It is a sad birthday for the baby blue whale. Nobody has wished him because he has grown too big for his age, but still his party turns out to be a merry one.

Nira Wickramasinghe obtained her PhD in History from Oxford. She has been a Fellow at the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland and Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. A recepient of the World Bank Robert McNamara Fellowship, her work focusses on identity, politics, nationalism and transnationalism in which areas she has published extensively. Her publications include Social Theory (1994, co-edited with R. Coomaraswamy); Ethnic Politics in Colonial Sri Lanka (1995); History Writing: New Trends and Methodologies (2001). She is currently working on the political history of Sri Lanka in the twentieth century.