September 29, 2019 · 11:14 am

PK Balachandran’s Evaluation of Presidential Stakes: Sajith vs Gota and the Implications

PK Balachandran, in Sunday Island, 20 September 2019, with this title “What’s in store for Lankans with Sajith and Gotabaya vying for the Presidency?”

On Thursday, after a month-long bitter inner-party struggle, Sajith Premadasa was nominated as the ruling United National Party’s candidate for the November 16 Sri Lankan Presidential election. The entrenched faction led by party Leader and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had to bite the dust eventually, and grant Deputy Leader and Housing Minister Sajith Premadasa the party nomination “unconditionally.”

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September 28, 2019 · 2:36 pm

When Solar-Light reaches the Disadvantaged … Udagaldebokka Hasalaka

Chandra Fernando informed Thuppahi that on the 21st September 2019 “30 Solar Powered Lighting Packages were distributed at Udagaldebokka. The first two  photos show the packages being carried  to village and the trail….

Thuppahi Comment: The pictures are not only significant in displaying some facets of the terrain; but also in underling the cultural practices within (in this instance) Sinhala society inclusive of class differentiation.  This set of illustrations should be treated as an essential appendage of the item by SWR de Samarasinghe entitled  “The Variation in the Diffusion of Electrical Power” …… https://thuppahis.com/2019/09/27/the-variation-in-the-diffusion-of-electrical-power/

Click to view MAP prepared by Gerald Peiris =  Udagaldebokka environs (1)

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September 28, 2019 · 10:48 am

Military Whispers may have bolstered Sri Lankan Cricket Tour of Pakistan?

Michael Roberts

In venturing into Pakistan this month of September 2019 for the first tour recognised in the ICC books since the terrorist assault on the Sri Lankan entourage on 3rd March 2009, it could be conjectured that Sri Lanka is re-paying the Pakistan government for its military support when the Sri Lankan armed forces were in dire straits in the Jaffna Peninsula after the huge SL Army base at Elepahnt Pass was captured on 23rd April 2008 followed by the fall of the Pallai base. Colonel Balraj’s Tiger troops were so ascendant and threatening that the Kumaratunga government was considering the evacuation of all forces from the Jaffna Peninsula. A calamity of the Dunkirk variety was looming in April-May. Overtures were even made to the Indian government for assistance in evacuation. Even Generals Fonseka and Janaka Perera were prepared to take this step. It was General Anuruddha Ratwatte who backed President Kumaratunga’s fighting spirit and refused to pursue such a course in early May 2000.

Ratwatte  Musharaf

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September 27, 2019 · 3:02 pm

The Variation in the Diffusion of Electrical Power

SWR de Samarasinghe[1]

Thanks for sharing the very informative map — in  your piece “Dark Nights in Sri Lanka: The Incidence and Spread of Electricity.”[2] The relative deprivation of north outside the Jaffna Peninsula is striking but not surprising. Sparse population, poverty and the war are key explanatory factors. Economics plays a role to the extent that the overhead cost of supplying a single dwelling or a business in these areas will be higher than in more densely populated areas and the expected income for the CEB lower. The solution is a government subsidy for the CEB. My understanding is that such a subsidization has been government policy for a long time. The social benefits are substantial and in the long term it pays off economically as well.

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September 27, 2019 · 6:31 am

“We will get You ….” American Threat at the UNHRC in Geneva in September 2011 .

Tamara Kunanayakam, in Email Memo dated 26th September 2019 responding to my two-fold query: “When precisely was it that Eileen O’Donahue (?) spat out “WE WILL GET  YOU” when you passed each other in the Geneva corridors ….  date? which building? etc….. and the impending circumstances? AND  “who were the local niggers in the woodpile who got you transferred out of Geneva? …. Michael Roberts

It was at the September 2011 18th session of the Human Rights Council. At the time, the US was not a member of the HRC and Washington had asked Canada to sponsor a draft resolution on Sri Lanka that would place the country on the agenda of the Council’s 19th session, in March 2012. The draft resolution called for an interactive dialogue on Sri Lanka at the session.

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September 27, 2019 · 5:23 am

The Gash Files and Beyond

Michael Roberts

Shamindra Ferdinando’s rambling presentation of an Interview with Lord the Michael Naseby has produced some vital information about the creaking inner workings of the British government as well as the circumstances surrounding Lord Naseby’s interventions on behalf of Sri Lanka. Naseby’s assiduous effort to extract the reports sent by the British Defence Attache in Colombo in the year 2009, one Lt. Col. Gash, did not commence till November 2013 when David Cameron, the British PM, was about to head to Sri Lanka for the CHOGM conference – a visit where Cameron played the hero for the British public, the world HR lobbies and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.

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September 26, 2019 · 2:18 pm

Wildlife Wonderland …. Wilpattu in Sri Lanka

Courtesy of a Face book entrybya Sri Lankan with good taste…web reference misplaced

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September 26, 2019 · 2:41 am

Ferdi grills Lord Naseby: How the Colonel Gash Reports became Public ….. Late in the Day

Shamindra Ferdinando, in Island, 25 September 2019, where the title runs ““Naseby disappointed in Lanka’s collective failure to use ‘Gash reports’ for its defence”

Sri Lanka recently lost a golden opportunity to honour British politician Lord Naseby whose untiring efforts helped Sri Lanka to counter politically-motivated unsubstantiated war crimes allegations, propagated by interested parties. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka lacked the required political will to exploit the Conservative Party politician’s revelations. Instead, the current dispensation struggled to cope up with Lord Naseby’s disclosure in the House of Lords, on Oct 12, 2017. The revelation disputed the very basis of a Geneva Resolution, co-sponsored by Sri Lanka on Oct 01, 2015.

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September 26, 2019 · 1:50 am

The Crushing Sway of the English Language in 20th Century Ceylon

Vinod  Moonesinghe, ….. responding to a passing ethnographic note by Chandra Fernando which ran thus “Unfortunately, Mr Bandaranaike, who had Oxford Education, was not intelligent enough to know the value of English to Ceylonese. When we received telegrams, the postman could not read them, so we had to go to Mabole 3 miles walk either way where Wattala Post Office was to get it read from Postmaster.”

In reply to Chandra Fernando’s statements about English, it is not SWRD Banadaranaike he should blame, but the British imperial power. The British created a tiny circle of elite schools, to create a stratum of English-speaking civil servants and compradores, to serve their needs. The vast bulk of the population were left uneducated. Vernacular schools did not teach above the 8th grade, and you needed to go to an English-language school to get your SSC. By 1956, only 5% of the population could speak English.

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September 25, 2019 · 4:32 am

English-Speak penetrates Europe

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.  As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”. 

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