Michael Roberts
SYDNEY to ADELAIDE: Having been informed on Thursday night that I had no Covid and would receive CLEARANCE I proceeded to pack and on FRIDAY the 1st October confirmed my ticket booking to Adelaide that afternoon on JETSTAR [an airline which permitted extra luggage].
Shenali Waduge. in an article presented in June 2018 and entitled “LTTE village & a Sri Lankan Military Officer show the world what Reconciliation & Peaceful Coexistence is all about” …. ith highlighting emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi
It was a farewell that has shocked & left plenty of critics speechless. It has put to rest & completely nullified the lies that have been spread against Sri Lanka’s Army. The culprits include foreign governments/envoys, INGOs/NGOs, UN & even the present government in particular the Tamil leadership & the LTTE diaspora who must be startled at the pictures emerging of an entire village weeping as they bid farewell to a military officer who had played the role of their mentor, their father, their brother, their advisor & virtually their leader. Col. Rathnapriya Bandu has done what Prabakaran, Wigneswaran, Sivajilingam, Sumbanthiran, Sambanthan or even Tamil Nadu politicians could not do & do not want to do. In a world that plays divisive politics of divide & rule he has shown that it takes a hero to unite & Col. Bandu is one hero that we must all salute. No former LTTE village would ever carry a Sri Lankan Military officer on their shoulders & weep as he bid goodbye if he was no hero in their eyes.
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Michael Roberts
There are children who cannot walk and are totally dependent on family and others. When such families are encased in poverty as working-class people, their lot is that much harder. ECSAT assists a few of these families in the locality of Galle Town. I joined Roshan and Kumari Kariyawasam on one of their outreach visits (with Roshan’s daughter Padani as company) one morning in August 2020.
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Michael Roberts
In late 2018 I met Roshan Samarawickrema at Flinders University via my daughter Maya who is a senior staff officer there. Roshan had arrived to further studies in Disability Teaching. Via the vagaries of the covid endemic both of us found ourselves in good old Lanka in the second quarter of the year. A visit to my home beat of Galle Fort[1] in July-August enabled me to explore and ‘experience’ the work of ECSAT at its HQ in the old “Serasinghe Walauwwa” building at Wackwella [albeit in covid circumstances whereby school attendance was drastically low]. My readings via picture and tale will follow. I begin here with Roshan’s introduction to ECSAT with due emphasis on the initial impetus provided by Catherine Liyanage (nee Mole become Macleod).[2] …. Michael Roberts
ECSAT staff in 2020
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Michael Roberts
Apart from experiencing life in my old beats of Galle Fort when I sojourned there in late July-early August 2020, I took in the work at ECSAT. This was during an abnormal period when the handicapped personnel attending classes at the ECSAT centre in Wackwella, Galle, were miniscule because of the covid-pandemic and government regulations. My amateur photographs (some in other Thuppahi postings) will nevertheless provide readers with some sense of place, scale and personnel.
A teaching session (which happened to have as many teachers as students) displayed the practiced vigour and unison with which the teaching staff engaged the students with lessons via song. Elsewhere there were one-on-one teaching processes. I was particularly impressed by the totally engaged joy with which an autistic young man (a tinker by trade as I gathered) was pursuing his tasks at a table whenever I visited that arena.
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Andrew Fidel Fernando. in Cricket Monthly within ESPNcricinfo, 11 August 2020, where the title runs “Growing up with Murali,”
Ten years after he retired, a reflection on what Muttiah Muralitharan has meant – and means – to a nation
Before I watched an umpire no-ball Muttiah Muralitharan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, I had no idea that cricket mattered.
Security personnel and spectators look on next to a giant cutout of Sri Lankan spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan erected on a 17th century Dutch-built fortress during the third day of the first test cricket match between India and Sri Lanka in Galle, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, July 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
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An Anonymous Collective of Concerned Citizen Retirees**
)This Memorandum is meant to Assist the Sri Lanka Government to face the Economic, Fiscal Policy and Social impacts due to COVID-19. This is a PUBLIC SERVICE by us for the benefit of the entire Country & its People. We would like the widest possible public discussion & debate of this Memorandum. Please forward this Document to ANY and ALL the Email Addresses, FaceBook Accounts, News Websites that you have contact with.
(2) Those among you who can do so, please Translate this Memo into SINHALA and TAMIL and then fwd it to your friends, Sinhala & Tamil Newspapers & Websites. We are unable to operate the Sinhala or Tamil Keyboard.
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…. and the Lambada on the Sands that paves the way
Rajeewa Jayaweera, in Sunday Island, 24 May 2020, with this title, “Lest we forget those who gave their tomorrow for others to have a tomorrow”
The high-profile commemorative event, held at the National War Heroes’ Monument, in Battaramulla, came as a breath of fresh air after the absence of an event on such a scale for five years. It was also the 11th anniversary of this nation’s victory over terrorism. Justification for the use of the word ‘victory,’ decried by some, is provided later.
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thuppahi
