Michael Roberts
I met Riaz Hassan for the first time as one of the keynote speakers at a conference organised by Neelan Tiruchelvam in Sri Lanka circa 1974 (details forgotten) when I was teaching in the History Department at Peradeniya University and Riaz was at an university in Singapore. It was the best of serendipity (a word deriving perhaps from Serendib aka Sri Lanka) that I found him attached to Flinders University when I moved to the Anthropology Department at University in 1977.
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ONE …. Joanne Barker: A Memory about RIAZ HASSAN
From 1992-2006 I worked at Flinders University in various positions, finally leaving in 2006 as the faculty general manager of one of the four faculties. In around 1993-4 when I was still in my early 30s and quite new at the university, I came to know Riaz Hassan as one of the professors. He probably didn’t know my name, but he was always kind and smiled and said hello if we passed on campus.
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ONE: Sara Hussein: “Missing foot kicks surgery back thousands of years,” in The Australian, 7 September 2022
A skeleton with a missing foot discovered in a remote corner of Borneo rewrites the history of ancient medicine and proves amputation surgery was successfully carried out about 31,000 years ago. Previously, the earliest known amputation involved a 7000-year-old skeleton found in France, and experts believed such operations only emerged in settled agricultural societies.
Scientists excavating remains dating back some 31,000 years in the Liang Tebo cave in East Kalimantan. Picture: AFP
Michael Roberts
In presenting an article on Duncan White’s achievement at the World Olympic Games held in London in August 1948, I limited my focus to the 1940s. Sachi Sri Kantha in Japan has often entered comments on Thuppahi items and on this occasion ventured a point-scoring set of remarks on this item. At times these comments have proceeded tangentially to topics straddling the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
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Danyal Rasool, in ESPNcricinfo, 11 September 2022, where the title runs thus: “Rajapaksa, Hasaranga, Madushan win the Asia Cup crown for Sri Lanka” ….. In the final, Pakistan were outclassed with the bat, outsmarted with the ball and outdone in the field
Sri Lanka 170 for 6 (Rajapaksa 71*, Rauf 3-29) beat Pakistan 147 all out (Rizwan 55, Madushan 4-34, Hasaranga 3-27) by 23 runs
Compiled by Kumar Kirinde, Retd Officer of the SLAF, whose chosen title was as follows: “The Air Tigers: The Air Wing of A Terrorist Organisation” …… with information and images sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Tigers and Google Images)
Pirapaharan (ext. left) with Anton Balasingham on his left and KP Pathmanathan in front and Shankar on the extreme right in the Vanni jungles circa 2001(?) … Shankar was in effect the Air Tiger chief
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Scott Ritter in Energy Intelligence, 9 September 2022, with this title “India And China Eye Asian Century”
As the world lurches through the growing pains of massive geopolitical change, the US’ relationship with India will increasingly take center stage. Washington likes to see itself as providing a geopolitical center of gravity that is inherently attractive to nations like India, especially against regional competitors such as China. As the US is about to discover, however, India and China have a shared ambition about who should dominate the Pacific in the coming century, and it doesn’t include the US.
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Thuppahi Editorial Note:
“Amidst the prominent history of imperial expansion by Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain and France, the imperial intrusions (and outrages) by such European nations as Italy and Denmark during the early modern period can be passed over….that is, missed. Senaka Weeraratne in Colombo reminded me of this dimension of the past by sending me the tales of Denmark’s ‘work’ in this arena…. a world arena…. captured in Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_overseas_colonies
………… and especially the Maps of Danish colonies/or settlements acroos the world.
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Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 9 September 2022, with the following headline “Hasaranga, Nissanka star as Sri Lanka tune up for final with win” …. Hasnain and Rauf picked up three early wickets but the target was too modest …. with highlighting emphasis imposed by The Editor Thuppahi
Pathum Nissanka and Wanindu Hasaranga – the architects of Sri Lanka’s fourth straight win in the tournament • AFP/Getty Images
The Queen and Prince Philip visited the island of Ceylon in 1954 and participated in striking ceremonies in Colombo, Kandy and Peradeniya University. The Senate Building at Peradeniya University was formally ‘consecrated’; and the Queen also visited the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. The Queen also visited the famous Trinity College with the Mayor of Kandy (EL Senanayake) as Aide of Honour. Here she honoured and was honoured by the Trinity cadet corps …. a set of actions that reminds us of the “Empire loyalism” that had prompted a number of Westernised Sri Lankans to enlist in the British armed forces during World War I as well as World War II (a topic recently documented** in the new illustrated book edited by Kumar Kirinde et al — entitled Volunteers from Ceylon ………………………………………….. (https://thuppahis.com/2022/09/02/fighting-dying-for-britain-during-the-two-world-wars/) and also referred to earlier in a book where I was the chief hand, namely, People Inbetween (Ratmalana, Sarvodaya Publishers, 1989, pp. 114-119 & 121ff ) …………. MICHAEL ROBERTS
The Mayor of Kandy, Mr. E.L. Senanayake escorting the Queen through the College premises (College car park at present)
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