Commemorating Thileepan: Political Capital TODAY …..

Shamindra Ferdinando, in The ISLAND, 23 September 2026, where the title reads “Thileepan’s fast unto death: An authentic narrative that many missed”

The controversial commemoration will continue till 26 September, 2026. The SLPP led the attack against the backdrop of accusations that the former ruling party promoted the LTTE ideology, by accommodating maverick Jaffna District Independent lawmaker Dr. Ramanathan Archchuna, a truly qualified medical doctor on its political platform. Dr. Archchuna also never shies away from calling a spade a spade, irrespective of any consequences.

Almost four decades after his death, controversy still surrounds the circumstances leading to the former Jaffna Hindu College student, and Jaffna University undergraduate, launching the fast unto death.

MY Apologies  … All the PHOTOs are on strike !!!

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Towhid Hridoy joins the ODI Double-century Club

ITEM in https://www.cricinfo.com/cricketers/towhid-hridoy-990031

When Towhid Hridoy made 918 runs across formats in 2023, his first year in international cricket, it gave Bangladesh cause to think they had found the next big thing, especially considering their batting as a whole was struggling at the time.

Hridoy has flowing strokeplay, his pulls and flicks are executed with dazzling wristwork, and he has an inclination to hit sixes that has been rare among Bangladesh batters. He made 92 on ODI debut against Ireland, and struck ten fifties in his first 38 ODIs. By his 50th international white-ball game, he had played only 14 first-class matches, confirming that his career looked likely to focus on the limited-overs formats.

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England Win Warm-Up at Perth vs WA

ESPNcric info Report

England 251 (Duckett 59, Dawson 44*, Couch 4-47, Morris 3-29) beat Western Australia 159 (Wasley 41, Rashid 4-35, Archer 3-34) by 92 runs
Skipper Harry Brook whacked a mighty blow that landed in the WACA ground’s new outdoor pool in a highlight for an England batting line-up that mostly struggled on a fast and bouncy surface. But England’s attack hit back to knock over Western Australia for 159 and claim a comfortable 92-run victory in the one-day tour match.

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Trump Thumping in US Mid-Term Elections

News Item in THE AGE in Australia: ‘Blue tsunami’ wipes out Republicans ….

Democrats have seized control of both chambers of the US Congress in a “blue tsunami” at the midterm elections, depriving President Donald Trump and his Republicans of their legislative power.

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From Panadura: Rosemary Jansz became the Famous Rosemary Rogers …1931-2010

Dilshan Madushanka in FACEBOOK

Rosemary Rogers was born Rosemary Jansz on 7 December 1932 in Panadura in what was then British Ceylon now Sri Lanka. She was born into a prosperous Dutch Portuguese Burgher family that owned several private schools. Growing up in a sheltered environment she developed a vivid imagination and a passion for storytelling at an early age. Inspired by legendary writers such as Sir Walter Scott Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini, she began writing romantic adventure stories when she was only eight years old. Those childhood stories became the foundation of a literary career that would later captivate millions of readers across the world.

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Shemara Wikramanayake Retires From A Sterling Career

News Item at Financial Review, November 2026

….  https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/macquarie -s-departing-ceo-warns-comfort-risks-australia-s-future-20261106-p61bi3

Australia has what outgoing Macquarie chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake calls the “curse of comfort”. The nation is admired for so many things globally – natural resources, its education system, rule of law, the $4.8 trillion superannuation savings pool – but the risk is we’re so focused on protecting what we’ve got, rather than using it to capitalise on what’s coming next and making life better for the following generations.
“Our pendulum has swung to downside protection because we’re comfortable, we’re trying to protect that, and I think regulation reflects that here,” says Wikramanayake, who will hand the Macquarie baton to successor Greg Ward at midnight on Friday night.“What’s the pathway for the country? What are the industries of the future? How do we make the party bigger?” she asks, wishing Australia knew the answer. She admires how Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has used the threat of US tariffs, a bully move by Canada’s biggest trading partner, to galvanise his population and wipe out complacency.

Wikramanayake says, like Canada, we’re blessed with land, resources and geopolitical stability. The big artificial intelligence companies want to come to Australia to build data centres, but we’re a bit too unsure about jobs and income for Australia to jump in with both feet. “It’s really, what is the plan?” she says.

“We tend not to be a very top-down country in saying these are our industries. We tend to give a level open playing field and let entrepreneurs respond. But at the moment approval times, permitting – if you talk to any chief executives – they’ll tell you that here they are relatively slower than the rest of the world because we haven’t got that empowering environment to the same extent as other countries.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t have the downside protections, but I’m saying the balance, the pendulum feels like it’s in a situation where it’s swung to more downside protection.”


It is evolve or die for Australia – just as it is at Wikramanayake’s Macquarie. The company has evolved from big cash management trustee to stockbroker and currency trader, to investment bank, infrastructure investor, asset manager and commodities house globally as well as Australia’s fifth-biggest retail bank, after capitalising on Australia’s 30 years of strong economic growth and the rise of the $4.8 trillion superannuation savings system.

Wikramanayake’s been there for most of it. She joined what would become Macquarie Capital from law firm Blake Dawson Waldron, now Ashurst, as a slight and softly spoken 26-year-old in 1987. She finishes as Macquarie chief executive on Friday, the sixth person to hold the role, but won’t formally leave the bank until next July.

Her Darwinism “evolve or die” advice for Australia, delivered in her final sit-down interview with The Australian Financial Review, befits her career and partly explains how she rose to head a $96 billion bank and one of Australia’s biggest global companies.

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Pauline Hanson As Purveyor of Foreign Disinformation?

ITEM entitled “False claims of Pauline Hanson TV special exposed as foreign disinformation,”

A wave of sensational social media posts claiming One Nation leader Pauline Hanson personally funded a $246,000 investigative television special has been comprehensively debunked by Australian fact-checkers.

The posts, which spread rapidly across Facebook in mid-2026, alleged Hanson bankrolled a program titled “Seeking the Truth, Finding Justice” that supposedly racked up 2.5 million views within 12 hours.

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TODAY!! American Cartoons

CUTTING EDGE CARTOONS !@#!!!!

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USA Elections: Democrats trump & thump TRUMP

THE GUARDIAN Newspaper in UK, 4 November 2026:  “Democrats win big on election night – as it happened”

Democrats flip Senate seats in Texas, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio; voters reject Trump’s agenda in ‘blue wave’

Wed 4 Nov 2026 23.24 AEDT
A cheer breaks out at James Talarico watch party in Texas on night of seismic victory for Democrats. Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

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Discoveries: ICES Publications 2017

Michael Roberts

In the course of Roshan Samarawickrama’s cataloguing work on my books, I have come across little known books, pamphlets and papers. The books and booklets are in all sizes and shapes.

Let me LIST a handful of booklets of A4 Size produced by the ICES in Colombo which are….in my speculative assessment … NOT Widely known. While one has 158 pages, most are in the 50-80 range of pages. They are a testimony to the work of MARIO GOMES and his team at the ICES in the years 2015-18.

A quick glance at the names of the AUTHORS will affirm the catholicity of the ICES managements reach and its all-island approach.

 

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The Human-Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka Deepens

Harold Pulse, whose title runs thus: “Our Gentle Giants Are Dying — Electric Fences Alone Cannot Save Them”

Why have successive governments failed to protect Sri Lanka’s wild elephants, except for stringing up electric fences to protect people who are occupying elephant territories?

Let us ask it plainly. The elephant is not a pest. The elephant is our greatest living treasure. It is our cultural icon, our religious symbol, our eco-tourism asset, and a highly intelligent, gentle being that has walked this island for thousands of years before us.

And we are killing more than one a day. 

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