Author Archives: thuppahi

About thuppahi

Sri Lankan and Australian nationality; student of Sri Lankan society and politics; sociology of cricket;
August 9, 2020 · 2:07 am

Fighting Death and Covid: Mike Ryan of WHO in Straight Talk … and More

Mike Ryan of WHO interviewed by Melissa Fleming

The info-demic can be just as damaging as the pandemic itself, because if people aren’t getting the right information, if they’re not able to trust that information, and then we have a problem. There’s no point having solutions to offer people if they don’t hear about them, or they don’t believe in them,” said Michael (Mike) Ryan in this latest episode.

https://www.un.org/en/awake-at-night/S3-E4-we-need-to-save-more-lives

 

2 January 2019 – A helicopter transports a wounded health worker with their team including Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Programme for WHO (far right) and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General (second from right). Dr. Ryan helped attend to the health worker, who had been wounded in an attack against the Ebola vaccination team in Komanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Evacuated for advanced care, he later recovered from his injuries – Photo: ©WHO/Lindsay Mackenzie

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Filed under accountability, biotechnology, charitable outreach, democratic measures, disaster relief team, education, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, life stories, medical marvels, medical puzzles, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, teaching profession, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

August 8, 2020 · 6:33 pm

Mattala Airport rising from the Dust? …. Maybe

Shehan Sumanasekara, in Aviation Voice, 3 August 2020, with this title “June –July MRIA has Handled More Than 50 International Flight Movements”

Once tagged as the World’s Emptiest Airport; MRIA within months has been turned around with many passenger movements. Four years ago, a news article published in the Forbes magazine titled ‘The Story Behind the World’s Emptiest International Airport’ (May 28, 2016), elaborated how Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) was constructed and failed to position its self strategically. However, under His Excellency, the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s vision: ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’, and the government’s policy to develop international airports in Sri Lanka, Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited under the able guidance of Major General (Rtd.) G. A. Chandrasiri developed its short, medium and long term strategies to promote the airport said Director (Operations) Mr. Shehan Sumanasekara Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd.

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Filed under accountability, coronavirus, growth pole, historical interpretation, performance, politIcal discourse, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, transport and communications, world events & processes

August 8, 2020 · 4:06 am

Remarkable Voting Results in Sri Lanka … Especially in the North and East

Chandre Dharmawardana, in an article entitled “Tamil speaking voters  decisively reject vengeance-peddling Genocide-Claiming parties in Sri Lanka’s  elections,” –which will presumably appear in digital or print form somewhere

Sri Lanka, a nation troubled by decades of civil strife and a separatist war  has just concluded a parliamentary election bringing back the war-winning government. Western observers have keenly focused on the North, with its Tamil population (5% of the Nations population) previously controlled by the separatist Tigers. Their  “MaVeera”  (suicide fighters  presented as heroes) are celebrated covertly and even overtly by hard-liner Tamil politicians in the North, and in Western diasporas.

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Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, parliamentary elections, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

August 7, 2020 · 4:59 pm

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy Triangle

Austin Fernando, in The Wire, August 2020, where the title reads “Sri Lanka, India and China: Here’s What Keeps Neighbours Friendly – and What Doesn’t”

The other day on the show Gravitas, it was claimed that China is pushing Sri Lanka to drop India and her other allies. The examples to substantiate this assertion were: confusion regarding India and Japan’s Eastern Container Terminal (ECT) Project, suspension of the Japan-funded Light Rail Project, and the possibility of abandoning the US-backed Millennium Challenge Corporation Project (MCC). In sum, the telecast insinuated that Sri Lanka was losing longstanding friends and drifting deeper into China’s orbit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi, Saturday, February 8. Photo: PTI

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Filed under accountability, China and Chinese influences, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes

August 7, 2020 · 4:18 pm

Young Sri Lankan Debating Team hit the World Stage

News Item in Island, 4 August 2020, with this title “Lanka only second to Canada in World Schools Debating Championship 2020”

Team #SriLanka’ that made history by emerging “Runner-Up in the World” in secondary-school English debating ahead of 66 other countries.

Sri Lanka National Debating Team became the first runner-up in the online World Schools Debating Championship 2020, while Canada beat Sri Lanka to win the Championship, in the final held on Sunday. Sri Lanka was also named the best ESL (English as a second language) team. Sri Lanka team’s Shalem Sumanthiran won the seventh place in the best ESL Speakers’ category.

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August 7, 2020 · 5:15 am

Ravana Fables penetrate Sri Lanka’s Historical Terrain

PK Balachandran

When the media reported that the Sri Lankan Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation has issued a newspaper advertisement in Sinhala urging people to share documents, books, and research material on Ravana, the legendary king of Lanka, it was not a surprise for students of Sri Lankan nationalism. Far from being a villain (as portrayed in Valmiki’s Ramayana), Ravana has been celebrated by the majority Sinhalese in Sri Lanka as a cultured and creative icon and a defender of the island against a foreign invader.

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August 7, 2020 · 4:55 am

Rajapaksa Modalities: Basil as Lone Ranger Jack of All Trades

Editorial in The Island, 31 July 2020, bearing this title “Battles and Puzzling Moves”

SLPP founder and chief strategist Basil Rajapaksa has said something very interesting in a recent press interview. He has explained why he is not contesting the upcoming election. Others in the SLPP are guided by Rafferty’s rules, to all intents and purposes, in trying to win; they and their supporters flout election laws and health guidelines with impunity.

Intra-party battles for preferential votes are raging in some political parties, and the worst affected is perhaps the SLPP, whose candidates are hurling abuse at one another openly. Only the JVP-led coalition is apparently free from such problems. What we see in the SLPP, which brought down the yahapalana government, is like a Nat Geo wildlife programme, where big cats fight fiercely, unable to share the flesh of the animals they jointly pursue and kill.

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August 6, 2020 · 5:29 am

Operation London Bridge: When Queen Elizabeth Passes Away

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

VID-20191114-WA0023

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August 6, 2020 · 4:47 am

Cultural Cross-Fertilization as the Road to Amity

Raj Gonsalkorale, in DailyFT, 4 August 2020, with this title “The Northern Province: The centre for Tamil culture in Sri Lanka”

As much as the Sinhala Buddhist culture and its richness should be recognized, the Tamil culture, in particular the Tamil Hindu culture and its universality, too needs to be recognized. All Sri Lankans should be proud that the country has two such ancient cultures as its foundations.

– Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

http://www.ft.lk/columns/The-Northern-Province-The-centre-for-Tamil-culture-in-Sri-Lanka/4-704036

 

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. … The word “culture” derives from a French term, which in turn derives from the Latin “colere,” which means to tend to the earth and grow, or cultivation and nurture.

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Filed under Australian culture, australian media, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, governance, heritage, Hinduism, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, language policies, life stories, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, religiosity, Saivism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, tolerance, welfare & philanthophy

August 5, 2020 · 5:58 pm

Clandestine Tiger Forays in Sri Lanka, 2012-20

Camelia Nathaniel in Ceylon Daily News, 4 August 2020, where the title reads “Forces thwart attempts to revive LTTE terror”

Since the LTTE’s defeat in 2009, there have been several attempts over the years to revamp the terror outfit. From 2012 there have been 12 such attempts that are on record. All of these incidents have had some form of foreign hand in them. Intelligence units are investigating these incidents and the international connections.

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Filed under accountability, conspiracies, Eelam, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, refugees, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, unusual people, world events & processes