…. and where one is at ease in the company of the Birds and the Bees
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Author Archives: thuppahi
Where No Woman is Kota Uda
Hot-Hot Cricket News: Monies & Lanka’s Team Selections
Victor Melder as Compiler
Sri Lanka will earn as much as Rs. 8.6 billion per year over a four-year period (Rs. 34.2 billion in total income) as the island’s allocation from the International Cricket Council’s annual payouts. In US dollars Sri Lanka’s share is 27.12 million compared to India’s lion’s share of USD 230 million but the amount in still massive by Sri Lanka’s standards. The International Cricket Council has made the allocations taking into account factors like performance in both the men’s and women’s teams on the international stage over the past 16 years and contribution to the ICC’s commercial value. The earnings of the ICC of over $3.2 billion come from the sale of its media rights alone, which recently, for the first time, were sold across five separate regions globally including the Indian market. The vast bulk of that money has come from the sale of rights in the Indian market, where Disney Star paid just over $3 billion for four years according to ESPNcricinfo (Sunday Observer, 14.5.2023).
Amnesty International’s Machinations reach Hong Kong?
A Sri Lankan Diplomat
The tale of AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’s operations vis a vis Hong Kong today runs parallel to the scenario that unfolded in Sri Lanka. There the campaign commenced some years back and reached its peak in whitewashing the LTTE and later spun along just before the aragalaya took off. The AI sleuths were in place when those protests were engineered in Sri Lanka.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, legal issues, life stories, Pacific Ocean politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Two Sinhala Bowlers win Tamil Indian Hearts via Chennai Super Kings
Venkat B Krishna in The Indian Express, 24 May 2023…. where the title reads “How CSK’s Tamil fans fell in love with two Sinhalese players Pathirana and Theekshana””
Things have changed after years of strained relationship when CSK were forced not to play Sri Lankan players at home, and a famous actor had to pull out of a Muralitharan biopic.
There is something special brewing in Chennai this season apart from their obsession with MS Dhoni. Two Sri Lankan cricketers – Matheesha Pathirana and Maheesh Theekshana – have become the fans favourite at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, where not so long ago players from the Island nation couldn’t take the field because political tensions in the aftermath of the Eelam war that ended in 2009.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, cricket for amity, cricket selections, ethnicity, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes
Estelle Fernando nee Roberts: Vale in Sadness & Fellowship
Michael Roberts
Estelle Barbara Roberts was born as the second child from the second bed of Thomas Webb Roberts (1881-1978) on the 2nd May 1929. She was brought up within the Fort of Galle and received her education at Southlands, Sacred Heart Convent and Richmond Colleges; but was then swept off her feet by an earnest young government servant, Charles Hubert Fernando, who played tennis at the Galle Gymkhana Club (where TW was a kind of institution and a regular).
Estelle standing on left at Sacred Heart Convent
Beauties … & Their Prances, Calls & Love-Life in the Wild
Courtesy of Mahinda Gunasekera
SLINGERS: Malinga on Pathirana
Item in CRICINFO in The ISLAND, 28 May 2023
Lasith Malinga, now a bowling consultant with Rajasthan Royals, has been watching Chennai Super Kings’ games with particular interest. Matheesha Pathirana, CSK’s death-overs specialist, not only bowls with the same, unusual round-arm action with which Malinga dominated the IPL for many years, but is also in a sense a protege. Over the last three years, Malinga has worked sporadically with Pathirana in Sri Lanka’s high performance centre, and has advised him on what he needs to do to build a career.
Is the Tide Turning in Favour of Russia in the Ukrainian War?
An Observer in A Black Sea Resort Town
1. Russia has started deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus to counter the build up of weapons and forces in central and Western Europe targetting Russia.
A pro-Russian cartoon of the failed Ukrainian terrorist attack in Belgorod
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 19, 2023 _ Critical Threats …. in a pro-Western Digital source
2. Belarusian President Lukashenko says that “forces” supported by Poland to topple his government and carry out a coup in Belarus will not succeed in part because Belarus knows every individual involved in the plot and are monitoring their activities, and partly because Russia will intervene should any coup like activities even remotely start to occur. Russia already has 50,000 troops in Belarus. It is another sign of desperation by the West.
Love Across All Language Barriers
An Item from Wikipedia sent by David Sansoni of Sydney
“Historia de un Amor” (Spanish for “the story of a love”) is a song about a man’s old love written by Panamanian songwriter Carlo
Filed under art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people
