Author Archives: thuppahi
Gamini Goonesena: Leading Cambridge to Victory in 1957
Rohan Wijeyaratna, in Island, 13 June 2020, where the title reads “Goonesena’s Match”
Among the hordes of inconsequential trivia received via WhatsApp during the lockdown days, a picture of the 1957 Cambridge team caught my eye. There was Gamini Goonesena seated in the middle of the front row with Ian Pieris (already a Ceylon ‘cap’) standing at the back. There was also Ossie Wheatley, Bob Barber and Ted Dexter – all players of no mean repute and consequence. That photograph served as the catalyst for this essay through which I will attempt to recount the Varsity match of 1957, whilst dwelling on its central figure– Gamini Goonesena, of whom too little has been mentioned in print.
Reading Roberts on Sri Lanka’s Socio-Political Ailments: A Letter to Roberts
Drawlight, 10 June 2020
Sir: I have read through and consider this an excellent summary of the key issues,[1] particularly for those who are not very knowledgeable about history and of the sort who are busier protesting matters that have no relevance to them (the current trend among especially the youth in Sri Lanka on social media bandwagoning on BLM issues in the US simultaneously ignoring the more immediate realities of fellow Sri Lankans engaged in modern day slavery in the Middle East and other countries).
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Challenging Michael Roberts … with Straight Left and Right Hook
Gerald Peiris ... in the spirit of vigorous debate which we used to pursue in the Arts Faculty and the Ceylon Studies Seminar at Peradeniya University in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Gerry Peiris has responded with two sharply critical notes of some significance to my critical review of Sri Lankan society and politics, an essay that is directed by an optimistic eye …. Ha! Ha! … towards a major overhaul.
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Honeycombed with Societal and Political Fissures: Sri Lanka Now & Ever Before
Michael Roberts, reiterating the original draft sent to a few on 10 June 2020
Recent forum discussions on the topic of “Reconciliation” and correspondence with concerned friends have prompted me to essay an analysis of Sri Lanka’s societal problems over the last 150 years. This is a tendentious quest.
This Map showing districts served by Regional Malaria Officers happens to suit the metaphor “Riddled” and/or “Honeycombed” in my title
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Besetting Problems in the “Battle for Harmony” in Sri Lanka
“Battle for Harmony” in Sri Lanka was a Zoom Discussion organized by the Youth Rotary of Colombo East on the evening of 28th May 2020 … https://www.facebook.com/RotaractColomboEast
Opening Statement by Michael Roberts
Let me begin with the closing statement voiced by Kumar Sangakkara in his Cowdrey Lecture at the MCC in 2011: “My loyalty will be to the ordinary Sri Lankan fan, their twenty million hearts beating collectively. They are my foundation. They are my family. I will play cricket for them….. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim,[1] Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am, today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.” Continue reading
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Ground Zero in Australian Politics towards China
Fair Dinkum
The Australia-China relationship has fallen to zero – the worst it has been since the relationship was established in 1972. The trigger for this recent deterioration was the Australian Prime Minister’s calling for the World Health Organization to be given weapon inspector powers into China as part of the COVID-19 inquiry,[1] an idea rejected by Rob Barton,[2] a former UN weapons inspector sent into Iraq in 2003 as part of the UN Special Commission, or UNSCOM. In Iraq, UNSCOM was infiltrated by agents of US intelligence services who used espionage equipment to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military for three years without the knowledge of the UN agency which was used to disguise its work. [3]
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Ceylon’s First General Election in 1947: Reflections … with An Eye on Today’s Situation
Gerald. H. Peiris, presenting here a more complete article than that featured in The Island of 16th June 2020 under the title “A National Election in a ‘Time of Troubles’. ”
The phrase ‘Time of Troubles’ is borrowed from the title of a classic sociological study of 19th century ‘Ceylon’ by Professor Ralph Pieris (1952). Here it is intended to highlight the fact that, although the imperial sunset over our island has often been described as a “peaceful transfer of power”, it occurred at an extraordinarily stormy time – politically, economically and environmentally. The calamities that had plagued the country in the ‘Donoughmore era’ ̶ the pauperising impact of the ‘Great Depression’, Malaria Epidemic of the mid-1930s with about a million people (one-fifth of the population in 1931) infected and 60,000 deaths from November 1934 to April 1935 (Briercliffe & Dalrymple-Champneys, 1937), the acute food-scarcity during the Second World War ̶ seemed to climax in the months leading up to the elections of 1947.
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Rama Somasunderam’s Administrative Career
Anonymous, in Island, 7 June 2020, with this title “The Last Mandarin”
This is the story of a professional civil servant who believes that he made a contribution to a society and an administrative service, that in the first instance made him what he is and enabled him to achieve his full potential as a person, a professional and a citizen. It is the autobiography of a vanishing coterie of bureaucrats who strived for excellence, believing that they had responded to a high calling.
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Revitalizing the Oceans: COVID paves the Way
Palitha Kohona, at IndepthNews, May 2020, where the title is “COVID-19 Pandemic Provides Opportunity to Revive the Oceans”
COLOMBO (IDN) – The well-being of oceans in the Asia-Pacific region is edging closer to a tipping point due to the unprecedented pace of marine pollution, overfishing and climate change in recent years. However, a new report released May 13 by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) suggests that “the temporary shutdown of activities as well as reduced human mobility and resource demands due to the COVID-19 pandemic may provide marine environments the much-needed breathing space for them to recover“.
