Category Archives: citizen journalism

January 8, 2023 · 2:54 pm

While Lanka Sinks … Two Ministers at Loggerheads

Sanjeewa Jayaweera, in The Island, 8 January 2023, with this title “IS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF SRI LANKA A HERO OR VILLAIN?”

Currently there is an ongoing tussle between the Power & Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera (KW) in one corner and Janaka Ratnayake (JR), the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), in the other. As a result, the Minister is on his own, whilst JR is supported by the CEB Engineers Union, CEB Trade Union Alliance, Electricity Consumers Association and pretty much the rest of the country!

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January 7, 2023 · 10:46 pm

The Potency Borne by Pictures

Michael Roberts

This little presentation is a DEDICATION. It illustrates the potency and power of friends in producing an academic booklet in 2011. As it happens, the booklet bears the title Potency, Power & People in Groups and was financed by the good friends Godfrey & Amar Gunatilleke of the Marga Institute.

The “Acknowledgements” and the “Foreword” taken together spell out the names of those friends who assisted this project. But let me single out Anura Hettiarachchi for his aid in this project and in the endeavours leading to my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period (Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2004) because he was struck down by heart failure recently.

To Anura, then, in gratitude I place this item in my website.

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December 30, 2022 · 1:21 pm

The DRS Technology as Idea: Senaka Weeraratna’s Inventive Mind

Senaka Weeraratna 

Both the DRS in Cricket and Goal Line Technology in Soccer have a common origin in the ‘Player Referral’ concept conceived by Senaka Weeraratna in 1997.

This was the first occasion in world history that a case was made (in 1997), using the analogy of the apellate function of the legal system, to press home the point that we needed to adopt it on the playing field in a modified form in combination with modern technology, i.e. video play back in the hands of Third Umpire, to determine the accuracy of a decision made by an on field or ground umpire by way of a Review System.

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December 20, 2022 · 10:58 am

The Hermon Lineage in the Plantation World of Ceylon & Lanka

Richard Hermon to Errol Fernando, early December 2022, responding to “The Power of Privilege: Illegitimate Progeny in the Plantations of Ceylon and Beyond” **

Dear Errol

As a Eurasian myself on both sides, since both my grandfathers were Brits and both my grandmothers were Sinhalese: one Kandyan from Welimada, and one Low-Country from Baddegama to whom both my grandfathers were married.

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December 3, 2022 · 8:15 pm

Remembering Julia Margaret Cameron

A Julia Margaret Cameron Bibliography

 

At different moments Thuppahi has presented photographs from that remarkable 19th century cameraperson Julia Margaret Cameron (maiden name “Pattle”) who was intimately linked to British Ceylon because her father [error … her husband] was one of the authors of the Colebrooke-Cameron Reports[i] of 1833 and because she chose to settle down in the island and passed away therein in 1879 (and is in fact buried within its churchyards).[ii]

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November 18, 2022 · 7:03 pm

Viva! The CEYLANKAN reaches Twenty-Five

The Ceylon Society of Australia was launched in Sydney in the late 1990s and established branches in Melbourne and Colombo. They also launched a journal entitled THE CEYLANKAN twenty-five years back and the 100th number of this wide-ranging publication hit the posts, desks and couches of its subscribers this week. Hurrah! 

These publications have sustained the critical patriotic commitments of Sri Lankans in Australia and abroad in numerous ways; while also stimulating cross-ethnic interaction among some of the Sri Lankan migrants in Australia.

 

Hugh Karunanayake: Founder President, 1998-2004

 

 

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November 13, 2022 · 12:49 pm

Aussie Tourists give Thumbs-up for Tourist Scene in Sri Lanka Today

Letter from Ray & Chris Czajko of Kensington, Victoria (November 2022)

The Czajkos would have been even happier, or become ecstatic, if they had accompanied Thivanka Perera on his leoaprd filming ‘safaris; or chanced upon leopards in fornication in the full ‘glare’ of a jungle track  (which Thuppahi is pleased to present in another item today).    This is the Circular Note sent by Thivanka:

Dear Family & Friends,

Despite all the negative reports we get every day in the press and on TV, it was heartening to read this letter from recently returned Aussie tourists to SL. It augurs well for the poor tour operators and hotels that seem to be struggling because of the lack of tourists from all the bad press.

I thought it worth sharing this with you. I hope you like it.”                                                    Continue reading →

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November 11, 2022 · 8:04 pm

No Trust in Truss

Michael Patrick O’Leary, in his web column where the title runs thus: “Out of the Blue” being a review of thethe Liz Truss biography authored by Harry Cole & Richard Heale  ………. A shorter version of this article was published in the Sunday Island on November  6 2022 …. https://island.lk/?s=out+of+the+blue

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September 30, 2022 · 7:28 pm

A Rare Photograph of the Old Lighthouse at Galle Fort

Ismeth Raheem ++

Presented here is the stone and concrete lighthouse constructed around 1851-52 at the south-western corner of Galle Fort ………. replacing the cast-iron structure that was specially fabricated in England and shipped to Ceylon. That cast-iron lighting ‘unit’ was burnt down by accident in 1849-50.

The rare image was recently made available to Thuppahi by Bunchy Rahuman — an old Aloysian mate of Michael Roberts and one time resident in the fort.

The image is one of the earliest datable calotype photographs the world has seen. Calotype photographs are partly hand-coloured. Calotype was concurrently invented not soon after the Daguerreotype.

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September 21, 2022 · 7:34 pm

Escalation! On the Cusp of World War III?

Fair Dinkum

Putin announces partial mobilisation to boost the forces in Ukraine, as the two Donbass republics and two regions of Ukraine go to a referendum to join the Russian Federation.  If the referendums support joining Russia, then the four areas must formally apply to join Russia. It then goes to the Duma for approval, and if they do, it goes to Putin to sign into law. Perhaps the mobilisation is timed to coincide with these 4 areas joining Russia which would mean Ukraine is at war with Russia, no longer against the two republics in the Donbass. 

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