September 24, 2019 · 2:51 pm

Spreading Knowledge via Light: Anduren Eliyata That Sydney-based Charitable Enterprise

Michael Roberts

ANDUREN ELIYATA was initiated as a charitable organisation by 71-year old Chandra Fernando in Sydney in 2014 with a focus on providing solar-powered units to needy families and schoolchildren in Sri Lanka. Its successful outreach has now prompted the organisers to consider similar endeavours in Fiji.

Though nurtured near Wattala on the western coast of Sri Lanka in the mid-20th century Chandra Fernando had to study “under a bottle lamp” till he reached the age of twenty and this experience has motivated his charitable outreach. In this endeavour his guiding organisational principles were ‘simple’: “We are all volunteers.  No office.  No clerks. No Rent. No allowances. No travel expenses nor hotel accommodation in Australia when travelling Interstate. This helps us to donate more Solar Powered Lighting Packages to the poor and needy students in Sri Lanka.” – as he noted in an email to me.

Recipients in Kilinochi   ….. in Iranateevu

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September 24, 2019 · 10:36 am

Dark Nights in Sri Lanka: The Incidence and Spread of Electricity

Michael Roberts

Way back in the md-1990s when I was in Sri Lanka working on the Anti-Muslim “riots of 1915” and other such topics and driving up to Kandy, I gave a lift to a youngish man waiting for a bus at Nittambuwa. He was a SL Army soldier in civilian clothes heading home to his village off Matale[1] and I dropped him off at Warakapola. He was now engaged in office work; but that was because he had been invalided out of fighting duties. In fact, he was the only survivor of a wire-guided landmine ambush on 30th July 1995 that killed Lt Genl Nalin Angammana[2] and all the others in the vehicle. Suffering major injuries, his recovery had been aided by the generosity of Nalin Angammana’s widow, who financed his flights to USA for major operations – her act of dāna (almsgiving).[3]

Lt Genl Nalin Angammana

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September 24, 2019 · 2:37 am

Composing THE BROKEN PALMYRAH: Rajani Thiranagama’s Rigorous Oversight … and Her Insights

Rajan Hoole, whose chosen title is “Thirty Years After: Rajini Rajasingham Thiranagama’s Lasting Impact”

Text of Speech delivered by DR. Rajan Hoole at Trimmer Hall, Jaffna, on 21st September 2019 to mark the 30th anniversary of Dr.Rajini Thiranagama’s assassination [by the LTTE] …. presented first at http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/65690

Ever since Rajani was killed, on 21st September 1989, many around the world have seen her as a heroic figure that stood for human values, not in a legalistic sense, but in the full-blooded sense that evokes an emotional and intellectual response; that moves those around her to commitment and action that is contagious. Accepting that we are living in a world that is not pacifist, her activism was towards solutions that avoided violence. The other view of Rajani was simply that she is a traitor. For those who felt helpless when the Tigers carried all before them, she inspired them as a symbol of resistance to the emerging fascist order, where to dissent was to court death.

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September 23, 2019 · 3:31 pm

ANDUREN ELIYATA in Sydney: Its Energetic Distribution of Solar-Power Units to Households in Sri Lanka

ANDUREN ELIYATA first came to my attention when it was the beneficiary of the AUSTRALIA SRI LANKA ASSOCIATION of ADELAIDE’s charitable hand in 2019 after a successful evening of dancing and joli-kireema. It is based in Sydney and has been operational since 2014 and focuses on the donation of solar-powered units to outlying and needy households in Sri Lanka via a circuit of schools, religious dignitaries and do-gooders. Its principal hands and aides receive no payment.

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September 23, 2019 · 11:34 am

A Friend Indeed! Lord Michael Naseby’s Story of Sri Lanka … with Sri Lanka

Renuka Sadanandan, in Sunday Times, 22 September 2019, where the title is “Lanka’s friend in need and deed“

J.R. Jayewardene entertaining guests on the lawn of the President’s House once asked British MP Michael Morris if he smoked. When he replied no, the President inquired if his father did. Receiving a positive answer he presented Morris with a box of Cuban cigars, saying that President Fidel Castro regularly sent them to him. Back home in the UK, his father called to thank Morris for the cigars, informing him that he cut them in half as they were so strong! “You can’t cut Castro’s cigars in half Father,” he recalls his horrified protest.

  Michael Morris aka Lord Michael Naseby

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September 20, 2019 · 3:55 am

Naren Rajasingham’s Reading of Pirapāharan’s Thamilīlam in 2004/05

Michael Roberts

In working up perceptive readings of the Sri Lankan scenarios presented by the Tamil activist Narendran Rajasingham in Colombo Telegraph and other outlets I will proceed chronologically. This collection includes (B) his engagements with the Tamil peoples who survived the last stages of the war and ended up as internal refugees in IDP camps or elsewhere in 2009/10; (C) his discerning evaluations of the Tamil death toll; and (D) his forthright and critical reading of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Victory Day Speech of 13th May 2013 in no less an outlet than Colombo Telegraph; and (E) some biting exchanges within Colombo Telegraph when he countered Tamil protagonists via ethnographic data and incisive contentions in clarification of the war and its aftermath.

One finding is a Word File which he sent me on 23 August 2010 with assessments of the political scenario within the state of Thamilīlam in late 2004/05 – an assessment gathered in the course of his short sojourn there with his brother Jayadevan Rajasingham.[1]

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September 19, 2019 · 8:06 am

The Venerable Upstairs Domain of the Dutch Burgher Union

Courtesy of Fabian Schokman whose interest in Sri Lankan affairs is as deep as searching — the fruits to be seen soon I trust. ………And it all began with the Thuppahi item on Sister Aloha — courtesy of Myrna Setunga

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September 17, 2019 · 11:29 am

Dr R. L .Spittel within the Dutch Burgher Union

Being treated to lunch in the august upstair chambers of the Dutch Burgher Union by Fabian Schokman opened its ‘treasures’ to my eyes. These amateur photographs convey three ‘tales’ to those interested, two pictorial, one written.

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September 17, 2019 · 10:34 am

Narendran’s Evaluation of Pirapāharan and the LTTE on the Cusp of Their Demise in February 2009

Dr. Rajasingham Narendran, in Sri Lanka Guardian, 7 February 2009, where the title is “Rise and Fall of the LTTE – An Overview” …. with highlighting emphasis being impositions by The Editor, Thuppahi

Sri Lankan armed forces have almost ended the capacity of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) to engage in conventional war in the near future. They may also succeed in severely curtailing attempts by the LTTE to resort to sabotage, terrorism and socio-economic disruptions, subsequently. They have also recovered almost the entirety of the territory once held by the LTTE. These achievements, contrary to the expectations of many, have not only attracted the attention of the world, but also its implicit support. However, the plight of the 250,000 Tamil civilians, believed held by the LTTE in the jungles of Mullaitivu is weighing heavy on the world’s conscience. How the Sri Lankan government and armed forces will deal with the issue of these civilians, is being scrutinized closely by a concerned world and the Tamil-speaking people at large.

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September 17, 2019 · 4:25 am

Narendran’s Evaluation of the IDP Camps in August 2009

Narendran Rajasingham, in TamilWeek, 30 August 2009** … where the title is “Internally displaced persons: The new front of an old war in Sri Lanka”

Since the defeat of the LTTE on 18th May’ 2009 at Nandikadal, the issue of the 300,000 ‘Internally Displaced persons (IDPs)’ has become the new front to fight an old war.  People who have not been to the IDP camps in Chettikulam have been very vociferous in condemning the conditions and the very existence of these camps.  Objective reports based on contextual realities by those who have visited these camps and talked to a cross section of the IDPs are dismissed as propaganda on behalf of the government. Other reports of those who visited these camps, but have highlighted problems that fit in with the agenda of those fighting in the new front, are gobbled up with glee. The reports of those who have not visited these camps and are relying on second hand information and photographs, are accepted as the gospel truth. The desire to condemn and use the situation as an opportunity to continue the old Eelam agenda under a new guise is overwhelmingly obvious.

Rajasingham et al with General Gunaratne  young IDPs at school –Pic deployed in TamilWeek

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