On March 27, 1977, Diana Hyland died in John Travolta’s arms at just 41 years old. That night, he held her close and whispered that he loved her, hoping she could still hear him. This moment marked the beginning of a long period of grief for Travolta, as he struggled to balance sudden professional success with a deep personal loss.
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Tony Donaldson
Amitha Wedisinghe
The passing of Amitha Wedisinghe on 19 February 2025, at the age of 82, marked the end of an era for Sri Lankan music. A prominent veteran singer, a dedicated music teacher, and a ranked artist at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), Wedisinghe was a fierce guardian of the “Golden Era” of Sinhala song. Her life’s work was defined by a profound commitment to the artistic standards she believed were essential to the nation’s cultural identity.
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Michael Roberts
Way back in the 1970s-1990s when I visited Sri Lanka in pursuit of my research interests two of the personnel whom I interacted with regularly were Sunil Bastian and Kumari Jayawardena –both with radical leanings of a Leftist character.
SUNIL has produced a new book in 2025 and as a Preface to details on that work TPS aka THUPPAHI eagerly introduces its readers (old and new) to information on his range of work over the years.
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Rachael McDiarmid of RM Marketing Services, whose article is entitled “Brown. Female. Doctor. The Journey of Dr Sarah Arachchi”
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Michael Roberts
The purpose and the overall benefits/disadvantages of the Mattala airport project has generated debate over the years in the recent past . Thuppahi has presented several items on the topic and they are listed here in calendrical order.
The 2016 news item from Wade Shephard was/is typical of the hasty assessments — in part fuelled by the political backlash directed at the Rajapaksa powerhouse in Sri Lankan politics. So, Thuppahi is encouraged NOW to promote a more considered appraisal with long-term ‘eyes.’
Thuppahi has also been encouraged in this venture by brief email endorsements from Vinod Moonesinghe and Chandre Dharmawardena — personnel of critical mindand nobody’s puppets.
Cows cross a road as trucks transporting Zhong Ding Boiler Co. boilers approach near Mattala, Hambantota, Sri Lanka, on Thursday, March 29, 2018. Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa spearheaded the project, taking Chinese loans to shower goodies on his home district of Hambantota — including a new international airport that still has just one daily scheduled flight. Plans are also afoot to build a logistics and industrial zone next to the port. Photographer: Atul Loke/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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I wonder why Yakovleff fails to mention Israel’s role in this war. Trump would not have started this conflict if not for Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister drew Trump in by convincing him that decapitating the Iranian leadership via a forty-eight-hour ‘shock-and-awe’ campaign would cause the regime to collapse. Netanyahu’s goal was to destroy Iran, turn it into a failed state, and divide it into warring factions. But the plan failed. Trump has no strategy and no clue what he is doing; he is trapped in a war he cannot exit, so he simply escalates. Netanyahu remains in the driving seat. Yakovleff’s failure to explain this suggests he doesn’t understand the situation and is merely parroting a pro-NATO line—one asserting that NATO must always be in command.
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Kamanthi Wickramasinghe in The Daily Mirror, March 2026 … where the headline is different.
Unlike sky rise buildings that dominate the skyline in Colombo, it is electric fences of various shapes and sizes that dominate much of the landscape in Galgamuwa today. With frequently occurring encounters between humans and elephants, the former is taking all precautions to protect their lives and those of their loved ones, sometimes at the cost of jumbo lives.
In response to the aggravating conflict, the construction of Sri Lanka’s first elephant underpass was proposed in March 2024. After many setbacks and delays, project proponents opine that construction work would be completed this month. But according to experts, the underpass and elephant movements need to be studied for several more years prior to determining its effectiveness.
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Sunil Bastian
Right at the beginning of his book, ‘The Killing Fields of Inequality’ Göran Therborn says ‘Inequality is a violation of human dignity; it is a denial of the possibility for everybody’s human capabilities to develop. It takes many forms, and it has many effects: premature death, ill-health, humiliation, subjection, discrimination, exclusion from knowledge or from mainstream social life, poverty, powerlessness, stress, insecurity, anxiety, lack of self-confidence and of pride in oneself, and exclusion from opportunities and life -chances.’ These are concerns that motivated me to write this short piece on economic inequality in Sri Lanka.
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thuppahi
