May 11, 2018 · 9:43 am

Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya: A Far-Reaching life in Sri Lanka and Australia, 1931-2018

Siri Gamage, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph

Emeritus Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya (Laksiri) who was Professor of Social Work and Social administration at the University of Western Australia passed away on April 20th 2018 in Perth. He was the founder of the sociology department at the University of Colombo and led an illustrious career in the Australian academia while contributing to government policy making processes in areas such as multiculturalism, ethnic affairs,migration and citizenship. He nurtured cohorts of students under his care during his long career in Australia and continued to engage in scholarly activities and publishing after retirement. Professor Jayasuriya leaves behind bellowed wife Rohini and two loving sons Kanishka and Pradeep – both professionals – one in the academia and the other in medical field. His death comes as a great loss to his academic colleagues, particularly in Australia and Sri Lanka.

Prof Laksiri Jayasuriya

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May 9, 2018 · 3:54 pm

Goodness Gracious Me! Double Standards in UK and Here. There, Everywhere!

Shamindra Ferdinando,  in The Island, 9 May 2018, where the title is “How UK manipulated RTI law to deny Lanka chance to counter war crimes allegations” …. with emphasis here being inserted by The Editor, Thuppahi

Having adopted the Freedom of Information Act, way back in 1970, Norway is now ranked 67 in the Global Right to Information Rating, maintained by the Center for Law and Democracy. Sri Lanka enacted the Right to Information Act, No. 12 of 2016, a year after the change of the war-winning Rajapaksa administration. The UNP, and a section of the civil society and media, campaigned for the right to information (RTI) law though they couldn’t convince the previous government to introduce the Right to Information Act. However, since the adoption of the right to information law, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration has quickly reached third position in international rankings. The government and all those who had campaigned for RTI law consider it a key good governance administration’s achievement.

Ferdinando Lord Michael Naseby

Norwegian Ambassador Thorbjørn Gaustadsæther and Chairman, Sri Lanka Press Institute Kumar Nadesan at the inauguration of ‘Empowering Citizens with RTI’ on Tueaday (May 8) at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). Norway funded the two-day conference. (pictures by Sujatha Jayaratne)

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May 7, 2018 · 2:54 pm

The Bogollagama Gem: Thoughts on the Threatening US Spectre in March-May 2009

Michael Roberts

A = The ethnographic gem on events in 2009 provided by former minister Rohitha Bogollagama in 2013 that is now clarified by Chandre Dharmawardana is startling news even for those aware of the exchanges taking place in the (i) ambassadorial despatches now accessible via Wikileaks and (ii) the bare details of the secret meeting held in Kuala Lumpur at KP’s ‘office’ in February 2009 between Norwegian diplomats and LTTE operatives (with US cognisance).[1]

two symbolic snaps 

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May 7, 2018 · 11:07 am

An US Commando Force was at Katunayake in April 2009 prepared for a So-called ‘Humanitarian Intervention’

Chandre Dharma-wardana, an Item arising from our recent email exchanges and taken from his website …. http://dh-web.org/place.names/posts/blake.html ……….with emphasis in different colours added by me as Editor, Thuppahi

Rohitha Bogollagama was the Foreign Mininster (FM) in 2009, during the last days of the Eelam War-IV. On October 20, 2013 evening, I had a conversation with him in the presence of Mohanil Samarakoon (Address: 7 Rajapihilla Terrace, Kandy). We were at the Estate bungalow of the late Mrs. Sharmini Maththew, Korakaha Estate, Kurunegala. This was after dinner, when all other guests had moved out to the veranda. I was not personally known to Mr. Bogollagama until that afternoon. The three of us lingered further, seated around the dining table. I asked Mr. Bogollagama about the last days of the war. He spoke willingly, and with no further encouragement from me. 

Rohitha Bogollagama

Later it occurred to me that many of the things stated by Mr. Bogollagama were of historical significance; hence I wrote down from memory a brief synopsis of our conversation the following day, after I returned to Colombo. What Mr. Bogollagama said was as follows.

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May 6, 2018 · 6:06 am

KM de Silva’s Short History of Lanka reviewed critically by Charles Sarvan

Charles Sarvan aka Ponnadurai, in Colombo Telegraph,  reviewing K. M de Silva’s The Island Story: A Short History of Sri Lanka, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 2017

EPIGRAPH: “Sri Lanka in the first few centuries after the early settlement was a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society: a conception which emphasises harmony and a spirit of live and let live” (K. M. de Silva, op. cit., page 13)

It’s said that fools rush in where the wise fear even to walk. I tiptoe hesitantly, conscious that I am no historian (my discipline was Literature) while the author is perhaps the most eminent of Sri Lankan historians writing in English. The hope is that what I write will be taken as a layman’s perspective and contribution to discussion. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2018 · 5:12 am

Lester Peries immortalized in the NY Times

Richard Sandomir, in New York Times, 4 May 2018, with this title “Lester James Peries Visionary Sri Lankan Filmmaker”

Lester James Peries, a visionary director whose films about the dynamics of family life in Sri Lanka brought world recognition to that island nation’s movie industry, diedon Sunday in Colombo, the capital. He was 99.

Starting with “Rekava” (“The Line of Destiny”) in 1956, Mr. Peries’s films offered a significant shift from formulaic Indian-influenced dance and fantasy movies that had been standard fare in Sri Lanka, which was known as Ceylon at the time. He wanted his pictures to accurately reflect the lives of the Sinhalese people, who constitute most of the country’s population. Continue reading →

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May 5, 2018 · 3:55 pm

Talking to Gideon Haigh about Kerry Packer and The Cricket War

ESPN interview with Gideon Haigh at http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/23408427/story-gideon-haigh-story-packer-affair

 

THIS is a story you must listen to. It is not only about cricket, but also about commercial rights, its politics and the tale of a revolutionary transformation of the pictorial technology presenting cricket to its followers on TV. Michael Roberts Continue reading →

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May 5, 2018 · 2:16 pm

HOF in Iceland — A Wonderland?

Hof, in Öræfi, is a cluster of farms in the municipality of Sveitarfélagið Hornafjörður in southeast Iceland, close to Vatnajökull glacier, and twenty two kilometres south of Skaftafell in Vatnajökull National Park. It is located on the Route 1 southwest of Höfn, in the narrow strip between the sea coast and the glacier.

Wikipedia = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hof,_Iceland

PICs from https://www.bing.com/search?q=Hof%2C+Iceland&setlang=en-AU&mkt=en-AU&FORM=EMSDS0

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May 4, 2018 · 10:36 am

Vale Lester James Peiris: Pathfinder for Sinhala Cinema

Meera Srinivasan, in The Hindu, 30 April 2018, where the title reads  “Sri Lankan filmmaker Lester James Peiris provided a realistic portrayal of rural Sinhalese”

Renowned Sri Lankan film maker and a national icon Lester James Peiris, credited with revolutionalising Sinhala cinema in the 1950s with a strong local flavour and indigenous style, passed away in Colombo on Sunday. He was 99.

A contemporary of Satyajit Ray, Peiris is regarded the “father of Sinhala cinema”. He won critical acclaim in the island and outside for his work that spanned five decades. His debut Rekava (Line of Destiny), made in 1956, is considered pathbreaking for its realistic portrayal of the ethos of the rural Sinhalese, in a newly-independent Ceylon. Continue reading →

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May 4, 2018 · 10:17 am

The Golden Age of Motor Cars in Ceylon

Hugh Karunanayake, courtesy of The CEYLANKAN

My previous piece on the “Early Years of Motoring in Ceylon” ( The Ceylankan  # 60 Nov 2012)  evoked a level of  interest  which has since prodded me on  to reflect  on motoring in more recent times. The decade of the 1950s – mid twentieth century Ceylon, could verily be described as the “golden age” of motoring.  The early 1950s especially were years  when the country  enjoyed the “Korean boom”;  export commodities mainly  rubber were fetching record  prices, income tax relatively low, all  leading to  consumption going on at a gallop. There were no national investment projects of note to capture  the surplus that was generated, and most  of the money that flowed in, went towards conspicuous  consumption largely in the purchase of luxury goods such as automobiles.

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