Thuppahi's Blog

Hiran  de Silva in FACEBOOK ……….. https://www.facebook.com/

Every school must have a weekly hour called ” Great Minds”. In that period, students must be shown the biographies of the greatest minds the world has produced for inspiration. If language is a problem, it is not difficult to include subtitles. Projectors are so cheap these days. If the education ministry can coordinate with a Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean company, a product (with an embossed seal reading “not for sale”) could be sourced for less than $125 each.

As many parents would admit, Gen-Z has no worthwhile role models. Below is such a story that will even inspire a grown-up.

ABOUT ENRICO  FERMI

At 14, he had mastered calculus and classical mechanics—teaching himself from a 19th-century Latin textbook. By 21, his doctoral examiners couldn’t understand his thesis. At 41, he built the first nuclear reactor and changed the world forever.

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Alex Malcolm in ESPNCricInfo …

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Jehan Perera in The Island, 28 October 2025, where the title  runs thua: “Barometer confirms window for political settlement”... with the highlights here  being impositions by The Editor, Thuppahi

Once again, Sri Lanka is at a crossroads. After decades of missed opportunities and delayed reforms, the conditions are there for a lasting political resolution of the ethnic conflict. The NPP government has the chance to resolve the country’s longest and most divisive conflict through Sri Lankan institutions, on its own terms. The government holds a two-thirds majority in parliament that allows it to amend the constitution and introduce the reforms that past governments promised but failed to deliver. It came to power on the back of a popular demand for system change, and the public expectation that followed that election was not for minor adjustments but for a deep restructuring of the state. The opposition is neither strong nor dominated by the racist and extremist voices that in the past sabotaged every attempt at reconciliation.

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UDITHA DEVAPRIYA  will  be  presenting a  WEBINAIR on  MARTIN WICKRAMASINGHE at SOAS  in London on 13th November  2025 …. “The Evolution of the Sri Lankan Mind. ….”

Author, journalist, thinker, and critic, Martin Wickramasinghe (1890 – 1976) was one of Sri Lanka’s most renowned writers and cultural and literary figures. His body of work includes 13 novels and numerous short stories, and almost countless essays on art, culture, history, literature, politics, and anthropology.

 

Deeply bilingual and bicultural, Wickramasinghe explored various facets of indigenous art, culture, and literature in his essays. These display a fervent interest in subjects like sociology.

 

I am currently working on a critical study of Martin Wickramasinghe. Beginning in November, I will make a series of presentations on Wickramasinghe’s life and work. The first of these will be a webinar at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the UK.

ALSO NOTE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Wickramasinghe

Hugh de Kretser, “An Early Burgher Migrant Family to Australia in 1952”

It’s Australian Citizenship Day. This is my dad’s family along with their citizenship application and certificate. They emigrated from Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) to Australia in 1949 and became Australian citizens in 1952.

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Captured at a Momentous Meeting in  Nugegoda This  October 2025 ,,, by That Dushy Perera of Ruk-Rakaganno Fame

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Asiri  Fernando  in The Morning, 5 October 2025

The 12th Galle Dialogue International Maritime Conference kicked off in Colombo last month, drawing participation from 37 nations. Amongst the many naval officers, diplomats, and subject matter experts gathered for the key regional maritime security event was a French delegation led by Rear Admiral Hugues Lainé, Joint Commander of the French Forces in the Indian Ocean.

He joined the Plenary Session of the conference featuring high-level insights from a distinguished panel including Indian Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi, Russian Navy Deputy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Vorobev, and Sichuan University Institute of South Asian Studies Deputy Director Dr. Yunsong Huang.

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James Marriott, in The TIMES, 27 October 2025, where the title is “Why elitism is key to democracy’s survival”

It is unfashionable to favour a superior expert class, yet its destruction has flooded our society with misinformation

I am inclined by temperament towards the innocuous middle ground of most issues. So, I was pleased to discover, on a panel discussion a couple of weeks ago, that I had embarked on an inadvertent brush with the glamour of contrarianism. Lauding the virtues of that much-despised institution the “mainstream media”, I noticed my remarks were being met with … perhaps booing oversells the drama of the occasion. Let us call it a dark and audible murmur of dissent.

I should not have been surprised. Few nowadays are sympathetic to the notion of a superior expert class. Anti-elitism is the fashionable pose of our time, adopted almost as readily by desperate technocrats (Sir Keir Starmer is prone to the odd disapproving bleat about Westminster) as by populists.

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Rajan  Philips in Sunday Island 26 October 2025, where the title reads thus: “Susili Wilson (1928-2025): A Woman of Stature, Strength and Purpose”

Suseelavathy (Susili) Wilson, formerly of the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and later the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, passed away on October 8, 2025, in Toronto, Canada. She was 97 years old. Born in Thellipalai, on June 2, 1928, she was the oldest child and only daughter of Samuel James Velupillai and Emily Grace Chelvanayakam. Her father, SJV Chelvanayakam Q.C., became the accredited Tamil political leader in 1956, and the following year entered into a historic agreement with the country’s Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike – the celebrated B-C Pact that enshrined the Sri Lankan government’s agreement on the minimum demands of the Tamils.

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Dodwell Keyt … with Siersa Keyt as the SINGING VOICE

My new song ‘Drums of Kandy’ …. https://youtu.be/rU9NWC9qGg8

Drums of Kandy …. (Verse 1)
Through the hills where hearts leap,
Echoes rise from the valley deep.
Barefoot hearts and burning eyes,
Dancers call where the spirit flies.

Red as flame, their sashes gleam,
Twisting fire through the dream.
Every step, a sacred cry,
Drums like thunder split the sky.

(Chorus)
Beat the drums of Kandy high,
Let the rhythm shake the sky!
Silver bells and red attire,
Hearts of flame, feet of fire.
Oh Lanka, hear your sons proclaim —
Drums of Kandy call your name.

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