Category Archives: trauma

August 24, 2025 · 2:03 pm

Reviving Australia’s Convict Past via AI

Tomos Morgan, BBC News, 19 August 2025, where  the title runs thus: “Faces of Welsh convicts sent to Australia recreated by AI” ++

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has helped researchers generate what they believe could have been the faces of Welsh convicts sent to Australia in the 19th century. The lives of 60 criminals deported from Anglesey for crimes as small as stealing a handkerchief have been traced by a team of volunteers and researchers.

 They have used detailed prisoner records from the time, historical sketches and, where possible, photos of the prisoners’ modern day descendants to create a profile of what they may have looked like.

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August 24, 2025 · 11:26 am

 Yasodhara Kumaratunga: “A Butterfly’s Wise Words”

YASODHARA’s Handwritten Inscription on the Cover Page of the  pamphlet in my hands …. courtesy of the copy held by my  late departed sister, Estelle Fernando 

To ….My dearest Aunty Estelle,

Thank you for starting me off on my long trek” through the world of learning.

With Love

Yasodhara XX

EDITORIAL NOTE: The collection of  short poems in this  loose-leaf pamphlet is NOT presented below in either chronological order or paginated  order [since  the  pamphlet is NOT numbered].

A Butterfly’s

Wise Words

&

Other Poems.

                                         Yasodhara Kumaratunga

                                                with Cover Design by Yasodhara Kumaratunga

 

To my beloved thaththi with love

in the hope that the blood which

flowed so vainly from your beautiful

face would mingle with the earth

of my land, to give forth

the blossoms of Peace & Brotherhood

for which you fought so passionately.

And to my ammi for

all that you have been to me

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August 22, 2025 · 7:28 pm

War Crimes Issue Develops in Sri Lanka: Chemmani & Beyond

N.  Sathiya Moorthy, in Ceylon Today, 22 August  2025, where the  title reads  “How Historic is the Opportunity” ... with highlighting being  the intervention of The Editor Thuppahi

 In what has become the ritualistic report of the UN Human Rights Commissioner to the UNHRC Council of 48-member nations, elected by rotation, incumbent Volker Türk seems to have settled for a credible, independent mechanism to probe Sri Lanka’s war crimes and other allegations of human rights violations. This is in contrast to the decade-plus-long attempts by the ‘international community’ (read: West) to impose an ‘independent, international mechanism’ for the purpose.

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August 22, 2025 · 2:18 am

Drs Yasodhara & Vimukthi Kumaratunga in Britain

DATA secured from Internet Sources by The EDITOR, THUPPAHI

News Item presented by Walter Jayawardena

The wedding of London educated daughter Yasodhara of Sri Lanka’s former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and a Consultant medical practitioner Roger Walker was announced in London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper in a paid advertisement about three weeks ago.

Following the British tradition of calling Consultant level medical practitioners as Mister the Telegraph advertisement called the groom as Mr.R.H.M. Walker and the just passed out young doctor bride as Dr.M.Y.S. Kumaratunga.

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August 22, 2025 · 1:10 am

Vijaya Kumaratunga in Wikipedia

FROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijaya_Kumaratunga

Kovilage Anton Vijaya Kumaranatunga (Sinhala: කොවිලගේ ඇන්ටන් විජය කුමාරණතුංග; Tamil: விஜய குமாரணதுங்க; 9 October 1945 – 16 February 1988), popularly known as Vijaya Kumaratunga, was a Sri Lankan film actor, playback singer and politician[1] regarded as one of the most popular icons in Sri Lankan cinema of all time. He was married to former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaranatunga from 1978 until his assassination in 1988. He was the founder of Sri Lanka Mahajana Party.[1]

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August 21, 2025 · 9:41 pm

The Ethnic Abyss in Sri Lanka Still Remains

Dr S.  I. Keethaponcalan,in where  the title reads “Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict: From Reconciliation To Reescalation – Analysis,” … pubd on 21 September 2023 at EURASIA REVIEW ++

The national discourse in Sri Lanka moved from conflict termination to reconciliation with the end of the war in 2009. This essay argues that the concerned parties should shift the discourse from reconciliation to de-escalation because (1) the reconciliation project failed, and (2) the ethnic conflict shows signs of reescalation. It also argues that the possibility of anti-Tamil riots in the future cannot be dismissed.

               Reconciliation Failed

When the war ended in 2009, domestically, none of the parties were interested in reconciliation. The Tamils had more severe problems to deal with. For example, mourning their dead, finding disappeared members of their families, and resettling the internally displaced community members were some of the immediate issues the Tamil community encountered. Reconciling with the Sinhalese was the last thought in their minds. Therefore, they were not concerned about postwar reconciliation. None of the Tamil leaders discussed the need to promote reconciliation.

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August 21, 2025 · 5:15 pm

Remembering Vijaya Kumaratunga Today

Michael Roberts

 SEE David Jeyaraj’s Vale ….. https://thuppahis.com/2025/08/10/in-memoriam-vijaya-kumaratunga/ … FOR the original Thuppahi version, which does not have the highlighting emphases from my hand that can be seen NOW.

A NOTE:  David Jeyaraj provides readers with a wide-ranging and incisive account – one which I recommend strongly. Sri Lanka’s political circles lost a visionary political figure when the JVP assassinated  Vijaya Kumaratunga  on the 16th February 1988. For Chandrika, Yasodhara and Vimukthi, of course, it was a tragedy.

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August 21, 2025 · 4:51 pm

Yasodara Kumaratunga’s Inventive Mind: Free Verse from London

Michael Roberts in Adelaide, August 2025

Among a small pile of photgrpahs, letters and papers left by my departed elder sister, Estelle Fernando, is a printed ‘pamphlet’ published by Yasodhara  Kumaratunga, the  eldest daughter of Vijaya Kumaratunga and Chandrika Bandaranaike.

It presents thirteen brief  poems coined by Yasodhara when she was “in exile in  London” — as  the Foreword by an unknown person  tells us. These were “written by Yasodhara between the ages  of 8 plus 1/2 years – 11 years” during a period when she  was beginning to learn English after an education in Sinhala.”

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August 18, 2025 · 9:23 pm

Lankan Migrants to Australia in Limbo

Lisa McGregor in ABC.Net.Au,  15 August 2025, bearing this  title “Former immigration minister Alex Hawke calls for action on bridging visa backlog with thousands left in limbo”

Rathy Barthlote and her two daughters live in fear of their future. (ABC News: Simon Winter)

A former Coalition immigration minister has joined calls for the government to resolve the status of thousands of asylum seekers on bridging visas. A group of around 8,000 asylum seekers who arrived between 2012 and 2013 and whose claims were rejected under a now abolished system remain in legal limbo. The Department of Home Affairs says people with new, credible claims relating to their asylum applications may request ministerial intervention.

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August 18, 2025 · 1:24 pm

Deathscapes in Recent World History

Richard Koenigsberg, whose  chosen title is “LOVING WHAT KILLS US:  The History of the Twentieth Century”

 

Loving what kills us: what Nazism was.

Loving what kills us: what the Second World War was for the Japanese.

Loving and Dying for Stalin: what Russian Communism was.

Loving and Dying for Mao: what Chinese Communism was. Continue reading →

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