Thuppahi's Blog

Traitors. Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building …. .. ….. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.9783/9780812205893/html

Chap I =  Introduction: Specters of Treason …. (pp. 1-23) …. by Tobias Kelly and Sharika Thiranagama …. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fj4qf.3

The English novelist E. M. Forster once wrote that “if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country” (1972, 66). Forster’s claim seems particularly provocative, given that it was written in 1939, on the eve of World War II, a time when accusations of treason could have deadly implications. Yet for Forster personal bonds of love and friendship were to take priority over the demands of state and nation. At a personal level, Forster’s claim should almost certainly be read in terms of the criminalization…

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Chamila Talagala in Facebook 

They say Sri Lankans hate lawyers. But that hatred is not simple. It is older than the island’s courts, older even than the black coats and the Latin phrases. It is the bitterness people feel toward a world that has always spoken over them – a world where words, not justice, decide who wins.

From the beginning, law everywhere – in Rome, in London, in Colombo – was never the language of the common man. In Rome, the orators and jurists came from patrician families, educated in rhetoric, trained in the art of twisting reason into advantage. In Britain, law was a gentleman’s profession, spoken in Latin and Norman French long after the people had forgotten both tongues. It was exclusive by design – the law was not meant to be understood; it was meant to be obeyed.

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What are the potential economic and other benefits that would accrue to Sri Lanka if the ICC grants official recognition to DRS as an invention modelled on the foundational concept of ‘ Player Referral’ conceived by a Sri Lankan lawyer? …. See ….https://share.google/aimode/BlVquJxNsYWSjOEQ8

AI Overview ……Answer

If the ICC officially recognizes Sri Lanka’s claim to the ‘player referral’ concept behind the Decision Review System (DRS), the country could see benefits like potential financial compensation through royalties, a boost in national pride and a stronger claim to intellectual property, and increased tourism and branding opportunities associated with the innovation.

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Fazli Sameer in his website where the title runs thus “The Girl on the Rooftop”

“Every day, around four, after a sweltering noon, I’d climb the narrow staircase to the rooftop of our building. It was a small square of cracked cement bordered by a low parapet wall, overlooking the haphazard sprawl of the Colombo neighborhood, a city breathing through clotheslines, antennas, and unfinished dreams. I carried my old workbook and a fountain pen with fading blue ink, hoping to wrestle meaning out of the ordinary.

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Item in The Economist, October 2025 ,… with highlights that are part of its presentation [ one sent to TPS by Nalin Gunasekera]

Initial popularity Photograph: Getty Images

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Ricardo Rey in The Economist, 9 October 2025, where the title reads thus: “A new beginning for the Middle East?”

The breakthrough in Gaza could open up a new approach to peace

The saga continues — scroll down for the many moving parts 

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ONE: TANIA VAN HEER in WEB ARCHIVE ……………………. https://web.archive.org/web/20091027100103/http://geocities.com/geetee/bios/vanheer.html

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Item in the DAILY MIRROR, October 2025

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Lanka-e-News Investigations Desk – In collaboration with the International Fraud Detection Network (IFDN) … 6 Oct 2025 …… with this title: “The Secret Millions: 12,000 Undeclared Overseas Accounts Expose Sri Lanka’s Hidden Corruption Web.

When investigators in Singapore first stumbled upon a string of suspicious bank accounts linked to a former Sri Lankan diplomat , they never imagined it would unravel into one of the largest offshore asset scandals in the island’s history. But that single lead — a dormant account belonging to a former High Commissioner in Malaysia turn into Governor— has now exploded into a dossier containing the names of over 12,000 Sri Lankan citizens holding undeclared bank accounts across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives, and the offshore haven of Labuan (Malaysia).The accounts, many of them active, collectively hold an estimated USD 2 billion, according to confidential reports shared exclusively with Lanka-e-News by international fraud investigators.

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Thomas Webb Roberts on The Problems of Public Life in India and Ceylon, a pamphlet written after he retired from the Ceylon Civil Service and pubd by The Times of Ceylon in 1937.

TW Roberts was a talented Barbadian who fared well at the elite Harrison College and then entered Oxford University and thereafter gained eentry into the British Colonial Service. Sent to Ceylon (with his English wife), his official duties were largely in the judicial field — in line with the colour-conscious Colonial Service’s policy of reserving the GA and AGA posts for white officers and the shunting of the browns (whether of Indian, Sri Lankan or West Indian lineage) into the world of judicial administration.

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