The Jaffna Divisional Secretary informed the public, well in advance, that St. Anthony’s Feast in the Kachchativu island had been cancelled this year due to the Covid- 19 pandemic. The decision was well understood by devotees of both Sri Lanka and India.
Thomas Meaney, in London Review of Books, Vol. 43 No. 3 · 4 February 2021:reviewing book by Simon Hall entitled Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s, September 2020, Faber, 276 pp., £17.99, 978 0 571 35306 4
It would hardly be possible, Eric Hobsbawm once said, to imagine rebels better designed to appeal to the New Left than Castro and his comrades. Despite occasional sneers from Third World elders (Nasser dismissed them as ‘a bunch of Errol Flynns’), Western liberals were just as infatuated as radicals. The New York Times published an admiring three-part profile of Castro from his hideout in the Sierra Maestra in 1957, when he was still a revolutionary newt. Two years later, after his forces swept through the lowland cities, triggering a series of popularly assisted uprisings that shattered the sclerotic regime of Fulgencio Batista, adulation came from all quarters: letters of congratulation from US congressmen, rights requests from Hollywood, invitations to ‘Dr Castro’ to address Ivy League undergraduates. ‘My staff and I were all Fidelistas,’ the Cuba desk officer of the CIA recalled.
Rev Rahula, who once headed the Khemba Buddhist Vihara in Canberra during my tenure as High Commissioner, honoured me with a visit to Haputale accompanied by his superior who heads thirteen temples in various parts of the Island !
The semi final was over around ten pm at Eden Garden in Calcutta. Unruly crowd behaviour when all was lost for India ended in the Match Referee Clive Lloyd awarding the game to Sri Lanka on that Tuesday night, the 14 th of March.1996. I managed to get through to Cricket Board ‘s President Ana Punchihewa in the players dressing room, to convey congratulations and retired to bed truly happy !
We had qualified to play Australia in the Wills World Cup final, at Lahore on Friday 17 th. Just after midnight I had a knock on the door. Bernard Wijetunge and Channa Wijemanne, two of the Directors of our Travel subsidiary had woken me up for a reason. “Boss we must do a charter for the Final.”
CALCUTTA, INDIA – MARCH 13: Sri Lanka captain and batsman Arjuna Ranatunga picks up some runs during his innings of 35 runs during the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cup semi final against India at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on March 13, 1996. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Allsport/Getty Images)
In 2011 Godfrey and Amar Gunatilleke sponsored the presentation of a pictorial history entitledPotency. Power & People in Groups, (Colombo, Marga Institute, 2011, ISBN 978-955-582 129-2.
This work was, albeit partially, the presentation of items gathered by Ismeth Raheem and myself for inclusion in the coffee-table book that appeared in the year 200o as Images of British Ceylon (Singapore, Times Edition) — items within segments that were excluded because of financial constraints.Such constraints also meant that the pictures in this booklet were not produced in coffee-table quality. The emphasis was on the interpretations attached to the photographs read in context. While the booklet is still available at relatively low cost, the opportunity is taken here to widen the readership viathe reproduction of sections — itself a project inspired by Anura Hettiarachchi’s translation of the work into Sinhala.[a]
Michael Atherton, in The Times, 13 January 2021, where the title runs thus: “Sri Lanka v England: Sultry contest offers a beautiful distraction”
There will be a wistful feeling for those looking on during the early, dark, dismal hours in England. The venue for the two Tests in Sri Lanka is Galle, the delightful city on the southern tip of the island, and home to one of the most atmospheric cricket grounds on the international circuit. Of all the touring destinations, it remains among the most cherished for England supporters planning a winter break.
Spectators look on from the fort during the 2001 series between the sides
Mannar Unbound is a photographic documentation of wildlife and archaeological ruins of Mannar. The book is the result of over five years of fieldwork stretching across various seasons during which places were visited and then revisited in order to get the perfect shot……………………. .Dec 16, 2018
R.T. conveying a Vale from “City Dweller” …. [it is now revealed that “R.T.” is Roger Thiedeman of Melbourne
In July this year [2000], Aimée Jonklaas Williams, a woman of Ceylonese birth, died in Spain, just short of her 81st birthday. Her ashes were interred in an English village on July 20. Early in August, in another Sri Lankan newspaper, a close friend using the pseudonym “City Dweller” wrote a moving tribute in celebration of the life of this remarkable woman.
Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, reviewing Bhadrajee S. Hewage’s book “A NAME FOR EVERY CHAPTER: Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism”
‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates.
Rarely has so much been written both in the West and in the East about the work of a ‘revivalist,’ that one would conclude there is nothing left to be revealed of the man or his work. That is until you read Bhadrajee Hewage’s “Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism.”