A News Item has this headline: “Atapattu helps Thunder thrash Renegades” .… https://www.dailymirror.lk/cricket/Atapattu-helps-Thunder-thrash-Renegades/315-270060
Savouring Sri Lanka Today, 2023: A Glorious Ride
Paddy Hintz in The Weekend Australian, 25 October 2023, bearing this title “Jungles, curries and wild elephants: why Sri Lanka is a ride”
We’re just in time to climb into Kandalama’s beautiful infinity pool and be” mesmerised by fireflies as monkeys sift through the trees beside us.
The morning tour is spectacular. Sigiriya Rock Fortress features cascading water gardens, a vertigo-inducing climb to find the remnants of a paranoid and murderous king’s domain (complete with ancient swimming pool) and a cliff-face cave full of frescoes of scantily clad concubines.
Sigiriya rock fortress, Sri Lanka. Photo: Dylan Shaw
For Lanka: The Profound Interventions of Pauline & Dick Hensman
Rohini Hensman, in a commemorative essay about her politically committed parents in the SSA journal POLITY in 2023 where the title runs “A Hundred Years of Pauline And C. R. (Dick) Hensman”
The birth anniversaries of Pauline Hensman (née Swan) and Dick Hensman occurred over the course of the past year [ …]. This attempt to provide an overview of their life and times will inevitably suffer from gaps, since neither they nor most of their contemporaries are alive. It will, therefore, have to draw on the imperfect memories of their children and younger friends, who would have to rely on hearsay for the parts of their lives from which they were absent. Nevertheless, the main events and themes of their lives emerge quite clearly.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, British imperialism, caste issues, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, language policies, Left politics, life stories, literary achievements, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, press freedom, racism, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
The Power of Hate: Some Incomplete ‘Steps’ …..
An Intial Bibliography from South Asia
Michael Roberts: “Addressing Two Angry Tamils,” 9 March 2012, https://thuppahis.com/2012/03/09/addressing-two-angry-tamils-heat-distortion-truth-fact-mendacity-and-eternal-enmity/
Thanga: “Another Angry Tamil: Thanga sees Pirapaharan as an Indelible Part of the Tamil Psyche’,” 29 February 2012, https://thuppahis.com/2012/02/29/
Filed under Uncategorized
Severe Food Insecurity on the Horizon for Sri Lanka because of MONLAR’s Programme
Chandre Dharmawardena, in The Island, 25 October 2023, …. with this title “Monlar, a force for food insecurity, now blames 70-years of government!
Image courtesy CGIAR Research Programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE
According to newspaper reports (Island 16th October [1]), the NGO carrying the acronym MONLAR has presented the accusation that “the agricultural policies of successive governments have rendered millions of Lankans insecure”. It claims that “As of today, 5.3 million people in Sri Lanka are food insecure. This proves that what the government has been doing for more than 70 years to this date to feed its people has failed”.
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, disparagement, economic processes, historical interpretation, island economy, land policies, life stories, meditations, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, taking the piss, trauma, world events & processes
A New Leaf in India-Pakistan Cricket Rivalry?
Banyan, in The Economist, 19 October 2023, entitled “Cricket and geopolitics”
In cricket and otherwise, India is leaving its rivalry with Pakistan behind. In the build-up to India’s World Cup clash with Pakistan in Ahmedabad on October 14th, Indian news anchors spoke of “the greatest rivalry”. For once they were not exaggerating. Cricket contests between the South Asian giants have been their main interaction off the battlefield for three-quarters of a century. Into them each has poured subcontinental volumes of love and hate, nationalist chest-beating, aching for peace, addiction to the fray—and the wholehearted commitment of two great and fascinatingly contrasting cricket cultures. Even for cricket ignoramuses, India-Pakistan bouts are an essential window onto South Asian politics and culture. What, then, to make of the Ahmedabad match, which was attended by Banyan and ended in an easy Indian victory?
Israeli PM’s Message imitates Goebbels’ Programme
Camel Rider …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Attached is a video clip of a statement made by Yair Lapid on 24 October which (thank God) was broadcast on RUSSIA TODAY. You won’t find it in the Western media. It serves as a reminder that people do need to watch RT because that’s where you can find all the juicy news the West ignores.
Yair Lapid stated,
“If the international media is objective, it serves Hamas. If it just shows both sides, it serves Hamas. My argument is that the media can’t just claim to bring both sides of the story. If you do that, you are only bringing one, Hamas’ side. That’s cowardly and it’s lazy. It’s an insult, insult to the victims including the Palestinian victims. It is also an insult to the core idea of what journalism is. Believe me, I know, I was a journalist for 31 years. — Yair Lapid, Israeli Prime Minister, July- December 2022.
This is an extremely irrational and fallacious argument, very much in the spirit of the propaganda rhetoric that once came from Joseph Goebbels.
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USA encourages Israel’s Nazi Pathways
Blackjack Bibi …. with the title and the highlights being impositions by The Editor, Thuppahi
I was interested in the “NOTE from VB, an American citizen from Sri Lanka” which refers to Nikki Haley advocating the final solution for the Palestinians with the words “finish them off” in a hail-blaze glory of mass extermination which has come to embody what the West and Australians refer to as “Western values”. Haley doesn’t seem to realize what she is advocating is what Hitler advocated for the Jews. These two “final solutions’ can never be right under any circumstances.
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Plinio’s Description of “Taprobane”
Piero Perondi, whose chosen title was “THE SPLENDID TAPROBANE ALIAS SRI LANKA””
The main ancient source on Taprobane is the Roman historian Plinio the Old, in his manuscript “Natural History”, which does not fail to briefly retrace the testimonies of previous authors. He states that only in the time of Alexander the Great was it made clear that Taprobane was an island; before it was considered almost another world, the “land of the Antichthone ” (i.e. the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere).
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The Sea Tigers at War: Innovativeness married to Experiential Art
Rear. Admiral Y.N. Jayarathne …. whose preferred title for this article is “Principles of the Swarming Concepts” …. and where the black highlights are his work
Situational awareness
The Sea Tiger, enemy we fought at sea, was a ‘worthy enemy’ as I recall! This enemy (when I say enemy it is not an individual that I am referring to but the group or the collection of individuals) evolved from a fisheries background: thus they knew the ground (the sea, the marine environment and the marine weather. In any fishing community there always will be weather forecasters who would say whether it is going to rain or sea is going to be rough by simply looking at the clouds and environment), new the trade of seafaring; how to manoeuvre/navigate the boats and new how to repair, modify and manufacture boats! All these were passed down the generations through experience and wisdom, and not by formal education at school. So, they were psychologically empowered, physically fit by knowing how to swim at sea (a tremendous self-confidence factor in personal capacity) and professionally competent for the trade!
Filed under authoritarian regimes, counter-insurgency, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, marine life, martyrdom, military strategy, performance, sea warfare, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
