Category Archives: governance

June 15, 2020 · 5:44 am

A Summary Overview of Sri Lanka’s Struggle to contain Covid

Lasanda Kurukulasuriya, in Island, 11 June 2020, with this title “Covid19 in Sri Lanka: From lockdown to ‘new normal’.”

Sri Lanka’s handling of the Covid19 outbreak has, comparatively speaking, produced commendable results. Tracing the trajectory of the response, it may be seen that early moves to prepare for what lay ahead served well to mitigate the outcome. A Task Force drawing on expertise of all relevant sectors was appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on January 27th, the day the first Covid19 case was reported – that of a Chinese woman tourist.

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June 13, 2020 · 7:58 am

A Glimmer of Hope for Australia-China Relations

Fair Dinkum

It is common for governments to issue travel warnings to their citizens. Australia does it frequently. Australia’s travel warnings to its citizens have sometimes annoyed other countries such as Indonesia and Jordan, to name a few. So, it should come as no surprise that China has issued travel warnings to its citizens over concerns about a surge in racist attacks against Chinese and Asians in Australia.

Pix deployed by RMIT in Melbourne to reach out to students affected by the situation through a campaign of care

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June 12, 2020 · 2:35 pm

Challenging Michael Roberts … with Straight Left and Right Hook

Gerald Peiris ... in the spirit of vigorous debate which we used to pursue in the Arts Faculty and the Ceylon Studies Seminar at Peradeniya University in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Gerry Peiris has responded with two sharply critical notes of some significance to my critical review of Sri Lankan society and politics, an essay that is directed by an optimistic eye …. Ha! Ha! … towards a major overhaul.

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June 12, 2020 · 1:32 pm

Honeycombed with Societal and Political Fissures: Sri Lanka Now & Ever Before

Michael Roberts, reiterating the original draft sent to a few on 10 June 2020

Recent forum discussions on the topic of “Reconciliation” and correspondence with concerned friends have prompted me to essay an analysis of Sri Lanka’s societal problems over the last 150 years. This is a tendentious quest.

This Map showing districts served by Regional Malaria Officers happens to suit the metaphor “Riddled” and/or “Honeycombed” in my title

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June 10, 2020 · 4:36 pm

Ground Zero in Australian Politics towards China

Fair Dinkum

The Australia-China relationship has fallen to zero – the worst it has been since the relationship was established in 1972. The trigger for this recent deterioration was the Australian Prime Minister’s calling for the World Health Organization to be given weapon inspector powers into China as part of the COVID-19 inquiry,[1] an idea rejected by Rob Barton,[2] a former UN weapons inspector sent into Iraq in 2003 as part of the UN Special Commission, or UNSCOM. In Iraq, UNSCOM was infiltrated by agents of US intelligence services who used espionage equipment to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military for three years without the knowledge of the UN agency which was used to disguise its work. [3]

 

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June 9, 2020 · 5:54 pm

Ceylon’s First General Election in 1947: Reflections … with An Eye on Today’s Situation

Gerald. H. Peiris, presenting here a more complete article than that featured in The Island of 16th June 2020 under the title “A National Election in a ‘Time of Troubles’. ”

The phrase ‘Time of Troubles’ is borrowed from the title of a classic sociological study of 19th century ‘Ceylon’ by Professor Ralph Pieris (1952). Here it is intended to highlight the fact that, although the imperial sunset over our island has often been described as a “peaceful transfer of power”, it occurred at an extraordinarily stormy time – politically, economically and environmentally. The calamities that had plagued the country in the ‘Donoughmore era’ ̶  the pauperising impact of the ‘Great Depression’, Malaria Epidemic of the mid-1930s with about a million people (one-fifth of the population in 1931) infected and 60,000 deaths from November 1934 to April 1935 (Briercliffe & Dalrymple-Champneys, 1937), the acute food-scarcity during the Second World War  ̶  seemed to climax in the months leading up to the elections of 1947.

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June 8, 2020 · 7:44 am

Rama Somasunderam’s Administrative Career

Anonymous, in Island, 7 June 2020, with this title “The Last Mandarin”

This is the story of a professional civil servant who believes that he made a contribution to a society and an administrative service, that in the first instance made him what he is and enabled him to achieve his full potential as a person, a professional and a citizen. It is the autobiography of a vanishing coterie of bureaucrats who strived for excellence, believing that they had responded to a high calling.

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June 6, 2020 · 2:39 pm

Professor KM de Silva’s Publications

Born in 1931 — on 31st December no less — Kingsley Muthumuni de Silva, is still batting … with a pen. This compilation has been assembled by Iranga de Silva of ICES Kandy…. and is arranged in reverse chronological sequence.

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June 4, 2020 · 10:34 am

A Chilling and Terrifying Word-Picture of USA Today

David Kilcullen, in The Inquirer, 30 May 2020 and the Australian, 4 June 2020, with this title “Home of the hateful, fearful, heavily armed” …..

Coronavirus is threatening to ignite a tinderbox of grievances in the US. The growing parallels with Iraq, Lebanon and Somalia are real and disturbing.

The rise of militias and armed protesters across the US is sometimes seen as a fringe right-wing issue, but it is much broader. Armed groups have formed across the political spectrum, worsening divisions the coronavirus has exposed in American society.

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June 2, 2020 · 5:54 pm

Face-to-Face in 1977: Early Moves towards Civil War in Lanka

Jane Russell ... with highlights imposed by the Editor, Thuppahi

These are the scratched graffiti of Sinhalese soldiers and policemen abandoned by their government [1991]. They are uncertain of their future. Some believe they will be airlifted to safety. Others have realised that they are about to be overrun by Tamil Tigers camped outside the perimeter walls of the Fort in Jaffna which they have been tasked to defend,  and that no-one will come to save them.  Whatever their hopes and fears, they are all doomed to die. These graffiti are etched into the rock walls of the entrance to the Dutch built Fort (photo top right). They were carved not so long ago. 1991, 29 years, just a generation since. Continue reading →

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