These are but some of his publications over a career spanning the 1950s to 2020s — with eyesight deterioration blighting his last platform of life. No more table tennis, but much to remember. So, here. let me doff my cap to thee, Gerry Machang, …. Mike
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Chandre Dharmawardena … an original article …with highlighting imposed by The Editor. TPS
It is interesting to look at the agenda of the workshop held at GANNORUWA in August 1974 [see references below] and ask what questions (and topics) should have been raised at that time, in hindsight, in the context of a number of issues where the Mahaweli project went very badly wrong.
Although there are many issues to consider where the Mahaweli project made mistakes, I will here write on just one issue that led to the deaths of thousands of farmers, beginning from late 1990s, initially mostly in the Mahaweli C project area (I think).
The map is adapted from Balasooriya et al 2020.
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AGRICULTURE IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA’ … conference organised by the Ceylon Studies Seminar ……16th – 19th August, 1974 …… at the In Service Training Centre, Gannoruwa
** The times of the mid-morning and afternoon tea-breaks will be announced each day.
** The names of the chairman and the discussant for each session will be indicated in a list which will be circulated later.
** The two papers marked with an asterisk may not be available for discussion.
A symbolic natural phenomenon from the Peradeniya University campus …. anticipaing potential prospects from the intellectual flowerings generated within its portals
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Nihal Perera, whose chapter 16 is entitled “From colonial outpost to indigenous kleptocratic city”
ABSTRACT : This chapter maps out the trajectory of the production, reproduction, and transformation of Colombo through colonial, post-colonial, neoliberal, and kleptocratic periods. Created as part of a European-imperial system of cities, Colombo’s identity is tied to larger systems of cities. Using the threshold between the city and outside to look from inside, the chapter approaches the story of Colombo more from indigenous and local people’s vantage points and perspectives, acknowledging and adapting significant local interpretations. The discussion focuses the neoliberal and kleptocratic periods. The neoliberals transformed the city’s form to attract foreign investment, shifting the purpose of planning to finding sites for investors, and enabling growth. Replacing investment for development with growth for investment, the kleptocrats intensified the movement of money and intercepted the circuits at the state level, via the government. They allow individual projects to shape the city. Colombo’s subjects have incrementally transformed it, by living and familiarising it. The layers of society and space created by these processes contest, cooperate, and entangle with each other in the form of cascades, generating new elements.
Figure 16.1 Colombo as part of the Portuguese Indian-ocean space .... Source: Perera (1998), drawn by Ashra Wickramathilaka.
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Michael Roberts
The library at Adelaide Univeristy is known as the BARR-SMITH LIBRARY. The staff in the “Special Collections” within the library over the years have been especially helpful over a long period and were hands-on central in organising the Roberts Oral History Project from the 1980s and subsequently (see https://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/special/mss/roberts/).
But it is by pure chance that I came across a document penned in my hand detailing the stock of manuscripts and photocopied material that I had placed within the Special Collections –maybe because our home is adjacent to a National Park and within a high fire-risk arena.
Let me assure all ye readers that I have been stunned by some of the items that I have collected –some of them original Mss items; with the others being copies. but the main point is that some of these copies reproduce very rare items. Moreover, I find that the range and type of items placed within the realm of the Barr-Smith are quite astonishing. It remains to be seen whether readers and investigators of the past accept that evaluation. I should add that I will be among the personnel delving into some of the data within this stock; but I do not have long to live…..and this stock is there for posterity.
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Á Booklet by Stanley J. Sparkes and Anna Shnukal entitled The Sri Lankan Settlers of Thursday Island …. presented by …………….. httpsy ://www.elanka.com.au/the-sri-lankan-settlers-of-thursday-island-by-stanley-j-sparkes-and-anna-shnukal/
... I regret that the pictorial illustrations with this text proved obdurate and refused replication; while the whole process of reproduction was difficult”–Thupahiyaa
Introduction
The dismantling of the White Australia Policy in the early 1970s, allied with periodic civil strife in their homeland, brought significant numbers of Sri Lankan immigrants to Australia. Few Australians, however, are aware that, a century before, hundreds of mostly male ‘Cingalese’ (as Sri Lankans were then called),2 mainly from the southern coastal districts of Galle and Matara in the British colony of Ceylon, came as labourers to the British colony of Queensland.3 The first of these arrived independently in the 1870s to join the Torres Strait pearling fleets, but larger numbers were brought to Queensland a decade later as indentured (contract) seamen on Thursday Island and, shortly thereafter, as farm workers for the cane fields around Mackay and Bundaberg, where many of their descendants still live. The arrival of the first batch of 25 indentured Sri Lankan seamen on Thursday Island in 1882 coincided with the importation of ‘Malays’ and Japanese. Yet, unlike the latter, comparatively little has been published on their origins, lives and destinies, nor their contributions to the business, social and cultural life of Thursday Island. Some of those first arrivals demonstrated a remarkable entrepreneurial flair, taking up employment as ‘watermen’ (boatmen), ferrying passengers and cargo from ship to shore and subsequently taking out licences as small businessmen: boarding-house keepers, billiard-room proprietors, shopkeepers, pawnbrokers, boat-owners, gem and curio hawkers and commercial fishermen.
VISIT THIS SITE FOR MAP etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday_Island
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Go to …. https://itihas.lk/contact/ … Note that the presentation here is a re-cast selection by The Editor of Thuppahi who has also imposed his colourings on the text
Itihas aims to equip Sri Lankan youth with the ability to think critically about their past, present, and future. It specifically aims to debunk mythological understandings of history that afford to particular ethno-religious groups a sense of superiority or authenticity over others. Rather than acting as a gatekeeper of knowledge, Itihas seeks to empower future generations of students, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to learn about, research, and make informed decisions on divisive issues such as conflict, discrimination and violence in a manner that advances a more inclusive Sri Lanka.
Photo by Tashiya De Mel
Itihas – Advancing history education reform in Sri Lanka
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Michael Roberts presenting the Synopsis of an Article published after a refereeing process in the journal NATIONALISM and ETHNIC POLITICS Vol 9/3 Summer 2003, pp. 75-102
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Item in the Daily Mirror, 18 May 2024
A situation has arisen where getting the participation of elephants at both peraheras has become a problem due to the holding of the Ratnapura Maha Saman Devalaya Perahera and the Kandy Esala Perahera on the same day, Sri Dalada Maligawa Diyawadana Nilame Pradeep Nilanga Dela said.
He told the Daily Mirror that at least 60 elephants will be able to participate in the Kandy Esala Perahera this year. During previous Kandy Esala Perahera seasons, 75 elephants participated, he said.
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Lakshman Gunasekara. in Daily News, 30 April 2024, where the chosen title is “Russia advances as NATO stingy wit Ukraine aid” …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Ukrainians are realising with horror that their Western “allies” are de-prioritising their war with Russia as the Palestine war and West Asian flare-ups keep the Western power bloc focused on sustaining tiny client Israel. The United States alone has so far provided Ukraine with military aid worth US$ 44 billion since the Russian invasion of Ukraine but that is small compared with the West’s pampering of Israel.
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thuppahi
