Tamil and Sinhala versions attached
Sri Lanka has opportunity to break from past – Türk
GENEVA (13 August 2025) – A report published today by the UN Human Rights Office calls on Sri Lanka’s Government to seize the historic opportunity to break with entrenched impunity, implement transformative reforms, and deliver long-overdue justice and accountability for serious violations and abuses committed in the past, including international crimes.
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Courtesy of Sunil Thenabadu & Keith Bennett
The Sri Lankan diaspora consists of approximately three million Sri Lankans living abroad, significantly contributing to their host countries and maintaining ties with Sri Lanka.
Demographics and Distribution
The Sri Lankan diaspora includes emigrants and expatriates from Sri Lanka residing in various countries, with significant populations in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, Australia, and North America. An estimate from 2013 indicated that around three million Sri Lankans live outside their home country, with about one million permanently settled abroad. This diaspora is characterized by a diverse mix of ethnicities, including Tamils, Sinhalese, and Burghers, each contributing uniquely to the cultural landscape of their host nations.
Item circulated by Sunil Thenabadu, Keith Bennett and one Dee de Silva
The Sri Lankan diaspora consists of approximately three million Sri Lankans living abroad, significantly contributing to their host countries and maintaining ties with Sri Lanka.
Demographics and Distribution
The Sri Lankan diaspora includes emigrants and expatriates from Sri Lanka residing in various countries, with significant populations in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, Australia, and North America. An estimate from 2013 indicated that around three million Sri Lankans live outside their home country, with about one million permanently settled abroad. This diaspora is characterized by a diverse mix of ethnicities, including Tamils, Sinhalese, and Burghers, each contributing uniquely to the cultural landscape of their host nations.
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Sachi Sri Kantha, ... with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Introduction: Previously, I had studied the electoral performance of three prominent Sri Lankan Tamil politicians, namely Ganapathipillai Gangesar Ponnambalam (1901-1977), Appapillai Amirthalingam (1927-1989) and Murugesu Sivasithamparam (1024-2002). All three were electorally successful in most of their attempts, though suffering defeats intermittently.
E.W.-Abeyegunasekera-Rutnams-formidable-rival-in-1931-and-1936.jpg
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Andrekos Varnava is a Greek Cypriot and it has been the privilege of Flinders University in Adelaide and Australia-at-large to have him researching and teaching in their various reaches. CYPRUS is in a strategic location in the Eastern Meditteranian and has beenat the centre of many invasions and tussles.
Books by Andrekos Varnava
Filed under accountability, ancient civilisations, art & allure bewitching, australian media, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, demography, economic processes, ethnicity, European history, foreign policy, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, modernity & modernization, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power sharing, religiosity, travelogue, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
Sinnappah Arasaratnam was one of my inspirational teachers in History at Peradeniya University in the late 1950s. In chancing upon a printed copy of one of his articles — entitled “Sri Lanka’s Tamils under Colonial Rule,” (date ??), I have been inspired to remind new generations, as well as older ones. of his contributions to scholarship in Lanka, Malaysia/Singapore and Australia.
It was to my benefit that I was able to interact with him on occasions after he moved to Malaysia and Australia. Alas, the details of these exchanges have not taken root in my fading memory.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, Britain's politics, British colonialism, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, Dutch colonialism, economic processes, ethnicity, European history, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, island economy, land policies, language policies, Left politics, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, parliamentary elections, patriotism, plural society, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, power politics, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Sri Lankan scoiety, Tamil civilians, teaching profession, transport and communications, world events & processes
Keith Conlon in Linked In
A momentous exodus of ‘0ld Lutheran’ religious refugees to South Australia began hashtagOTD 8 July 1838. Families from Klemzig in Prussia (now Poland) sailed down the Oder River to Hamburg, their departure point for the new reformist colony of South Australia. The ‘Paradise of Dissent’ offered freedom of religion.
Kavel Memorial Monument Australia
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bull-mascot-team-logo-design-longhorn-133746227 Presented here at ……………………………………………………….. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/nationalism-the-past-and-the-present-the-case-of-sri-lanka/…. & thus in need of updating.; while being dedicated to a Peradeniya University buddy -alas deceased– with whom I shared notes and thoughts during undergraduate days and thereafter in the 1970s & 1980s in Chicago: namely, Ananda Wickremeratne …
Amunugama, Sarath 1979 ‘Ideology and class interest in one of Piyadasa Sirisena’s novels: the new image of the “Sinhala Buddhist” nationalist’ in M Roberts (ed.) Collective identities, nationalisms and protest in modern Sri Lanka, Colombo:: Marga Institute, pp 314-36
Anderson, Benedict 1983 Imagined communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of Nationalism. London: Verso
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, constitutional amendments, cultural transmission, demography, devolution, discrimination, Dutch colonialism, economic processes, education policy, Eelam, ethnicity, governance, hatan kavi, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, island economy, Kandyan kingdom, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, patriotism, power politics, racism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, transport and communications, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
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.
thuppahi
