Category Archives: sri lankan society

October 10, 2021 · 7:36 pm

Revd Ernest Poruthota in Q and A on His Life’s Work

Avishka Mario Senewiratne in Q and A with Fr Poruthota (1931-2020) ………… Interview in  May 2018 and originally published in the Messenger, May, 27, 2018. 

Today the Messenger carries a very special and exclusive interview with one of the most senior and popular priests in the Archdiocese of Colombo, Rev. Fr. Ernest Poruthota. Since his ordination in 1957, Fr. Poruthota has served in ten parishes in different parts of the Archdiocese.  As Asst. Parish Priest in Kotahena (1957-59), Moratuwa (1959-60), Pamunugama (1960), Dehiwala (1960-62) and Parish Priest in Dehiyagatha (1962-66), Kelaniya (1967-74), Kalamulla (1974-82), Kotte (1982-87), Wattala (1991-1997), Dehiwala (1997-2004), Kirimatiyagara (2004-2011). Apart from Parishes he has served as the Chaplain of lay Apostolate (1966-67), Director PMS (1971-74), Chaplain YCW, CWM (1983-87), Dean of Colombo (1987-91).

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October 10, 2021 · 6:51 pm

Scilla Alecci’s Scurrilous Failure

Gerald Peiris

What causes more surprise than all else in the recently published ‘Pandora exposures’, supposedly produced through intensive investigations conducted worldwide by a Washington-based outfit named the ‘International Consortium of Investigative Journalism/ICIJ)’ on shady transactions by those at political and business elite levels is that, among many thousands of such exposures, there is only one from Sri Lanka, attributed to a relatively minor political leader having kinship ties with the two Rajapakshas – Mahinda and his brother Gotabhaya, presently at the apex of the government of Sri Lanka – and her husband, a person who, despite being wealthy, has somehow maintained relatively low profile in Sri Lankan affairs.

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October 8, 2021 · 7:44 pm

Thiru Nadesan & Nirupama Rajapaksa’s Shady Dealings?

 Scilla Alecci, in Pandora Papers, where the title is longggggggggggggg …… https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/sri-lanka-rajapaksa-family-offshore-wealth-power/

In early 2018, workers in a London warehouse carefully loaded an oil painting of Lakshmi, the Hindu deity of wealth, onto a van bound for Switzerland. The painting, by 19th-century Indian master Raja Ravi Varma, depicts the four-armed goddess clad in a red sari with gold ornaments and standing atop a lotus flower. It was one of 31 works of art, altogether worth nearly $1 million, that were being shipped to the Geneva Freeport in Switzerland. That vast, ultra-secure warehouse complex, larger than 20 soccer fields, stores among its many treasures what the BBC once called “the greatest art collection no one can see.”

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October 7, 2021 · 11:37 pm

Secessionist War and Terrorism in Sri Lanka: Transnatonal Impulses

Gerald H Peiris, being an article presented at an international conference held in New Delhi in October 2001 under the sponsorship of the Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management. It has since then been published as a chapter in The Global Threat of Terror: Ideological, Material and Political Linkages, eds. K P S Gill & Ajai Sahni of the same institute….. with highlighting in black being the work of Peiris and that in red the hand of The Editor, Thuppahi

LTTE leaders at Sirumalai camp, Tamil Nadu, India in 1984 while theywere being trained by RAW (from L to R, weapon carrying is included within brackets) – Lingam; Prabhakaran’s bodyguard (Hungarian AK), Batticaloa commander Aruna (Beretta Model 38 SMG), LTTE founder-leader Prabhakaran (pistol), Trincomalee commander Pulendran (AK-47), Mannar commander Victor (M203) and Chief of Intelligence Pottu Amman (M 16).

The LTTE carried out its first major attack[44] on 23 July 1983, when they ambushed Sri Lanka Army patrol Four Four Bravo at Thirunelveli,

Introduction: The campaign led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the creation of a Tamil nation state consisting of the northern, northwestern and eastern parts of the island of Sri Lanka is financed in various ways which include donations from individual benefactors, private organisations, and, on a few occasions, foreign governments; extortion from its captive/pliant Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and abroad; smuggling of narcotics and weapons; trafficking in refugees; and forging currency, credit cards and travel documents.

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October 4, 2021 · 11:30 pm

Melathi Saldin’s Essay ….. and a Sharp Denunciation ….

A  NOTE: The engine ACADEMIA sends me copies of articles relating to my Sri Lankan interests. The item presented below is a new phenomenon seeking to stimulate discussion directed towards cross-ethnic harmony. Whether such objectives can be served in the midst of the cut-and-thrust and slashing of throats by dedicated advocates of THIS or THAT cause is a question one must address when reading the commentary that follows. The HIGHLIGHTED EMPHASIS is my imposition. 

Dear Michael,

Reminder: You’ve been invited to join the Discussion of Melathi Saldin‘s paper “Pushing Boundaries Heritage resilience of minority communities in post war Sri Lanka”.You have been invited either because you are following Melathi Saldin or because Academia thinks you’d be interested based on the overlap between this paper and what you read and write on Academia. Since the Discussion started 4 days ago, there have been 12 comments and 22 participants.

 Melathi

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October 3, 2021 · 7:43 pm

Duleep Mendis’s Wide-ranging Career in Cricket

Rex Clementine, in The Island, 3 October 2021, where the title reads “Beware of Dulla”

Amal Silva spoke little English those days. During the Lord’s Test in 1984, when Ian Botham said not so complementary things about Amal’s mother, the opening bat was asking the non-striker and captain Duleep Mendis what’s going on. Both Moratuwa boys, they were playing contrasting knocks. Amal took 255 balls for his hundred while Duleep raced to 94 in 97 balls. The latter was dealing in boundaries particularly targeting Mr. Botham. That the golden boy of English cricket ended up bowling off-spin in that game is a little known fact. That’s Duleep. Never cross his path.

  Duleep aka “Dulla” today

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October 3, 2021 · 6:59 pm

An Orphaned Lad emerges as Cricketing Prospect for Sri Lanka

Rex Clementine, in The Island, 3 October 2021, where the title is different

At the age of 28, Pulina Tharanga is on the verge of representing Sri Lanka. A leg-spinner, who is handy with the bat and excellent on the field, will soon make the headlines all over the world. His Steve Waugh like guts, the never say die attitude, is what that has impressed the coaches most. Like most southerners, he has inherited it by birth. Or perhaps he has developed the toughness more than the other southerners. Life threw challenges one after the other at him. Here’s his story.

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October 3, 2021 · 5:06 pm

Reflections on the Commentary on “Sinhala Mindset”

Michael Roberts

When I set up the THUPPAHI WEBSITE in late 2009 I imprinted two project statements: one entitled “WHY THUPPAHI”;[1] the other bearing the heading ‘SINHALA MINDSET.” Readers can access these two items via the sub-headings within the website – so I will not reiterate the latter here.

This set of project statements was crafted after the LTTE-led drive to create an independent SL Tamil nation state had been defeated over the course of Eelam War IV. I had been in Colombo from April-mid-June 2009, so I had vivid experiences of the last stages of this ‘encounter’ and the triumphant sentiments expressed in the Colombo area when the war was won. More vitally, I had been commissioned by Muralidhar Reddy,[2] the correspondent from the Hindu newspaper chain based in Colombo to present analytic essays for their magazine FRONTLINE.

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October 3, 2021 · 1:06 pm

Soaring Thoughts at Ratmalana Airport

Roger Thiedeman

This article is adapted from the original published in the Sri Lanka Sunday Times on November 23, 1997 (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/971123/plus10.html) under the title [listed at the end of this presentation]. The title initially submitted, ‘Reminiscing at Ratmalana’, was changed at the whim of an anonymous Sunday Times sub-editor.

In August this year I stood outside the Ratmalana airbase and watched a Sri Lanka Air Force Antonov An-32B take off. As the transport aircraft soared aloft in a climbing turn towards the north, my memories and imagination also took flight.

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October 3, 2021 · 12:14 am

Pablo Neruda in British Ceylon: Literary and Sexual Flowerings in Wellawatte and Beyond

  Jamie James, initially presented in Literary Hub, 3 June 2019, with this title “Pablo Neruda’s Life as a Struggling Poet in Sri Lanka: A Young Poet’s Adventures in the Foreign Service”

At 22, Pablo Neruda was an international literary celebrity—and desperately poor. His second book, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, had been a sensational success and would eventually become one of the bestselling books of poetry in the 20th century (more than 20 million copies to date), but he was paid almost nothing for it. He was a student at the Universidad de Santiago in Chile, and hunger was an issue; he wore a billowing cape to conceal his emaciated physique and a wide-brimmed hat that hoped for an air of mystery.

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