Professor Sanath Lamabadusuriya
The Dutch period opened up several new economic opportunities for the locals, and the British period that followed opened up even more. Carpentry was one of them. Colonial economic activity in the maritime provinces required large buildings with extensive woodwork, Carts, boats and ships for transport, barrels for storage and European style furniture. These demands created a new and thriving carpentry industry.
A Coopering Factory …. Such products as arrack and coffee (and later graphite) were packed into barrels for transhipment. The demand would have been considerable so that entrepreneurs who set up coopering concerns would have been among those who became scions of the indigenous capitalist class.Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Uditha Devapriya, in Daily Mirror, 19 September 2020, where the title is “Madapatha has hardly changed”
Every morning at 5.20, I wake up to the sound of distant drums followed by the chanting of pirith. I literally begin my day with a reminder of the impermanence of life. But then dawn breaks 10 minutes later, and by 5.45, what with the tooting of horns and the chirping of birds heralding the coming day, I can no longer hear the pirith as clearly.
Kolamuna Walauwwa
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Michael Roberts
Preamble: I flew to Sydney in Australia on Sri Lankan Airlines UL 606 leaving Katunayake at 17.00 o’clock on Wednesday 16th September. The airport was depressingly empty. Only about 35 passengers were on the flight –undoubtedly due to Australian restrictions. Two were Aussie women and the rest looked dinky-die Sri Lankan.
Filed under accountability, coronavirus, cultural transmission, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
News Item in Colombo Times, 18 September 2020, with this title “Colombo Port City … has attrcted 16 billion dollar investment ….”
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday said the Colombo Port City Project will become the main source of income for the country and the project will generate more than 83,000 employment opportunities.
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, commoditification, economic processes, export issues, foreign policy, governance, growth pole, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Though called “whales” ORCAs are a dolphin species — https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/o/orca/
Daya Lelwela, in Sunday Island, 2 May 2010
Having lived past the biblical span of three score years and ten, I thought it opportune now for me to make this reminiscent journey back in time to my days in school [viz. S. Aloysius College] before my fading, patchy memory were to rob me completely of those golden moments that I have cherished all my life and wish to share with you.
Filed under accountability, economic processes, education, education policy, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, performance, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes
in DailyFT, 11 September 2020, with this title “Muslim prime movers in Parliament”
Muslims of Sri Lanka, after more than a millennium of integrated and peaceful coexistence, have become a hated, or to put it mildly, highly-suspected minority at least in the perception of ultra-Sinhala Buddhist supremacists, led by Bodu Bala Sena and a coterie such movements supported by influential political monks.
“It is a strange irony that it is from the hated Muslim community that a Minister of Justice has been picked before the election, brought to the Parliament through the back door and entrusted amidst opposition with the task of amending the Constitution to empower and disempower the President and Prime Minister respectively and simultaneously, all in the name of easing the path for developmen.” Continue reading
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, coronavirus, cultural transmission, economic processes, fundamentalism, heritage, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, religiosity, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes, zealotry
Grace Bains in Scoopwhoop where the title is “A Demon For Us But A Hero For Sri Lankans, The Fascinating Story Of Ravana, According To Lanka” and Chandre Dharmawardena, in Island, 11 September 2020
As we celebrate Dussehra, we recount Ramayana and the lessons that come with it. For us, the Ramayana isn’t just a story of Lord Rama winning over Ravana and rescuing Sita. It is about good winning over evil despite the many obstacles. It is the story that gives Indians hope and motivation to keep fighting for what they know is right.
But we all know that every story has two sides.
Filed under accountability, ancient civilisations, art & allure bewitching, asylum-seekers, atrocities, chauvinism, conspiracies, cultural transmission, disparagement, doctoring evidence, education, fundamentalism, heritage, Hinduism, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, psychological urges, religiosity, Saivism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, taking the piss, unusual people, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
There are children who cannot walk and are totally dependent on family and others. When such families are encased in poverty as working-class people, their lot is that much harder. ECSAT assists a few of these families in the locality of Galle Town. I joined Roshan and Kumari Kariyawasam on one of their outreach visits (with Roshan’s daughter Padani as company) one morning in August 2020.
Filed under centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, heritage, human rights, landscape wondrous, life stories, medical puzzles, meditations, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
thuppahi
