Michael Roberts, “Sangakkaras visit St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna,” 12 April 2011, https://thuppahis.com/2011/04/12/sangakkaras-visit-st-patricks-college-jaffna/
“Kumar Sangakkara’s 2011 MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture in full,” 5 July 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/srilanka/8618261/Kumar-Sangakkaras-2011-MCC-Spirit-of-Cricket-Cowdrey-Lecture-in-full.html
Filed under charitable outreach, communal relations, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
A Financial Times journalist was killed by a crocodile whilst washing his hands in a lagoon in Sri Lanka during a holiday with friends. Paul McClean, 24, an Oxford University graduate, is believed to have wandered off from friends in order to go to the toilet, before being ambushed by the reptile as he dipped his hands in the water. He is said to have been seen “waving his hands in the air” in desperation before being dragged under water at a lagoon known as Crocodile Rock, located just just minutes from a popular surfing beach.
Paul McClean, right, with his brother Neil on his graduation day in August 2015Gerald H. Peiris
INTRODUCTION: Muslims in the Multi-ethnic Polity of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka shares with the other nation-states of South Asia the phenomenon of complex ethnic diversities based upon distinctions of religion, language, caste and tribe. Three ethnic groups – Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim – make up more than 99% of its population, with the Sinhalese accounting for 74%. As enumerated in 2011, the Tamil segment of the population which accounts for 15.5% of the national total comprises two groups – ‘Sri Lanka Tamils’ (11.2%) and ‘Indian Tamils’ (4.3%). Moors and Malays (adherents of Islam) make up 9.6% of the population. In addition, there are the numerically small communities of Burghers (people of mixed European descent), Parsees (immigrants from western India), and Veddas (regarded as the aboriginal inhabitants of the country).
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Palitha Kohona, courtesy of Ceylon Today
It was another sunny September morning. The sky was a brilliant blue. As I gazed out of my kitchen window while having breakfast, in Midtown Manhattan, the Twin Towers were glistening in the morning sun. I noted, as I often had, that they were still there, a familiar reassuring sight. The cute young blonde in the apartment across the street was drying her wet hair, as usual, by her plate glass window. The walk to the United Nations (UN) and my office on the 32nd floor of the Secretariat was uneventful.
Kent Kobersteen, former Director of Photography of National Geographic
“The pictures are by Robert Clark, and were shot from the window of his studio in Brooklyn. Others shot the second plane hitting the tower, but I think there are elements in Clark’s photographs that make them special. To me the wider shots not only give context to the tragedy, but also portray the normalcy of the day in every respect except at the Towers. I generally prefer tighter shots, but in this case I think the overall context of Manhattan makes a stronger image. And, the fact that Clark shot the pictures from his studio indicates how the events of 9/11 literally hit home. I find these images very compellingÑin fact, whenever I see them they force me to study them in great detail.”
Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, atrocities, foreign policy, jihad, life stories, meditations, military strategy, photography, politIcal discourse, security, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes
Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 12 September 2017, with title “A challenging task for Gotabhaya”
The high profile launch of Eliya (light) by wartime Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa underscored Sri Lanka’s PATHETIC failure to counter unsubstantiated war crimes allegations, directed by a section of the international community, since the conclusion of the war, in May 2009. Sri Lanka paid a very heavy price for its failure and the previous government can never absolve itself of the responsibility for the situation. Continue reading
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ONE = Editor, NewsIin Asia: “Political posturing unlikely to hamper Lanka’s constitution making process,” 12 Sept 2017
Forces which are eager to give the country a new constitution as per the pre-election promise solemnly made by Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, are confident that the competing parties would sink their differences and agree to the Steering Committee’s Interim Report which is to be submitted to the Constitutional Assembly (CA) on September 21. writes P.K.Balachandran in South Asian Monitor.
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Swaminathan S. Ankleswaria Aiyar, courtesy of The Times of India, 2 April 2005, “My family and other globalisers”
In 1992, I wrote a book titled Towards Globalisation. I did not realise at the time that this was going to be the history of my family. Last week, we celebrated the wedding of my daughter, Pallavi. A brilliant student, she had won scholarships to Oxford University and the London School of Economics. In London, she met Julio, a young man from Spain. The two decided to take up jobs in Beijing, China. Last week, they came over from Beijing to Delhi to get married. The wedding guests included 70 friends from North America, Europe and China.
see https://alchetron.com/Swaminathan-Aiyar-123884-W Continue reading
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Sachitra Mahendra, in Daily News, 12 September 2017, where the title reads “Courage that Counts”
They wanted to speak English. Some of them could deliver well. But most of them could not, sadly. For them all – the newly chosen batch of undergraduates – the university offers a course with the English Language Teaching Unit (ELTU). But then these undergraduates were not interested in attending the course either. They were still required to pass the ELTU exam to be qualified for the degree completion. However excellent they may have scored in other subjects, they would not obtain the certificate without the ELTU green light. The fault is not theirs, according to Madhubhashini Disanayaka Ratnayake, who was the ELTU Head attached to the University of Sri Jayawardanapura.
Pictures by Wasitha Patabendige
Sunday Times Editorial 9 September 2017
The President and Prime Minister coming in one car for the launch of V2025 (Vision 2025), the blueprint for the future of a “rich Sri Lanka” was clearly to deliver a message. ‘We are in this together – till 2025.’
This was against all the evidence to the contrary that the two coalition partners of the National Unity Government, viz., the SLFP and the UNP were drifting further and further apart and only on a ‘holding operation’ till the end of this year. The more than symbolic ‘coming together’ as it were at the BMICH on Monday, was also in the immediate afterglow of the SLFP’s 66th year convention the previous day where President Maithripala Sirisena told his followers that there is now a Government that talks in one voice. In Hakmana the same day, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa told that faction of the SLFP opposed to Mr. Sirisena’s leadership that the party had sold its soul to the UNP under the incumbent President. Continue reading
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