Johnny de Silva
On a recent visit to New Zealand, while travelling to Dunedin on the Hampden/ Palmerston Road – route 1, we visited the Moeraki Boulders. A short walk down a path and steps and I was on the sea beach. I was certainly not prepared for what lay on the sea shore ahead of me.
Filed under landscape wondrous, meditations, travelogue
‘Tim Dodd, in The Australian, 18 April 2018, with the title “Chinese defy warnings and flock to Australian universities”
Chinese students have defied unspecified ‘‘safety’’ warnings from their government amid fears of undue Chinese influence, flocking to Australia in larger numbers this year than ever before. Official figures to be released today show 173,000 Chinese students enrolled in Australian universities, colleges and schools in the first two months of 2018, 18 per cent more than in the same period last year.
In total, 542,000 students from more than 190 countries have enrolled in Australia so far this year, according to the latest data. This is 13 per cent more than for the same period last year, indicating yet another boost is on the way for education exports, which were valued at $32.2 billion in 2017. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, commoditification, economic processes, education, education policy, governance, historical interpretation, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, teaching profession, travelogue, world events & processes
I will be reproducing pertinent sections of Lt Col. Gash’s “Situation Reports” (or Sitrep) verbatim below in single spacing with the date of each despatch specified at the outset, while indicating blacked out sections where pertinent. These reproductions are extensive and demand careful reading. Vital bodies of information will be highlighted in red as a guideline for readers; but they are encouraged to form their own appraisals.
Mal Chenu in Sunday Mail, 15 April 2018 ….. where the title runs “Why Aussies love Sri Lanka Right Now”
Venetian adventurer Marco Polo described Sri Lanka as “the finest island of its size in all the world”. Sure, that was in the 13th century and young Marco hadn’t seen Tasmania but the myriad wonders of this tropical nouveau-paradise are as varied and exotic as the scents in the spice gardens of Matale and Kegalle. In short, Sri Lanka is a potpourri of unpredictable pleasures. Once a flyover location, eschewed by travellers for years because of civil war, Sri Lanka is fast emerging from its travails, posting sharp rises in tourism since the 26-year conflict ended in 2009.
Sigiriya is a World Heritage site
Filed under art & allure bewitching, australian media, Buddhism, cultural transmission, economic processes, elephant tales, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, photography, pilgrimages, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tourism, transport and communications, travelogue, wild life
ITEM in Thinkworth = https://thinkworth.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/when-gregory-peck-had-flu-in-sri-lanka-during-purple-rain/
TW has embedded a 7+minute Utube clip of the film “Purple Rain” shot in Sri Lanka …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjOmbJK_4-k
The ‘Spotlight’ column returns after a lengthy interval. The focus this time is on American actor Gregory Peck. There is no particular reason other than nostalgia for writing about this former Hollywood idol at this time. Born in 1916, Peck passed away in 2003. So this year 2015 does not mark any significant anniversary in his life or of his death. Continue reading
Filed under art & allure bewitching, commoditification, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, meditations, performance, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes, World War II
parliamentary kehel mal!
The optimism that accompanied the Yahapalana government in 2015 has evaporated. We simply seem to have exchanged the misguided and dictatorial regime of Rajapaksa for the misguided and weak government of Sirisena/Ranil. There is a confluence of factors – political, economic, financial, inter-ethnic relations and international that are converging and will cause a major crisis within two years. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, China and Chinese influences, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, economic processes, electoral structures, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, taking the piss, world events & processes
Filed under photography, sri lankan society, tourism, travelogue, wild life
Michael Roberts
I sent my article “Gash Files III” to Admiral (Retired) Travis Sinniah as soon as it was placed on web and was able to conduct an extended Skype-Chat with him on 12th April.[1] He had no major quarrels with the gist of that article. However, he stressed that the whole exercise was an extremely difficult one – involving difficulties that words cannot quite capture.
Filed under charitable outreach, disaster relief team, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, Rajapaksa regime, refugees, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
As evident then and as confirmed by subsequent accounts, during the last phase of Eelam War IV from circa December 2008 segments of the corralled Tamil population began to rebel against the privations and dangers they were being subjected to by the LTTE’s grand strategy. While a considerable section of the people remained loyal to the LTTE to the very end,[1] others secured release from their situation through the efforts of international agencies working in cooperation with the LTTE and involving[2] the ICRC acting in concert with the Sri Lankan Navy and the Red Cross.
Also see Roberts: TPS. Pictorial. Fig. 95 and its details
Filed under accountability, disaster relief team, Eelam, gordon weiss, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, NGOs, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, trauma, truth as casualty of war, war reportage, world events & processes
Michael Roberts: with original title being “From Empiricist Conflation to Distortion: Caste in South Asia” – reproduced from Modern Asian Studies, 1983, vol 17/3, pp. 519 -27.**
Susan Bayly has done me the honour of reviewing the book on Caste Conflict and Elite Formation: The Rise of a Karava Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500-1931 at considerable length.[1] Her essay is appropriately entitled ‘The History of Caste in South Asia’. This title provides a clue to the interpretative pathways which have led her to systematically misunderstand the arguments within the book. No less problematical is her implicit belief in the possibility of constructing a composite picture of the caste system qua system on the basis of empirical data drawn from different regions, regions as widely different as Sri Lanka, southern India and western India. Let me elaborate this charge, and in doing so reiterate the arguments which I presented.
thuppahi
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-the-purple-plain-1954-gfdtwo-cities-film-with-gregory-peck-19484850.html from 
Contemporary migration patterns of fishermen derived from Fritz Bartz: “Fischer auf Ceylon,” Bonner Geographisische Abhnadlungen Heft 27 (1959)