Category Archives: welfare & philanthophy

July 27, 2018 · 3:59 pm

Visiting Jaffna Today in July 2018: Misconceptions and Issues

Jehan Perera in Island, 23 July 2018, where the title is “Coping With Nationalism In Jaffna Through Engagement”

Early in the morning as I walked down a street in Jaffna, I heard a cry “Annai, annai.” Initially, I took no notice and kept on walking, but the cry was persistent. So I looked back to see two small children behind the gate of their house. I smiled at them and recommenced my walk. But again the cry “Annai, annai” rent the air. This time I turned back and walked to the source of the sound. The elder one, a girl of about six years of age, ran away but the little one, a boy of no more than three stood his ground. Eyes gleaming and with a drippy nose he stood and smiled. I reached out through the chained gate and stroked the top of his head and he laughed happily and ran away.

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July 27, 2018 · 10:29 am

Awful Events in July ’83: Will We Ever Learn

Harim Peiris, in Daily News, 23 July 2018, where the title reads “‘Never again’: The enduring lesson of July 1983, after 35 years” …. with highlights being the work of The Editor, Thuppahi

July 23 marked the 35th anniversary of one of post-independent Sri Lanka’s darkest chapters, the July 1983 pogrom against Tamil civilians throughout the country. The pogrom was sparked by an ambush of an Army patrol in Jaffna, by the LTTE, then one of several militant groups operating in the North, in which the entire platoon of 13 soldiers was wiped out.

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July 26, 2018 · 2:10 pm

Ajit Kanagasundram’s Tale of Lanka and Singapore

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July 17, 2018 · 4:34 am

USA’s Recent Blackmailing Efforts against Breastfeeding Resolution at WHO Assembly in Geneva

Andrew Jacobs in New York Times, 8 July 2018, where the title reads “Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials”

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children

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July 10, 2018 · 10:55 am

A Wiradjuri Woman Medico becomes South Australia’s Rhodes Scholar for 2018

ONE: News Item from University of Adelaide: “Indigenous Doctor is Rhodes Scholar for South Australia,” 26 October 2017

Outstanding University of Adelaide medical graduate Dr Claudia Paul has become the third Australian Indigenous person to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, having been named the 2018 Rhodes Scholar for South Australia. Dr Paul, 24, a Wiradjuri woman from Broken Hill, will use her scholarship to undertake a Masters of International Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford from next year. The Governor of South Australia, His Excellency Hieu Van Le, AC, announced Dr Paul as the Rhodes Scholar for South Australia at a ceremony at Government House late yesterday.

Claudia Paul with Governor Hieu Van Le …. a dinky-die local with a Vietnamese refugee migrant from the 1970s … Hurray

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June 28, 2018 · 5:27 pm

Hambantota Port: Dirty Economics from the New York Times

Michael Roberts

The New York Times “distinguished itself” in 2009 by participating in the campaign to intervene in the Sri Lankan government’s campaign to end the LTTE military states’ control of parts of Sri Lanka. It was also partial to the Western powers’ successful efforts to oust Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Presidential Election in 2015 via the formation of what is known as the Yahapaalana Consortium.

The Hambantota Port gets only a small percentage of Sri Lanka’s port business, overshadowed by the main complex in the capital.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

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June 22, 2018 · 5:09 am

The Calistorites Association of Moratuwa and the Sellaperumage Fernando Lineage

I P C Mendis, in Daily News, Archives from 2004, where the title is “Calistorites Association – over the waves to the 70s”

The Moratuwa-based Calistorites Association completes the biblical three score years and ten this year and will celebrate the occasion with a dinner-dance on 27th March 2004 at the stadium in Moratuwa. The Association comprises the descendants of Mr. and Mrs. S. Calistoru Fernando of Moratuwa fame, those who have joined the family through wedlock and the progeny.

on the way to the hills in the 19th century

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Aside

Dinesh and Mother Charity: Boundless Kindness

Elmo Jayawardena,in Daily News, 1 June 2018, where the title is “Kindness t Its best”

Recently I stopped at a traffic light. A father and son walked on the pedestrian crossing. The father was holding the autistic boy’s hand, guiding him to the opposite pavement.

Probably, that is what he is doing from the time the child was born to the day the father dies. Such is the perpetual responsibility of a parent who raises an autistic child.

Dinesh Fernando is 31 years old and does not even have a bicycle to call his own. Continue reading →

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June 11, 2018 · 5:32 pm
May 22, 2018 · 9:46 am

How It Became. Documenting the Ceylon National Congress

Michael Roberts

   BU4A8624 (1) Haris de Silva

The four volume Documents of the Ceylon National Congress produced by the Department of National Archives in 1977 runs into 3208 pages. In keeping with bureaucratic rigidity, the four volumes are still sold at some Rs 250. The give-away price has not enabled it to reach the public. The treasure trove of documentary data within these four volumes –  encompassing LSSP and Communist Party meetings in their early days — remain unknown and unseen. How many scholars, let alone armchair historians, know that FC “Derek” de Saram, Oxford Blue and Ceylonese cricketer of note, was among the ginger group (identified as “Young Turks” by me as the editor of the documents) who attempted to rejuvenate the CNC in 1938/39 by converting it into a party that could contest elections?[1] Continue reading →

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May 16, 2018 · 2:11 pm

The Earliest Missionary English Schools: Challenging Shirley Somanader

Ananda Jayasinghe

Mr. Shirley Somanader’s (SS) article titled “Methodist Schools in Batticaloa and Galle are the earliest schools to sustain their continuity to the present” is subterfuge. Mr. Somanader has ‘cherry picked ‘ and compiled the history of the Batticaloa Central College.

Mr. Somanader had started a series of postings on the Facebook, and the article appeared in Mr. D B S Jeyeraj’s blog. To the writer the article is a ‘tunnel minded’ compilation.  This is an esoteric subject and needs much holistic research. An ad nauseam topic but the writer is responding in good faith in an attempt to make Mr. Somanader realise that his postings are deceptive. Continue reading →

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