Nanayakkarapathirage Martin Perera, commonly known as Dr. N. M. Perera (Sinhala එන්.එම්.පෙරේරා [en em pe reaira]; 6 June 1904 – 14 August 1979), was one of the leaders of the Sri Lankan Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP). He was the first Trotskyist to become a cabinet minister. He served two terms as Minister of Finance and Leader of the Opposition, as well as one term as the Mayor of Colombo.

Personal life

N.M. Perera was born to Nanayakkarapathirage Abraham Perera who was a rent collector at No 36 St Joseph 's Street, in Grandpass, Colombo and Johana Perera. He was the fifth of nine silings that was made up of five boys and four girls.

Perera started his schooling in the vernacular section of St. Joseph's School, Grandpass and was later was admitted to the English section. From there he spent an year at a branch school of S. Thomas' College, Mutwal, then known as Cathedral Boys School, Mutwal. In 1919, he entered S. Thomas' Preparatory School and left in 1922 to join Ananda College. At Ananda he played cricket for the school.

From 1922 to 1927, he read for his degree at University College, Colombo, gaining a bachelor's degree from University of London External System. Thereafter he left to the United Kingdom, to enter the London School of Economics in 1927. He was in London from 1927 to 1933, where he studied under Professor Harold Laski, gaining his PhD for his thesis on the Constitution of the German Weimar Republic. This was followed by a further comparative study, of the Constitutions of the UK, United States, France and Germany; which gained him a DSc from the University of London. Perera was the first Ceylonese to gain a degree of Doctor of Science from the University of London.

සිංහල සිනමාවට හැත්තෑ වසර සපිරෙන්නේ මේ විසි එක් වැනි දිනට යැයි ඇතැම් තැන් හි වාර්තා වෙති. ඇත්ත නම් සිංහල සිනමාවට නොව මුල්ම සිංහල කතානාද චිත්‍රපටය වන කඩවුණු පොරොන්දුවට ය. එය මුල්වරට එවකට සභානායක මහාමාන්‍ය ඩී.එස්.සේනානායක මහතානන්ගේ ප්‍රධානත්වයෙන් කොළඹ කිංස්ලි සිනමාහලේ තිර ගත වීම ඇරඹෙනුයේ 1947 ජනවාරි විසි එක් වැනි දිනටය. අප විසින් මහ ඉහලින් සිංහල සිනමාවේ උපන් දිනය යැයි සළකනු ලබනුයේ මේ විසි එක් වැනි දිනය. එහෙත් සිංහල සිනමාවට දැන් අවුරුදු 92 කි . එහි උත්පත්තිය එතරම් පැරණිය. එනම් 1925 වසර තරම් ඈතය. එනම් ශාන්තා හෙවත් රාජකීය වික්‍රමය නම් චිත්‍රපටය නිර්මාණය වීමේ කතාවය.