SL Army built Centre for Disabilities given to Kelaniya University

News Item in Island, 25 July 2018 …http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=207948

he AYATI Center – Sri Lanka’s first National Center for Children with Disabilities, was ceremonially handed over by the Sri Lankan Army to the Faculty of Medicine- University of Kelaniya on July 18. Graced by members of the Sri Lanka Army along with AYATI Trustees, partners, academics, donors and many more, this occasion marked the completion of construction of the AYATI Center. The center will be opened to the public by end 2019, providing its services free of charge to help children with disabilities in Sri Lanka.

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Bearding Boris Johnson

 Luke Slattery, in The Australian, 25 July 2019 where the title runs Boris’s greek tragedy might reveal his achilles heel”
It is difficult to watch the concluding moments of a 2015 “intelligence squared” live debate between philhellene Boris Johnson and academic Mary Beard on the subject of Greece v Rome and not be concerned by the new British Prime Minister’s inability to prevail. Of course, Greece bests Rome in anything other than a contest of arms, or perhaps an aqueduct building competition. You don’t have to be a classicist to realise that.
Exhibit A: Athens invented democracy; Rome destroyed it.

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Ludicrous Science. Huge Error Margins in Death Toll Figures

Chandre Dharmagunawrdena, in Island, 26 July 2019, where the title isGenocide Claims, Number Games and their margins of error”

June 23, 1983  known as “Black July” was a day of shame for Sri Lanka where a government calling itself a “Dharmista Rajya” (a Righteous Regime)  permitted, aided and abetted armed mobs to attack a section of its defenseless citizens — civilian Tamils.  The fact that there were looters, or the possibility that other forces  fished in  troubled waters (http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=74181),  or that most DIG’s of the time were Tamils (http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=74047), etc.,  are irrelevant to the very clear-cut  main issue. That state-aided  terror  happened in the CAPITAL itself  is a FACT and not some allegation based on a numbers game of guessing how  many Tamils  lived in the Metropolis before and after the event.

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Lanka’s National Security Apparatus: Its Tempestuous and Unholy History

Edward Gunawardena, in Island, 22 July 2019 where the title is  “The National Security Council and police intelligence”

Since the happenings on Easter Sunday 2019, much discussion has been focused on the National Security Council – the premier decision making body on matters concerning National Security. With obscure beginnings, commencing in the early years of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike regime in the sixties, the NSC has a history of over six decades. Concerned persons in governance, particularly the political stakeholders, appear to be clueless as to the composition, responsibilities, functions and the manner of operation of this organization.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/What-went-wrong-with-the-NSC-/131-168808

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Challenging Hannah Beech on the Gintota Disturbances in November 2017: A Clarification

Gerald Peiris,

I was in error (albeit an inaccuracy regarding the date) when I said in my earlier message to you that there was no attack on the Muslims in Gintota on 12 November 2017. There was, in fact, a riot which began several days later.

http://srilankabrief.org/2017/11/sri-lanka-individual-clash-erupted-into-a-ethnic-violence-in-gintota-galle-situation-under-control/

Initial unrest was triggered off by a traffic accident along the Galle-Colombo highway on 12 November involving a motorcyclist (Sinhalese) and two pedestrians (a Muslim woman and her daughter) which ended with police mediation and the motorcyclist made to pay Rs. 25,000 as compensation to the victims (treated for minor injuries as ‘OPD patients’ at Galle).

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Horrendous Constitutional Weaknesses via the 13th Amendment framed by India

C. A. Chandraprema, in Island, 22 July 2019, where the title is “13A: SL never got what India has: Four decades of constitutional folly and failure – 2

“Upon the making of a proclamation under the Public Security Ordinance or the law for the time being in force relating to public security, bringing the provisions of such Ordinance or law into operation on the ground that the maintenance of essential supplies and services is, threatened or that the security of Sri Lanka is threatened by war or external aggression or armed rebellion, the President may give directions to any Governor as to the manner in which the executive power exercisable by the Governor is to be exercised …”

President J. R. Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi after signing the Indo-Lanka Accord, which paved the way for the provincial council system

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Minnete de Silva Pictorial : Aficianado and Architect Extraordinary

Minnete de Silva: Aficionado and Architect Extraordinary

Minnette de Silva (Sinhalaමිනට් ද සිල්වා;Tamilமினிட் டி சில்வா; 1 February 1918–24 November 1998) was an internationally recognized architect, considered the pioneer of the modern architectural style in Sri Lanka.[2][3] De Silva was a fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects.

De Silva was the first Sri Lankan woman to be trained as an architect and the first Asian woman to be elected an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1948. De Silva was also the first Asian representative of CIAM in 1947 and was one of the founding members of the Architectural publication Marg. Later in her life, she was awarded the SLIA Gold Medal for her contribution to Architecture in particular her pioneering work developing a ‘regional modernism for the tropics’….. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnette_de_Silva

Minnette de Silva with Pablo Picasso (left) at the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace, 1948

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Anecdotal Lore on “Apey George,” namely, George E. De Silva, and Family

Eardley Lieversz, 16 July 2019

Interestingly, I am in touch with Apey George’s grandson, Mahindra, who lives in Melbourne. He is George Silva Junior’s son. George and his wife were good friends with my maternal aunt and uncle. They were very Burgherised. You wouldn’t consider George Jnr as a Sinhalese. He is very Burgher in his manners.

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Challenging Hannah Beech: The Strangulation of the Rohingyas, 1948-2019

Gerald Peiris, … responding to https://thuppahis.com/2019/07/16/buddhist-zealots-in-sri-lanka-and-myanmar-stir-the-cauldron/See Note at head of References

The section of the Bangladesh frontier in the south-east runs adjacent to the northern Arakan states of Myanmar (formerly, Burma) —a politically turbulent area which has, at least from the late 1940s, been featured by spells of high intensity conflict between the government of Myanmar and the Arakanese Muslims, the ‘Rohingya.’ The length of time over which the Rohingya have coexisted in this hilly area with the numerically larger ‘Rakhine’ — a predominantly Buddhist ethnic group— is not known with certainty. The Rohingya claim in this regard is that their roots could be traced back to the 10th century Muslim migrations into Burma, and that, in the northern Arakan, they constituted an independent principality for more than three centuries from 1430 to 1784.[i]  This has been disputed.  The official stand of the government of Myanmar (which has, in fact, been corroborated in certain scholarly writings) is that the Rohingya community consists largely of Bengali Muslims who migrated into this area after the annexation of Arakan by the British in 1843.

Pics from 2017 selected by Thuppahi from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rohingya-crisis-photos_n_5a3bc302e4b025f99e150f1d

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John Lukacs Looks to the Past in “The Future of History”

Richard Simon in his site where the title is “Looking Forward to the Past”…. http://notesfromceylon.blogspot.com/2019/07/96-normal-0-false-false-false-en-gb-x.html

  The Future of History,  by John Lukacs

A maverick but respected historian, John Lukacs had a lot to say about his own profession, and in the sunset of his life he gathered together his thoughts on the subject in this small but far from easy book. His theme is the role of history and the historian at the end of a historical era, the Modern Age. Continue reading

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