February 23, 2015 · 9:57 am

Siri Gunasinghe at 90: Insightful Essays from Four Men of Letters

Courtesy of a special feature in the MIDWEEK REVIEW in the Island …. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=119737 [1]

SIRI G--11 mid review

I: “Siri Gunasinghe — A Reminiscence” …. by H. L. Seneviratne, 17 February 2015

One of the semi official tasks that the University of Ceylon undertook as it established itself in the new campus at Peradeniya in the early 1950s, was the regeneration of national culture in the form of the arts. This was reflected in a seminar held at Peradeniya in 1956, whose proceedings were published in the same year under the title Traditional Sinhalese Culture. Prominent among the scholars who succeeded in that endeavour were Siri Gunasinghe and Ediriweera Sarachchandra. While Sarachchandra’s work was confined to literature and drama, Siri Gunasinghe stood out for his versatility, his interests covering every field of the arts. So much so that his adversaries who had embraced a different kind of cultural resurgence – a militant, prudish and philistine Sinhala Buddhist nationalism—derisively called him sakalakalavallabha, “the husband of all the arts”. Continue reading →

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February 15, 2015 · 1:47 pm

Indo-Pak ‘War’ at Adelaide Oval, 15th February 2015

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Indian ‘Extremist’ targets Pakistan: “Je suis Fanatic!!” …. and note that he is fortified by the presence of a SEA OF BLUE

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Continue reading →

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February 13, 2015 · 1:29 am

We “soldiers of the caliphate’’ — al-Kutobi and Kiad

Paul Maley, in The Australian, 12 February 2014, with the title “Suspects’ Chilling Video Message“

TWO alleged terrorists spoke of “stabbing the kidneys and striking the necks” of their victims in a chilling video message recorded just hours before their planned Sydney attack. Omar al-Kutobi, 24, and Mo-ham­mad Kiad, 25, were ­arrested on Tuesday afternoon in western Sydney allegedly as they were in the final planning stages of an ­Islamic State-inspired terrorist ­attack. In a video message seized by police, the pair proclaimed themselves “soldiers of the caliphate’’ who would carry out the Islamic State’s first successful operation in Australia.

AL-KUTOBI + Kiad and Kutobi – Pic from The Australian

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February 11, 2015 · 4:20 am

The Killing of Osama bin Laden: Rob O’Neill, the Seal, speaks

Toby Harnden, in The Australian, courtesy of The Sunday Times, 11 February 2015, with the title “The Man who shot Osama” IT was a fraction of a second, but the moment he saw Osama bin Laden is seared in Rob O’Neill’s mind. “Every time I close my eyes I can see it,” he says. “I remember looking at how tall he was, skinnier than I thought. His beard was shorter. He’d a crew cut almost and a white cap on.” O'neill in the Oz Rob “Neill as Seal- Pic from NewsCorp Through his night-vision goggles O’Neill could see the al-Qa’ida leader’s hands on the shoulders of his youngest wife, Amal, pushing her forward. He wasn’t surrendering. O’Neill shot him twice in the forehead, the second round hitting him as he crumpled. As bin Laden lay on the floor, the US Navy Seal put a third bullet into his head for good measure. O’Neill and I are sitting at a breakfast table on the patio of a hotel overlooking Laguna Beach, California. The 38-year-old, who grew up in Butte, Montana, and whose ancestors were miners from County Cork in Ireland, leans towards me. “It was this close,” he says. “Two feet, if that.” He continues: “You want the bullet to go through the back of the brain so you cut off the spinal cord. If someone might be wearing a suicide vest, you shoot him in the face. People don’t die as fast for real as they do in the movies. Shoot someone in the chest and he’s going to have time to explode the vest.” Continue reading →

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February 11, 2015 · 2:55 am

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, 1877-1947: Art Historian, Writer and Philosopher

Thiru Arumugam

“The artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of artist” Ananda Coomaraswamy.

Sir Muttu Coomaraswamy (1834-1879) was the first Ceylon Tamil Knight. He was a lawyer and Member of the Legislative Council of Ceylon. He was the first non-Christian Asian to be called to the English Bar. He married a wealthy English lady, Elizabeth Beeby, who was a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria. They had one child, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, who was born in Colombo in 1877.

AK COOM Ananda grew up in England, where he studied at the University of London, graduating with first class honours in Geology and Botany. Having returned to Ceylon in 1903, he was appointed as the first Director of Mineralogical Surveys. In 1904 he identified the mineral Thorianite and his work on this subject led to the award of a Doctor of Science degree from the University of London. He called it Uraninite in an article in Spolia Zeylanica and then followed an extended correspondence with double Nobel Prize winner Madam Curie about its radioactivity. She suggested that it be called ‘Coomaranite’ but he declined the honour. Continue reading →

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February 10, 2015 · 2:25 am

Uyan and Jehan: The Tasks and Problems Ahead in Sri Lanka

I. Jayadeva Uyangoda: “Rebuilding Institutions in the Transition from Soft Authoritarianism,” Island,  9 February 2015,

the THREEA political goal that warrants sustained attention of the new Sri Lankan government as well as the democratic reform constituencies is the rebuilding of public institutions of democratic governance, accountability, autonomy, and checks and balances. Democratic governance requires the presence of institutions of governance that are strong enough to withstand the pressures of authoritarian regimes and at the same time flexible enough to re-invent themselves to meet the new challenges of democratic demands, coming from various social constituencies. Such institutions are crucial for the sustenance, continuity, and survival of a democratic political order. Continue reading →

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February 7, 2015 · 11:54 am

Devendra in Laconic Hindsight: The 1956 Revolution Overturned?

Tissa Devendra in The Island, 5 February 1956, where the title is “Revisiting ‘MaraYuddhaya’ of 1956″

When the General Election of 1956 was declared the UNP was not expected to lose. They thought to counter the mainly Sinhala Buddhist and Leftist opposition with richly coloured posters of temples in flames with the slogan “Save Buddhism from the Flames of Marxism”. However, a united opposition of the Sinhala-speaking ‘underclass — namely, the Pancha Maha Balavegaya of Sangha, Veda, Guru. Govi, Kamkaru — and the Left parties led by the charismatic SWRD swept the UNP into, what he thought would be, ‘the dustbin of history’

john k AS MARA 1956 Continue reading →

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February 5, 2015 · 2:25 am

A Flying Scholar for All Seasons: An Appreciation of Graeme Hugo from Canada

Louisa Taylor,  4 February 2015, in  http://themigrationist.net/2015/02/04/migrationist-community-mourns-the-loss-of-prof-graeme-hugo/where the title is “A Gentleman and a Scholar: Migrationist Community Mourns the Loss of Prof. Graeme Hugo”

graeme in OTTAWAIt was one of those steamy late June days in Ottawa, blasting sun one minute and drenching rain the next. Inside the minimalist cool of the Carleton University Art Gallery, Professor Graeme Hugo stood at a podium painting vivid pictures of a world in motion. His words were simple, his delivery understated, but Hugo’s presentation packed a punch. Continue reading →

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February 5, 2015 · 1:34 am

DEW Gunasekera in Profound Q and A with Chandraprema

DEW Courtesy of The Island, 5 February 2015, where the title is “Chandrika said only Mahinda can win”

Communist Party leader and opposition parliamentarian D. E. W. Gunasekera speaks to C. A. Chandraprema about the unexpected outcome of last month’s presidential election and the situation that has arisen in the country with the fall of the Rajapaksa regime.

Q. You had been warning the government not to hold the presidential election early. So obviously you were not surprised by the result.

No. We did an analysis of past election results from 1977 onwards including the results of the 2005 and 2010 elections. Our assessment was that Tamil votes for the UPFA from the North and East will increase, but not substantially. Mahinda used to get about 20% of the Muslim vote. But because of the Bodu Bala Sena that was lost almost completely. Even in our party, Muslim members refused to vote for Mahinda. I met the president about three times to discuss the presidential election. The first time, Vasu, Tissa (Vitharana) and Lalith Weeratunga were also present. Continue reading →

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February 4, 2015 · 1:10 pm

Project BEAP: Dr. Young and Strathmore Rotary forge a Major ‘Runway’ of Medical Relief in Lanka

Dr. David A. Young an orthopaedic surgeon in Melbourne is a household name among Sri Lankan cricketers because of the repair work he has done on so many of their players, both well-known and lesser known. He has joined the Strathmore Rotary Foundation and its engine room men Nihal de Run and Arjuna Samarakoon in venturing on a major corporate project in association with the Government of Sri Lanka. Centered upon a mega work in establishing an emergency teaching hospital at Batticaloa which will have outreach linkages with Karapitiya, Amparai and Jaffna hospitals, an agreement was signed in 2012 by the then Minister of Health, Maithripala Sirisena; while the President of the time, Mahinda Rajapaksa, supported the project.

Young and De Run with MS  Hon Maithripala Sirisena shakes hands to express his support for the Proposal. In the picture are Dr David Young, Nihal de Run and Indrajith Fernando, Deputy Chairman of the management Committee in Colombo.              

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