Thuppahi's Blog

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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Group Captain Kumar Kirinde, whose chosen title is “Advent of the Cruise Missile” … conveying an article replete with photographic illustrations — which are mostly missing here.

From an idea of an “aerial torpedo” shown in a 1909 film to the  modern-day cruise missiles.  The idea of an “aerial torpedo” was shown in the 1909 British silent film The Airship Destroyer in which flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.

In 1916, the American aviator Lawrence Sperry built and patented an “aerial torpedo”, the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, a small biplane carrying a TNT charge, a Sperry autopilot and barometric altitude control.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile and Google Imagesu

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ITEM in The Island, 29 September  2025 WITH THIS TITLE  “Carrying a legacy forward: Lara De Zoysa launches Ceylon Tea Market in UK”

Launched by Lara De Zoysa, daughter of the late Michael De Zoysa, the platform brings together heritage brands, artisanal producers, tea tourism, learning, and social impact under one umbrella.

Carrying forward the legacy of her late father, Michael De Zoysa — one of the most respected figures in the Sri Lankan tea industry — Lara De Zoysa has launched Ceylon Tea Market, a pioneering multi-vendor platform dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and promoting the heritage of Pure Ceylon Tea.

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ASIA PROGRESS FORUM in The Island, 5 October 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka’s recent speech at the UN General Assembly, while outwardly progressive in tone, reveals a troubling lack of structural analysis. His framing of global crises, identifying poverty, narcotics, corruption, war, and technological ethics, leans heavily on moral condemnation and humanitarian concern, but avoids any deeper systemic critique…… 

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Michael Roberts, …… in 2008

The printed version of this essay can be found in Michael Roberts: FIRE and STORM. ESSAYS IN SRI LANKAN POLITICS, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2010, Chapter 9 …… ISBN 978-955-665-134-8. It was presented earlier on web in Groundviews on 23 April 2008 where it attracted 19 Comments ………………. https://groundviews.org/2008/04/23/how-does-one-become-sinhalese-or-tamil-in-sentiment/

How does one BECOME Sinhalese or Tamil in Sentiment?

Michael Roberts

on 04/23/2008

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Item from Harry Solomons in Facebook, October 2025 introducing HARJAS SINGH, a former worker at his Kingsgrove Sports Shop, who hammered 314 runs from 141 balls for Western Suburbs in a Sydney Premier Leagur match….. losing ten balls in the  process.