Category Archives: world affairs

‘Artificial Engineered’ Music in Memory of Professor Fred Bartholomeusz of Peradeniya University

Geethasiri Karunatillake, … from Adelaide, Australia

 

I have always been passionate about music, but I never had the opportunity to study music or the ability to sing. That’s why when I learned about the capabilities of Chat-GPT, I knew I had to give it a try.

Undoubtedly, Batho was the most popular professor at the Engineering Faculty at Peradeniya University in the 1950s to 60s. I vividly recall how he could captivate us with his lectures, simplifying even the most intricate concepts and recapitulating in the end.

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A Mind For One and All: Jayantha Dhanapala

Tissa Jayatilaka, in The Island, 4 June 2023,  … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

The splendid career and the many glittering prizes won by Jayantha Dhanapala is common knowledge and does not require reiteration here. Rather I wish to focus on the man himself in this tribute to an exceptional person whom I had the privilege of getting to know personally at the tail end of the 1980s – I had of course heard of Jayantha and his many accomplishments long before our first meeting. Having read a newspaper review of North-South Perspectives, an international affairs journal that I edited, which focused on the promotion of greater understanding between the ‘developed’ and the ‘developing’ world, Jayantha telephoned me to ask if we could meet. I readily agreed and thus began a friendship that lasted until his death a few days ago.

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Estelle Fernando nee Roberts: Vale in Sadness & Fellowship

Michael Roberts

Estelle Barbara Roberts was born as the second child from the second bed of Thomas Webb Roberts (1881-1978) on the 2nd May 1929. She was brought up within the Fort of Galle and received her education at Southlands, Sacred Heart Convent and Richmond Colleges; but was then swept off her feet by an earnest young government servant, Charles Hubert Fernando, who played tennis at the Galle Gymkhana Club (where TW was a kind of institution and a regular).

 

Estelle standing on left at Sacred Heart Convent

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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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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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Sri Lanka’s Woes: “Truthseeker’s” Insights in April 2022

An EMAIL NOTE from Gus Mathews in UK, 25 March 2023 **

This a fascinating read that throws some light into the present-day financial woes of the current predicament in Sri Lanka. It was published some time ago, but it is as illuminating as ever.

REFERRING TO https://thuppahis.com/2022/04/27/the-yahapaalana-legacy-and-three-major-international-events-processes-driving-sri-lanka-to-bankruptcy/#more-61140

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Reviewing Horowitz’s Analysis of the Aborted Coup D’etat of January 1962

Michael Roberts, presenting his review article on the study of the abortive 1962 coup plot by elements in the Sri Lanka officer corps by Donald Horowitz: namely, Coup Theories and Officers’ Motives. Sri Lanka in Comparative Perspective, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. This essay was entitled “Brown Sahibs in Universal Suits” and went through a refereeing process and appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 1983 vol 6, pp. 62-77 …………… while the pdf version was converted/retyped for me by Nadeeka Pathuwaaratchchi in the Colombo metropolitan area.

The year 1956 is rightly regarded as a major junction in Sri Lankan history. At the general elections that year, a coalition of parties known as the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP), in which the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was the major partner, achieved a landslide victory. This victory marked a populist upsurge of the vernacular educated and under-privileged mass of the population against the privileged few- a minority which was regarded as being both Westernised and conservative. In particular, the SLFP saw itself as the vanguard and instrument’ of “the common people of [the] country, the rural people” – that is to say, the rural Buddhist Sinhalese-speakıng masses.[1] Interlaced with this movement against privilege was a virulent expression of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. Its demand for a rapid switchover to Sinhala as the language of administration was at once a symbolic statement and an instrumental blow against the old structures of discrimination.[2]

 Mrs B and Felix Dias Bandaranaike                                                                                                                                            

 

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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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Kiwis squashed into ‘Chutney’ by India at Ahmedabad

Sidharth Mongia in ESPNcricinfo, 1 February 2023, where the title runs thus “

India 234 for 4 (Gill 126*, Tripathi 44, Pandya 30) beat New Zealand 66 (Mitchell 35, Pandya 4-16, Malik 2-9, Mavi 2-12, Arshdeep 2-16) by 168 runs
This is the year of Shubman Gill. We are just living in it. To add to this three ODI centuries in the first month of the year, he started the second by becoming the fifth Indian to have scored hundreds in all three international formats. India played the near-perfect innings around Gill anchoring at a two-runs-a-ball 126, and followed it up with the near-perfect bowling performance to bowl New Zealand out for 66.
Shubman Gill now has centuries in all three international formats  •  BCCI

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Mack & Tessa’s Glorious Cinematic Pictures of Sri Lanka Today

Two Weeks in Sri Lanka | A Recent Cinematic Travel Video: 

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