Category Archives: democratic measures

December 25, 2023 · 8:42 pm

Pro-Palestinian Rallies on US Campuses

Daniel Arkin, in NBC News,  26 October 2023  where the title runs thus: “Israel-Hamas war continues to roil American colleges, sparking walkouts”

The war has raised the temperature on some campuses, giving rise to social environments that mirror the country’s similarly polarized politics. Dozens of U.S. colleges and universities are increasingly riven by tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas, offering a window into how a rising generation perceives the conflict in the Middle East and the U.S. government’s foreign policy in the region.

                    Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest at Columbia University in New York on Oct. 12… Yuki Iwamura / AP  

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December 25, 2023 · 7:38 pm

Political Dogfight Looming in 2024 General Elections in Sri Lanka

Uditha Devapriya,  in The Diplomat,  December 2023, where the title runs thus  “Political and Electoral Uncertainty in Sri Lanka Ahead of the 2024 Elections”

Wickremesinghe wants to keep his job; the SLPP wants to mount a comeback. Sri Lanka voters seem to want radical change.

In Sri Lanka, political parties are getting ready for presidential elections scheduled for some time next year. Many of them have named their candidates; others are preparing to do so. The country is constitutionally mandated to hold presidential polls in 2024, and the president himself has hinted that he will go ahead with them.

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December 19, 2023 · 12:02 am

A Revolutionary Architect: Minnette De Silva

Randima Attygalle, in DailyFT, 30 November 2023, where the title runs thus: “Celebrating A Revolitonary Housing Feat” ..… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Endorsed by the World Monuments Fund, a first for Sri Lanka, ‘88 Acres’, the latest exhibition by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA) resurrects the Watapuluwa Housing Scheme in Kandy, a forgotten watershed in the contemporary history of Sri Lanka that heralded a new form of social housing here at home. ‘88 Acres’ explores how this sprawling hillside development completed in 1958, was ahead of its time in providing affordable accommodation for a diverse ethno-religious community of public servants in Sri Lanka. The exercise is also a celebration of its unsung designer Minnette de Silva, Sri Lanka’s first woman architect, the first Asian woman to be elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and one of the two women in the world at that time to have an architecture practice in her own name.

 

From left: MMCA Sri Lanka Assistant Curator Thinal Sajeewa, Chief Curator Sharmini Pereira, and Assistant Curator Ritchell Marcelline

 

 

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December 9, 2023 · 12:08 am

Hilda Muriel Kularatne, Theosophist & Educationist in Ceylon

Rehan Kularatne, presenting an original essay which has received its title and had highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

My grandmother Hilda Muriel Westbrook was born in Dulwich on 28 November 1895. She was the daughter of Walter Francis Westbrook, later Chief Registrar of the Colonial Office, and Jessie Duncan, a Scottish poet and scholar, the sister of noted (and absolutely dreadful) Celtic Revival painter John Duncan RSA. Jessie Duncan Westbrook was to publish a number of verse renditions of Persian, Sufi and Hindu poetry in the 1910s. She and my great-grandfather, being Theosophists, were both extremely interested in ‘Eastern’ religions.

Hilda was educated at the progressive James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) in Dulwich. Having excelled in modern languages (French and German) as well as in team sports like hockey (in addition to having Gustav Holst as her music master), she went on to Newnham in Cambridge to do a degree in Modern Languages in 1914, just after WWI broke out. (Though she completed the degree in 1917, she had to wait 30 years to be actually awarded her MA, as Cambridge was the last university in England to accept female graduates.)

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November 26, 2023 · 8:37 pm

Outreach: Solar Lights Dstribted in Lankan by ANDUREN ELIYATA

ITEM courtesy of Chandra Fernando &  Leslie De Silva of Anduren Eliyata …. Visit their Web site  www.andureneliyata.com.au  for more details

This particular example displays Chief Priest Rev Kovida from Katoomba Bhavana Vihara, donating lights to people of his village in the Udugama area of Galle Districtgalle district.

 

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November 23, 2023 · 9:57 am

The Humanitarian Social Commitment of Lakshman Wickremesinghe

Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, item taken from Daily News, 24 October 2023, ….. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

 Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe died on October 23 forty years ago. He was my uncle, and I had a special affinity with him with regard to both intellect and emotions. When I came back from Oxford, where he had studied a couple of decades before me, he was the family member who was most supportive of my resignation on the issue of the deprivation of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s Civic Rights, for unlike most members of the elite he understood early on what that meant for the future of democracy, a blight that has never left us since it was followed by a premature Presidential election, the ghastly referendum, and then the attacks first on Supreme Court Judges and then on Tamils.

one moment during Black July 1983

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November 15, 2023 · 1:23 pm

King Abdullah Speaks Out: A “Two-State Solution” for Palestine Arena

Item in Washington Post, 14 November 2023

King Abdullah of Jordan penned an op ed for the Washington Post yesterday. It can be found at, …. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/14/king-abdullah-jordan-two-state-solution/
 
 Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein is king of Jordan. 

For more than a month now, the war in Gaza has been dividing the world, with the deepening split aggravated by intense emotions. Two narratives, Palestinian and Israeli, have pitted demonstrators, media outlets, religions, peoples and regions against each other. In the process, the moral clarity that we should and must share about basic human values has turned into moral confusion.

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November 15, 2023 · 12:30 am

How Collective Belief Heals War’s Hidden wounds

Daya Somasundram, Alvin Kuowei Tay & Rajitha Wickremasinghe, in Cambridge Core Blog, 2 November 2023 ... with the highlights being imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

The mental and emotional aftermath, particularly from modern warfare that targets civilians, is profound. Civilians suffer alongside combatants, facing deaths, injuries, chronic disability, torture, disappearances, multiple displacements with uprooting of whole communities, loss of homes, destruction of essential services, infrastructure and environment. These traumatic experiences lead to a wide range of mental health issues, from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance abuse to family and collective trauma impeding personal and community recovery.

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November 13, 2023 · 8:03 pm

Obeisance in Asia and the West: The Contexts of Practice … & Thereby Its ‘Weight’

Lorenz Pereira in Email Debate with  A Handful of Pals, November 2023 ……… An Exchange that the Editor of Thuppahi deems worthy of public presentation for wider reflection …. & comment

Most enlightening comments from all of you and I am lost for words that my off the cuff, tongue in cheek somewhat flippant comment on the Maxwell/ Tendulkar incident was given such worldwide publicity by Michael Roberts.  Nevertheless, thanks heaps Michael. As they say any publicity is a bonus.

Glenn Maxwell’s puja to Sachin –the gesture which led to the THUPPAHI Item that sparked a debate among Lornez and pals …. https://thuppahis.com/2023/11/11/glenn-maxwells-puja-in-sachins-presence/#more-77036

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October 28, 2023 · 8:15 pm

For Lanka: The Profound Interventions of Pauline & Dick Hensman

Rohini Hensman, in a commemorative essay about her politically committed parents in the SSA journal POLITY in 2023 where the title runs “A Hundred Years of Pauline And C. R. (Dick) Hensman”

The birth anniversaries of Pauline Hensman (née Swan) and Dick Hensman occurred over the course of the past year [ …]. This attempt to provide an overview of their life and times will inevitably suffer from gaps, since neither they nor most of their contemporaries are alive. It will, therefore, have to draw on the imperfect memories of their children and younger friends, who would have to rely on hearsay for the parts of their lives from which they were absent. Nevertheless, the main events and themes of their lives emerge quite clearly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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