Laleen Jayamanne, whose title is “Notes towards a Politics and Aesthetics of Film” in a review essay presented in The Island, 1 & 2 February 2023: the focus being Ashfaque Mohamed’s ‘Face Cover’ **
‘Face Cover’ by Ashfaque Mohamed
Asfaque Mohamed
“Black cat, at the tip of my fingers pulsates poetry,
Desiring hands, yours, nudgingly pluck those roses of mine
In the soft light of the moon
The dreams we picked from the foaming edges of waves of the sea.”
Jusla/Salani (in Face Cover)
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Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”
Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945
Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936
“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “
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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!
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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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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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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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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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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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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thuppahi
