A REUTERS News Item, 13 September 2026 ……
SEE https://au.news.yahoo.com/indonesia-passenger-ship-243-people-033315217html
At Cricket: Indian Women Vs Sri Lankan Women
Srinidhi Ramanujam…. in ESPNcricinfo, September 2026
Its spin vs spin as India and Sri Lanka battle for Asia Cup title
While there isn’t much to separate the teams when it comes to their spin bowling, India have been the better all-round side, and go into the final as the favourit
If spin is to decide the Women’s T20 Asia Cup final, both India and Sri Lanka have plenty to call upon. India’s spin attack, led by Deepti Sharma, has taken 26 wickets in the tournament, the most by a side. Sri Lanka are next with 25. That makes it seem like a spin vs spin and more spin kind of title contest.
On the plus side for India is that they have appeared well-rounded on the whole. Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma have scored the bulk of the runs.Filed under Uncategorized
Vale Nihal Rodrigo: An Innings Foundational & Warm
Anila Dias Bandaranaike, in the Sunday Island, 13 September 2026 , where the title runs this: “Remembering Nihal Rodrigo: A friendship extending over 50 years” **
Nihal passed away on 14th August, a few days after his 86th birthday. Nandi, Raffi and Anouk, his granddaughter, had been with him from New York till just a week before he died. In the weeks after he passed away, there have been glowing tributes to Nihal by his professional colleagues and from organisations in which he served. My tribute is personal, of friendship over decades with a multi-talented and kind-hearted gentleman, with a delightful sense of humour, who wore his talents so lightly.
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Confronting Violence: A Man Inspired …. Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe
Michael Roberts
At a moment when the world is reflecting on the extreme impact of Zealotry via tales re NINE/ELEVEN, a letter from Rajiva Wijesinha in Colombo reminded me of a fighter for peace and justice: namely Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe. The best epitaph for this good soul as a man of faith trained in the political sciences who was forthright in his confronatations with zealotry is an article I wrote around 40 odd years back when island Lanka was locked within ethnic conflict and its atrocities.
A Man inspired, A Man who inspired: Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe
Father Lakshman Wickremasinghe came into my life in a big way from 1958 at Peradeniya Campus. I was heavily involved in Student Christian Movement (SCM) activities then and Father Lak’s appointment as campus chaplain was a godsend to all of us in the SCM. As firm as energetic, never commandeering, but always persistent and organized, Father Lak, as we called him with some affection, proved an inspirational figure within the campus.
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Sacrificial Devotion as A Concept Addressing Suicide Attacks?
Michael Roberts
The Western media’s heavy focus yesterday and this week on the 9/11 attacks on USA, and especially the dramatic footage of the Twin Towers in New York burning and then collapsing has captured hearts and minds in the West. I was still teaching at Adelaide University then and working at my desk at home when I received a telephone call from one of the University’s media personel asking me to turn on my TV immediately.
I did so reluctantly but, of course, was transfixed by the unfolding media footage. …..suicide killers and suicide bombings were par for the course for any academic studying Sri Lankan political affairs. The Tamil Tiger attack on the Central Bank on 1996 may not have been as eye-catching that on the Twin Towers, but remains a good junior “cousin” …. ……….Ask Somachandra Skandakumar who was in the George Steuart Building opposite the Central Bank and faced the shocks and witnessed the carnage outside.
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Mohamed Atta: The 9/11 Mastermind
Mohamed Atta …. in WIKIPEDIA
Atta
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Profound Cricket Captaincy Issues for Sri Lanka
Rex Clementine in The Island. …. where the title is different
The axe is set to fall on Test captain Dhananjaya de Silva following his uninspiring leadership during Sri Lanka’s 1-0 series defeat to India at home last month. Sri Lanka’s next assignment in the World Test Championship is a two-Test series in Pakistan and The Island learns that Dhananjaya is unlikely to lead the side. More significantly, he could even find himself fighting to retain his place in the XI.
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The DRS Concept in Cricket: A ‘Theft’ that is “Simply Not Cricket”
Senaka Weeraratna, whose chosen title is “The Cricket Theft of the Century? Sri Lankan innovation v ICC Lawyers”
This ESSAY outlines the intellectual property dispute regarding the invention f the Decision Review System (DRS) in international cricket.
Background
In March 1997, Colombo-based Sri Lankan lawyer Senaka Weeraratna published a pioneering blueprint for a “Player Referral” system. This model allowed cricket players to appeal on-field umpire decisions to a third umpire. It introduced the foundational pillars of modern sports review mechanisms nearly a decade before global adoption.
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Sri Lankan Military’s UN Peacekeeping Outreach
Kumar Kirinde
Ref to the subject, the country of Haiti is described as a ‘failed state ‘and has been subjected to prolonged U.N. peacekeeping starting from 1993. It. Sri Lanka has contributed troops to U.N. missions in Haiti from 2004 to 2015. As per a recent article published in the ‘The Morning’ newspaper of 26th June , Sri Lanka is again planning to deploy 1,000 + personnel to Haiti. Going by what I gathered on Haiti’s history and the present ground situation, it’s going to be a tough call for our personnel who will be going there. The attached brief should give you a fair understating on why it will be a tough call.
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An Epitaph for Neelan via Reflections on Self-Immolation
Michael Roberts, presenting “Self-Immolation,” an old article of his from the year 1999 — one printed in the Lanka Monthly Digest, September 1999, vol 6:2, pp. 56-57. I
ONE;
In February 1999 a Kurdish nationalist leader, Ocalan, was caught by the Turkish authorities. Kurdish refugees in the Western world erupted in protest. In London a young girl Neila Kanteper set herself alight. In Sydney a young lad was caught on camera with petrol can and cigarette lighter as he threatened similar action. As I walked into the local news-agency in Adelaide that week the proprietor[1] waved the picture of Kanteper in flames in front of me and in considerable alarm inquired how anyone could take such an extreme measure. He could not ever take such a step, he said. His remarks gain in significance from the fact that they were unsolicited and had not been preceded by prior conversation. I was in a hurry and did not explore matters further, but I conjecture that his bewilderment stemmed not only from the method of death by fire, but also from such terminal commitment to a collective cause. The question, therefore, is whether in similar circumstances an act of martyrdom involving death by hand-gun would produce the same level of astonishment. Relatively speaking, death by gun seems to be so much more acceptable to the Western world than death by flame.
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