… VIAGRA building in Canada
A Burkha Car and Viagra’s Hard-On HQ
… VIAGRA building in Canada
Filed under accountability, politIcal discourse, power politics, world affairs, zealotry
From the Tea Slopes to the Womb of Medicine
Kuppusamy Kanageswary and Balakrishnan Sathiyaraj talk to Kumudini Hettiarachchi of their arduous journey–as children of tea pluckers–to enter the Medical Faculty and fulfil their dreams
Kanegeswary 
Sathiyaraj
He hopes to become an Obstetrician & Gynaecologist and she a Paediatrician. Having achieved the ‘peak’ of securing the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) against all odds, while their parents have toiled on the rough slopes, they see not a mist-shrouded journey, but a clear pathway ahead of them. Not forgetting humble beginnings: Dr. Kuppusamy Kanageswary and Dr. Balakrishnan Sathiyaraj will one day go back to their community, to serve the children and the mothers. Continue reading
Indian Cab Driver meets Fabulous Oz
Many of us in Aussieland have been exposed to the ubiquitous presence of Indian cab drivers in the capital cities and doubtless appreciated their contribution to the development of multi-cultural Australia. This little “EPISODE” in composition, with its Peter Sellars flavour, will certainly add to our sense of joy.
* A drunken woman, stark naked, jumped into a taxi at Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.
* The Indian driver opened his eyes wide and stared at the woman. He made no attempt to start the Cab.
* “What’s wrong with you Luv, haven’t you ever seen a naked woman before?”
* “I’ll not be staring at you lady, I am telling you, that would not be proper, where I am coming from…”
* “Well, if you’re not bloody staring at me Luvie, what are you doing then?”
* “Well, I am looking and looking, and I am thinking and thinking to myself, where is this lady keeping the money to be paying me?!”
TRAVEL PULSE sees good future for Tourism in Lanka
James Ruggia, in The Daily News, 24 September 2014, where the title is “What’s Next for Sri Lanka’s Growing Tourism?”
Sri Lanka finally seems to have moved the conversation away from the past to the more appealing power of its tourism attractions including tea plantations, blue whale watching, highlands, wildlife viewing, beaches, lakes, rivers and jungles. In August the country had already welcomed its millionth visitor, a development that has tourism officials optimistic that they can reach their 2014 goal of 1.5 million visitors. Last year the country attracted about 1.2 million visitors and is targeting 2.5 million in 2015.
White water rafting at Kitulgala
In the immediate aftermath of the war, it was difficult to attract tourists or investment. International hotel companies were among the first tourism concerns to enter the country with Marriott, Hyatt, Mövenpick and Shangri-La leading the charge and several tour operators are now also wading in the waters. Continue reading
Filed under landscape wondrous, sri lankan society, tourism, travelogue, unusual people, wild life
Bradman Weerakoon questions Jayaweera’s Account of Language Policy in the 1960s
“The Making and Un-Making of History – Neville Jayaweera’s ‘Exorcising the Past and Holding the Vision’. … reviewed by Bradman Weerakoon, in The Sunday Island, 7 September 2014
Neville Jayaweera’s Memoir on his period of service as Government Agent Jaffna between August 1963 and 1966 is as Michael Roberts says in his Foreword a veritable feast of information to be mined. This was a defining phase of our history. It saw the Tamil resentment in the North on account of the ‘Sinhala Only’ Act (1956) grow into a full – blown civil disobedience movement. That spun into the 30 year war we were all caught up in until recently. Neville Jayaweera (NJ) in Jaffna was at the epi – centre of the storm as it developed.
NJ’s detailed recall of incidents of many years ago, assisted by the daily diary he kept, should help fill many of the gaps in the history of those times. Only a few of us are yet around to bear personal witness to what really happened and it makes such memoirs of history as it happened, invaluable. Continue reading
Absorbing Informative Wild Life Ethnography
SEE https://www.youtube.com/embed/-X-XvNRShd0
Wildest Islands Sri Lanka
Published on Oct 4, 2013
Preview YouTube video Wildest Islands Sri Lanka
Filed under landscape wondrous, wild life
Crossing the Lines: Tamil Escapees from the Last Redoubt meet the Army
SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda, an essay written in April 2009 while embedded with the SL Army … with an abbreviated version published in The Independent in UK on 16th April 2009 under the heading “Casualties of War” … with images added by Editor, Thuppahi. .**
PART I:
From Paranthan, the road to Vallipuram is rich and green. Great expanses of paddy stretch out before you, clumps of palmyrah dot the land and little streams of water trickle by. As we near the fighting paddy fields give way to broken buildings and blasted vehicles. Twisted trees and uprooted trunks line the way. Everything is covered with a layer of brown dust. An occasional boat lies stranded on either side of the road, reminders of a last desperate attempt by the Tamil Tigers to hold back the tide. Blasting a reservoir in the path of the advancing Sri Lanka army, Tiger cadres counterattacked in boats, riding upon a wall of water. The water however, has receded and the Tigers have retreated.
Filed under accountability, historical interpretation, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, photography, politIcal discourse, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, world events & processes
Marga and CHA provide a Third Narrative of Eelam War IV
Jeevan Thiagarajah in Q and A with BricsPost
On September 14, a delegation of Sri Lankan NGOs submitted to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) a report titled Issues of Truth and Reconciliation: Narrative III – the Last Stages of the War in Sri Lanka. The UNOHCHR, and the Sri Lankan government, have recently began separate probes into alleged human rights abuses committed during the period 2006-2009, one of the bloodiest in Sri Lanka’s 26 year civil war.
The Narrative III report states that there are a number of different accounts of the last phase of the civil war – including documented data from the Sri Lankan military, international NGOs such as Human Rights watch – among others, and eyewitness accounts collected by the Jaffna University Teachers for Human Rights.
Narrative III was published in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, New Delhi, and Geneva and is expected to be taken to New York, DC, Brussels, London and, Pretoria. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, historical interpretation, law of armed conflict, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, patriotism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, vengeance, world events & processes
