June 24, 2025 · 6:49 pm

Horrendous Lifeworld in Gaza Today

Manel Fonseka, writing from Sri Lanka

As Living Space in Gaza Shrinks, The Remaining Pockets Endure Hellish Conditions 
‘They moved the garbage piles and set up tents between them’: Nearly two million people are crammed into less than 18 percent of Gaza, as Israel’s expanding no-go zones fuel disease outbreaks, overcrowding, and growing hardship – especially for women and girls.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/as-living-space-in-gaza-shrinks-remaining-pockets-endure-hellish-conditions/00000197-8d07-d6c0-a1b7-ed37d25f0000

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ALSO VIEW .…https://www.reuters.com/pictures/what-gaza-looks-like-today-after-15-months-war-2025-02-11/

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June 24, 2025 · 6:08 pm

Cliffhanger Cricket at Headingley in UK

Errol the Fernando in Melbourne, writing to his alter ego, Gavin Assauw, 24 June 2025

Dear Gavin,
This is exactly what Ben Stokes had in mind when he won the toss and inserted. He wanted a fourth innings chase on Day 4 or Day 5. Obviously, Stokes expects to have a successful chase because he has had some amazing success over the years. He certainly will not be playing for a draw. It is simply win or lose and this gives India a very good chance of winning. Only a total fool would attempt to predict the result. The main point is that the winner is the actual GAME of CRICKET. This is why Cricket is unquestionably the GREATEST game   –   incomparably greater than football, golf, soccer. tennis, rugby or anything else.   None of those keeps us riveted for FIVE whole days. There is simply no comparison.

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June 23, 2025 · 6:42 pm

Turbulence at Headingley

A Tongue in Cheek NOTE from Errol Fernando to Gavin Assauw,  June 2025

Dear Gavin,
While the rest of the world is talking and acting on nuclear bombs, missiles, mass destruction, Gaza, Israel, Iran and many other places, please forgive me for writing about the least important matter in the world – a contest between a mere bat and a red ball. With apologies may I say that as we begin Day Four the situation is exactly how captain Stokes wants it. Jaiswal is out and so he needs to dismiss just THREE batsmen – captain Gill, Rahul and Pant and then ask EIGHT batsmen to chase a target – Stokes himself, Duckett, Crawley, Pope, Root, Brook, Smith and Woakes. India has only four batsmen and one bowler even though he is by far the greatest bowler in the world. They also need fielders who can catch. I hope they do better in the next Test.

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June 22, 2025 · 3:34 pm

A Simpleton’s Fears: World on the Brink of Armageddon

Michael Roberts

The concept ARMAGEDDON denotes the idea that alludes to “the gathering of nations into one place and that one place is the destruction of this world through war.” In other words it signfiies the potential end of all human and animal life.

 

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June 22, 2025 · 2:03 pm

Diego Garcia – Role in Middle Eastern War

Dr. Itay Gal in Jerusalem Post, in Jerusalem Post, June 2025

What is Diego Garcia? The US military base that will be key to operations against Iran ….?  What is there, what aircraft operate from it, and why could it become a critical link in any future conflict in the Middle East?

 US B2 Spirit stealth bomber

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June 22, 2025 · 7:02 am

Territorial Claims: First Settlers & Their Primacy

Michael Roberts, presenting an article published in 2005 as a pamphlet by the ICES, Colombo with this title “The First Settlers and Their Claim to Ownership of Terrain/State. A Comparative Excursion” … an essay originally presented in Abdul Rahman Embong, Rethinking Ethnicity and Nation Building: Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji in Comparative Perspective, Panbrit UKM, Bangi, Malaysia, (c. 2003) which was then reprinted as a booklet by ICES, Colombo in 2005 – see ISBN 955-580-099-5 I.

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June 21, 2025 · 6:32 pm

A Veddah With A Blog …..

It seems that a Sri Lankan “VEDDAH” launched a Blog in 2015 ….with this opening note “Throughout the centuries Sri Lanka had its own identity. Its idntity appears to have gone missing in the latter part of the twentieth century. Is it regaining it now?

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An EDITORIAL COMMENT From Michael Roberts, 20 June 2025:  “The assertion that Sri Lanka lacked an identity in the latter part of the 20th century is a sweeping claim that requires elaboration and groundings. Let Vadda provide support for these contentions here in Thuppahi as well as his website [which I could not access]”

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June 21, 2025 · 12:54 pm

Nayeem Secures 5-Wicket Haul at Galle

Madushka Balasuriya in ESPNcricinfo, 20 June 2025 …………..In article entitled “Shanto, Shadman stretch Bangladesh’s lead after Nayeem’s five-for”

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh ran each other neck and neck all day, with Bangladesh now 187 runs ahead

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June 20, 2025 · 7:37 pm

Hill-Country Cosmopolis – A Review Of Obeyesekere’s Booklet

Richard Simon … reviewing The Many Faces of the Kandyan Kingdom by Gananath Obeyesekere

 In this slender but fact-filled volume, the author presents an alternative and, to my mind, more truthful view of the Kingdom of Kandy in its heyday than the perspective afforded by modern Lankan historians and scholars. The latter must, of course, hew closely to Sinhalese-Buddhist ‘nationalist’ orthodoxy if they hope to obtain academic publication or preferment in our country. The effect of this censorious regime on national life has been stifling, not only in the study of history but in every intellectual and cultural field from fine art to marine archaeology. Music, perhaps, has suffered most grievously of all.

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June 20, 2025 · 7:12 pm

Friends, Colleagues & Countrymen … Meandering Memories

Gamini Seneviratne, whose chosen title is different: viz, being “Vignettes of the Public Service –The Foreign Beat”

My acquaintance with officers in the foreign service was, for the most part, casual, that is to say, not related to our work, and, despite a hiccup or two, cordial as well.

I knew of my namesake while I was busy through each interval seeking, as we all were, championship honours at French Cricket. Actually there were four of us Gamini Seneviratnes at the time in school, including one who took to medicine and Aetaya who opened batting, the senior-most who is wrapped around or within these lines was better known as Gadaya, a nickname he had inherited from his brother who retired as the IGP, G A D E A Seneviratne, (better known as Ana). I do not know whether the same nom de guerre had been conferred on brother Nalin, who retired as the Army Commander.

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