Category Archives: growth pole

September 19, 2025 · 7:38 pm

Sri Lanka’s Economy Now: After A Honeymoon….

Item in THE ECONOMIST, 6 Sep 2025, entitled “The Sri Lankan government’s honeymoon is nearly over” … & sent to me by  Jayantha Somasundaram of Canberra; while the highlights are my imposition

Initial popularity:  OPENED IN AUGUST with the stated ambition of making Sri Lanka “India’s Macau”, the City of Dreams development in downtown Colombo houses a casino, luxury hotels, high-end shops and a champagne-and-cocktail bar “floating amid the clouds”. The gleaming but for now largely deserted halls of the vast complex seem a symbol of renewal: a far cry from the mass civil unrest of just three years ago and the accompanying economic collapse—rampant inflation, fuel shortages, mass poverty and foreign-debt default.

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August 22, 2025 · 11:12 am

Sanjiva’s Silken “SILK ROAD” Launched Today

Sanjiva Wijesinha

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March 8, 2025 · 4:56 pm

Developing Hambantota Port: The Controversy in 2019

Michael Roberts

An aerial drone photo taken on March 28, 2024 shows the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka. Located in the south of Sri Lanka, the Hambantota Port is one of the signature projects of Belt and Road cooperation between China and Sri Lanka. (Photo by Xu Qin/Xinhua via Getty Images)

My Set of Bibliographical References

An Insider: “The Internal Tussles & Vagaries and Scheming that hindered the Development of the Hambantota Port Project,” 15 September 2021, https://thuppahis.com/2021/09/15/the-internal-tussles-vagaries-and-scheming-that-hindered-the-development-of-the-hambantoa-port-project/#more-55017

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Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, Colombo and Its Spaces, demography, devolution, economic processes, electoral structures, export issues, foreign policy, governance, growth pole, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, population, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, world events & processes

November 20, 2024 · 9:35 pm

Gerald Peiris: A Lifetime of Wide-Ranging Research & Service

These are but some of his publications over a career spanning the 1950s to 2020s — with eyesight deterioration blighting his last platform of life. No more table tennis, but much to remember. So, here. let me doff my cap to thee, Gerry Machang, …. Mike

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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 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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July 24, 2024 · 9:22 pm

Michael Roberts Mss stored at Adelaide University

Michael Roberts

The library at Adelaide Univeristy is known as the BARR-SMITH LIBRARY.  The staff in the “Special Collections” within the library over the years have been especially helpful over a long period and were hands-on central in organising the Roberts Oral History Project from the 1980s and subsequently (see https://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/special/mss/roberts/).

But it is by pure chance that I came across a document penned in my hand detailing the stock of manuscripts and photocopied material that I had placed within the Special Collections –maybe because our home is adjacent to a National Park and within a high fire-risk arena.

Let me assure all ye readers that I have been stunned by some of the items that I have collected –some of them original Mss items; with the others being copies. but the main point is that some of these copies reproduce very rare items.  Moreover, I find that the range and type of items placed within the realm of the Barr-Smith are quite astonishing. It remains to be seen whether readers and investigators of the past accept that evaluation. I should add that I will be among the personnel delving into some of the data within this stock; but I do not have long to live…..and this stock is there for posterity.

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January 8, 2024 · 10:17 am

Edwardian Villas and Maharajas’ Palaces: A Question on the Kalu Ganga  

Mick Moore of Susssex University ** … with highlighting imposed within this essay by The Editor, Thuppahi

Richmond Castle is a large and elegant villa beautifully located in a wooded estate on a hill above the Kalu Ganga not far from Kalutara town. It was built at enormous expense between 1900 and 1910, by Padikara Mudali Nanayakkara Rajawasala Appuhamilage Don Arthur de Silva Wijesinghe Siriwardena, aka Arthur Silva, Mudaliyar. Were it located in the UK, it would be a major tourist attraction. It is however little visited or even known. One reason is that it has languished – and crumbled – for decades in the hands of the Public Trustee, who has neither the resources nor the incentive to promote or even maintain it. Arthur Silva left the property to the care of the Public Trustee in the expectation that a Trust would be established to manage it and the small boys orphanage attached. That has never happened.  

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March 4, 2023 · 7:32 pm

The Tall and Short ‘Storeys’ in Cricket Commentary

Tony Greig and Sunil Gavaskar take to the field with A ‘Mike’

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