Carly Minsky, 27 January 2016, where the title is “: The Father of Sri Lankan Architecture”
Geoffrey Bawa–Courtesy of Geoffrey Bawa Trust
In a country that has been colonized by the Dutch and the British, ravaged by civil war and devastated by natural disaster, one man has had the single greatest impact on independent Sri Lanka’s landscape: Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka’s most prolific and important architect. Carly Minsky explores his life and work. Continue reading
Ross Velton, BBC news, 1 February 2016, at … where the title is “The country that supplies eyes”
To restore sight to damaged eyes, doctors often need to transplant the cornea – the transparent covering of the iris and the pupil – from a donor’s dead body. There is a worldwide shortage, but one country, Sri Lanka, is doing its best to satisfy demand, without seeking any reward – at least in this life. Bandages cover Paramon Malingam’s right eye. A tear appears in the left one. It is the relief of a very lucky man. “I thought I was going to live the rest of my life with one eye,” he says. Thirteen years ago, Malingam, a shop owner from central Sri Lanka, cut his eye with steel wire. Last year, he injured the same eye with a piece of wood. After both accidents, a new cornea from a donor saved his sight. 
Continue reading
Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 9 February 2016, where the title is “Near and Explosive Danger. The Sinha-Lē Campaign and Those Crusading Righteous” … and where the Footnotes could not be inserted for technical reasons … and where you will find the usual array of caustic comments**
I recently received (unsolicited) a series of images presenting striking scenes of the Sinha-Lē protests against the denigration of Sri Lanka and the threats (imagined and real) looming over the island from the pressures of the (so-called) “international community.” These demonstrations intertwine with the emergence of a front dedicated to “the defence of the motherland,” namely the mawbima suräkīmu organization, which has its very own web site where an evocative line from a poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller is deployed to back this clarion call: “it does not matter as to what race, creed, color or religion you belong to — it is your bounden duty to protect our Motherland with all the sinews in your body.”
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Tamara Kunanayakam, in The Island, 8 February 2016, where the title is “Sri Lanka, not Sri Lankans, the OHCHR agenda“It should by now be obvious to any keen observer of events in Geneva and vacillations of Sri Lanka’s ruling class that the ‘human rights’ game being played out has little to do with the Sri Lankan people and everything to do with the island’s strategic location on the Indian Ocean as vital maritime link between a declining West and a rising East, with China at its centre, and strategic observation post, and with Washington’s fundamental commitment to maintaining a unipolar world in which it has no peer competitor. Sri Lankans matter only insofar as they constitute obstacles to that goal, or would-be collaborators, or opportune victims to be used and abused as and when strategy requires. Continue reading
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Capt Elmo Jayawardena
Recently I read in the Sunday Times that four Domestic Airports currently under the Airforce management will be handed over to the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL.) This prompted me to write something about airports. The intention is to share what little I know about these matters with my fellow Sri Lankans whose money is what pays for all the decisions that are made, airports and otherwise. Like the time when all roads led to Rome, nowadays all decisions come down from Diyawanna Oya. Continue reading
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Diplomatic Editor, Sunday Times, 7 February 2016, where the title is “Geneva issue: Govt. earmarks 11-member Task Force”
Manouri Muttetuwegama
An eleven-member Consultation Task Force will enforce provisions of the US-backed resolution which was jointly sponsored by Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council in Geneva last year. Its work will be carried out with the help of a UN expert who will arrive in Colombo next week. He is Pablo de Greiff, Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence. This will be part of an Action Plan formulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as stated in a confidential document circulated to Western countries and India as part of the implementation of the UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council) Resolution titled promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka adopted by the UNHRC in October, 2015.
The framework for the consultation process, already formulated, will have two phases — a web-based process in all languages and a face-to-face consultation process which will focus on specific stakeholders –including children, military, disabled combatants, widows and ex-child combatants. The web-based process will begin after Mr. de Greiff arrives.
According to the Action Plan, the consultation process will be “victim centric” and will be completed within three months. The 11-member Committee named by the Government comprises Manouri Muttetuwegama (Chairperson), Dr. Pakiasothy Saravanamuthu (Secretary), Gamini Viyangoda, Prof. Chitralekha Maunaguru, Visakha Dharmadasa, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Dr Farzana Haniffa, Shantha Abhimanasingham PC, Mirak Raheem, Prof. Daya Somasunderam and Gameela Samarasinghe. Continue reading
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Memehunter, in an article presented on 29 October 2012, entitled “The Mont Pèlerin Society: The Ultimate Neoliberal Trojan Horse”…. Far from being merely a “debate club”, the Mont Pèlerin Society is an elite globalist organization that played a leading role in shaping the economic policies of several countries and in creating numerous think-tanks devoted to propagating the theories of the Chicago and Austrian schools of economics. In this article, Memehunter delves into the origins and goals of the MPS, and analyzes its impact on postwar economic policies.
… https://www.montpelerin.org/statement-of-aims/ …
The globalist origins of the Mont Pèlerin Society: Lippmann, Rappard, and Rockefeller money: Although the birth of the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) officially took place in 1947, its conception can be traced back to 1938. Capitalizing on American journalist Walter Lippmann’s visit to Paris, French right-wing philosopher Louis Rougier decided to organize a “Walter Lippmann Colloquium” (WLC) that would build upon the ideas presented in Lippmann’s recent book The Good Society and promote the neoliberal ideology that was threatened by the emergence of fascist and communist regimes in Europe. Continue reading
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With local council elections only six months away, according to his own agenda, President Maithripala Sirisena dropped a bombshell last week.
He declared that foreign judges and prosecutors should not be involved in investigations into allegations of war crimes by troops and Tiger guerrillas. It was only a week earlier he declared that local polls would be held in July. There is still some doubt on the date. The Delimitation Commission would have to first re-define boundaries of some local bodies. Thereafter, several amendments to local government laws will have to be passed by Parliament. One such amendment is to make provision for an increase in representation of women. Continue reading
Che Guevera, Fidel Castro’s right hand man during the revolution in Cuba to oust Batista and who is now a legend, visited Ceylon in August 1959. Castro sent him to the many countries that used to import sugar from Cuba, to maintain their relationship with importers. During his trip to Ceylon he also visited a rubber estate in Horana, where he planted a rubber tree. Continue reading
The Sri Lankan contingent in the annual AUSTRALIA DAY Parade in Adelaide on 26th January 2016 won the award for the “Most Creative Presentation.” This presentation and its format was organised by the newly-formed SL Association of South Australia. The Sri Lankan Tusker, a masterpiece, was created by the very talented artist Mr Priyantha Peiris. Needless to say there were also dance troupes and drummers. A note and an “appeal” from Dr. Sarath Senadheera are presented below after the series of pictures.
thuppahi
