Category Archives: Indian Ocean politics

Journalistic Articles from my Pen: A Bibliography, 1996-2009

Michael Roberts

Articles that appear in academic journals are subject to a refereeing process before they, so to speak, scale the heights and enter the academic world. But there are numerous forums at the cutting edge which serve up essays on hot topics. These are not necessarily run-of-the-mill mundane pieces. They can be spin-offs presented by writers in the academic field.  As I look to the future when my mortal steps in this world will no longer generate any sound, I present here a listing of some of these ‘pop-articles’ produced in the period 1996-2009.  Many of them relate to the Eelam wars and the Tamil Tiger commitment to sacrificial devotion” (a term I deploy in lieu ofsuicide missions”).

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China as Target of CIA’s Destabilizing Programme

Anonymous

Watch ….  https://www.youtube.com/live/2EZg8mPatv4?si=uzoFr0XBWGEqB5A0

Today, we learn what I’ve known for years: that the CIA have spent billions in spreading anti-China propaganda to stir up trouble in China and with countries dealing with China, thereby seeking to topple the government of China and destroy its economy. This propaganda campaign included pushing fake stories that the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative [BRI] was a threat to the world, that China would use the BRI to take over the world, that China would militarize ports they had built as part of the BRI, such as in Hambantota. It was all lies. It is now confirmed that Trump ordered the CIA to bad mouth China’s infrastructural projects, which has caused tremendous damage around the world, costing trillions of dollars to the US in damages, destroying relationships around the world, and for what?

Jeffrey Sachs

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Gotabaya Claims Local & International Conspiratorial Hands were Behind His FALL

Kalani Kumarasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 8 March 2024 ……. where the headline runs; “Shavendra and Kamal villains in GR’s new book”

Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has acknowledged his shortcomings in appointing key defence personnel, including General Shavendra Silva and General (Retd.) Kamal Gunaratne in his tell-all memoir “The Conspiracy to Oust Me” launched yesterday (March 7). .Rajapaksa recounts the dramatic circumstances which led to his ousting in 2022, describing it as a first-hand experience of an internationally-sponsored regime change operation

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Sirimavo Bandaranaike on The World Stage in Pictorial Power

Item in Daily Mirror, 14 March 2024 ………………………… https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Second-edition-of-SIRIMAVO-Steering-the-Destiny-of-a-Nation-published/108-278787

The Bandaranaike Museum Committee has taken step to publish the second limited edition of the Pictorial Biography; ‘SIRIMAVO – Steering the Destiny of a Nation’ in collaboration with the Sarasavi Bookshop and it is now available for sale, the Bandaranaike Museum Committee said.

It said the book was published due to various request from the public here and abroad.

 

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Former Military Officers in Political Party Campaigns in Sri Lanka

Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 28 February 2024 where the title runs thus: “National Elections: Ex-military Factor”... with highighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

With the presidential election scheduled for later this year, political parties represented in Parliament have stepped up efforts to forge alliances.

Ex-military personnel at a rally organized by the JVP last year (pic courtesy JVP)

In terms of the Constitution, presidential elections will have to be conducted between Sept 18 and Oct 18, 2024. The last presidential election was held in Nov 2019.

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‘Made’ in Australia: The Journal SOUTH ASIA

SEE … https://southasianstudies.org.au/journal/

   

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies ranks as the leading academic journal in South Asian studies. It provides a forum for scholarly research, comment and discussion on the history, society, economy, culture and international relations of the South Asian region, drawing on a range of disciplines from the humanities and social sciences. South Asia publishes cutting edge, innovative, conceptually interesting, original case studies and new research, which shape and lead debates in the field.

SOUTH ASIA-Journal

 Professor Kama Maclean: a key figure in the history of the journal

 

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Ganeshananthan’s & Karunatitilaka’s Novels Reviewed by Anjum Hasan

Anjum Hasan:  “Even As A Ghost”  in The New York Review of Books, 18 January 2024 … reaching me via a tennis-mate Ralph Schlomowitz who is a ‘religious’ adherent of the NYRB and matters highbrow;while Amaasiiri De Silva in New York sent me the whole text in Worsd File –thereby ‘undermining’ the NYR’s effing barriers.

Hasan reviews two new books relating to Sri Lanka in this essay: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Random House, 348 pp., $28.00; $18.00 (paper) …. & The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, Norton, 388 pp., $18.95 (paper)

In their new novels, V. V. Ganeshananthan and Shehan Karunatilaka use the “distance of time” to dramatize large chunks, if not the whole, of Sri Lanka’s recent past.

 

 

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Devious Propaganda Guided by Geopolitical Positioning

An Honest Broker **Devious 

With regard to the Maldives piece, this article is propaganda: …………………..  https://thegeopolitics.com/navigating-the-geopolitical-waters-india-maldives-relations-in-a-shifting-global-landscape/  You cannot expect it to remain unchallenged.

The article doesn’t contain a single piece of information that hasn’t been slanted in India’s favour, at the expense of China. The arguments presented here are “meritless, counter-productive and not based on facts”, as John Kirby would say. The intention is once again, as India always does, to smear China’s relations with countries in the South Asian region and reassert Indian hegemonic dominance. That’s why you can’t post a link without it being challenged.

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The Geopolitics underlying the Strengthening of Maldivian Links with China

Timur Fomenko in rtcom.news, 15 January 2024, where the title reads  as How a tiny tourist paradise has become a political flashpoint between India and China” ….. with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi and pertinents Thoughts sent by “Skindiver” who sent this reference to Thuppahi.

The Maldives, with its new anti-New Delhi, pro-Beijing president, is set to become an inconvenient neighbor.

The Maldives is an archipelago nation just south of India. With a population of just half a million people, the islands may seem inconsequential, and the small republic is mostly known as a paradise getaway for tourists.

Maldives’ President Mohamed Muizzu (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, January 10, 2024 ©  STR / CNS / AFP

 Despite this, the nation is, in fact, a stage for a political flashpoint between China, India and the West, having recently elected a new president, Mohamed Muizzu, who is actively pro-Beijing and openly antagonistic to New Delhi, so much that Indians are now threatening a tourism boycott of the countryMuizzu has just visited China, where he inked a series of agreements with Xi Jinping, particularly in the area of infrastructure.

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Another Time, Another World: Social Science in Postwar Sri Lanka

Uditha Devapriya & Uthpala Wijesuriya, … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Background:  In Sri Lanka, social science research witnessed an expansion in the 1950s. Various scholars, including Stanley Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere, found their calling in anthropology, and went on to introduce and popularise the subject in local universities. This period also witnessed an increasing interest in Sri Lankan and specifically Sinhala society from Western scholars, including Edmund Leach, James Brow, and Richard Gombrich. While many local scholars active in that period have commented on how social science research evolved at Sri Lankan universities, no proper study of this has been done yet.

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