A Note from Errol Fernando, early June 2025 **
Dear Michael, I listened to a very interesting interview on Late Night Live recently which dealt with the whole story of Merle Oberon and her genealogy. Please google Late Night Live and listen to this interview which tells you about her Sri Lankan mother, her efforts to hide her ethnicity, pretending that she was born in Tasmania, etc, etc.
Abbi Kanthasamy, … an item circulated by Charles Schokman of Australia, early June 2025, with this title “A Beacon Amidst the Bleeding: What Jaffna’s Doctors Taught Me About Life”
Dr Samuel Fiske GreenHarvard 2025 Graduation Speech: Chinese Student Yurong Jiang on Humanity and Shared Future …. https://youtu.be/6hoIEBv486E …
30 May 2025 …. At Harvard University’s 2025 graduation ceremony, Chinese graduate Yurong Jiang [delivered] a powerful message on global unity. Emphasizing that “humanity is a community with a shared future,” she reminds us that even those labeled as enemies are still human beings. Her words call for empathy, understanding, and a rethinking of division in our world.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES – APRIL 22: Views of Harvard University, an Ivy League University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Monday after the federal government said it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants and sought what university officials described as ‘unprecedented and improper’ control over the Ivy League institution. ‘The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,’ Harvard President Alan Garber said in a message Monday announcing the lawsuit. Last week, the Trump administration announced that it was freezing federal funding after the school refused to accept demands that the administration has said aim to address antisemitism on campus. Among the government’s demands were an audit of student body views and a ban on international students who are “hostile to the American values and institutions.” In Monday’s suit, the university argued that the funding freeze is not related to the administration’s antisemitism concerns. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A Film Documentary on the Kannagi – Pattini cult in Sri Lanka will be prsented at the Goethe Insitutute on the $th June eveningat 6.30 pm ….
This event is part of a series of initiatives marking the conclusion of the Strengthening Social Cohesion and Peace in Sri Lanka (SCOPE) programme, co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Foreign Office. The event will also be a part of the Film Forum at Goethe-Institut.
Mathew Maavak, whose favoured title for this piece is “University Inequality: The New Empire of Credentialed Elites”
In a move that ignited global uproar, President Donald J. Trump banned international students from Harvard, citing “national security” and ideological infiltration. The decision, widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America’s “intellectual leadership and soft power.” At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the United States.
Avishka Mario Seneviratne, in FACEBOOK, where the title runs thus: “Colvin vs. Jayasinghe: The Battle for Wellawatte–Galkissa, 1952 and Beyond”
In the early years of Sri Lanka’s post-independence democracy, few figures stood as tall—both intellectually and politically—as Dr. Colvin R. de Silva. A Marxist firebrand, brilliant lawyer, and founding member of the LSSP, he was famed for his thunderous oratory and razor-sharp debates in Parliament. But in the 1952 general election, following the sudden death of Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake, the winds shifted. Even as an MP, Colvin maintained a flourishing legal career and was widely regarded as one of the country’s top criminal lawyers. His most famous courtroom victory came when he was defending national cricket hero Mahadevan Sathasivam, accused of murdering his wife. Though doing only his job, the case left a bitter taste among many voters in Colvin’s own electorate, who saw the defense as ethically troubling. The middle-class Tamils, especially in Colombo and its suburbs felt uneasy with the case.
Filed under life stories, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people
Channa Wickremasekera in Facebook, … [where items disappear into the depths] … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
A close friend recently sent me the link to Louis Theroux’s documentary ‘The Settlers’. He was moved by it, he said. I was too, not only by the documentary, but also by the fact that my friend was moved. He is hard to move. He is very cynical about all the protests I go to. How many bombs have you stopped? He asks jokingly. He hates what Israel is doing in Gaza but he cannot see how ordinary people like him or me can change anything.
ITEM in Groundviews, 20 January 2011, entitled “Responding to a Facile Appeal: Galle Literary Festival and Freedom of Expression”
Michelle de Kretser signing. Photo by Sharni Jayawardena, courtesy Galle Literary FestivalThe Editors of Groundviews received via email this morning intimation of an international appeal made by Reporters Without Borders and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a network of exiled Sri Lankan journalists. The Galle literary festival appeal notes inter alia,
“We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country.”
Filed under life stories, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people
thuppahi
