming publication is People of Many Rivers: Tales from the Riverbanks (Dhaka: University Press Limited, i.p.). Website: http://www.calternatives.org/imtiaz.php

Anusha Alles is the head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Brandix Lanka Ltd. After completion of primary and secondary education in Sri Lanka and Singapore, she completed two degrees holding a Bachelor of Arts (India) and LL.B (UK). She is a qualified Barrister in the UK and Attorney- at Law in Sri Lanka. She served at the Institute of Human Rights particularly involving in the project called "Juvenile Justice Project". She was employed at United Nations Office for Project Services team. Ms. Alles is the spearhead of Brandix CSR Centre and Bindu Foundation; two well-known entities in Sri Lanka’s CSR fraternity. She also serves on the Board of Directors of CSR Lanka (Guarantee) Ltd.

Vinya Ariyaratne is the General Secretary of Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya. He holds a Doctorate in Medicine from De La Salle University Philippines and a Doctorate in Community Medicine from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine of the University of Colombo, while he has also obtained a M.Sc. in Community Medicine from the University of Colombo and a Masters in Public Health (International Health) from the Johns Hopkins University, USA. He has been a Visiting Fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK and has contributed to the corpus of medical literature through articles published in medical journals. Dr Ariyaratne has also served as a Lecturer in Community Medicine at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

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Sutheash Balasubramaniam is the Country Representative for UN Global Compact; a UN strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. He is also Managing Director at Global Strategic Corporate Sustainability (Pvt) Ltd, former Chariman of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Sri Lanka, and a former CEO/Director of Hayleys Business Solutions International (HBSI), a subsidiary of the Hayleys Group. Iliyasu Mohammed Biu is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka currently focusing on a comparative study of Nigeria and Sri Lanka, in relation to political leadership and violent internal conflict management. Mr. Biu is also a lecturer attached to the Dept of Political Science at the Federal University Wukari, Nigeria. His research interests straddle public administration, development studies and local government studies.

Daneshan Casie-Chetty is a retired career diplomat, and has served in numerous positions including as the former Head of the Mission of Sri Lanka to the EC and Ambassador to several countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and Indonesia. He is currently the Director/Consultant at the Office for National Unity and Reconcliation (ONUR) and former Executive Director of the South Asia Policy & Research Institute. He is also the current Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies. Mr. Casie-Chetty is an alumnus of the University of Peradeniya.

Shanti Casie-Chetty is the author of Anita Dickman’s Cookery Course and the daughter of the talented cook, Anita Dickman; who was widely recognized as a master of the culinary art for over 20 year, and cookery courses in many parts of the island. Mrs Casie- Chetty, is also a cookery teacher by profession. She accompanied her spouse; a career foreign services officer, on his foreign assignments, mastering the various cuisines of India, Indonesia, Belgium and Germany. She further has substantial experience in promoting Sri Lanka’s diversity and image through her cooking.

Indrajit Coomaraswamy is an internationally recognised Sri Lankan economist. He was an official with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka from 1973-1989. He worked in the Economic Research, Statistics and Bank Supervision Divisions. From 1981-89 he worked at the Ministry of Finance and Planning. From 1990-2009, Dr. Coomaraswamy worked with the Commonwealth Secretariat. During that time, he held the positions inter alia, of Director, Economic Affairs Division and Deputy-Director, Secretary-General's Office. He was subsequently Interim Director, Social Transformation Programme Division, Commonwealth Secretariat (January-July 2010). He completed his

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undergraduate degree at Cambridge University and obtained his Doctorate from the University of Sussex.

Radhika Coomaraswamy was the first UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (1994-2003) and subsequently served as the UN Under-Secretary General and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict (2006- 2012). Her career includes appointments as Chairperson of the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (2003-2006) and Global Professor at the Faculty of Law, New York University. Dr Coomaraswamy began her career as a constitutional lawyer and has written two books on the constitutional process in Sri Lanka and on the role of the Judiciary in plural societies. Dr. Coomaraswamy received her BA from Yale University, her JD from Columbia University, and her LLM from Harvard University.

Channa Daswatte (tbc) is a well known Sri Lankan architect, both locally as well as abroad. He is currently a partner of MICD Associates, and has co-authored a book on architecture titled, “Sri Lankan Style” along with Dominic Sansoni. He obtained his BA in Architecture from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and went on to further studies at Bartlett School at University College London. Mr Daswatte is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, and was also an initial juniors of the late Geoffery Bawa’s firm of architects. Gihan de Chickera is a cartoonist, actor, and teacher. He works as a cartoonist for one of the leading daily newspapers of Sri Lanka, and won best cartoonist of the year in 2012. He is also a lecturer in Language in the University of Colombo, and a founding member of Stages Theatre Group, where he contributes mainly as an actor, but also handles sound and publicity-related work. He additionally acts in both Sinhala and English theatre, and was a cast member in the film Machan. Senaka de Silva has been a man of many trades, including, craft designer, couturier, costume designer, choreographer, and interior designer. Senaka has worked as a consultant designer for the Ministry of Textile Industry Development, the National Handicrafts Board of Sri Lanka, and the Sri Lanka Cooperative Textile Union Limited. His current passion is working with craftsmen and master weavers from all provinces in Sri Lanka, both to revive the country’s dying traditional arts and handicrafts, and encourage it as a potential avenue for livelihood-making.

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Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri is Senior lecturer and Head of the Department of History, University of Colombo. His research interests include impact of European colonialism, ethno-religious nationalism, radical political movements and post-colonial state building in Sri Lanka. Among his publications are ‘History’ after the War: Historical Consciousness in the Collective Sinhala-Buddhist Psyche in Post-War Sri Lanka (ICES, 2013) and The Adaptable Peasant Agrarian Society in Western Sri Lanka Under Dutch Rule, 1740-1800, (Leiden: Brill, 2008). Dr Dewasiri has received his BA (1991) and MPhil (2002) in History from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and PhD from Leiden University, the Netherlands in 2007.

Kanak Mani Dixit is publisher of Himal Khabarpatrika and editor of Himal Southasian. He has been a journalist since finishing high school in Lalitpur in 1971. He did his college in Kathmandu, law in Delhi, and masters (international affairs and journalism) in New York. He taught law briefly at Tribhuvan University, and worked at the United Nations in New York between 1982 and 1990. Since then, he has pioneered the field of Southasian journalism while immersing himself in Nepali-language media. Over the course of the late 1990s and early 2000s, he became involved in civil rights amidst the Maoist insurgency and King Gyanendra’s autocracy, and was active in the People’s Movement of 2006. Since then, Dixit has been involved in a campaign to roll back violence and work to ensure the promulgation of a democratic constitution. He also works in disability, public transport, archiving, and architectural and environmental preservation. As a children’s author, his most popular work is the much-translated Adventures of a Nepali Frog, Dixit is also translator of Bishweshor Prasad Koirala’s Atmabrittanta: Late Life Recollections, and in Fall 2009 he came out with Dekheko Muluk (The Country Witnessed), a Nepali- language work that addresses the violence and political upheavals of the previous fifteen years. His recent book “Peace Politics in Nepal” was released on 19 April, 2011 at Patan. The book deals with compelling issues that have swirled around the five-year-old peace process which started in 2006.

He was awarded the first Prince Claus Award to Nepal for “his outstanding contributions to public debate, for creating platforms that enable South Asians to connect, interact and network transcending national and cultural boundaries, and for his socially engaged, multi-disciplinary approach to creativity and development”. Sarala Fernando served as the former Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations and International Organizations in Geneva, (with concurrent accreditation to the Holy See). She was also Ambassador to Thailand (with concurrent accreditation to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos), and Sweden (with concurrent accreditation to all the Nordic and Baltic countries), and the former Director General of the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute. Dr Fernando has a B.A. with First Class Honors from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, Maitrise d'Etudes Modernes from the University of Caen, France, M.I.P.P. from Johns Hopkins SAIS, Washington D.C. and a Ph.D in India-Sri Lanka relations from the University of Colombo.

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John Gooneratne was a Sri Lankan Foreign Service Officer from 1961 to 1993, serving at missions in the United States, Myanmar, Egypt and Iraq, as well as at the UN Mission in New York. He was Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Iraq in 1989–92, with concurrent accreditation to Jordan and Turkey. Dr Gooneratne was Associate Director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, from 1993- 1994 and he worked at the Sri Lankan Government's Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) from its establishment in January 2002 until May 2006, serving as its Secretary-General from December 2005 until April 2006. He is the author of A Decade of Confrontation: Sri Lanka and India in the 1980s (2002) and has published articles in several Sri Lankan and Indian newspapers and journals on current affairs, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation.

Nalaka Gunawardene, trained as a science writer, has worked in the public media and development spheres for 25 years both in Sri Lanka and at Asian regional level. During this time, he has variously been a news reporter, feature writer, radio presenter, TV quizmaster, documentary film producer, foreign correspondent, media researcher and journalist trainer. He continues to juggle several of these roles, while also actively blogging and tweeting. He currently writes columns for Ravaya newspaper, Echelon business magazine and SciDev.Net international website.

More at: http://nalakagunawardene.com, Twitter: @NalakaG

Radhika Hettiarachchi obtained a BA (Hons) in Communications and English at York University, Canada and her MS in Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has been involved in the development sector, conflict transformation and alternative methods of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka since 2005. She was the curator of Colomboscope 2014, and an artist in the Colombo Art Biennale 2014, both of which shared the theme of “Making History”. She is the curator and creator of the “Herstory Archives” project (herstoryarchive.org).

Amal Jayawardane is Senior Professor of International Relations at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was also the sixth Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS) in January, 2009. Formerly, he was the Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2006-2008) and the Head of the Department of History & International Relations (2001-2006), University of Colombo. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the School of International Service, the American University, Washington D.C., and Research Scholar at the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science. He has also functioned as a Consultant to the National Integration Programme Unit (NIPU) of the Ministry of Ethnic Affairs and National Integration; member of the Coordinating Committee, Centre for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR), University of Colombo; Co-Director, Centre for Policy Studies and Research (CEPRA),

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University of Colombo; Member of the Board of Directors, Institute of International Studies (IIS), Kandy; Member, Board of Management, Bandaranaike Centre For International Studies (BCIS) and the Sri Lanka Institute of International Relations (SLIIR). During the period 1994-1997, he served as a Member of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry in respect of Involuntary Removal and Disappearances of Persons. He specializes in Politics in South Asia; Foreign Policy Studies; Human Rights and Peace Studies.

Lal Medawattegedara is an author and a Lecturer of English Literature at the Open University, Sri Lanka. He has previously worked as a journalist, musician, advertising writer, documentary script writer and as a translator. His latest novel Playing PIllow Polictics at MGK was the recipient of the 2012 Gratiaen Prize, while his very first attempt at fiction, The Window Cleaner's Soul was short- listed for the 2002 Gratiaen Award. His short story Tears Of A Coffin Maker was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service while other short stories, including The Grass Cutter's Caricature and The Hero have also been published in Channels.

Nayani Melagoda is Professor in International Relations and Head of the Department of International Relations at University of Colombo. Sri Lanka. Her research specializations and interests are; Geopolitics of South Asia, Foreign Policy of Sri Lanka, and United Nations Peacekeeping. Professor Melagoda obtained her PhD from University of Leeds and has published several articles in reputed journals, as well as authored two books titled The Policies of Three Prime Ministers of Ceylon 1948 – 1956 and An Archival Education Programme for Sri Lanka (Colombo, 1998). She has held several national and international appointments.

See more at: http://arts.cmb.ac.lk/ir/index.php/staff/academic-staff/6-prof-nayani- melogoda

Amena Mohsin teaches in the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. She graduated from the same department and later received her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Hawaii, USA and Cambridge University, UK. Amena has received several national and international fellowships, which include the East-West Center Graduate Fellowship, CIDA International Fellowship, Commonwealth Staff Fellowship, SSRC Fellowship and Freedom Foundation Fellowship. She has written extensively on rights issues, State, Democracy, Civil-Military relations and human security. She is the author of “The Politics of Nationalism: The Case of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh” (UPL, 1997), “The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On The Difficult Road To Peace” (Lynn Rienner Publishers, 2002), “Ethnic Minorities of Bangladesh: Some Reflections the Saontals and Rakhaines” (Programme for Research on Poverty Alleviation, 2002), “Women and Militancy: South Asian Complexities”, edited (with Imtiaz Ahmed), (Dhaka, University Press Limited. 2011), Conflict and Partition, CHT, Bangladesh, (with Delwar Hossain) SAGE, 2015)

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Jürgen Morhard is Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Republic of the Maldives. He was former Commissioner and Deputy Director for Budget and Finance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Berlin. He has also had several other international postings, including Counselor, Head of the Economic and Commercial Section of the German Embassy in Washington; Deputy Consul General and Head of Economic Section of the German Consulate in Hong Kong; and Deputy Ambassador of the German Embassy in Lomé/Togo. Dr. Jürgen Morhard obtained his PhD in International Relations from University of Cologne (Japan Foundation Research Fellow at Sophia University Tokyo) and his MBA from University of Cologne and Sophia University Tokyo.

Subinay Nandy is the current UNDP Resident Representative in Sri Lanka. He also serves as the United Nations Resident Coordinator / Humanitarian Coordinator and as the Designated Official for Security. With almost 20 years of experience with the United Nations, prior to his appointment in Sri Lanka, Mr. Nandy served as the UNDP Country Director in China, where he played a leading role in driving UNDP’s contribution to the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) in China. He was instrumental in developing a new strategic partnership between the Government of China and UNDP on global development issues and leading UNDP’s support to China following humanitarian disasters, including in the aftermath of the earthquake in Sichuan in 2008. Dr. Nandy holds a PhD in Economics from the Moscow Agricultural Academy and is fluent in English, Bangla and Russian.

Pradeep Peiris has gained recognition in Sri Lanka and South Asia as a survey researcher. In 1999 he founded Social Indicator the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and functioned as the head of the organization till May 2011. He has published and presented papers on a range of subjects ranging from the federal debate in Sri Lanka to the state of democracy in Sri Lanka. His research interests include conflict resolution and management, the functioning of public opinion polling, the state of democratic accountability and the changing bases of political parties in Sri Lanka. Dr. Peiris obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Jehan Perera is the Executive Director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka and former Associate Director, Legal Aid of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka (1988 – 1995). He is a political columnist for a daily newspaper and contributes regularly to international publications and a prominent human rights activist in Sri Lanka. Dr. Perera holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA in economics from Harvard College.

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Ruhanie Perera is a performer, performance-maker and lecturer working in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is a founding member of Floating Space Theatre Company, and is also attached to the Department of English, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka as a visiting lecturer in performance and literature. Her current research areas include communities in performance, storytelling as an artistic and political device and sociocultural contexts in aesthetic practice. Ms Perera holds an MA in Performance and Culture: Interdisciplinary Approaches from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2009 and has trained in contemporary performance technique and performance making in London 2008/2009. She most recently served on the panel of curators for the Colombo Art Biennale 2014 in its third edition with a special focus on the Live Art Segment and the programmed Conversation Series revolving around the thematic of the Biennale – ‘Making History’.

More at: http://www.floatingspace.org/who-we-are/

M. D. D. Pieris is a graduate of the University of Ceylon (Peradeniya); Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, UK and has been conferred the Degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) by the University of Colombo and the title of Honorary Senior Fellow by the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine. His career was in the then Ceylon Civil Service, and later, on the abolition of that service, in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service. He had a distinguished career in the public service and held several important posts, including that of Secretary to the Prime Minister; Secretary, Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Home Affairs; Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Co-operatives; Secretary, Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Chairman and Director General of Broadcasting. He has also acted on several occasions in addition to his duties, in the posts of Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and External Affairs and Secretary to the Ministry of Trade and Shipping. He has at various times been the Chairman of the National Institute of Education; Chairman – Board of Management of the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration; and Chairman of the Agrarian Research and Training Institute. He has also served on the Governing Councils or Boards of Management of several Universities and Postgraduate Institutes, including the council of the University of Colombo, the Board of management of the Post Graduate Institute of medicine; the University of Colombo School of Computing; The Council of the Buddhist and Pali University; The Board of management of the Arthur Clarke centre of the University of Moratuwa; and the Post Graduate Institute of Archaeology of the University of Kelaniya. He has been a Director of the Peoples’ Bank, the People’s Merchant Bank and a member of the Rural Credit Advisory Committee of the Central Bank. He has served as a member of the National Salaries Commission and as a member of the Presidential Commission on Finance and Banking. Currently, he serves as Deputy Chairman - Mercantile Merchant Bank Ltd., is Chairman of the Board of Management of the Institute of Information Technology; on the Board of Directors of L.O.L.C.; the Governing Board of the Regional Center for Strategic studies; on the Board of Management of the Institute of Indigenous medicine of the university of Colombo; and on the Board of Management of the U.C.S.C. He is also a member of the Academic Affairs Board for Post Graduates Studies of the Sri lanka Institute of Development Administration (S.L.I.D.A.) Desamanya Pieris also lectures from time to time on invitation, at S.L.I.D.A.; the Defence Services command

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and Staff College at Sapugaskanda; and the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute. He has delivered four convocation addresses at the universities of Colombo; Sri Jayawardanapura; Ruhuna; and the Open university. He has, also on invitation delivered three Memorial Orations: - the Lalith Athulathmudali Memorial Oration; the Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam Memorial Oration; and the Vidyajothi Professor V. K. Samaranayake Memorial Oration. He has been conferred the high National honor of DESAMANYA for “Distinguished Service of a highly meritorious nature to the nation”. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu is the founder Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, (CPA). He has presented papers on governance and peace in Sri Lanka at a number of international conferences and is widely quoted in the international and local media. In 2010, he was awarded the inaugural Citizens Peace Award by the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, and in 2011, he was invited by the German Government to be a Member of the International Jury to choose an universally recognized human rights logo. In September 2013, he was invited by President Obama to attend his “High Level Event On Civil Society”, in New York. He is also a founder director of the Sri Lanka Chapter of Transparency International and a founding Co- Convenor of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), which has monitored all the major elections in Sri Lanka since 1997. In 2004 he was an Eisenhower Fellow (2004). Currently, he is Chairperson of the Eisenhower Fellows, Sri Lanka, member of the Board of the Berghof Foundation, the South Asia Transparency Advisory Group and a Member of the Gratiaen Trust. Dr. Saravanamuttu received a Bsc Econ, Upper Second Class Honours degree and Ph. D in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of London, in 1979 and 1986, respectively. He lectured in International Politics at the University of Southampton, UK, from 1984 – 92. Mirak Raheem is a researcher and activist working on human rights, reconciliation, land, displacement and minority issues, as well as an avid dancer. He worked as a Senior Researcher at the Peace and Conflict Analysis Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Sri Lanka for 9 years, during which time he published a number of publications. He has served on a number of boards, including currently the Secretariat for Muslims. He is a trustee and serves as the chairperson Programme Sub-Committee of the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust and is currently working with the Chitrasena Vajira Dance Foundation on a book project. He obtained his undergraduate degree in International Relations & History from London School of Economics and Political Sciences, and a masters in Peace Studies from Notre Dame University, USA.

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Anomaa Rajakaruna (tbc) is a sociologist with an interest in communication sociology. She holds an MA from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and is reading for a MPhil. She is a self-taught photographer and she uses different mediums – poetry, film and photography – to express herself. Her skills as a photographer won her the opportunity to work both at the UN conference on women in Beijing in 1995 and the Beijing +5 conference in New York in 2000. She has exhibited the photographic work in solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally. Some of her films which have won awards have been screened at film festivals around the world. She was awarded ‘The Bunka Prize’ for Special Achievement in Photography in 2002 by the Japan-Sri Lanka Friendship Cultural Fund.

Nihal Rodrigo is a retired career officer of Sri Lanka's Foreign Service, and was Adviser (Foreign Relations) to Sri Lanka's President (June 2007-August 2010). He was Ambassador to China, concurrently accredited to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (September 2003-May 07), served as Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary (February 2002-September 2003), and was Secretary- General / South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (1999- 2002). He further served as Ambassador in Sri Lanka’s Permanent Missions to the United Nations, respectively in New York as Deputy Permanent Representative (1984-87 and 1993-96); and Geneva as Permanent Representative (1987-89). He was latterly appointed to UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament. He is a Visiting Lecturer (International Relations) at the Defence Services Command and Control Staff College; Colombo University; and the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies and is working on a Study of Sri Lankan Foreign Relations in the globalized context. Dominic Sansoni is a Photographer based in Sri Lanka with extensive portfolios on Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Yemen, Maldives & Mauritius. He has worked as a professional photographer since 1980 and his pictures have appeared in TIME, Newsweek, Asiaweek & Meridiani. He has published several books of his work, including Sri Lanka -Resplendent Isle and ‘Lunuganga Geoffrey Bawa’s garden’. More at: http://dominicsansoni.blogspot.com/ and www.threeblindmen.com for stock photography and galleries.

Asanga Tilakaratne is Professor of Pali and Buddhist Studies, Buddhist Studies Unit, Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo. Professor Asanga Tilakaratne graduated from Peradeniya University, Sri Lanka, with a BA specializing in Buddhist Philosophy and offering Pali and Sanskrit as his subsidiary subjects. He received his MA in Western Philosophy and PhD in Comparative Philosophy from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He has published, both in Sinhala and English, over one hundred papers on Buddhist

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philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion, practical ethics, contemporary social and political issues and Buddhist epistemology and logic. He has won the state literary award twice, in 1979 and 2002 for his scholarly publications on Buddhist philosophy. Sidath Wettimuny was former opening batsman of Sri Lanka in both Test and One-Day Internationals (ODI). Though Sri Lanka played their first international cricket in 1926, it took a long period of 56-years to get Test status —the eighth nation to attain the honour. Wettimuny was part of the inaugural Test match for Sri Lanka, and represented his nation during 1982-1987. After retirement from international cricket, Wettimuny debuted as a match referee in September 1997 in match between Zimbabwe and New Zealand at Harare. Later he went on to become the selector of Sri Lankan cricket. He has also been a champion of social causes, being one of the big names in Sri Lanka, who took the Earth Hour 2015 pledge to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour and raise awareness about climate change.

Nira Wickramasinghe is Professor and Chair of Modern South Asian Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her primary interests are identity politics, everyday life under colonialism and the relationship between state and society in modern South Asia. She has pursued these interests through investigation into such diverse themes as politics of dress, civil society, citizens and migrants, and objects of consumption. Her most recent recent books are Metallic Modern. Everyday Machines in colonial Sri Lanka (2014) and Sri Lanka in the Modern Age. A History of Contested Identities (2006)

Rajiva Wijesinha is a Sri Lanka writer in English, distinguished for his political analysis as well as creative and critical work. An academic by profession for much of his working career, he was most recently Senior Professor of Languages at the University of Sabaragamuwa, Sri Lanka. He was a former Member of Parliament, the Secretary-General of the Sri Lankan Government Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights. Prof Wijesinha serves at present on the editorial board of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. His works in other genres include The Foundations of Modern Society and Political Principles and their Practice in Sri Lanka. Professor Wijesinha holds a MA and a PhD form the Univeristy of Oxford.

More at: https://rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com

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