Category Archives: working class conditions

July 17, 2022 · 3:14 pm

The ARAGALAYA’s Demands in English

Courtesy of my Aloysian Friend KK De Silva …………with a PIX from his schoolboy days at St Aloysius, Galle

Transcript of the Programme spelt out in Sinhala: viz https://fb.watch/eaarPjDUCc/?fs=e&s=cl

Yesterday we took part in the aragalaya. It was good. Now there is talk about a caretaker government. This is something new to the people & us.

First I must say that we got together irrespective of ethnic differences. Sinhalese, Muslims, Tamils were together as Sri Lankans. In future no one can act differently. I am saying this to those actors. They should listen carefully. There is a set of actors, like the yellow group. There is another set called artistes (kalaakaruwo). There is a fellow wearing a sheet (?) There are others like Bhatiya & Santush. Are they not ashamed? Where were they yesterday. Then there is Iraj. Dont come wearing a cloth. Don’t come this way for shows. You all have been rejected,

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July 15, 2022 · 2:39 pm

Bhavani Fonseka & Sumanthiran in Q and A with Indian Media Outfit

THE PRINT: Jothi Malhotra in Q and A with Bhavani fonseka & MA Sumanthiran …………..  “Why Gotabaya Rajpaksa fled & next steps for Sri Lanka : MA Sumanthiran and Bhavani Fonseka”

#SriLankaCrisis #GotabayaRajpaksa In this edition of #ThePrintDebates, ThePrint’s Senior Consulting Editor Jyoti Malhotra spoke to M. A. Sumanthiran, MP from Jaffna district in Sri Lanka and a member of the Tamil National Alliance and Bhavani Fonseka, a human rights lawyer and political analyst on the volatile situation in Sri Lanka, the flight of Gotabaya Rajpaksa to the Maldives, the future of the country and whether the people are relieved. Watch #ThePrintDebates

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July 12, 2022 · 1:49 pm

Colossal Deception: Gross Lies about Sources of Sri Lanka’s Debt Burden foisted on the World by Western Agencies

Benjamin Norton, in Multipolarista, July 12 July 2022 where the title reads thus “Real debt trap: Sri Lanka owes vast majority to West, not China” ... with highlighting emphasis in colours imposde by the Editor, Thuppahi

Sri Lanka owes 81% of its external debt to US and European financial institutions and Western allies Japan and India. China owns just 10%. But Washington blames imaginary “Chinese debt traps” for the nation’s crisis, as it considers a 17th IMF structural adjustment program.

  A protest in Sri Lanka in April 2022

 

 

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July 10, 2022 · 7:34 pm

Political Demonstrations surrounding the Test Cricket at Galle, 9/10 July 2022

Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 9/10 July 2022, with this title “When Sri Lanka came to the cricket to fight for the country’s future”

Thousands gathered in Galle to protest the government which has led them into economic chaos. …. [SCENE OUTSIDE the northern entrance to the cricket grounds …. Pix from AFP]

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July 10, 2022 · 2:46 pm

Vital Requirements for Sri Lanka Today

Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, in IDN, July 2022, where the title reads “Sri Lanka Needs a Balanced Economic and Foreign Policy”

A shortage of exorbitantly privileged American Dollars, the global reserve fiat currency, which is not backed by gold, silver, oil or drugs, is the purported reason for Sri Lanka’s compounding crisis and the international media narrative of ‘famine’ in the country.

The upturned vehicle could be siaid to highlight the situaiton of Sri Lanka today ,,,, and yesterday … PIX ‘stolen’ from Al Jazeera  Continue reading →

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July 8, 2022 · 1:58 pm

Vaddas, Rodiyo and Ahikuntakayo: Some Bibliographcal Items

LC Arulpragasam 2019 “The Veddas in the east of Ceylon in the 1950s,” 13 Oct 2019,https://thuppahis.com/2019/10/13/the-veddas-in-the-east-of-ceylon-in-the-1950s/

Michael Roberts 2017 “The First Settlers and Their Claim to Ownership of Terrain. A Comparative excursion,” 18 January 2017, https://thuppahis.com/2017/01/18/the-first-settlers-and-their-claim-to-ownership-of-terrainstate-a-comparative-excursion/

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July 4, 2022 · 12:43 am

Prosecute the Financial Coterie Who Guided Sri Lanka into An Abyss

Sanjeewa Jayaweera, in The Island, 3 July 2022, where the title runs thus “When will the Gang of Four be held accountable for their irresponsible decisions?”

Most living in Sri Lanka feel like they have got into the boxing ring with Muhammad Ali. The ferocious punches thrown regularly are taking their toll, with most either on their knees or on the canvas. The final punch that will knock us out seems inevitable, but the question is when? Cabraal, W D Lakshman, P B Jayasundara and S R Attyglla

The Group of Four: SR Attygalle, N. Cabraal, PB Jayasundera, WD Lakshman

The pounding started initially with queues to buy milk powder for children, which then got extended to buying cooking gas, then to long power cuts, and now to queues extending several kilometres to buy petrol, diesel, and kerosene. Along the journey of suffering, we have also been penalized with hyperinflation. The saying “it never rains but it pours” seems so accurate.

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July 3, 2022 · 3:14 pm

Asylum Australia for Sri Lankans? THEN and NOW

Michael Roberts 

Through the first decade of the 21st century fishing trawlers attempted to breach the Australian borders with illegal migrants and this process continued even after Eelam War IV ended in May 2009 …. indeed, even receiving a boost because of the circumstances of considerable segments of the SL Tamil populace in Sri Lanka and in refugee camps in southern India.

In July 2012 I presented a BIBLIOGRAPHY on this topic in Thuppahi and I call attention to it here: …………. ………………………………………. http://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/a-flourishing-bibliographical-tree-tamil-migration-asylum-seekers-and-australia/

epa03396379 A young girl from a group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers as they arrive at Bungus port, near Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia 13 September 2012. At least 40 asylum seekers from Sri Lanka were transferred from Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra to the Immigration Detention Pekan Baru, Riau. Total number of migrants for 2012 is close to 10,000, with many of them Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians who have paid people-smugglers to ferry them from Indonesia to Australia. EPA/STRINGER

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June 28, 2022 · 12:49 am

Sri Lankan Crisis: A Call for Debt Cancellation

STATEMENT ON THE CRISIS IN SRI LANKA. Southern Voices to be Heeded: A Call for Debt Justice, Debt Jubilee and Debt Cancellation  

The Coalition for Economic Democracy in Sri Lanka (CEDSL) is a group of concerned academics, activists, agricultural, fisheries and industrial workers, students, business persons, trade unionists, and professionals based ‘in country’ and overseas, including the diaspora, who uphold the values of economic rights and justice in public policy making.

 

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June 10, 2022 · 8:41 pm

Leonard Woolf’s Remarkable Novel

Nick Rankin, in BBCnews, 23 May 2014, where the title runs thus: “Leonard Woolf’s forgotten Sri Lankan novel” …… The Bloomsbury Group and Sri Lanka are rarely spoken of in the same breath, but that is partly because Leonard Woolf’s groundbreaking first novel, The Village in the Jungle, is unjustly ignored, argues writer and broadcaster Nick Rankin.

She was born Virginia Stephen, daughter of the Victorian bookman Sir Leslie Stephen, but when she married in 1912, her name changed to Virginia Woolf, and she went on to become the best-known woman writer of the 20th Century.

 

Her lesser-known husband, Leonard Woolf, however, wrote and published a novel first. That almost forgotten book, first published in 1913, is called The Village in the Jungle and it is a remarkable work because it is the first novel in English literature to be written from the indigenous point of view rather than the coloniser’s.

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