Mevan Pieris
I thought it would be interesting for people to see a photograph taken at Buckingham Palace just before the Prudential World Cup matches began in June 1975. Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II, hosted for tea all eight teams which participated. This photograph, which is only the right section of the full photograph (selected as all the Sri Lankans are in it), was taken on the flight of steps of the rear of the palace, overlooking a garden.
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Greg Sheridan, in The Australian, 20 September 2022, where the title runs thus “Queen was the Bradman among the Royals
I once stood up Prince Charles, as he then was, for a social occasion. I may be the only Australian ever guilty of such a solecism. Forty-odd years ago I was working for the now defunct Bulletin magazine. A friend in the state government sent me an invitation to a morning tea with the visiting prince. I was a republican, but not remotely hostile to the prince. Nor did I have any interest in him. He seemed a bit lame and daffy – listening to his plants and all that – but really he just had no claim on my mind.
I didn’t boycott the event, I just forgot to attend.
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Michael Roberts
I met Riaz Hassan for the first time as one of the keynote speakers at a conference organised by Neelan Tiruchelvam in Sri Lanka circa 1974 (details forgotten) when I was teaching in the History Department at Peradeniya University and Riaz was at an university in Singapore. It was the best of serendipity (a word deriving perhaps from Serendib aka Sri Lanka) that I found him attached to Flinders University when I moved to the Anthropology Department at University in 1977.
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ONE …. Joanne Barker: A Memory about RIAZ HASSAN
From 1992-2006 I worked at Flinders University in various positions, finally leaving in 2006 as the faculty general manager of one of the four faculties. In around 1993-4 when I was still in my early 30s and quite new at the university, I came to know Riaz Hassan as one of the professors. He probably didn’t know my name, but he was always kind and smiled and said hello if we passed on campus.
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Scott Ritter, interviewing Commander Khodakovsky, September 2022 ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOl7Yy7ljwo
On episode 3 of the show we are joined by Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s «Vostok» Battalion. Former commander of Ukraine’s Alpha special unit of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
A COMMENT from Fair Dinkum …. who sent me this reference, 8 September 2022
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Lucien Rajakarunanayake in An Article on 11th September 2014 entitled “Sandbags of Humans” in strategy to woo the West” …. with the highlighting being the present impositions of The Editor, Thuppahi
“I come across new evidence regularly in the midst of misinformation and dis-information that is a facet of the propaganda war that has been sharpening since the LTTE began to retreat in 2008. Since the volume of data is huge, a thorough investigation calls for assiduous work by a team which includes those who are culturally competent and able to discern manipulation.”
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Fair Dinkum, … an original set of thoughts … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
It’s good to see Australia providing aid to SL though its peanuts compared to the aid provided by India and China. This article is a good example of an Anglo-Saxon reading of an Asian situation.
Some flawed claims by the Anglo-Saxons at The Age in this article are,
– The claim China was “flexing its muscles” by “insisting on docking a giant scientific research ship despite concerns raised by India”. There is no mention that India had earlier flexed its muscles by insisting Sri Lanka deny entry to the vessel. And no analysis as to whether India had genuine security concerns or were simply politically posturing. There was also no mention of India’s interference into Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
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Zhang Huyi, in Global Times, 15 August 2022, where the title reads …. “Exclusive: Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka to launch welcoming ceremony for arrival of Chinese research vessel: source”
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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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Laleen Jayamanne, in The Island, 20 & 27 July 2022 where the title runs thus: “Teargas cinema and Rukmani Devi”
“I have never found anything to excite the people in quite the way this language issue does”–– Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike to a journalist.
If true, this observation attributed to Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, is quite chilling in its cynicism. ‘Excitement’ is a political emotion here and SWRD appears to take a distance from it, observing somewhat clinically, how ‘this language issue’ stirs up ‘the people’. Politicians are especially crafty, cunning, when they know how to excite people with ideas that they themselves may or may not truly believe in.
A protester covering the eyes of the Bandaranaike statue at Galle Face
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thuppahi
