August 25, 2017 · 9:10 am

Sri Lanka in 2016: Professor CR de Silva’s Capsule Review

Chandra R. de Silva reviews the achievements of Sri Lanka’s new regime led by President Maitripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2016 for ASIAN SURVEY. He also assesses the challenges that lie ahead in 2017, as political divisions are likely to intensify over local and regional government elections, and foreign loans and inefficient state enterprises could disrupt the country’s positive economic outlook.

Two years after the defeat of the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the emergence of a coalition government consisting of the two major political alliances, Sri Lanka has made some progress but faces major challenges in 2017.The current government led by President Maitripala Sirisena, leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe leader of the United National Party (UNP) has an overwhelming majority in Parliament. Although they lead groups which had long standing political rivalries, the two leaders have planned for a long-term alliance. One of their signal political achievements was the approval of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 2015. This provision circumscribed the power of the President by restricting the hitherto virtually unfettered power of the president to appoint a number of officers (such as judges of the Supreme Court) and also limited presidents to a maximum of two terms. In addition, the amendment prohibited the President from dissolving Parliament without its consent for four and a half years after the date of the last parliamentary election.

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August 22, 2017 · 4:54 am

The Lalith Athulathmudali Assassination: Context, Rumours, Smokescreens

rVijitha Yapa, courtesy of Lanka Monthly Digest 7 June 2017 and DBS Jeyaraj  ..where the original title is  “The Whole Truth About Lalith Athulathmudali’s Assassination is Delved Into in Detail By Prof. Ravindra Fernando in his Book.


If asked who is the single individual in politics whose life affected me most, the choice with no hesitation would be Lalith Athulathmudali. I live in Claessen Place and he moved in to Paget Road as Minister of National Security and was my rear neighbour, once removed on the left. (Interestingly President Sirisena’s residence is now a rear neighbour, once removed, but on the right).

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August 21, 2017 · 4:11 pm

Solheim and Sri Lanka: Q and A Today

Padma Rao Sundarji  courtesy of Asian Tribune, 20 August 2017, where the title reads Ërik Solheim : “Regret we could not spend more time with Prabhakaran”

Erik Solheim, Norwegian peace mediator in the 30-year-long Sri Lanka civil war breaks his silence on his controversial role to Padama Rao Sundarji.

‘If we had spent more time with him (Prabhakaran), we would probably be able to influence him more,’ said Solheim

Padma Rao Sundarji: How and when did the government of Norway decide to mediate in Sri Lanka and why did they pick you?

Erik Solheim: We were invited in absolute secrecy by the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga. At the time, only two people in Colombo knew — she and foreign minister Lakshman Kadiragamar. It stayed like that for one-and-a-half years. Only later, it became public. I believe we were invited because we could potentially be acceptable to India as a small nation. And, we were invited because we had, at that time, seen some successes in the Middle East. They were small successes. But as a small, faraway nation it was felt that we could not really mess up Sri Lanka and could be acceptable to both the Tigers and the government of Sri Lanka at the same time. Continue reading →

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August 21, 2017 · 4:07 pm

The Karāva People in Fable and Tale

S. N. Arseculeratne

The Karāva people of Ceylon claim to be descended from the Kuru refugees, who scattered after their defeat in the Great War between the Pandavas  and the Kauravas1 or Kurus, related in the Mahabharata. The Kauravas settled in many parts of India, Bengal and in Ceylon. In Ceylon, the recorded descriptions of the Kauravas have been few, but mention has been made from around the 11th century to the 15th century due mainly to the military involvements of the Kauravas (now called the Karavas).

 A flag which belonged to Don Pedro Arsecularatna of Maggona, depicting the arrival of a group of Karāva chiefs and retainers …. The square towards the bottom has the peacock with 3 people on it. (a) King Rajasinghe II; (b) The Dutch ship’s captain [off Negombo]; (c)  Mudaliyar  Arseculeratne of Negombo

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August 21, 2017 · 12:07 pm

The Traumatic and Devastating Partition of Indian and Pakistan, 1947

Yasmin Khan,  courtesy of  The Guardian, 6 August 2017, where the title is “Why Pakistan and India remain in denial 70 years on from partition” 

On 3 June 1947, only six weeks before British India was carved up, a group of eight men sat around a table in New Delhi and agreed to partition the south Asian subcontinent. Photographs taken at that moment reveal the haunted and nervous faces of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian National Congress leader soon to become independent India’s first prime minister, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, head of the Muslim League and Pakistan’s first governor-general and Louis Mountbatten,the last British viceroy

  A convoy of Sikhs travels to Punjab after the partition of India in August 1947. Photograph: Margaret Bourke-White/The Life Picture Collection/Getty

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August 21, 2017 · 4:52 am

Remembering Sir Christopher Bayly, Historian and Scholar for All Times

Richard Drayton, In search of Christopher Bayly,” keynote, for the Memorial Symposium for Sir Christopher Alan Bayly St Catharine’s College, Cambridge May 21, 2016 

‘Va, pensiero, su alli’ dorate’ – ‘Fly thought on wings of gold’, spread from a small choir to a crowd of thousands in Paris on the night of April 30, the 30th night of the “Nuit Debout” occupation of the Place de La Republique.1 The “Song of the Hebrew slaves” from Verdi’s Nabucco, once the anthem through which Garibaldi and Mazzini’s followers had lamented Austria’s Babylonian tyranny, became a symbol in 2016 of a month’s defiance of the French state’s proscription of public protest. Continue reading →

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August 20, 2017 · 12:51 pm

Rex advocates a Parliamentary Act to Reconstitute SL Cricket Administration and End Pork-Barrel Politics

Rex Clementine, in Sunday Island, 20 August 2017, where the title runs  Ïmplement Justice Jayawardene’s Recommendations

Recently giving verdict on a divorce case, a judge was rattled by the response given by a little girl.

The judge had asked the girl, ‘Now that your parents are getting divorced do you want to live with your mummy?
Little Girl – No, my mummy beats me.
Judge – Well then, I guess you want to live with your daddy.
Little Girl – No, my daddy beats me too.
Judge – Well then, who do you want to live with?
Little Girl – I want to live with the Sri Lankan Cricket team. They beat nobody!!!
  Justice Jayewardene receiving his oaths and Rex in deep thought 

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August 20, 2017 · 4:26 am

Last of Sri Lanka’s Burgher Ladies

A nostalgic tale in You Tube Video composed by Kel O’Neill and Eline Jongsma, here: http://www.vjmovement.com/truth/724…. Published on Aug 2, 2010

The comments over the years within the original website are revealing: a mix of rank prejudice and hate on the one hand and sensibility on the other . Those interested in this dimension of Sri Lankan history set within the development of Colombo as the island’s hegemonic centre” in British times should consult M. Roberts, Percy Colin-Thome & Ismeth Raheem, PEOPLE  INBETWEEN, Colombo, Sarvodaya, 1989.

They should attend in particular to the tables and data in the Appendices on the one hand and the two charts highlighting the prejudices of the Sinhala people in colonial times (for ‘good’  historic reasons) — prejudices revealed for instance in the writings of Piyadasa Sirisena and Anagarika Dharmapala. If readers think the Tamils did not have similar prejudices, re-visit that idea. I assert that counter speculatively albeit confidently. The data in People Inbetween happens to be sourced in the southwest where I grew up.

SEE https://thuppahis.com/2015/08/03/people-inbetween-ethnic-and-class-prejudices-in-british-ceylon/ … The thrust of the tale is that one cannot comprehend thethinking of (some) Sinhalese without attending to the colonial intrusions in the era of European expansion and how that body of sentiments was transposed unto a historical consciousness that goes further back. More recently, I have been guided by Young and Senanayake’s Carpenter Peretaya and other evidence to elaborate upon the Manichean demonization that transposes and equates ancient ogres with more recent and/or contemporary threats –a deadly process of conflation. SEE The Collective Consciousness of the Sinhalese During the Kandyan Era: Manichean Images, Associational Logic”,  https://wordpress.com/post/thuppahi.wordpress.com/26600

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August 19, 2017 · 5:13 pm

MV Sun Sea Prosecutions in Canada: Noughts and Crosses

ONE: Item in THE STAR, 27 May 2017, entitled B.C. Supreme Court jury finds man guilty of smuggling Tamil migrants to Canada””

A prosecutor says a man accused of bringing hundreds of Tamil migrants into Canada illegally in a dilapidated cargo ship nearly seven years ago has been found guilty. Crown counsel Charles Hough says a B.C. Supreme Court jury found Kunarobinson Christhurajah guilty Saturday of human smuggling 10 or more persons. It was a retrial for the Sri Lankan national over his involvement in the voyage of the MV Sun Sea that travelled from Thailand to British Columbia’s coast in 2010.

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August 18, 2017 · 4:00 pm

Travis Sinniah appointed Sri Lanka’s Naval Chief

P K Balachandran, courtesy of Newsin Asia …. https://newsin.asia/sri-lanka-gets-tamil-navy-chief-47-years/

After a gap of 47 years, Sri Lanka on Friday appointed a Tamil as the Commander of its navy. Rear Admiral Travis Jeremy Liyanduru Sinniah, who was made navy chief by President Maithripala Sirisena, is the second Tamil to head the country’s navy after Rear Admiral Rajanathan “Rajan” Kadirgamar who served between 1960 and 70. H ailing Adm.Sinniah’s appointment, President Sirisena tweeted saying that he had served the Sri Lankan navy “with immense loyalty for many decades.”

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