Archive for the ‘Polonnaruwa’

Nalanda Sahayogaya

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Image from Wikimedia Commons Grappling and struggling With this constructed reality Where everyone wants to succeed But so few do Why don’t we try and forge Our own reality? I find it difficult to judge or criticize the actions and omissions of individuals without reference to the ideas and times they served. In the final analysis every individual is part of a larger pattern, a larger emotion and though process shared by other countrymen. This implementation of a collective will is what we refer to as our praxis – the application of a theory into life. Within the pan Indian cultural world (which extended from Maldives to Lanka and Indonesia in the South) this idea of putting principles into practice was recognized as yoga. Under Sri Lankan skies where the dharma taught by Buddha was practiced in earnest and integrated into both work and life (as far as the intelligence of Anuradhapura man permitted) this collective effort came to be…

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Is the history of Sri Lanka a tale of two civilisations?

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[Parakramabahu (1153-1186) holds the yoke of sovereignty which has only been upheld since by military power and force, rather than by the consent of the people] [Today, the easy co-existence of opposites symbolized by the ballot and bullet walking together] The intellectual gaps that reinforce our intellectual poverty appear readily as we scrutinize the grand shift from a united and self-sufficient irrigation civilisation to an increasingly fragmented, defensive and dependent civilisation that began in the 13th century. Although this shift is symbolized by the phrase drift to the South West stability has eluded us and we continue to search for organizing principles, unifying reference points and order. In fact chronic long term instability has been the order of the Lankan nation for centuries. Liyanagamage, while providing a valuable analysis of the Decline of Polonnaruva and Rise of Dambadeniya continues to stick to the grand theme of our historians, the story how unity and integrity was maintained by the kings, nobles,…

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Provincial Council Election: Real-time updates

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@mhmhisham is turning out the best updates on Twitter. #PCelectionsLK and #ep2012 are key hashtags aggregating all the tweets on the September 2012 Provincial Council elections. See below for aggregation and real time updates. Tweets about “#PCelectionsLK “ Tweets by @mhmhisham Tweets about “#ep2012″ Repost This Article

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Science and Politics of Mass Kidney Failure in Sri Lanka

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Much of Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone is currently grappling with a drought caused by the delayed Monsoon. This is a double whammy for residents in several districts who have been engulfed by another ‘slow emergency’ for two decades: mass scale kidney failure affecting large numbers. Diabetes or high blood pressure can lead to kidney failure. But beginning in the 1990s, thousands of people in the North Central Province (NCP) developed the condition without having either factor. Most were male farmers. This puzzled doctors and other researchers who struggled to understand how and why. It was soon assigned an official name: Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology (abbreviated as CKDu). CKDu has evolved into a humanitarian tragedy on a mass scale. It is claiming more victims every passing year, spreading to more areas, and gradually overwhelming the healthcare system. Its causes are still unclear and hotly debated. Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa Districts are ‘Ground Zero’ of this mysterious ailment for which there…

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Taking back our temples!

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Image courtesy Global Abilities blog To visit a place of worship seems such a natural thing to do to the extent that we rarely consider it in terms of entitlements. Yet for people with physical disabilities, especially for those of us who use wheelchairs, this entitlement to attend and participate in temple worship is at best provisional and more often than not, impossible because of the profound inaccessibility of temple sites and lack of accessibility information. I have been a wheelchair user for many years and can also ‘walk’ short steps with assistance. My country of residence is Australia though I am Sinhala Burgher. Let me tell you a story of my recent visit to three Buddhist sites – The Dalada Maligawa in Kandy and the Samadhi Buddha statue and Ruvanweliseya in Anuradhapura. I was full of great expectation about my visit to Dalada Maligawa since the temple had a special place in my heart as a Buddhist and also…

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Future of Farming in Sri Lanka

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Original photo from asianews.it Farming in a sustainable, productive manner has been a hallmark of every human tradition that has endured history. There are many traditional farms existent today that have been productive for hundreds of years. Agrarian societies with long histories, posses the credibility of having sustained themselves successfully under the rigor of survival in a natural world. Having no access to fossil fuel driven technologies, they relied on renewable agriculture based upon energy sources internal to that society or region.  Expansion of farming was constrained by the environment and ecosystem of each area. The advent of fossil fuel changed all this.  The gasoline to power tractors, the biocides and fertilizer salts produced by fossil oil enabled agricultural productivity to transcend environmental constraints. It was not that movement to fossil fuel went unquestioned, when a display of the new ‘ agricultural tractor’ was done in Sri Lanka around 1933. A race was set up between the traditional buffalo drawn…

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Messages by people in Manampitiya and Dimbulagala on flood relief

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Sri Lanka’s Flood Response: In Dimbulagala, people protest and plead published on Groundviews captured the difficulties facing people affected by the recent flooding in Sri Lanka, and the unhelpful attitudes of government officials. Groundviews was sent these images of messages the people of Manampitiya and Dimbulagala had written to their political representatives. The black flags, from an earlier date, were erected in opposition to the irregularity and non-reciept of promised flood relief. The first poster reads “To all candidates and their supporters, you are banned from entering my plot of land”. The second reads, “From Manampitiya, Sarvodaya, make our village road! Until we have what we own, stay away from our village!” Repost This Article

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Sri Lanka’s Flood Response: In Dimbulagala, people protest and plead

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As the rains abated and flood waters begin to recede, the return and resumption of normal lives presents itself as a big challenge in many parts of the country. In the villages in Dimbulagala DS division in Polonnaruwa District, home to some of the poorest people in the country the impact was devastating and the return to normal life daunting. Many families had their wattle and dob houses completely destroyed by the rains. In the mean time it is reported that they had also been asked by officials to vacate from the schools where they had taken shelter due to displacement. This affected several families who had to leave the schools and had nowhere to go in Dimbulagala, Dalukana, Soruwila and Mutugala (Welikanda DS division). They are stranded. While some principals were generous enough to allow the families to stay in schools some others (like Kashappa Vidyalaya, Soruwila Tamil School etc) reportedly were not willing to keep the displaced people….

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Google map on flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka – February 2011

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View Flood-affected regions in February 2011 – Sri Lanka in a larger map The map above identifies the main flood-affected regions, sites where relief and rescue operations have been conducted and specific DS divisions where IDP camps have been setup. Please click on the link below the map to view it on a larger screen. You may click on individual markers for detailed information and zoom in to view the location of specific shelter camps located in the east.  Please note that this map is continuously updated as soon as the Editors of Groundviews receive detailed information and reports from the ground. Between the 11th and the 18th of January, heavy rainfall led to severe floods and widespread destruction in several provinces across the island that affected over 1 million people. 43 people were killed and over 300,000 were displaced. The districts of Ampara, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa and Anuradhapura were severely affected in January and at present with heavy rainfall once again…

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Rebirth

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Photos courtesy Batticaloa Facebook Page I haven’t been reading the news much lately. I heard about the floods in the East and North Central Province and thought abstractly to myself, ‘how awful’. I watched the downpour in Colombo itself and complained about the shivering cold of that one day during which temperatures fell to 18 degrees – the lowest in over 60 years. I never really fathomed the extent of the destruction until I happened across a 3-line post on a blog, linking to some footage by the airforce of the flooding in Batticaloa. I didn’t pay much attention to the article on the airforce site, but those pictures stunned me. Water up to treetops. Acre upon acre of paddy land totally destroyed. All I could think was, ‘haven’t they been through enough?’ War. Tsunami. Floods. Would it ever stop? Would they ever have the luxury of having normal lives again? Would there ever come a time when they would…

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UPDATE: Google Map on Flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka

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View Flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka – January 2011 in a larger map The map above identifies the main flood-affected regions, sites where relief and rescue operations have been conducted, areas prone to landslides and specific locations that are at risk.  Please click on the link below the map to view it on a larger screen. You may click on individual markers for detailed information and zoom in to view the location of specific shelter camps located in the east. Please note that this map is updated as soon as the Editors of Groundviews receive detailed information and reports from the ground. After our last updated post on 12 January 2011, a Daily Mirror SMS update at 12:50PM reported that there were 21 deaths and over 1,000,000 people affected as a result of the floods and bad weather that continues to devastate these regions. The Eastern Province is the worst affected with over 860,000 flood victims according to the latest figures…

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UPDATE: Situation report on flood-affected areas and a call for assistance

The Editors of Groundviews have received several updates during the course of the day confirming that the situation on the ground is quite severe and we now have a humanitarian crisis in those flood-affected regions with over 950,000 individuals affected from over 250,000 families. The Disaster Management Centre has confirmed as of 1:00PM today that 18 people have been killed and 47 have been injured as a result of the floods. Ada Dernana notes the following in a news story published today, Director General of the DMC, Major General Gamini Hettiarachchi speaking at the media conference said that 11,338 homes had been partially damaged while 1,609 homes had been fully damaged. He added that around 200 tanks had also been damaged in the floods. Meanwhile, P.B. Samarasinghe, Director General of the Meteorological Department said that rains are expected for the next three days while this was the heaviest rains that the country had witnessed in over thirty years. (Emphasis ours.)…

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On Flooding and Disaster Management

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Photo courtesy www.facebook.com/battipeople Over the last two days, torrential rainstorms in the Central and Eastern province have caused severe flooding, landslides and an overwhelming humanitarian crisis with 758,000 people affected island-wide (according to the latest update at 7:14AM today from the Disaster Mangement Centre [via JNW]) 809 houses have been fully damaged and 2948 houses have been partially damaged. There have been nine deaths; nine injuries and four people are still missing (last update Sunday evening.) An article in the Daily Mirror details the extent of the crisis, According to the Centre (Disaster Management) some 55,936 families belonging to 14,519 families have been displaced and had been housed at 138 camps that have been opened.  Several Divisional Secretariat offices in the East were also reportedly under water while Badulla District Secretary Keerthi Disasnayake was also reportedly marooned as a result of a land slide which occurred along the Badulla-Mahinyangana Road. The following areas in the country have been affected by the…

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Needed: An Agenda for Reform on Groundviews

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Whilst it is not clear as to whether we would be voting in both the presidential and general elections on the same day, it is clear that we will be voting in at least one of them in the next three months, followed soon thereafter by the other.  Most likely it will be the presidential elections since it is the president who has to decide and since he is much more popular than his party. Moreover, we have been told that he is willing to sacrifice, if necessary, two years of his first term in order to secure a second and a parliamentary majority nearest to the heart’s desire. All elections are important and these will be no exception. It is worth reminding that we are still in a post-war situation and far from the post-conflict one we ought to be in. What this requires is the prioritization of peace, reconciliation and unity and the firm commitment to ensure that the…

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Can we End this Cycle of Hatred?

I am amazed at the mobilization of young people from the Tamil Diaspora around the world to protest against the Sri Lankan government’s purported human rights violations. When often the younger generation of immigrants forgets the old country to a future in the new one, it is incredibly positive that the Diaspora feels so passionate about this difficult conflict on behalf of their community. Maybe once the conflict is over, they will come back to Sri Lanka to rebuild the country together. However, there is long way to go for reconciliation between the two communities as so much hatred has manifested, especially amongst the Diaspora overseas. We have all been affected by this ruthless conflict. I had close relatives and friends lost to LTTE attacks and bombs. Yet, I differentiate the LTTE from Tamil people. In my daily life in Sri Lanka, we work, play sports and socialize together. I am sad this is not the case with the international…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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