PK Balachandran
Category Archives: elephant tales
A Promising Young Life crushed by an Elephant at Kilinochchi
THE INITIAL REPORT in AFP and Dawn, dated 21 & 22 July 2020 had this title “Elephant crushes scholar to death in Sri Lanka”
A young university scholar has become the latest victim of a deadly wild elephant attack in Sri Lanka, officials said on Monday, after a growing spate of similar incidents across the island nation.
The Pacha-Gaha of Yesteryear in the Heart of Galle
Ruhuna Putra, in Island. 22 July 2020, with this title “Galle’s famous Fibber’s Tree”
It was a giant tree of the Banyan family (Ficus altissima), fairly tall, most of its branches canopied and dotted with many a rookery, while some branches bent downwards to the ground and propagated. It also had several subsidiaries. It was centrally located within the town of Galle in a small section of the large cattle pen of the mighty King Ravana covering vast acres, opposite the present police station and close to the war memorial roundabout.
Filed under cultural transmission, elephant tales, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, press freedom, pulling the leg, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Elephantine Problems in Sri Lanka’s Jungles and Villages
Kamanthi Wickremasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 23 June 2020, where the title reads “Sri Lanka’s vanishing Elephant Corridors”
- As many as 16 areas that have been identified as elephant passes are yet to be declared and included in a gazette
- Area residents told the Daily Mirror that more land had been cleared during the curfew period
- According to research conducted by CCRSL elephants have well delineated to comparatively small home ranges of 50-150 sq. kilometres
- In Galgamuwa 60 acres of land belonging to the Thorawa Mailawa Temple were leased out to a private company
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, colonisation schemes, economic processes, elephant tales, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, security, self-reflexivity, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Our Constitutional Language Mediums: Bombastic Lies from Gammanpila and Others
FactCheck at http://factcheck.lk/claim/udaya-gammanpila-10
Statement
[According to Article 7 of the constitution] Sri Lanka’s national anthem is “Sri Lanka Maatha“… if anything other than the words of “Sri Lanka Maatha” contained in the third schedule is considered to be the national anthem, it would be a violation of the constitution.
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, cultural transmission, education, elephant tales, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, language policies, life stories, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power sharing, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, tolerance, truth as casualty of war
Garnier aka Xavier enveloped in Swiss Arms & Alms
Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, atrocities, communal relations, democratic measures, disparagement, elephant tales, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
A Focus on Taylor Dibbert: Fair Dinkum’s Running Commentary
Fair Dinkum,[1] an Aussie Academic with Far Eastern Connections, serves up a Set of Reflections on Dibbert’s Recent Essays
A = Taylor Dibbert maybe a freelance writer but I am sure he is selected because of the perspective he takes. As usual, everything portrays SL’s future as bleak and degenerate.
B = Freelance gives impression of independent writer, but the question is on what criteria do the Lowry Institute accept writings for their website. As a think-tank, the writings they publish are notable for being excessively right-wing, rather than a forum for balanced meaningful intellectual debate and so it should not be regarded as an academic institution. This “freelance” writer fits perfectly into their political agenda.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, centre-periphery relations, democratic measures, elephant tales, foreign policy, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, politIcal discourse, Presidential elections, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Wildlife Wonderland …. Wilpattu in Sri Lanka
Courtesy of a Face book entrybya Sri Lankan with good taste…web reference misplaced
Filed under elephant tales, heritage, landscape wondrous, meditations, travelogue, wild life
Sri Lanka’s Prejudiced and Petty Rulers
Rifat Halim in LankaWeb, 22 August 2019, in http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/08/22/three-idiots-and-a-blind-woman/
Three Idiots is a classic Hindi movie that features a group of morons. Sri Lanka has gone one step further by producing three modayas and a blind woman in real life. Future historians would be hard-pressed to explain Sri Lanka’s civil conflict (1983–2009). How could a small section of a microscopic minority terrorise the country for so long? In 1983, Sri Lankan Tamils were barely 10% of the populations and the LTTE (also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a minuscule group
The answer lies in the stupid rivalry of the politicians. Every time the Tigers committed an atrocity, the politicians blamed someone else. They were so transfixed by their petty quarrels that they were blind to the big beast.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, disparagement, elephant tales, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance
