Category Archives: tolerance

Confronting Transgender Issues in Sri Lanka

Michael Patrick O’Leary, in The Island, 12 March 2023, where the title reads  “Time to Think Part One”

Transgender Issues in Sri Lanka:

Sri Lanka’s first president, JR Jayewardene, famously boasted that the newly-created executive presidency gave him the power, “to do anything, except make a man a woman, or a woman a man”. Today, there is much conflict in many countries about making a man a woman or a woman a man. The issue recently contributed to the downfall of Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who had seemed unassailable. In Ireland, the government is under attack because the Equalities Minister, Roderic O’Gorman, has been siphoning money off to trans activist groups that had been earmarked for the Traveller and Roma communities, migrant integration and redress for children who had been abused by the state and the church. There are some who believe that if a man says he is woman – “self-identifies” as a woman – then he is, indeed, a woman. Wishing makes it so. Those who dispute this are labeled “transphobic” and are brutally attacked in the trans wars. JK Rowling has been vilified simply for saying a man cannot be a woman.

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Australia’s Policy towards Sri Lankan Refugee Migrants after the Civil War

Judith Betts & Claire Higgins: The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: A Historical Case Study with Contemporary Implications”  …. an article pubd on 16th May 2017 …. see https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.181 **

Abstract: Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted almost 26 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Since the end of the war in 2009, several thousand asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have sought protection in Australia, but both Labor and Liberal/National Coalition governments have taken a restrictive approach to their arrival and have expressed support for the Sri Lankan government. This article explores Australia’s response to the protection needs of Sri Lankans during an earlier era, at the outbreak of the war in 1983, when a Labor government processed Tamils ‘in-country’ under Australia’s Special Humanitarian Program.

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For Sri Lanka: February Newsletter from eLanka

eLanka Newsletter 8 February 2023 …. presented here by Thuppahi because eLanka is a patriotic cause located in Australia working for the island and all its peoples in their considerable variety.  eLanka also offers to deliver gift packs to residents or insitituions and charities in the island….. visit Elanka … newsletter@elanka.com.au>

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Lanka’s Independence Day Gathering in Adelaide in Pictures

Bandula Alahakoon has professionally captured the Independence Day Celebrations held at a Community Centre in Hectorville, Adelaide on Saturday 4th February with Dr Charitha Perera (Hony Consul), Nayan Perera (servingas compere) and such personnel as Nazli Farook and Mano Ransoma supporting the organising work and marshalling of ‘troops’.

 

 

 

 

 

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ECSAT’s Charitable Work with Disabled Children Secures Awards in 2022

The Annual Report for 2022 presented by ECSAT  ... with some of the photographs attached to this report & highlighting emphasis imposed by The  Editor, Thuppahi

An Award in 2022: The Programme Director Roshan Samarawickrama is seen receiving the award on behalf of ECSAT for The Best Skill Development Centre for Children with Disabilities in Sri Lanka from the State Minister of Primary Health Care Dr. Sudarshani Fernandopulle. After 16 years ECSAT received this recognition which added great value to the reputation of the organisation.

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Karunatilaka’s Booker Prize Explorations of the Sri Lankan World

Sam King in The Weekend Australian, 29 January 2023, where the title reads thus “Exploring the Boundaries” …. with highlighting emphasis imposed by the Editor, Thuppahi

Don’t let Shehan Karunatilaka sell himself short. “Until a month ago, I was just a dude who wrote a cricket book in 2010,” he says. That cricket book was Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, declared one of the best cricket books of all time by cricketing authority Wisden. But it’s his latest effort, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Allen & Unwin) that has, in his words, changed everything.

The book started life as Chats With The Dead, which struggled to find a publisher outside the Indian subcontinent. After spending two years reworking it, Karunatilaka emerged with the novel that went on to pick up the 2022 Booker Prize. A surreal tale of life after death set during the 1980s and the Sri Lankan civil war, the ambitious cocktail of political thriller, murder mystery, ghost story and historical novel is brought together by Karunatilaka’s sizzling wit.

 

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Some Presentations on Independence Day in the Past in Thuppahi

Anusha Palpita in 2016: Independence Day in Black and White Video,” 20 July 2020, https://thuppahis.com/2020/07/30/independence-day-1949-in-black-and-white-video/

Thuppahi 2022: ….. https://thuppahis.com/2022/11/21/eureka-the-film-clip-of-the-1949-independence-day-festivities-secured/

KLF Wijedasa: “A Symbolic Moment of Ethnic Oneness,” 4 February 2021, https://thuppahis.com/2021/02/04/a-symbolic-moment-of-ethnic-oneness-at-independence-day-4-february-1948/

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A Royal-Thomian Cricket Match Remembered Not Only for the Cricket

Hugh Karunanayake

                                               “Oft in the stilly night

                                                Ere slumber’s chains has bound me

                                                Fond memory brings the light

                                                Of other days around me

                                               The smiles, the tears,

                                               Of boyhood years”  

The Royal Thomian match of 1951 will for long be remembered for its nail-biting finish, and for the manner in which the Royal College team led by skipper T. Vairavanathan  extracted a victory from the jaws of defeat. It will certainly occupy a top position in the history of the series, the second oldest school cricket encounter in the world, (the first game being played in 1880).

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A Mid-Pitch Telegram for Don Bradman

Des Collins

A pause in play as Sir Don Bradman receives a telegram  while batting for the Australians  Worcestershire in April, 1938  

Such interruptions were pretty common back then.

Hampshire’s Lionel Tennyson, during his captaincy days, used telegrams to give his batsmen instructions during games!

Much better than using sandpaper for ball tampering instructions by the Aussies.

 

 

 

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The Power of Privilege: Illegitimate Progeny in the Plantations of Ceylon and Beyond

An EMAIL MEMO from RICHARD HERMON to His Good Friend ERROL FERNANDO, Circa 9 December 2022*++*

Dear Errol,

As a Eurasian myself on both sides, since both my Grandfathers were Brits and both my Grandmothers were Sinhalese: one Kandyan from Welimada, and one Low-Country from Baddegama to whom both my grandfathers were married.

 

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