November 11, 2018 · 11:08 pm

A Clarification of the Bond Issue Controversy in 2015

A NOTE from Sam Samarasinghe, 11 November 2018: “Here is the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Bond Scam article, “The Bond Issue Controversy: An Analysis” that you wanted. It was published in March 2015 in The Island and the Financial Times.  In April 2015 the weekly newspaper Ravaya published a Sinhala translation. Groundviews carried the English version. We pointed out that the crux of the issue was “insider trading” a practice that is common in white collar financial crime almost everywhere. Our article tried to explain the technical maneuver that led to the fraud. The Presidential Commission that investigated the bond scam in great detail later confirmed what we stated in the article. We were not conducting a criminal investigation to find out those who were culpable. That is a job for the Criminal Investigation Department.”

Ada Derana Pic

Sam Samarasinghe and Dushyantha Mendis: “The Bond Issue Controversy: An Analysis.” in GROUNDVIEWS, 26 March 2015, https://groundviews.org/2015/03/26/the-bond-issue-controversy-an-analysis/ … where several comments can also be found

The issue of government bonds on February 27 has raised a huge controversy, involving questions as to the competence of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), and also allegations of insider dealing. The government has been slow to respond to the public outrage the controversy has evoked. This article tries to explain the intricacies of the issues involved in this controversy. We believe that a more informed public will be better able to hold accountable those who are responsible for the events that occurred and thereby contribute to the cause of Yaha Paalanaya. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, charitable outreach, commoditification, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, unusual people, world events & processes

November 11, 2018 · 2:27 pm

Our Murali: An Ecumenical Man for All Peoples and Ethnicities

Pushpendra Albe, in Cricket Age, 10 November 2018 where the title is “Murali Helps All Communities Alike, So Who Can Complain?”

As a cricketer, Muttiah Muralitharan has been regarded as the greatest spinnerof all time. As a cricketer, his journey to become the living legend of the game by overcoming all the hurdles and controversies, was nothing sort of a spectacular fairy tale.

However, there is another side of Murali, which has turned out equally admirable. As a philanthropist, through his NGO Foundation Of Goodness (FOG), Murali have brought change in the millions of the Sri Lankans, irrespective of their caste, background or religion. Murali’s journey as a philanthropist in last one decade has transformed Sri Lanka’s poor communities and has opened the whole new world for the younger generations. With his manager and founder trustee of FOG Kushil Gunasekera, Murali has become a symbol of peace, harmony and has uplifted millions of lives. Those Tamil leaders, who are questioning Murali’s contribution to the community, must see the ground reality of bowling legend philanthropic achievements, before pointing fingers towards him!

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under charitable outreach, communal relations, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, teaching profession, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions

November 11, 2018 · 1:38 pm

Remembrance Day 1918

Lucy Robinson: “Remembrance Day: How Australia celebrated the first Armistice Day 100 years ago

ABC South East SA  ….Posted 
A crowd of people gathered in Martin Place. Military figures are addressing the crowd from a replica sailing ship. PHOTO: Military figures addressed the crowd in Sydney from a replica sailing ship set up like a stage.(Supplied: Australian War Memorial, P04370.003)

As gunfire ceased on the Western Front on the morning of November 11, 1918, Australia’s first war correspondent Charles Bean observed “the gates to the future silently opened”.The armistice which secured the end of World War I had been signed at dawn, marking the conclusion of a four-year conflict that had claimed more than 60,000 Australian lives.Confirmation would take several hours to reach Australia, where crowds were gathering in the streets at the first whispers of the news. Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, trauma, war reportage, world events & processes

November 11, 2018 · 1:25 pm

The Last Post

The Last Post

420,730 views

Published on Apr 9, 2012

Australian Army…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Pz5KsyfN0

Corporal Matthew Creek of the Royal Military College Band plays The Last Post at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. The Last Post is one of a number of bugle calls in military tradition that mark the phases of the day. In military tradition, the Last Post is the bugle call that signifies the end of the day’s activities. It is also sounded at military funerals to indicate that the soldier has gone to his final rest and at commemorative services such as ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under art & allure bewitching, Australian culture, australian media, landscape wondrous, life stories, self-reflexivity, trauma, world events & processes

November 8, 2018 · 1:41 pm

Confronting Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Q & A in 2018 – Swedish Journalist Mikaelsson

Johan Mikaelsson, in Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, 5 November 2018, where the title is “Impunity Island: Sri Lanka’s “predator emeritus” on rebound,”

Many local journalists feel discomfort when they hear the name Gotabaya Rajapaksa[1]. He is seen as a ruthless person, who was behind the murder wave that took the lives of their colleagues. They see it as unthinkable to contact him and ask critical questions. The few foreign journalists who tried to put some pressure on him when he held his powerful position 2005–2015 were met with anger. After 2015, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been almost invisible in international media.

 

‘Gota’, the nick-name under which he is usually known, is now often surrounded by a glow, a shimmering luster. Many want to see more of ‘Gota’, they regard him as a wonder maker. Most editors avoid challenging him. A few journalists in the domestic English-language press have asked difficult questions, but ‘Gota’ appears to be ready to move on, possibly as a candidate in the presidential election in 2020.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, atrocities, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, legal issues, LTTE, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom & censorship, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, terrorism, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes

November 8, 2018 · 10:27 am

Sri Lanka’s Political Story from 1948-2018 in a Slash-and-Burn Nutshell

Qadri Ismail, in Groundviews, 3 November 2018, where the title is “WHAT, to the minority, is democracy?” ….with emphasis insertedby the Editor, Thuppahi

Maithripala Sirisena violates the constitution, stands to destroy democracy itself. Liberals, overwhelmingly Sinhalese, are aggrieved, appalled, aghast.

As a minority, I laugh. Not the happy laughter of someone enjoying a good joke. But the bitter, mirthless cackle of someone forced to read this script many times before – like every full moon, when the temple speakers blare its bana and you can’t blot out the noise with sleep because the liquor stores are closed.

All postcolonial Sri Lankan heads of government, all of them Sinhalese, have consistently violated the constitution and/or “threatened” democracy – usually by practicing it – and/or oppressed minorities. One could deem it a job requirement.

Just a few months after independence, Don Stephen Senanayake denaturalized, then disenfranchised ‘Indian’ Tamil citizens, already alienated from this country by their naming. Constitutional? Probably not. Democratic? Absolutely – passed by a majority of Parliament. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under atrocities, centre-periphery relations, colonisation schemes, communal relations, disparagement, doctoring evidence, economic processes, electoral structures, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, military strategy, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes

November 7, 2018 · 3:23 pm

Sinhalese War Poems and the Portuguese

Rohini Paranavitana … a reprint of an article from Jorge Flores (ed.) Re-exploring the links. History and Constructed History=ies between Portugal and Sri Lanka, Wiesbaden, Harassowitz Verlag , 2007, pp. 49-62.

Sri Lankan classical literature enriched with Buddhist thought did not promote any war or violence up to about the 16th century. Even though war is involved in these writings, the classical writers took the North Indian legendary war as a model. The European model of war was experienced in Sri Lanka only after the arrival of the Portuguese on the island. It was quite a new experience to the Sinhala king and his army to retaliate against Europeans as invaders. The Portuguese engaged in ruthless war with a nation which had a great poetic tradition that made use of this new experience to generate a new area of literary expression within the tradition, referred to as “war poems”.

 

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under atrocities, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, economic processes, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, political demonstrations, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, power politics, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, vengeance, violence of language, war reportage, world events & processes

November 7, 2018 · 1:24 am

The Situation of the Tamils in the Present Saga — Guruparan

Kumaravadivel Guruparan in Scroll, 5 November 2011, where the title is “Sri Lanka’s political crisis explained, and what it means for the island nation’s Tamil community”

In November 2014, Maithripala Sirisena, who was then a cabinet minister and member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, broke ranks with his leader, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and agreed to be the common presidential candidate of the Opposition, led by the United National Party. Sirisena won the election in what was then hailed as a “democratic revolution”.

He undid that “revolution” on October 26 this year when he sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister and appointed Rajapaksa in his place. He did so ignoring the constitutional amendment he had helped pass after coming to power in 2015, which had done away with the president’s power to remove the prime minister. He thus triggered what is being called Sri Lanka’s first unconstitutional transfer of power – a coup.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, legal issues, life stories, meditations, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes

November 7, 2018 · 12:26 am

Sri Lanka: Lord Naseby canes Lord Swire for Overstepping Limits

Item in DAILY MIRROR…http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/SL-s-Political-crisis-Lord-Naseby-unhappy-over-Sir-Hugo-Swire-s-statement-157970.html

Commenting on the political situation in Sri Lanka, British Parliamentarian Lord Naseby has said he was unhappy that former British junior minister put down a question suggesting what happened in Sri Lanka was unconstitutional. “That is not the law, I believe, of the UK Parliamentarian. You have your own Constitution. I have been very careful in my fifty years of service. I have never been supporting any one party nor doing any business. I would suggest my colleague that they should do exactly the same,” he said.

Former Foreign Secretary Sir Hugo Swire in the House of Commons earlier drawing attention to the political crisis in Sri Lanka asked the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to point out to the Sri Lankan President that the international community recognizes Ranil Wickremesinghe as the legitimate Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and only a vote in parliament can change his status.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, constitutional amendments, education, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, legal issues, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes

November 6, 2018 · 9:23 am

A Misleading Picture of Crisis in Lanka pressed by Western Agencies

Palitha Kohona** … in IDN-InDepthNew , 06 November 2018, where the title is “The ‘Crisis in Lanka’ –Invented by the Western Media”

The change of Government in Sri Lanka, following the unceremonious sacking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasingha by President Maithripala Sirisena, has given rise to a crescendo of alarmist commentary in the Western media, which is slowly seeping in to the non-Western media as well. One after the other, the Western media outlets have taken a critical approach to the change and have begun to characterize the replacement of the Prime Minister as a “Crisis”.

 see https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/tens-of-thousands-march-to-support-new-sri-lanka-government/2018/11/05/56d2c90e-e160-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html?utm_term=.b226344616f7

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, australian media, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, conspiracies, constitutional amendments, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, news fabrication, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes