April 16, 2019 · 2:21 am

SL Army enshrine a New Statue at a Mass in Madu

A News Item, April 2019 …. https://www.army.lk/news/wanni-army-troops-consecrate-holy-madu-shrine-attend-special-mass-commander

Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake, Commander of the Army on Thursday (11) morning had the rare privilege of offering a new statue of Our Lady of Madu to the most sacred Holy Madu Shrine in Mannar during a Special Mass and simultaneously consecrating the statue in an Army-built pedestal, adjoining the main Shrine premises.

The day’s sequence of proceedings began with the carriage of the newly-carved Holy Statue of Our Lady of Madu by Army personnel in a motorcade before it was blessed in a Special Mass inside the main Shrine after Most Reverend Dr Emmanuel Fernando, Bishop of Mannar and Reverend Father Peppi Sosai, Administrator at Madu Shrine received the statue for consecration and invocation of blessings.

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April 15, 2019 · 10:55 am

Gotabaya remains Upbeat and in Fighting Mood

Hassina Leelarathna in Los Angeles, writing for  DAILY FT, 12 April 2019, where the title reads “Gota fires back against lawsuits”

Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has dismissed the two lawsuits filed against him as baseless and insisted that they would only motivate him and his supporters to push for political change in Sri Lanka. “These lawsuits have been filed to delay the process and discourage me. I have handed the matter to my lawyers [in Los Angeles] to take care of and I’m looking ahead to what needs to be done for our country,” said Rajapaksa, commenting on the two civil lawsuits filed against him in the Central District of California. Continue reading →

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April 15, 2019 · 10:34 am

Gotabaya in Legal Gunsights: One, Two, Three …

ONE = Sanjana Hattotuwa: “The Candidate,” in Island, April 2019,

“The lie is revealed. There was no summons served. The photo depicts a lookalike of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The FBI is engaged in an effort to ascertain who produced this false information”. The Facebook Page with this content originally in Sinhala also featured a screenshot of a news story from a leading private electronic media institution. This TV channel, with pages on Facebook in both Sinhala and English that regularly generate very high engagement, ran a story which strongly suggested news of Gotabaya Rajapaksa being sued in the US was false and incorrect.

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April 15, 2019 · 4:36 am

A Major Overhaul of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy Called For

Nimal Edirisinghe, in Daily Ft, 11 April 2019, where the title runs “ Foreign policy: Need for a paradigm shift for Sri Lanka”

A country’s foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. Since the national interests are paramount, foreign policies are designed by the government through high-level decision making processes.

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April 14, 2019 · 12:15 pm

A Cry for Sri Lanka — Jane Russell in London

When I sent Sampanthan’s recent “Statement” in Colombo Telegraph[1] to Jane Russell in England, her Immediate Response by Email, dated 13th April 2019, was an impassioned Cry from the Heart

There are no sensible replies to this kind of rhetoric…. perhaps a novel such as Gogol’s ‘Dead Souls’ might challenge such hyperbole? But we are in an era when the ‘Leader of the Free World’ can lie, exaggerate, fantasise, stereotype and throw unsubstantiated accusations and abuse on opponents with happy abandon.

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April 14, 2019 · 11:27 am

Nimal Sanderatne’s Review of Lanka’s Economic Performance over 71 Years

Nimal Sanderatne, in Sunday Times, 3 February 2013, where the title reads  “Tale of lost opportunities: 71 years of economic underdevelopment amid social progress”  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the eve of the country’s 71st anniversary of independence, we cannot be content with the country’s post-independence economic performance. It has been far below our potential and expectations at independence. It has been a tale of lost opportunities. Nevertheless, our post-independence social development has been impressive with significant improvements in education, health and social amenities. Continue reading →

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April 14, 2019 · 4:32 am

SL Cricket Captaincy: Selectors’ Cartwheels and Internal Turmoil

Rex Clementine, in Sunday Island, 1 April 2019, where the title is “Sri Lanka’s captaincy becomes poisoned chalice”

Sri Lanka’s fans have little hope during the ICC Cricket World Cup as infighting and disharmony are threatening to disrupt the national cricket team’s campaign in cricket’s showpiece event next month. Sunday Island learns that the team’s premier batsman Angelo Mathews has declined to take over the captaincy after it was offered to him by Chairman of Selectors Ashantha De Mel earlier this week.

Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne is set to be named Sri Lanka’s white ball captain as well after Angelo Mathews refused the captaincy ahead of the World Cup


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April 14, 2019 · 3:52 am

Steam Engines and the Sea in Yesteryear

Sunil Wanigatunga, in Sunday Times, 24 JUne 2018, where the title is “Childhood Memories : A time of sea and steam rail engines”

I  was born in Mount Lavinia by the sea into the salt wind, sea sounds and rumbling steam engines. My father was an advocate who made his family nest at Beach Road in a house procured for a princely rent of forty rupees per month in 1938. Born a weak child with a bleak physical future, the weather fortunes of the oceans and monsoonal rains and winds took their toll by way of constant illness, aided by chronic tonsillitis. This, however, built a natural resistance to all adversity and has stood by me through life embedded in my human frame and mind.

Rumbling, hissing, hooting of the steam engines and the ‘clickety clack’ of the carriages plying the sea bordered rail track, disturbed my father’s work and our sleep at night. However, these sounds intrigued my child mind. Touching the fire of imagination which is the birth right of every child. The magnitude of the power and dreadful noises attracted me to these “Yakada Yakas” a brilliant Sinhala substitute term for the Iron Monster.

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April 14, 2019 · 3:12 am

Athulathmudali to Wickremasinghe: Logistics Hub is One Pillar in USA’s Strategic Design for Sri Lanka

Daya Gamage in Asian Tribune, 12 April 2019, where the title reads “At 2020 Sri Lanka elections, stakes are high for the U.S.”

Washington interests toward countries and regions work in very strange ways. Its national interest is foremost. Maintaining the existing regional hegemony, or designs seeking to penetrate into regions it once dominated but over time slipped out of, are deeply associated with that foremost national interest.

Sri Lanka knowingly or unknowingly tasted it in 1987, and now this dimension is very clearly visible over the these two years when Washington woke up like Rip van Winkle to combat Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific region and took stpes to transform Sri Lanka into a U.S. military hub. Continue reading →

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April 11, 2019 · 11:08 am

Political Currents and Conflicts in Sri Lanka — Venugopal’s New CUP Book

Benjamin Brown, reviewing Nationalism, Development and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka by Rajesh Venugopal …. at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2018/12/18/book-review-nationalism-development-and-ethnic-conflict-in-sri-lanka-by-rajesh-venugopal/

Dr Rajesh Venugopal’s new book, Nationalism, Development and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, offers a fresh look at how colonial legacies, nationalist ideology and discourses of development that have combined to shape the contours of Sri Lanka’s current tumultuous politics.

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