May 28, 2014 · 2:29 pm

Leonard Woolf: His Political Vision – From Innocent Imperialist to Pragmatic Internationalist

Jane Russell & Ruth Allaun**

leonard Woolf 11 Leonard Woolf went off to Ceylon in 1904 as innocent as a present-day wannabe writer who goes off globe-trotting in search of adventure and creative sustenance in his “gap “year. Woolf joined the Ceylon Civil Service (CCS) because he needed a respected pensionable job which would satisfy his family’s requirements, yet also feed his imagination and make him interestingly exotic to his Cambridge friends. It was a happy accident (the very definition of serendipity) which brought him to Ceylon. Both gained immeasurably.

But if Cadet Woolf cut a shine in his green collars at welcome parties in Colombo, he didn’t reckon on the dark and miserable side to his job – the “dirty work of empire” as Orwell called it – of supervising floggings, hangings, and the taking of witness statements from the nearly dead. Continue reading →

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May 22, 2014 · 8:05 am

Skewed Advancement Patterns in Public and Private Sector Employment: Women and Minorities disadvantaged?

Verite Research, courtesy of The Island, 7 May 2013, where the title is “Do women and minorities in Sri Lanka face glass ceilings in employment?”

Should economics be able to explain divorce rates amongst married couples? Normally that is something that would be left to the techniques of psychology and anthropology. But surprisingly enough Gary Becker won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1992, and one of his most celebrated papers was precisely in explaining divorce. What enables economists to venture into such unlikely terrain? It is the legitimizing power of their tools of trade: and in this case, it was the legitimising power of carefully examined data. Scrutinizing data for the hidden stories is an important pastime of Economists.

Scrutinising some of the employment data in Sri Lanka, in the public and private sectors also seems to reveal a hidden story: this time it is not about divorce, but about discrimination. Continue reading →

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May 22, 2014 · 4:46 am

Charles Haviland’s Farewell Political Travelogue on Sri Lanka

haviland SEE Sri Lankan journey at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-27494822#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa…..20 May 2014 Last updated at 17:24 BST

About 300 miles separate the old Dutch fort of Galle on Sri Lanka’s southern tip and Mullivaikal, the strip of land in the north where an army assault on Tamil rebels ended a civil war five years ago. The BBC’s Charles Haviland travelled up the coast passing fish markets and seaside resorts, eventually turning inland towards the ancient capital and ending up in a desolate former war zone. These are the stories of the people he met on the way.

Photofilm production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 21 May 2014

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May 19, 2014 · 5:58 am

Engaging Issues of Caste in India and Sri Lanka

Devanesan Nesiah, courtesy of The Island, 19 May 2014

Caste is observed by the overwhelming majority of Sinhalese and Tamils but the subject remains virtually taboo in public discussions. If it is mentioned in public, it is often either to hurl abuse or to negotiate a marriage. The latter is because for many of us caste is the most important factor in marriage. The former is because caste is yet widely accepted as a measure of social status; the latter because for many caste is the most important factor in marriage, even more important than character. I am not suggesting that the individuals should be identified by caste but I do think that the subject should be freely discussed as is done in India, although caste oppression there is much more severe than in Sri Lanka. Continue reading →

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May 18, 2014 · 9:51 am

The Gandhi Family Front-Man, Mohan Singh: Now a Fall Guy

Rahul Panditha, whose original title reads ” The Fall Guy who forgot to get up”

MAN MOHAN SINGHSomething very subtle but extraordinary happened during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s farewell function in Delhi on the evening of May 14. Mr. Singh was standing next to his wife when Sonia Gandhi walked in and greeted him. He returned it and then left her there to meet his ministers and other Congress leaders. His wife followed him. Later, there was another photo opportunity where Mrs. Gandhi offered Mr. Singh and his wife a bouquet of flowers each. Mr. Singh received it nonchalantly without even looking at her.

This small gesture is a major leap for Mr. Singh. But it has come ten years late. In fact, there is an undated video in circulation on the social media that has gone viral. It shows Mr. Singh, his hands loosely in attention, waiting at some event for Mrs. Gandhi. She alights from her car behind him and, as Mr. Singh turns to greet her, she walks past him without as much as acknowledging his presence. Continue reading →

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May 17, 2014 · 3:26 am

Modi’s comprehensive triumph: Lucien Rajakarunayake’s review

Lucien Rajakarunanayake …. in the Daily News, 17 May 2014

modi VICTORY CELEBRATIONS

By the time this is published, Narendra Modi, who leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) the centre-right alliance of political parties led by the Bharathiya Janatha Party (BJP), will be elected the next Prime Minister of India. The results so far (on Friday 16 morning) give Modi and the NDA he leads more than the 272 needed to form a single party government. This takes away the possibility of the BJP having to bargain with regional political parties, to form a government. Yet, the trend as counting continued yesterday largely in favour of the NDA – with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister from the BJP, has already resulted in intense jockeying for key Cabinet positions by leading members of the BJP such as Sushma Swaraj, Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, Arun Jaitley, Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha, Rajnath Singh, Chairman of the BJP, and LK Advani, the BJP’s Parliamentary Chairperson. Continue reading →

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May 15, 2014 · 10:59 am

Rajiva in Q and A with Deutsche Welle: Government Reconciliaiton Programme in Tamil Areas is not People-centred

From http://rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/deutsche-welle-colombo-failing-to-engage-with-tamil-minority/#more-6932 Rajiva and waterfall Shortly after the Sri Lankan army defeated the separatist “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” in May 2009, President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared an end to the country’s bloody civil war which had lasted more than 25 years during that period claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people. Five years after the end of the separatist conflict, Sri Lanka is still struggling with reconciliation between the majority Sinhala community and the Tamil minority. International human rights organizations hold the army as well as the LTTE-separatists responsible for crimes committed during the civil war. UN High commissioner Navi Pillay has repeatedly criticized the government in Colombo for having failed to establish a “credible national process to address abuses.” As a result the UN Human Rights Council recently decided to launch an independent international investigation of human rights violations during the war. Continue reading →

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May 13, 2014 · 11:06 am

Blue Whales off Lanka south and Marine Biologist, Asha De Vos of Perth

SEE https://www.youtube.com/embed/o5MPbZZ4xJA?feature=player_embedded

Worlds Largest Blue Whale colony – Discovered in Sri Lanka

Uploaded on Apr 19, 2011 ……….http://www.srilanka.travel/…..
https://www.facebook.com/Awesome.SriL…

blue-whales-615 Continue reading →

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May 13, 2014 · 7:43 am

Roadblocks in the Path of Reconciliation in Lanka: Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews, where the title is a variation on that utilized here

Way back in the 1970s the manner in which Anagārika Dharmapāla conflated the concepts of “Ceylonese” and “Sinhalese” in one of his public exhortations (Guruge 1965) led me to argue that this was a powerful tendency in Sinhalese nationalist thinking and that this unexamined tendency was a major problem in securing political accommodation that would assuage the growing dissent among the Sri Lankan Tamils (Roberts 1978). The problem remains and has been marked in the theme motif for my thuppahi site, viz., “the Sinhala Mindset” (2009a).

It was highlighted once again in my article “Pillars for the Future” in Frontline on 22 May 2009 immediately after the Government of Sri Lanka, marshalled by the Rajapaksas and UPFA, defeated the LTTE military machine (Roberts 2009b). I argued here for a multi-faceted approach directed towards dismantling the practices which encouraged the majoritarian Sinhala part to elide itself as the whole of Lanka in ways that naturalized domination. Continue reading →

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May 9, 2014 · 1:38 am

Julie Bishop canes Weiss

Courtesy of The Herald and Daily News

The opinion piece by Gordon Weiss (“Stance on Sri Lanka needs urgent rethink”, 4/4) includes a number of assertions that need correction. Most seriously, Mr. Weiss makes the untrue claim that during a visit to Tamil regions in Sri Lanka’s North and North-East just over 12 months ago I was given a guided tour by the Sri Lankan military. I led a delegation that included Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Justice Minister Michael Keenan. A precondition of our visit to the Tamil regions was that we would be driven around by leading members of the Tamil National Alliance. This took place over more than two days, with no military, government or police accompanying our delegation. Tamil community representatives Our Tamil hosts were free to take us to any location of their choice and we were unhindered by any arm of the Sri Lankan government.

gordon weiss Continue reading →

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