FactCheck at http://factcheck.lk/claim/udaya-gammanpila-10
[According to Article 7 of the constitution] Sri Lanka’s national anthem is “Sri Lanka Maatha“… if anything other than the words of “Sri Lanka Maatha” contained in the third schedule is considered to be the national anthem, it would be a violation of the constitution.
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ACL Ameer Ali, in Daily FT, 20 December 2019, where the title is “GR’s political exclusion and economic inclusion”
“There should be a huge program to make them (bhikkus) aware of what a modern state is. This has to be a secular state and politicians – not monks – should make the decisions. We have not fully developed the idea or understanding of the modern state. Religion should not be a factor… Buddhism is myself, and how I treat you…” – Ven. Galkande Dhammananda Thera, 18 July 2006.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (PGR) appears to have found a magic solution to the national question of ethnic division and religious turbulence in Sri Lanka, a solution that somehow seems to have escaped the minds of previous political leaders and social scientists. He consistently maintained that the majority is against devolution of power to north and east.
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THESE are Email Exchanges amongst Personnel in the Rajeewa Jayaweera Circle — mostly hostile to the messy politics of the Yahapaalana Era, 2015-19 …. with highlighting emphasis being the imprint of The Editor, Thuppahi
A = Prithi Perera to the Jayaweera Circle, 21 November 2019
Thank you Rajeewa for the most useful tabulation. Much pains taking and time would have gone into it.
The following are my observations;
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CA Chandraprema in Sunday Observer 13/10/19
The TNA is facing an existential conundrum at this election. In 2015, they went all out to make the common candidate win and gave all kinds of unrealistic pledges to the Tamil people of the north and east as to what can be expected by making Maithripala Sirisena President. But after he was elected, the Tamil people got nothing of what was promised and instead lost even what they had in the form of all the work that the Rajapaksa government had done or were in the process of doing in the north and east. Understandably, the people of the area are holding the TNA responsible and between the parliamentary election of 2015 and the local government elections of 2018, the TNA’s votes in the Jaffna and Batticaloia districts went down drastically.
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Anurudha Kodagoda in Sunday Observer, 6 October 2019, reviewing Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s TEARS IN PARADISE
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s latest documentary film, ‘Tears in Paradise’ (Paradisayaka Kadulu), consists of the political history of Sri Lanka from the assassination of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to the 1983 Black July, emphasizing the dark history of violence released by the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnicity of the country with the patronage of the Sri Lankan Government which was in power at that time.
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Press Release from the ICES at Kandy
The ceremonial launch of two publications of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES, Kandy) titled, respectively, as The Life of D. S. Senanayake (1884-1952): Sri Lanka’s First Prime Minister, by Prof. K. M. de Silva, and its Sinhala version, D.S: Sri Lankaway Prathama Agraamaathya, by Professor K. N. O. Dharmadasa, was held in Kandy on 3 October 2019 in the presence of a large gathering invited by Prof. Upul Dissanayake, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya, who sponsored the event in collaboration with the staff of the ICES.
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Thanks for sharing the very informative map — in your piece “Dark Nights in Sri Lanka: The Incidence and Spread of Electricity.”[2] The relative deprivation of north outside the Jaffna Peninsula is striking but not surprising. Sparse population, poverty and the war are key explanatory factors. Economics plays a role to the extent that the overhead cost of supplying a single dwelling or a business in these areas will be higher than in more densely populated areas and the expected income for the CEB lower. The solution is a government subsidy for the CEB. My understanding is that such a subsidization has been government policy for a long time. The social benefits are substantial and in the long term it pays off economically as well.
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Dr. Rajasingham Narendran, in Sri Lanka Guardian, 7 February 2009, where the title is “Rise and Fall of the LTTE – An Overview” …. with highlighting emphasis being impositions by The Editor, Thuppahi
Sri Lankan armed forces have almost ended the capacity of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) to engage in conventional war in the near future. They may also succeed in severely curtailing attempts by the LTTE to resort to sabotage, terrorism and socio-economic disruptions, subsequently. They have also recovered almost the entirety of the territory once held by the LTTE. These achievements, contrary to the expectations of many, have not only attracted the attention of the world, but also its implicit support. However, the plight of the 250,000 Tamil civilians, believed held by the LTTE in the jungles of Mullaitivu is weighing heavy on the world’s conscience. How the Sri Lankan government and armed forces will deal with the issue of these civilians, is being scrutinized closely by a concerned world and the Tamil-speaking people at large.
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Edward Upali in Canada, via Email Memo to Thuppahi, September 2019**
In his opinion piece on the Presidential Stakes Jehan Perera (JP) evaluates three of the more likely candidates at the next Presidential Election in Sri Lanka (SL). However, I have some concerns relative to the criteria he uses to evaluate the prospective candidates. It is a common practice in Problem Solving, to use the same criteria to all alternatives and score them to choose the best solution. However, JP who claims to be a lawyer by training, appears to use several sets of criteria /attributes to evaluate three prospective Presidential Candidates.
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Jehan Perera, in The Island, 26 August 2019, with this title “A Presidential Candidate the People want”
The main opposition party, the SLPP, was the quickest off the mark to propose its candidate. Their candidate, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has the advantage of being both a known and unknown quantity. On the one hand, he is known as being one of the primary architects of the military defeat of the LTTE, once believed to be an undefeatable politico-military force and enjoying local and transnational support. On the other hand, as a former army officer and public servant, his performance as a politician is untested and unknown. In the context of the widespread disillusionment against established politicians, this is an advantage to which the SLPP’s political opponents need to find an answer.
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