54% of adolescent girls in Sri Lanka feel that a husband is justified in beating his wife. The UNICEF Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012 however is not available yet to try and unpack this further. What do they mean?
Surely, they cannot be suggesting that the arbitrary violence that some wives are subject to in Sri Lanka is acceptable; burned rice that results in cut lips and black eyes? It must be wives that were …

Malcolm, I listened to your impassioned plea on abortion just now. It’s Good Friday and I needed something Christian and stimulating.
Absolutely nothing has changed, has it? In 1995 when they tried to review our archaic abortion laws (Article 303 of the penal Code enacted in 1883) the Church and Mosque formed an alliance that has not been witnessed since the Sufis and Franciscans sat down to barrels of mead and bawdy ballads in Sherwood forest. …

Renu died yesterday.
Renuka Manthri.
She was a member of the DISHA Team, a lady in red, a friend. I loved her, she was special. She was hilarious. With me, she was honest, open, human.
At work, she wielded a wooden dildo with the best of them. No question was too embarrassing to answer. She was sensitive. Her HIV positive clients loved her.  So did the team. She was a new comer, but within moments it was like …

On Sunday Whitney Huston died.
Like many celebrities before her that have used drugs, her life and death was further pried apart and analyzed ad nauseum.
To paraphrase Smokey Robinson, we don’t give a fuck if an “average” person does drugs, but a celebrity – how dare she! A celebrity dies of an overdose, and the discussions on how BAD drugs are for you, begin again in earnest.
The question is, are drugs really bad for us, or …

This was the first World AIDS Day I chose to ignore. The first World AIDS Day that I tried to boycott.
Every year since I got into this business, December 1st has been a significant day. Now, I struggle to recall why.
In India, World AIDS day for us was about awareness and education. It was the day that the rest of world danced to the beat of our drum. Workplaces opened up to us, schools and …

As I write this, friends and people I have worked with, are living in fear.
In truth, since Saturday before last (10th September) when Rivira published their exposé on condoms and lubricating gels being distributed to men who have sex with men, and the community based organization involved in the process, tensions have been high for the gay community. In the 10th September article, the organization was identified by name, their detailed address was also offered …

Last Monday we were in Busan, Korea. We had just finished presenting on how the People Living with HIV Stigma Index had helped empower a local community that is marginalized and often forgotten in the global and national response in Sri Lanka. People living with HIV in a low prevalence country like ours do not matter really. Those who come forward are often poor; from rural communities that no longer want them (especially if their …

So Amy Winehouse joins the 27 Club: Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, all dead in their 27th year. All assured of posterity. All the more cooler for dying at 27…?
Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll! Ya, baby!  How is that not cool?!
Some feel that they have set the movement (of people who use drugs) back decades with their high profile addictions. That with Winehouse’s death, ANTI-drug slogans will be unearthed, dusted off, repainted, and …

So I met this white South African last night and he doesn’t find black women attractive.
I had to ask.
The last white South African I met was similarly wired. This time however I had the opportunity to dig a little deeper than just throwing Beyonce, Halle Berry and Naomi Campbell (my go to hot black women names) at him. He associates black women with maids, or whores on the street and how can he be expected …

I am not violent. I tend to avoid physical confrontation. It solves nothing, and a beer bottle scar on the left side of my head is a reminder that it doesn’t feel too great either.
In the last 16 years I can count on one hand the number of people I have hit: 3
Up until last Friday night it was 2.
‘He Comes From Jaffna’ cast party at what masqueraded for a garden restaurant called the Bunker, in …