Category Archives: the imaginary and the real

Where No Woman is Kota Uda

…. and where one is at ease in the company of the Birds and the Bees                                                                                                           
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Amnesty International’s Machinations reach Hong Kong?

A Sri Lankan Diplomat

The tale of AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’s operations vis a vis Hong Kong today runs parallel to the scenario that unfolded in Sri Lanka. There the campaign commenced some years back and reached its peak in whitewashing the LTTE and later spun along just before the aragalaya took off. The AI sleuths were in place when those protests were engineered in Sri Lanka.

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Caste & Politics in the Sri Lankan Tamil World

Robert Siddharthan Perinpanayagam, in Groundviews, 22 August 2011, where the title reads “Caste And Politics” …. An article that drew 19 comments including some responses from “Sid”… reproduced here with highlighting imposed by The Editor in circumstances where my friend “Sid” from Peradeniya  days is no longer around to dispute matters … as he surely would have.

Over the years, the claims of the Tamil people for justice, equalty and dignity have been rejected with a variety of specious arguments. It is not necessary to go into these exercises here again. However, the latest attempt in this direction is to raise the issue of caste in Jaffna society. Former civil servants, who spent three or four years being de facto kings of the North, have sought to comment on this issue in many recent hero-stories that they have published in the newspapers. In these hero-stories they report not only how they defeated one departmental head or another or humiliated a hapless village headman, but how they vanquished the evil designs of the Tamils as well. Indeed everything seems to become grist to the mill of Tamil-bashing. Even a casual remark made in a cricket match is used by a famous historian to claim that the Tamils of Jaffna are cravenly caste-conscious. Off-the-cuff social commentators as well as the tribalist pundits in the newspapers have also got into this act. The implication of these commentaries is that the Sinhalese do not have the problem of castism and only Tamils do. One recent commentator is so ignorant of the political history of the island as to invoke Ponnambalam Ramanathan’s castism! It was indeed the fear of Karava ascendancy by the Goigamas that elevated Ramanathan to high stature by making him the representative of the “Educated Ceylonese” in the Legislative Council.

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Papua New Guinea drawn into Aussie-US War Plans against China

Paul Gregoire in Sydney with “Sydney Lawyers” at masthead and this title =  “AUKUS power are militárising Papua New Guinea in Preparation for War with China,” 16 May 2023, … ………………………. https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/aukus-powers-are-militarising-papua-new-guinea-in-preparation-for-war-with-china

Journalist John Pilger’s 2017 documentary The Coming War With China warned that the US had established a “perfect noose” of 400-odd military bases surrounding China, while former Australian PM Paul Keating recently asserted that the AUKUS deal makes us part of this “containment policy”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Combating The Damages of War & Accident: Artificial Limbs for One & All … In Lanka

CHRONOLOGY BACKWARDS

https://thuppahis.com/2021/07/24/dr-susiri-weerasekera-a-sturdy-servant-of-humankind/

https://thuppahis.com/2019/10/04/dr-susiri-weerasekera-a-man-for-all-seasons/

Dr Weerasekera standing 2nd from right facing us with a visiting dignitary at the Friend-in-Need Society building in Colombo Continue reading

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De Silva-Ranasinghe’s In-Depth Studies of the LTTE’s Downfall During Eelam War IV . A Bibliography

From Perth with Incisive Penetration: De Silva-Ranasinghe’s In-Depth Analysis of the LTTE’s Downfall During Eelam War IV …. A Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2009a “Political and Security Implications of Sri Lanka’s Armed Conflict,” Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, Feb.  2009, Vol. 35/1, pp. 20, 22-24.

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Aussie Reporters Shooting at the Moon

A Canary Club Reader  .… with highlighting emphasis inserted by The Editor, Thuppahi

Does Peter Hartcher understand anything? …..

Here, he begins by stating:  “In the time it takes to read this article, two more Russian soldiers will be killed”, without providing a shred of evidence to substantiate his claim. Based on leaked US military documents in April this year, the reality is that in the time it takes to read this article, 14 Ukrainian soldiers would have been killed. You’d have to read the article many times before a Russian is killed.

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The Paint Brush in Rebellious Stroke: The 43 Group from British Colonial Ceylon

Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 7 May 2023, where the title reads thus “Some Reflections on the 43 Group”

On August 29, 1943, the 43 Group was formed in Lionel Wendt’s house at 18 Guildford Crescent, Cinnamon Gardens. There are conflicting accounts of who took part in the first meeting and who did not. Lester James Peries remembered seeing George Keyt, Justin Daraniyagala, Geoffrey Beling, and Manjusri, while Richard Gabriel remembered coming across Daraniyagala, Beling, Lester Peries, Harry Pieris, and Ivan Peries. The minutes of the meeting, however, do not mention Keyt, Daraniyagala, Beling, and Manjusri, while Gabriel pointedly denied seeing Manjusri there.

 

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Oddities in Cricket History: Moments, Characters, Statistics in Pictorial Mode

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The Tale of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, 1987–1990  

Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF [retd] …. from ………… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Peace_Keeping_Force and Google Images

Introduction

The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was the Indian military contingent performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. It was formed under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord that aimed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military.

The main task of the IPKF was to disarm the different militant groups, not just the LTTE. It was to be quickly followed by the formation of an Interim Administrative Council. These were the tasks as per the terms of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, signed at the behest of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Given the escalation of the conflict in Sri Lanka, and with the pouring of refugees into India, Rajiv Gandhi took the decisive step to push this accord through. The IPKF was inducted into Sri Lanka on the request of Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene under the terms of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

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