Category Archives: colonisation schemes

August 24, 2025 · 2:03 pm

Reviving Australia’s Convict Past via AI

Tomos Morgan, BBC News, 19 August 2025, where  the title runs thus: “Faces of Welsh convicts sent to Australia recreated by AI” ++

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has helped researchers generate what they believe could have been the faces of Welsh convicts sent to Australia in the 19th century. The lives of 60 criminals deported from Anglesey for crimes as small as stealing a handkerchief have been traced by a team of volunteers and researchers.

 They have used detailed prisoner records from the time, historical sketches and, where possible, photos of the prisoners’ modern day descendants to create a profile of what they may have looked like.

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August 12, 2025 · 1:00 pm

Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills: German Settlers From 1839 On ….

Keith Conlon in a Genealogical Society of Queensland – GSQ’s post =deospnoStrg8 r42uti9lf3m8pgff0il26tl5f1tag2f57flti74h033aA5t · … entitled  “From Prussa to Hahndorf in South Australia. Thanks to Keith Conlon”

The end of an epic pioneer voyage:  it began in Silesia, Prussia, for the ‘Old Lutheran’ religious refugees who founded Hahndorf in South Australia in August 1839.

John Ford waterccolour    

 

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March 24, 2025 · 6:19 pm

Face-to-Face in Sri Lanka: Elephants & Humans

Zinara Rathnayake, in an Item in the New Lines Magazine that is reprinted in The Island, 23 March 2025

Screenshot

In Makulpotha village, 89 miles northwest of Colombo, Punchibanda woke up to the trumpet of an elephant while he was sleeping in a small wooden hut built on a tree beside his vegetable farm. Fearing that the elephant could destroy his harvest of pumpkins, melons and eggplants, Punchibanda rushed to chase it away. But he could not guard his produce, and instead lost his life.

The large bull elephant charged toward the 62-year-old, who fainted out of fear; the animal crushed him to death. Over a year later, villagers still live in fear as they struggle to protect their crops from wild elephants.

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October 26, 2024 · 11:53 pm

The Political ‘Surroundings’ of the Gal Oya Programme in the 1950s-to-1970s – Fundamental Issue

A Spark from The Editor, Thuppahi, 26 October 2024, by resurrecting a TPS Comment from 2017

Perchance I recently came across an old comment from Professor Chandre Dharmawardena [based in Canada] which raises explosive questions about the dry zone irrigation projects in Sri Lanka launched in the mid-20th century  — questions which engage the political currents of that period and thereby invole such figures as DS Senanayake, LH Mettananda, GG Ponnambalam, SWRD Bandaranaike.

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October 18, 2024 · 12:32 am

A “City of Dreams” in the Centre of Colombo

A = Item in Booking.com

Set in Colombo, 700 metres from Galle Face Beach, Cinnamon Life at City of Dreams offers accommodation with a restaurant, free private parking and a bar. The property is around 2.5 km from Bambalapitiya Beach, 2.3 km from Khan Clock Tower and 4.7 km from Bambalapitiya Railway Station. The accommodation provides a 24-hour front desk, airport transfers, room service and free WiFi throughout the property. All guest rooms at the hotel feature air conditioning and a safety deposit box. A buffet, continental or Italian breakfast is available every morning at the property. Popular points of interest near Cinnamon Life at City of Dreams include Kollupitiya Beach, One Galle Face and Colombo City Centre Shopping Mall.

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October 14, 2024 · 2:25 pm

A Medical & Environmental Puzzle associated with Irrigation Projects in Sri Lanka

Edward Upali

I address the issues raised by Dr. Dharmawardene in his essay ……………… https://thuppahis.com/2024/10/09/the-mahaweli-development-project-in-hindsight/#more-85348.

Dr. Dharmawardene says thousands of lives could have been saved if the planners of the Mahaweli Project had provided pipe-borne water supply to the colonists. In hindsight, similar arguments could also be made with respect to the Second World War 2, such as, if some of the European countries were more decisive and united against Germany, millions of lives would have been saved.

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October 10, 2024 · 8:12 pm

About Bart Klem in Political Science

  About Bart Klem = My research is focused on questions of political order amidst and after civil war. I am interested in state institutions, de facto sovereignty of rebel movements and public authority. Sri Lanka has been my main country specialization, but I also work on Northern Cyprus and I have done some work on Indonesia (mainly Kalimantan). More details may also be found on my personal website.

Before joining Gothenburg University in 2020, I was lecturer at the University of Melbourne and the University of Zurich.

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October 9, 2024 · 1:22 am

The Mahaweli Development Project In Hindsight

Chandre Dharmawardena … an original article …with highlighting imposed by The Editor. TPS

It is interesting to look at the agenda of the workshop held at GANNORUWA in August 1974 [see references below] and ask what questions (and topics) should have been raised at that time, in hindsight, in the context of a number of issues where the Mahaweli project went very badly wrong.

Although there are many issues to consider where the Mahaweli project made mistakes, I will here write on just one issue that led to the deaths of thousands of farmers, beginning from late 1990s,  initially mostly in the Mahaweli C project area (I think).

The map is adapted from Balasooriya et al 2020.

 

 

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October 6, 2024 · 2:35 pm

Agriculture in the Economic Development of Sri Lanka Conference held at Gannoruwa in August 1974 — PROGRAMME Circulated Then

AGRICULTURE IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA’ … conference organised by the Ceylon Studies Seminar ……16th – 19th August, 1974 …… at the In Service Training Centre, Gannoruwa

** The times of the mid-morning and afternoon tea-breaks will be announced each day.

** The names of the chairman and the discussant for each session will be indicated in a list which will be circulated later.

** The two papers marked with an asterisk may not be available for discussion.

A symbolic natural phenomenon from the Peradeniya University campus …. anticipaing potential prospects from the intellectual flowerings generated within its portals

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October 5, 2024 · 8:58 pm

Addressing the Place of Agriculture & the Mahaweli in Lanka’s Economic Future–In August 1974

Michael Roberts

The three-day conference on 16-19 August 1974 devoted to the topic of AGRICULTURE  IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA held at the excellent conference facility at the Department of Agriculture at Gannoruwa – within easy distance from the Peradeniya University campus – was an instance of the capacities and vitality of the Ceylon Studies Seminar at the Peradeniya University. The CSS had been launched in 1968 and its story has been documented elsewhere with an emphasis on the roles of Prof Gananath Obeyesekere, myself, Vijaya Samaraweera, SWR de Samarasinghe, CR de Silva, typists Mrs Hettiaratchchi & Kumaraswamy and cyclostyle-operator Sathiah (see …………………………………. https://thuppahis.com/2018/10/02/nationalist-studies-and-the-ceylon-studies-seminar-at-peradeniya-1968-1970s/).

Piyasiri

CR …. and Sathiah

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