FOR Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara’s Manifold Acts

My Thanks to Joe Paiva in Adelaide for this important reference to Sanga;s recent appeal …. one that is in step with the bold move he made in 2011 with his wife Yehali when they chose to visit st. Patrick’s College in what was a reconciliatory political gesture.

 

FOR Sri Lanka_ Kumar Sangakkara’s Public Appeal _ Thuppahi’s Blog

Perchance as it happens today, I was listening to the commentaries on the ODI match between England and South Africa taking place at  Chester le-Street yesterday -where one of the illustrious batch of commentators was Kumar Sangakkara.

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The Northways in British Ceylon …. and Beyond

Fred David Graham, responding to a Query in Thuppahi from Debbie Northway**

There are quite a few mentions of people named Northway living in Ceylon in the 19th century and early 20th century in pamphlets and books like Lewis J. Penry’s List of Inscriptions on Tombstones and Monuments in Ceylon, of Historical or Local Interest, With an Obituary of Persons Uncommemorated. Also Harry Storey’s A Ceylon Sportsman’s Diary, William Sabonadière’s The Coffee Planter of Ceylon (1866), The Ceylon Almanac and Annual Register for the Year of Our Lord 1855 (p.345), Herbert Wright’s Hevea Brasiliensis or Para Rubber: Its Botany, Cultivation, Chemistry and Diseases (1908) and Charles Edmond Akers’s The Rubber Industry in Brazil and the Orient.

British planters at a tasting of Ceylon tea at the tea estate Continue reading

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Wunderbar! Reviving a Wounded Tusker Elephant

#ElephantZone #elephanttreatment #elephantrescue

Tusker elephant fallen lifelessly with severe injuries brought back to life with proper treatment

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Babar Azam: Leading ODI Batsman in Exquisite Test Innings

Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 17 July 2022, where the title reads  World-class Babar Azam constructs an innings that only he can”

Babar Azam is the top-ranked ODI batter, 77 rankings points ahead of the next guy (Imam-ul-Haq). He is also the top-ranked T20I batter but is ahead of the second by a slimmer margin (Mohammad Rizwan is 24 points back).
In Tests, though, the format that matters, the purists’ format, the thing that gets you into Wisden, he’s ranked a paltry fourth. Above him Joe Root (obviously), Steven Smith (partially riding on past glories), and Marnus Labuschagne (originally a discounted Steven Smith who has now proved more popular in the market since the rumours that the original has declined in quality).
 Babar Azam thanks the Almighty after reaching his seventh Test tonAFP/Getty Images

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Sri Lanka’s Crisis: Meeting Fair Dinkum & Thuppahi Foursquare

Prithi Perera

Allow me please to be as brief as possible in responding  to the Positions taken by Fair Dinkum” and Thuppahi.
Falsehood 1. As genuine Sri Lankans, we should not want to be colonized by anyone of the big powers, be it US, China and or for that matter, Western Europe or India.
Falsehood 2. As such, based on 1, being a fifth column of Russia becomes irrelevant. Therefore, no need for any pipe !!

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Western Programme in Ukraine raised Existential Fears in Russia

Prof. John J. Mearsheimer will be delivering a LECTURE on The causes and consequences of the Ukraine war” …………http://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-causes-and-consequences-of-the-ukraine-war-a-lecture-by-john-j-mearsheimer/

 A NOTICE dated  18/07/2022

Professor John J. Mearsheimer will discuss the current Russian invasion on Ukraine whilst exploring the potential causes and consequences of the crisis.

In this lecture, Prof. Mearsheimer will aim to focus on both the origins of the war in Ukraine and some of its most important consequences. He will argue that the crisis is largely the result of the West’s efforts to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Russian leaders viewed that outcome as an existential threat that had to be thwarted. While Vladimir Putin is certainly responsible for invading Ukraine and for Russia’s conduct in the war, Prof. Mearsheimer states that he does not believe he is an expansionist bent on creating a greater Russia. Regarding the war’s consequences, the greatest danger is that the war will go on for months if not years, and that either NATO will get directly involved in the fighting or nuclear weapons will be used — or both. Furthermore, enormous damage has already been inflicted on Ukraine. A prolonged war is likely to wreak even more devastation on Ukraine.

 

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Facing Ranjan De Silva Foursquare: A Demolition Job

Fair Dinkum**

On Saturday 16 July I received two emails from Michael Roberts which contained emails from two of his friends. The first email came from someone Michael describes as “An old schoolmate from Galle now in Canada”, while the second email came from someone described by Michael as “a Burgher pal with a sharp mind and pen”. The two emails from these Sri Lankans contain highly erroneous claims that cannot go by unchallenged and hence this refutation.

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Sri Lanka’s Crisis: Lies peddled by Naive Lankans in Western Agencies

Fair Dinkum

An article written by Dayanath Jayasuriya was published in Round Tablethe Commonwealth Journal of International Relations which is pro Western and commonwealth

It summarizes a few things in an unoriginal manner of things we all know,  but the last part, as expected from a Western sources, gives the misleading impression that China, India and Bangladesh are the main sources of SL debt, and ignores any mention of US-UK sources of debt. We have UK Lie Trap as well as a US debt trap

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Thuppahi Accused of Partiality to China: Full Frontal Assault

Thuppahi Note

Writing from Canada (where he has been resident for a while),  Retd Brigadier Ranjan  De Silva, an Aloysian like me and a Peradeniya graduate from my time in the late 1950s, has sent me a Note with explicit criticisms of the positions adopted in some items within Thuppahi and with (as you will find out) contentious claims about the political economy associated with the programmes of the Mahinda Rajapaksa administrations in the recent past.

I place his series of charges in the public domain. I will respond in due course because I am inundated with email demands and Thuppahi tasks at the moment. But I place his readings of the past in the public realm NOW because I am confident that some of his assessments are horrendous and will attract  a host or replies which will provide pertinent information about the economic processes and political manoeuvres that are buffeting the island nation of Sri Lanka.

Moreover, I reckon that Ranjan has drunk water and whisky at some American bar and been overwhelmed by the ambience of that world….. Michael Roberts 

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Kumar Gunaratnam: JVP & Aragalaya Leader Extraordinary

  DBS Jeyaraj in Daily Mirror, 17 July 2022

A remarkably significant outcome of the Aragalaya has been the emergence of the “Peratugami Samajavadi Pakshaya” (Frontline Socialist Party) as an influential player in Sri Lankan politics.

The Peratugami Samajavadi Pakshaya is composed of the members who defected from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). It can be considered as a party that was born in the political womb of the JVP and competes with it.

 Kumar Gunaratnam Continue reading

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