Category Archives: Communicating Development
When Worlds Collide #120: Asia’s smallest state Maldives faces big climate threats
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 5 September 2014 Small island nations are in focus this week, as well as throughout this year. The Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #119: Long way to lowering Lanka’s Deadly Diesel Hazard
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 29 August 2014 Progress is slow and incremental. Those who take all-or-nothing positions often end up with…nothing. So let’s hail Sri Lanka’s leading petroleum distributor introducing a … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #117: Once and Future Organics in Sri Lanka
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 15 August 2014 It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong, cautioned the French writer and philosopher François-Marie Arouet (1694 – 1778), better known … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #115: Fast-tracking Road Safety in Sri Lanka
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 18 July 2014 The Apollo 8 space mission, which lasted from 21 to 27 December 1968, was the first time that a manned spacecraft left Earth orbit, … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #113: Outpacing Tsunamis in the Indian Ocean: Are we ready?
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 4 July 2014 Timely warnings about on-coming disasters can literally save lives – provided the word reaches those at risk. And they know what to do, and … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #111: Science Journalism for Better Governance
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 13 June 2014 Years ago, as a young science journalist working for Asia Technology magazine of Hong Kong, I was shown around Pakistan’s space agency SUPARCO premises … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #109: Huffing and puffing over Tobacco in Sri Lanka
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 31 May 2014 Tobacco control presents formidable policy dilemmas. It isn’t a simple or simplistic battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as anti-tobacco activists would make us believe. … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #108: Eye Donation at 50 – Promoting Lanka’s Soft Power
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 23 May 2014 A piece of air cargo, compact and unusual, left our island on 25 May 1964, a Vesak Poya day. It contained a thermos flask, … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #107: Climate Reporting from ‘Ground Zero’
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today ay newspaper on 16 May 2014 Can journalists save the planet? I posed this question in a column nearly two years ago, in June 2012. During the early years … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide #104: Dengue Control sans Chemicals?
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today broadsheet newspaper on 25 April 2014 Last week, discussing dengue fever as a silent disaster, I wrote: “For now, there is no specific antiviral drug or effective vaccine against dengue. … Continue reading
When Worlds Collide, by Nalaka Gunawardene 