Category Archives: welfare & philanthophy

May 23, 2023 · 8:44 pm

Studies of Caste in Sinhala Society over the Centuries

The presentation of an essay in the Sinhala language on “Caste in Sinhala Society”[1] in April 2017 within Thuppahi came to the attention of Thomas Fernando in UK recently. Tommy promptly took up the challenge and is now proceeding to address the article and topic. This is his NOTE to me: “however laborious it is to plough through the Sinhala text, I hope to have a good look at this article on caste in SL as I have not read a good description on this important topic which has a very significant impact on life even today in SL.”

Batgam kulayey nivasak

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May 20, 2023 · 7:55 pm

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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May 2, 2023 · 11:00 pm

Autism & Its Awesome Weight: The ECSAT Intervention in Galle

Michael Roberts

Parents and families who are burdened wth the care of children with advanced degrees of AUTISM have to cope with burdens unimaginable (and some parents do manage to extend unbelievable degrees of love and attention to their progeny — as I winessed a few years back in the course of a field visit with Roshan Samarawickrama of ECSAT in Galle: see  ……………………………………….. https://thuppahis.com/2020/09/08/outreach-ecsat-aid-for-the-totally-impaired/.

 

In early April this year I was able to witness and photograph one of the special sessions that ECSAT conducts for autistic children and teenagers  at their headquarters every now and then. This task demands one on one aid and encouragement for each and every child/teenager by trained ECSAT aides (mostly female). My pictorial snaps of this work were deemed too amateurish for public display (my assessment). I now have the benefit of professional photographs sent to me by Lakshika De Silva of ECSAT.

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May 1, 2023 · 9:23 pm

Remembering Revd WJT Small, A Saint In Our Times

Nihal de Alwis, presenting a Memoir on Revd Small, the dedicated Principal of Richmond who became a Ceylonese  …. 

Rev. Walter Joseph Thombleson Small was born on the 4th of July 1883 in Boston, England. He lived in Sri Lanka from 1906 to 1926 and again from 1953 to 1979. He died in Sri Lanka after an accident on the 28th of December 1979. He grew up during the Victorian era and grew up in a Methodist environment imbued with Christian values.

 

 

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April 15, 2023 · 7:10 pm

David Pocock: From Rugby Scrums to Parliamentary ‘Scrummaging’

Christine Middap in The Weekend Australian, 15/16 April 2023, where the title is “Pocock’s Progress”

He tries to start the day with some quiet contemplation.

David Pocock in the Senate.….Pix by Martin Ollman

Pocock with a redneck rock wallaby , …. Pix by Rohan Thomson

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April 14, 2023 · 1:52 pm

The Hill Country Tamils of Sri Lanka …. & Their Travails

Shamara Wettimuny in Financial Times, 12 April 2023 … with highlighting added by The Editor, Thuppahi

On a muggy Friday afternoon, the auditorium of the National Library of Sri Lanka slowly filled with an eager audience from Colombo, the Hill Country and beyond. It was the launch of a book by Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Mythri Jegathesan, of Santa Clara University.

Maithir Jegathesan

Her book, a work on and of solidarity with the Hill Country Tamils of Sri Lanka, ‘Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Post-war Sri Lanka’ was originally published by the University of Washington Press in 2019 to widespread acclaim. It was awarded the 2020 Diane Forsyth Prize for the best book featuring feminist anthropology research and in 2021, it won the Michelle Z. Rosaldo Book Prize for its significant contribution to feminist anthropology.

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April 12, 2023 · 1:01 am

Discernment: The Tulana Resource Centre at Kelaniya Fostering Discernment

TULANA is a Sri Lanka Jesuit Province Apostolate mandated by the Superiors and founded in 1974 by its current Director, the Asian Jesuit Theologian, Indologist and Buddhist Scholar, Fr. Aloysius Pieris, s.j.

“The name TULANA has its roots in Sanskrit and means four things taken together: elevation, weighing, comparing and deciding for the weightier things – in short DISCERNMENT.”

Revd Aloysius Peiris, s.j.

 Its primary founding motivation was as a response to two challenges – the challenge of the spirituality and philosophy of Sri Lanka’s major religion, Buddhism, and the challenge of the socio-political aspirations of the highly educated but marginalised rural youth.

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April 8, 2023 · 9:25 pm

The Trinitian Doctor Malcolm Jansze’s Service to Humankind

David Jansze, in Email Letter to Michael Roberts, April 2023 **

Dear Michael,

Malcolm and I were the only members of our branch of the Janszé family of our generation (and those previous) left behind in Sri Lanka at the time of his death. My son has yet to beget an heir.

Our grandfather, who had his secondary education at Trinity College, Kandy, was a Lawyer. All five of his sons also attended Trinity College and, in turn, so did the males of the next generation, with the exception of my father’s two sons (my elder brother and I), who had their secondary education at S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia. My dad, too, qualified as a Lawyer at the Colombo Law College and remained in Colombo.

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April 2, 2023 · 1:13 am

British Ceylon Deciphered by Stress on the Deep Structures of Social Togetherness

Uditha Devapriya, in The Island on 24 March 2023, with this title “Sri Lanka under British rule: Neither Gemeinschaft nor Gesellschaft”

Since at least Marx and Malinowski, anthropologists have been fascinated by, and focused on, the links between “primitive-tribal” and “modern-secular” societies. I use these terms with a pinch of salt – hence the asterisks – for the simple reason that no society can be said to fit one case or the other. In its initial phase the social sciences did, admittedly, distinguish between the two, and took the teleological position that the one would lead to another: hence Ferdinand Tönnies’s idea of a progression from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. Such progressions were depicted as long, eventual, but inevitable, and were accepted widely at a time when Europe, the harbinger of industrialisation and colonialism, had consolidated its position as the main, if not sole, locomotive of world history.

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February 27, 2023 · 1:41 pm

China’s Quasi-predatory Lending to Sri Lanka

Muttukrishna Sarvanandan,** whose preferred title reads thus: “Chinese Lending to Sri Lanka: A Factual cum “Reality” Check. A Rejoinder to Umesh Moramudali and Thilina Panduwawala”

Abstract:  This is a response to the Briefing Paper entitled Evolution of Chinese Lending to Sri Lanka since the mid-2000s – Separating Myth from Reality, written by Umesh Moramudali and Thilina Panduwawala published by the China-Africa Research Initiative of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the John Hopkins University, USA. This response identifies a few factual errors (both quantitative and qualitative) and provides alternative data, and contests the interpretations of the data and conclusion drawn therefrom by Moramudali and Panduwawala by providing concrete examples to the contrary. We characterise Chinese lending to Sri Lanka between 2007 and 2022 as quasi-predatory lending, having defined the characteristics of predatory lending………….Keywords – China, Hambantota Port, Predatory Lending, Sovereign Default, Sri Lanka

Introduction: This is a response to a Briefing Paper (No.8 dated November 2022) written by Umesh Moramudali and Thilina Panduwawala entitled Evolution of Chinese Lending to Sri Lanka since the mid-2000s – Separating Myth from Reality published by the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the John Hopkins University (JHU) in the United States of America (USA).

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