Category Archives: life stories

December 30, 2013 · 12:30 pm

Service to humankind: Venkateswaran father & son

I: N. Venkateswaran, 1900-1973

My Father  N Venkateswaran was a graduate of St Thomas’ College in Kerala, a Jesuit institution & it was not surprising that he found his niche as a teacher in another Jesuit institution, St Aloysius’ College in Galle, Ceylon. Pedagogy was his love and geography was his mistress. Though many a colleague tutored privately for money, he was very firm and stated time and again that he will not prostitute his profession. His values were all passed onto his children and they have done well, all of them Aloysians and students of Sacred Heart Convent. Continue reading →

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December 28, 2013 · 1:32 am

A Kerala Catholic who served Sri Lanka in general and Aloysians in particular: Fr. Kuriacose s.j.

Carl Fernando in The Aloysian, December 2013 hwere the ttile is “Fr. Thomas Chingamparampil Kuriacose S.J.”

SIMGP8183 (1) Son of C. T and Elizabeth Kuriacose, Thomas was born in Quilon, Kerala on the 20th of December 1920 to a devout Catholic family. His father, a teacher of mathematics, came to Ceylon in 1927 in search of better prospects and joined St. Servatius’ College, Matara. In 1928, he brought his family, – wife Elizabeth and Children, Anna (later, Sr. Felicitas of the Holy Cross Sisters and worked in Sri Lanka), Mariam (later, Sr. Mary Agnes of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery and worked in India), Theresa (later Mrs. Theresa Chandy of Vaniamparampil, Alleppey, Kerala), Thomas, Cherian (died in 1930), Two members Joseph and Mary Agnes (later Mrs. Mary Agnes Kuriacose of Pathupally, Kerala) were born in Ceylon. Continue reading →

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December 26, 2013 · 10:11 am

Home truths about famine, war and genocide — from India to Kenya to Stalin’s gulags

 

Niall Ferguson in http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/niall-ferguson-home-truths-about-famine-war-and-genocide-482314.html

NIALL FERGUSON 11Among the books my children enjoy are the Horrible Histories, a series of light-hearted introductions to historical subjects with titles like The Rotten Romans, The Terrible Tudors and The Vile Victorians. If their creator, Terry Deary, lacks the time or inclination to write The Bloody British Empire, he can subcontract the job to Johann Hari. In his column on Monday (“There can be no defence for empire”, 12 June), Horrible Hari simultaneously misrepresented my work and caricatured to the point of absurdity the history of British imperialism. I pass over the strange charge that I am “court historian for the imperial American hard right”. Anyone who has read my book Colossus: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire will know how laughably wide of the mark that is. Continue reading →

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December 26, 2013 · 12:36 am

Thin edge of the sledge: cricket as WAR

Gideon Haigh, in The Australian, 26 December 2013, with the title being “Thin Edge of the Sledge“

THERE’S been a lot of sledging about this Ashes summer. There’s also been a lot of sledging, as it were, of sledging. Can it be right? Can it be fair? There’s even been sledging of the sledging of sledging, in this newspaper, where my colleague Janet Albrechtsen waxed nostalgic about no-nonsense 70s cricket and 70s parenthood: “Today, the stifling PC prism is overlaid on the cricket field the moment a bit of verbal biff pushes the envelope.” Albrechtsen has a point.

AA3 --merv hughes AA 3 -seldging Merv Hughes, an Aussie icon, threatening Graeme Hick —

Cricket is a game replete with aggressive acts – hard hitting, fast bowling – that nonetheless proscribes physical contact. If some excess of belligerence is decanted off verbally, should we be in the least surprised? Continue reading →

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December 24, 2013 · 1:54 pm

GROUNDVIEWS is ground-breaking and at the cutting edge of citizen journalism

Groundviews published 142 articles over 2013. Our Facebook fan page grew by over 4,000. Our Twitter feed, the most probing, interactive and engaging of any media related Twitter account in Sri Lanka, grew by 3,000 followers. Given the site’s guidelines, which require Editorial vetting of all content, at a conservative average of 2,000 words per article, I’ve looked at over 280,000 words of original content over 2013, plus well over that word count in comments. I’ve also penned over 10,000 tweets this year, averaging around 800 a month. Continue reading →

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Expanding Chinese influence in Sri Lanka?

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December 19, 2013 · 3:57 pm
December 16, 2013 · 10:26 am

Accountability and Reconciliation are not compatible

 

Izeth Hussain, in The Island, 13 December 2013, where the title reads “Against Duckspeak on Ethnic Reconciliation”

CAMERON 55  “Duckspeak” is a neologism used by George Orwell in his novel 1984. The rulers of the totalitarian state depicted in the novel dream of reducing the people to automata whose speech will sound like normal human speech but be quite meaningless, inane like the quacking of ducks, since it will be produced only by the larynx without the cerebral cortex coming into action at all. That is Duckspeak. Some readers will hold that Sri Lankan politicians excel in it without being manipulated or coerced by totalitarian rulers, since what they say is usually meaningless. But that is true of politicians all over the world who to varying degrees say meaningless things to fool the people. That however is a voluntary process whereas Duckspeak is involuntary, something uttered by human beings who have been reduced to automata. Continue reading →

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December 11, 2013 · 2:13 am

Exodus from the Last Redoubt, late-April and mid-May 2009: Appendix V for “BBC Blind”

Michael Roberts

In BBC Blind I have alluded to the growing disenchantment among the citizens of Thamilīlam from circa January 2009 onwards – even as other segments of the populace remained firmly attached to the Liberation Tiger cause and had faith in the leadership’s insistence that international intervention would save them.

The populace included former citizens of the Jaffna Peninsula who had moved across to the northern Vanni in the wake of the LTTE in 1995/96 after an army operation emanating from Palaly secured control of the western and central portions of the Peninsula. That enforced shift from hearth and home was resented by many Tamil residents and was pictured as an “exodus” by the dissident UTHR intellectuals in their courageous reportage. Rajan Hoole, the point-man in the UTHR collective, is a staunch Protestant Christian and the adoption of biblical metaphors is not surprising. Such imagery is not inappropriate either. Continue reading →

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December 9, 2013 · 3:31 pm

Congestion in the “Vanni Pocket,” January-May 2009: Appendix IV for “BBC Blind”

Michael Roberts

In retrospect we can say that the LTTE high command made a serious error when they launched Eelam War IV through the Mavil Aru incident in July 2006. On this occasion they could not replicate the massive successes of Eelam War III (see Appendix I). By mid-2007 they had lost control of the patches of terrain they had held in the Eastern Province. By early 2008 they lost control of the north western coastline and their logistical supply chain from India. Outgunned, outnumbered and on the back-foot, they nevertheless fought tenaciously and cleverly as a threefold pincer of SL Army battalions gnawed away at their defences from west, south and north (Map 1).

77- War fronts 23 Dec 2008 Map 1: the Vanni Pocket on 23 December 2008

Continue reading →

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December 9, 2013 · 12:04 am

Sumanthiran’s clarion call for the middle path of moderation

M. A. Sumanthiran, press release from TNA

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants….  ….. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Edmund Burke (1729–1797)

sumanthiran 33 Last week in Parliament, I pleaded with my fellow MPs to listen to the voices of moderation. I appealed to them to do their best to prevent extremist forces on either side from destroying our future. Now I appeal to the members of the public to do the same. Do not for a moment underestimate the power that still resides in you, the reasonable-minded citizens of this country. Your leaders still fear the shame you might impose on them for extremist views.

During my short tenure in politics, I have observed a glimmer of hope. That glimmer does not emanate from the sparkling new streetlamps, the shiny new expressways, or the other glistening things that are presented to us as evidence of progress and development. Hope comes from the moderate and non-violent path that so many have chosen to follow. There are still some who choose to endure immeasurable suffering and humiliation without retaliating with violence or aggression. As long as such individuals remain in Sri Lanka, there is still hope. Continue reading →

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