Kadapatha (The Looking Glass – Sixty Years of Independence), a collection of articles from the Sunday Lankadeepa weekly column under the same title written by Milinda Moragoda and edited by veteran Editor Edmond Ranasinghe, will be launched in Anuradhapura, on Friday, Feb 13.

The first copies of the book will be presented to members of the Maha Sangha by Ranasinghe at the Sangha Advisory committee meeting of the Ministry of Tourism.

The book brings together a selection of fifty-five articles, which were published during the September 2007-February 2009 period. The Kadapatha column – launched a few months before the 60th Anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence – critically evaluates the progress and setbacks we have made since then, exploring pertinent areas such as political reforms, governance, ethnic and cultural relations, economic reforms, women’s affairs, education policy, international affairs, etc.

The column ultimately argues for following a ‘middle-path’ approach away from extremism, to meet our society’s challenges. A television programme created and hosted by Moragoda entitled Nidhahasa (Freedom), which was aired in early 2008, was initially run parallel to the column. Currently, Moragoda’s ongoing weekly radio program, Sanvada (Dialogue) continues an examination of these issues. Podcasts of this show can be listened to on his website milinda.org.

Kadapatha is the latest in a series of columns by Moragoda, who has written regularly for over a decade for several newspapers on social, cultural, political and economic matters. His earlier columns include Arthika vigrahaya (Economic Review) Sathiya Sithiwilla (Weekly Thoughts) and Loku Nayakayan (World Leaders). The latter two columns have appeared in the Tamil press, translated, along with Kadapatha (which is currently running).