When she was a medical student at the University of Colombo, no one spoke of child abuse. “It was simply not a problem that people had recognized,” says the newly inducted President of the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians, Dr. Asvini Fernando. Now things have changed to such an extent that she has chosen to put forward child protection as her main area of focus in the year ahead.

His pen might as well have been a scalpel. With a few well chosen words, D.B. Dhanapala could slice past pretence and posturing to lay his subject bare before you. He chose to write about prominent Sri Lankans who had been scholars, journalists, healers,artists and diplomats, but politicians were perhaps his favourite fodder of all.