January 20, 2019 · 11:09 pm

Water and Wild Life in Sri Lanka brought to life

Mike Birkhead and Associates .... and their Documentary Series = https://www.mikebirkhead.com/Wild-Sri-Lanka.html

Nowhere else on earth is the power of water to create, shape and sustain life so dazzlingly evident as on the tiny oceanic island of Sri Lanka. Rising from the waves, it is a land where not one, but two monsoons mark time. A world where rains pour down, clouds swell, rivers flow, mists dance across the skies, frosts dust the highlands and thousands of man-made lakes form a curious wonderland filled with a wildlife that is strange, beautiful and utterly unique. In this series we will delve into the land of these breathtaking creatures – from the largest mammal on earth, the blue whale, to the smallest, the etruscan shrew – and discover how, from the moment Sri Lanka fractured from the southern supercontinent of Gondwanaland and was carried by the oceans to its present home – it has been an island which has been ruled by one unstoppable force: water.

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January 20, 2019 · 2:51 am

How Washington nurtured Maithripala Sirisena in 2013-15 to serve Its Ends

Daya Gamage of USA [i]… with highlighting emphasis being the work of The  Editor, Thuppahi

As you have noted in your email[ii] that Chandrika and Ven. Sobhitha[iii] were instrumental in identifying and cultivating Maithripala Sirisena to take the field against Rajapaksa at the 2015 Presidential Election, let me emphasize that Washington also had a firm covert hand in the selection.

Way back in 2013 Washington identified Sirisena as a possible candidate against Mahinda Rajapaksa. The first step was when, as Rajapaksa’s Health Minister, Sirisena received the Harvard Health Leadership Award 2013 from Harvard University Dean Dr. Julio Frenk and Harvard Professor (International Affairs) William Clark for minimizing the consumption of alcohol and smoking and adopting a National Drug Policy in Sri Lanka.

Health Minister Maitripala Sirisena receiving Harvard Leadership Award 2013 From Harvard University Dean Dr. Julio Frenk and Harvard Professor International Affairs William Clark

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January 19, 2019 · 2:24 pm

Brexit Explained the British Way — with Humour

John Bull

David Cameron made a promise he didn’t think he’d have to keep to have a referendum he didn’t think he would lose.

Boris Johnson decided to back the side he didn’t believe in because he didn’t think it would win. Then Gove, who said he wouldn’t run, did, and Boris who said he would run, said he wouldn’t, and Theresa May who didn’t vote for Brexit got the job of making it happen.

She called the election she said she wouldn’t and lost the majority David Cameron hadn’t expected to win in the first place. She triggered Article 50 when we didn’t need to and said we would talk about trade at the same time as the divorce deal and the EU said they wouldn’t so we didn’t. People thought she wouldn’t get the divorce settled but she did, but only by agreeing to separate arrangements for Northern Ireland when she had promised the DUP she wouldn’t. Continue reading →

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January 17, 2019 · 2:29 am

Cracking Impact! The Suntharalingam Saga’s Theatrical Tour de Force

Cassie Tongue in Time-Out, 16 January 2019, where the title is “Counting and Cracking review” ….. with Brett Boardman’s PICs …. and highlighting added

It’s only January, but we have an early contender for the best play of the year in Counting and Cracking. And we certainly won’t see another play like it any time soon. Set in a recursion of town halls – a Sri Lankan-style one built inside Sydney’s landmark Town Hall – Counting and Cracking takes place in both Colombo and Sydney, in the 1970s and 2004, and always keeps one foot in each world; as we are about to see, the past and present are not so easily separated.

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January 14, 2019 · 1:28 pm

Chettinad’s Palaces in View

T. S. Subramanium,in Frontline, 7 December 2018, with photos by Velankanni Raj …. where the title runs “The Palaces of Chettinad”

The palatial decorated homes of Chettiars in the Chettinad region of Tamil Nadu are symbols of a colonial-era architectural heritage marked by opulence. The stately mansions of Nattukottai Chettiars of the Chettinad region in Tamil Nadu are a statement of the affluence the mercantile community enjoyed at the height of its prosperity during the British Raj. The palatial houses, with the built-up area measuring anywhere between 20,000 square feet (1,858 sq. metres) and 70,000 sq. ft (6,503 sq. m), were mostly built in the period between the early 1800s and the 1940s. The Chettiars had set up flourishing trading and business enterprises in Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia (including Java and Sumatra), Vietnam, Mauritius and the Philippines.

       At the Chettinad palace, a large patio with “thinnais”

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January 14, 2019 · 10:41 am

The Dressing Down of the Century: President Sirisena’s Scathing Sermon to his Captive Cabinet

Darshanie Ratnawalli’s Pithy Translation of President Sirisena’s Speech to His Present Cabinet … with some asides on the reception among his captive audience

Associated with our victory in 2015 there were many aspirations, hopes, wishes of the people. During the past three and half, almost four years, there were many victories and positive achievements we engendered as a government. At the same time there were harmful, inauspicious, undisciplined, wretched and lawless things that happened as well (Ranil W shrugs shoulders with impatient look of hauteur on face). While we can celebrate the good things, we must also join the people in bemoaning the lost opportunities. The pledges of our manifesto started getting violated from the moment the first Cabinet was appointed after the victory. The manifesto said the subjects and ministries should be assigned on a scientific basis, and a board of experts were appointed for that purpose. However, I don’t know if that file was even glanced at in making appointments. (Champika smiles contemptuously, like a civilised and noble leader forced to listen to driveling of an uncouth cur, who doesn’t maintain the decencies of polite society.)

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January 13, 2019 · 12:05 pm

Sangakkara’s MCC Lecture and the Rajapaksa & Wickremasinghe Governments’ Failures

Shamindra Ferdinando, an old essay in Island, 24 January 2017, with this title “The day Kumar Sangakkara felt humbled. Unpardonable failure to capitalize on ‘Spirit of Cricket’ lecture” …. with highlighting emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi
Sri Lankan cricketer, Kumar Sangakkara earned the wrath of the war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government for his hour long “Spirit of Cricket” lecture at the July, 2011, Sir Colin Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s. Some politicians and officials depicted the lecture as a frontal attack on the then government. Those who had resented Sangakkara, for being critical of their conduct, cleverly deceived President Rajapaksa. They propagated the lie that the cricketer was challenging the government and was working with the Opposition.

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January 13, 2019 · 5:23 am

The Political Struggle in Sri Lanka: Three Pugilists … Hattotuwa … Chandraprema … Philips

ONE. Sanjana Hattotuwa:  “Musical Chairs,” Island, 12 January 2019

The appointment of a new Army Chief of Staff. A fresh denial around the use of chemical weapons. The denunciation of a civil society protest against mainstream media supportive of the constitutional coup, not by members of the SLPP, but by those in the UNP and government. A photograph of a former President, the incumbent and the Prime Minister, comfortably seated next to each other, enjoying or at least at a musical show. Newspaper headlines and reports framing dire warnings by the former President, who true to form, relies on the capture of emotions over fact or principle. In just the second week of January, we are presented with the template for what the year ahead holds. It is not looking good, but despite the obvious anxiety, I continue to maintain, is counter-intuitively rather beneficial. The greatest contribution of the constitutional coup to conversations around the grasp of Sri Lanka’s democratic potential was to place in the open and very clearly, who stood for what and where. This endures.

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January 12, 2019 · 12:56 pm

Our Wonderful World: The Mammals of Ceylon Brought to Life

Burton K Lim in © 2015 American Society of Mammalogists, www.mammalogy.org ……

…. reviewing  A. Yapa, A. and G. Ratnavira  2013. The Mammals of Sri Lanka. Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka, Department of Zoology, University of Colombo, Colombo 3, Sri Lanka. 1,012 pp. ISBN: 978-955-8576-32-8, price (hard cover), Rs. 7500.

The last comprehensive book on the mammals of Sri Lanka was compiled 8 decades ago when the island nation off the coast of India was known as the British colony of Ceylon (Phillips 1935). A sumptuously illustrated opus that updates and exceeds this earlier monograph was published last year with text exquisitely written by Asoka Yapa and color plates artistically painted by Gamini Ratnavira.

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January 12, 2019 · 10:37 am

Economising via Gleaning. Ancient Practices for Today’s World

Item in THE ECONOMIST,  Christmas Special, entitled “Gleaning. The return of gleaning in the modern world. How much can an ancient practice do to alleviate hunger?”

AT THE SALON in Paris in 1857, Jean-François Millet exhibited a painting called “Des glaneuses” (“Gleaners”). It caused a scandal. Millet had long made a point of painting peasants at their labours, but this big canvas was his strongest provocation. Into a decorous world of silks and parasols it introduced rough women, plump in their homespun skirts, rumps in the air, grubbing for ears of grain dropped after the harvest. One critic complained of “ugliness and…grossness unrelieved”. Another said it made him think of the scaffolds and pikes of the Terror of 1793.

Millet had seen the women differently. He found them dignified, doing their work in a sanctifying late-summer light, companions to his peasant “Angelus”. In this, as well as their humble roughness, he caught the essence of gleaning.

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