Michael Roberts
In presenting an article on Duncan White’s achievement at the World Olympic Games held in London in August 1948, I limited my focus to the 1940s. Sachi Sri Kantha in Japan has often entered comments on Thuppahi items and on this occasion ventured a point-scoring set of remarks on this item. At times these comments have proceeded tangentially to topics straddling the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
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Uditha Devapriya, in The Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, August 2022, a refereed article with this title “The Crisis in Sri Lanka: Economic and Political Dimensions”
This article seeks to chart the trajectory of the Sri Lankan protests that began in early March. The first section will examine the causes of the crisis and how the government contributed to it. Economists, policy makers, and commentators cite different reasons for the economic crisis. This article classifies these reasons under two headings: orthodox and heterodox. The orthodox camp generally criticizes the government’s fiscal and monetary policies, including a series of tax cuts in 2019. The heterodox camp traces the crisis to longer-term structural causes, like Sri Lanka’s failure to industrialize and to diversify into manufacturing. The article concludes that we cannot view these two sets of causes in isolation from each other, and that whatever side one takes, we must consider the political dimensions of the crisis as well.
Aragalaya Six Demands-! 2 July Thuppahi 
Protesters at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo on 9 July 2022. (Photo by Dhananjaya Samarakoon)
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Channa Wickremesekera’s Publications
Channa Wickremesekera is the son of the late Percy Wickremesekera, an acquaintance of mine from Peradeniya Campus days and a ‘Trot’ activist who migrated to Australia. Channa lives in Melbourne. I got to know him when I was working on my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period¸1590’s-1815 (which came out in 2003 …………………… https://www.amazon.com/Sinhala-Consciousness-Kandyan-Period-1590s/dp/9558095311).
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Bernard Salt in THE AUSTRALIAN, 30/31 July 2022 where the title reads “Celebrating Our Migration Nation”
It is a single demographic metric that encapsulates modern Australia. It is often the subject of heated debate. It rises and falls over time, but generally over the longer term it has kept an upward trajectory. It is the proportion of the locally based population born overseas. It includes immigrants but it also includes foreign students, backpackers and so-called guest workers based here for 12 months or more.
Asian migrant children tuck into vegemite sandwiches.
Australian Sudanese Peter Bol of Team Australia competes in the Men’s 800m Final on day nine of the World Athletics Championships in Oregon this month. Picture: Hannah Peters/Getty Images for World Athletic
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Sri Lanka is officially bankrupt and a failed state in all but name. How did a country of 22 million people with a level of literacy on par with most of the developed world end up in such a dire position where the state coffers did not have the measly sum of 20 million dollars to purchase fuel to keep the country functioning beyond the next working day?
Whilst the vast majority of the population have concluded that the blame for this economic armageddon is due to the gluttony of corruption and greed, instigated and enabled by the Rajapaksa family , its acolytes and sycophantic nodding dogs, my own assessment is different.
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Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 2 July 2022, with input from Uthpala Wijesooriya, Pasindu Nimsara, and Keshan Themira & archival images courtesy of the J. R. Jayewardene Centre
Somewhere in July, the Hostel of Royal College, Colombo will unveil its annual Day. Organised after seven long years, the Hostel Day will incorporate a number of aesthetic, cultural, and sports events. Many of them have been held over the last two months and a few are yet to be finalised. In the face of an unprecedented economic crisis, it has been a challenge to have held them at all. For the residents of the Hostel, it has also been a baptism of fire, no less than a continuation of what was once a long tradition.
the young co-authors 
Royal Colleg Hostet – Group Photo
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Details of this book POLITICAL CONFLICT IN SOUTH ASIA, University of Peradeniya publication, 2013 …………. ISBN – 978-955-589-169-1………..Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher, The Vice-Chancellor, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Printed by Balin & Co. (Pvt.) Ltd. 61, D. S. Senanayake Street, Kandy, Sri Lanka +94 0817429050 ……………. Fax. +94 081 2222584 ………………………… Cover design: Dr. Manjula Peiri
Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Sir Nicholas Atygalle, Vice Chancellor of the University Ceylon (1955-66), and my teachers: Karthigesu Kularatnam & George Thambyahpillay at Peradeniya, and Bertram Hughes Farmer at Cambridge
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Mevan Pieris, presenting the Funeral Oration for Sandadas Coperahewa, teacher of S.Thomas’ College Mt Lavinia, Tuesday 7th June 2022.... [with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi]
We are gathered here this evening to pay our final respects to a great teacher. In my days in the School by the sea in the 1950s and 1960s, Mr Sandadas Coperahewa was my revered teacher in art and Sinhala, and I thought I should pay a tribute to him as he is the last of my teachers to depart with all other sacred spirits who taught me having gone ahead.
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Michael Roberts
The four-volume edition of DOCUMENTS OF THE CEYLON NATIONAL CONGRESS was presented by the Department of National Archives in 1977 and has been out of stock for some time now.
Haris De Silva — Deputy Director, DNA in the 1970s
Volume ONE contains a book within a book written by me and entitled ELITES, NATIONALISMS and the NATIONALIST MOVEMENT IN BRITISH CEYLON – in seven chapters and running to ccxxii pages.
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