Charles Schokman’s Discovery of Amazing Facts conveyed in an Email entitled “A Bit of Ceylon History”
Troy Bramston, in The WEEKEND Australian, 18-19 2025, where the chosen title is “Unlocking the mysteries of Machu Picchu in Peru”
A view of Machu Picchu in Peru, which stands 2,430 m above sea-level, created by the Inca Empire. Picture: Troy Bramston.
As you climb the ancient trail of the Incas and catch glimpses of Machu Picchu, situated on a mountaintop in the Sacred Valley of Peru, you begin to prepare yourself for what lies ahead as it slowly comes into full view. You increase the pace on the winding path even as the air density decreases and each step sucks the air out of you as you reach almost 2500m above sea-level. But suddenly, there it is: a place almost beyond imagination.
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Revd Mahinda Deegalle from London, in The Island 15 December 2024
The year 2024 is rapidly drawing to a close. This year marks the personal losses of many helpful academics, monks, family members, and friends. I place this brief note of appreciation here to pay tribute to the late Professor Padmasiri de Silva (1933–2024), one of my teachers at the University of Peradeniya in the 1980s, who was just about to celebrate his 92nd birthday on January 18, 2025 with the publication of his most recent contribution The Moral Psychology of Buddhism, which is currently under preparation for publication posthumously in Melbourne.
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Item in Daily Mirror, 7 November 2024
Sri Lanka awarded ’’Most Desirable Island in the World
7 November 2024 Daily Mirror
Sri Lanka has been voted as the “Most Desirable Island in the World” according to the results for the 23rd Annual Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards
According to the travel magazine ‘Wanderlust’, Sri Lanka has risen from last year’s eighth place to take Gold in one of the Awards’ most thrilling turnarounds.
Destinations, tour operators and travel brands have been recognized across 22 categories, including the Most Desirable Countries and Cities in Europe and around the world at the 23rd Annual Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards.
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Wikipedia
The question mark ? (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism[1]) is a punctuation mark that indicates a question or interrogative clause or phrase in many languages.
Mahil Wijesinghe in the Sunday Observer, 13 October 2024 where the title runs “The Stupendous Citadel of Sigiriya”
After visiting the Dambulla rock cave temple, our next destination was Sigiriya, the 5th Century rock citadel, containing ruins of palace complex built by King Kasyapa (4774-4795 CE), has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The sight is stupendous even today: a massive monolith of red stone rises 600 feet from the green scrub jungle to accentuate the lucid blue of the sky. How overpowering, then, this rock fortress of Sigiriya must have been. When it was crowned as a palace 15 centuries ago!
Simon Sebag Montefiore, in The TIMES, 6 September 2024, where the title reads: “A conflict built on centuries of myth-making” … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi **
‘Forever wars’ do not exist but bringing peace to the Holy Land is complicated by so much of its history being wilfully misunderstood.
There was a moment during the last significant negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, in May 2008, that is relevant today. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian minister of negotiations, told the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni: “It’s no secret we’re offering you the biggest Yerushalayim in history. But we must talk about the concept of al-Quds. We’ve taken your interests and concerns into account … ”
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In 1926, a translation of Reize te voet door het eiland Ceilon (Travels on Foot through the Island of Ceylon) by Jacob Haafner was serialized in the Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon. The translators, L.A. Prins and J.R. Toussaint, included in their work several passages critical of British rule in India that had been left out of the original (1821) English translation of Haafner’s book. The Twenties were a period of intense political ferment in colonial Ceylon, and the author’s fulminations against the British were very much the point of the project.
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thuppahi
