Following over twenty years of war, Sri Lanka’s longest cease-fire (2002-2006) provided a final opportunity for an inclusive peace settlement between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However, hostilities resumed with ever increasing desperation and ferocity on both sides, until the LTTE were overcome and largely eradicated in 2009. This book provides a contextualised analysis of the effects of war on a small Tamil community living in northern Sri Lanka during the cease-fire period. It examines how the society changed and adapted in order to accommodate the upheaval and destruction of war, and its inevitable resumption. In particular, it focuses on the nature of suffering through an exploration of a well-known ritual: Thuukkukkaavadi that transformed the experience of pain and suffering and contributed to a process whereby many village communities could come together in a demonstration of strength and resilience. It contributes to studies on violence, reparation processes of so-called ‘post-conflict’ societies and the medical anthropology of healing. It questions assumptions concerning the nature of suffering and critiques the application of western categories in settings like northern Sri Lanka, where entire communities have been silenced by political violence. The book therefore presents a claim for more culturally specific understandings of what constitutes suffering and is of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies, Conflict Resolution, and Social and Cultural Anthropology.
Dr Mahen Tampoe's specialty is management, and here he paints a vivid picture of a mismanaged state. Sri Lanka has uncomfortable parallels with Ireland - a nation unified by its conquerors, then divided by sectarian discrimination, internecine strife, suicide bombers and dispossession. But unlike Ireland, Sri Lanka has been plunged into undeserved poverty instead of embracing progress and prosperity. What on earth made Ceylon's newly independent government in the 1950s establish the Buddhist/Sinhalese group as the dominant element, relegating the Tamils of the north, and the English language, to second-class status? Sri Lanka - Divisions and Destiny carefully analyses the country's dilemmas and discusses what is needed to place the island on par with its successful multi-ethnic neighbours, Singapore and Malaysia. In a globalised economy, do all states join the mainstream of wealth creation? Not necessarily, contends the author; some fall by the economic wayside. This elegant and informative work offers pointers for better governance and a brighter destiny for a nation at the crossroads. Mahen Tampoe was born and educated in Sri Lanka, where he has friends and family. He has worked in Europe since 1969 as a business executive, management consultant, lecturer, researcher and writer. His prime interest is the assessment and creation of fruitful relations between people in groups, teams, organisations and political systems. He has published many articles on project management, strategy and the motivation of knowledge workers. He is a qualified accountant, has an MBA and a PhD, and has written books on business, computing and leadership. He has also co-authored a book on strategic management.
This very intresting compilation, written by the son of he first photographer and journalist of Ceylon, is of the various important dates in the history starting with the advent of the Portuguese in 1505. Its goes on to cover the Dutch period in a short cap to reach the copious section of the British period that commenced in 1795 and continues till the authors time of compiling in the 1920 s. Although the eras of the Portuguese and Dutch are over in a few pages. The record of the events of the British stretch over 125 pages. Another wonderful part of this book is 442 short notes on the places, people, history, scandals, poetry, celebrations, arrival of ships that make the book interesting to those who know Jaffna only by name.
The peoples of Sri Lanka have participated in far-flung trading networks, religious formations, and Asian and European empires for millennia. This interdisciplinary volume sets out to draw Sri Lanka into the field of Asian and Global History by showing how the latest wave of scholarship has explored the island as a ‘crossroads’, a place defined by its openness to movement across the Indian Ocean.Experts in the history, archaeology, literature and art of the island from c.500 BCE to c.1850 CE use Lankan material to explore a number of pressing scholarly debates. They address these matters from their varied disciplinary perspectives and diverse array of sources, critically assessing concepts such as ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and localisation, and elucidating the subtle ways in which the foreign may be resisted and embraced at the same time. The individual chapters, and the volume as a whole, are a welcome addition to the history and historiography of Sri Lanka, as well as studies of the Indian Ocean region, kingship, colonialism, imperialism, and early modernity.
Takes a prospective look at India's neighbourhood as it may evolve by 2030. The book underlines the challenges that confront Indian policymakers, the opportunities that are likely to emerge, and the manner in which they should frame foreign and security policies for India to maximise the gains and minimise the losses.