By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today Sir Oliver Goonatillake, upon returning to London from his travels in India and meeting up with his children and grandchildren, became quite busy with his Lloyds Register Insurance work, which involved frequent travels to many parts of the world. Sir Oliver still shared the flat at 31 Carlisle […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today In 1956, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, as promised during the election campaign, commenced on a rapid ‘Sinhalization’ of all parts of the Government, once he came to power and accomplished the ‘Sinhala Only Act’. Simultaneously, he ordered all the remaining British Military centres in the country to move out of […]

By Dr. Tilak S Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today The response to one of my articles titled ‘Burgher Community in Sri Lanka,’ some time, ago has been appreciated by many of my Burgher friends both abroad in Australia and in Sri Lanka. My good friend, Egerton, decided to comment on it,  in typical old school ‘Sri Lankan […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today Hamid Dabashi, the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Colombia University states that whenever people think of ‘the typical English’, one tends to think of ‘a group of white people with a stiff upper lip and a cup of well brewed Ceylon Tea’, because […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today A couple  of old news items that have gone viral  on the internet,  hit the writer’s mail box too, the other day based on Indian politics, which are very much congruent with the current Sri Lankan political culture. One incident reported by ANI/TW on 23 November 2017, described […]

By  Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today The general perception of the phrase, The left hand does not know what the right hand does” is associated with the biblical quotation by Jesus Christ, in Mathew 6:3. It generally means that all merciful deeds should be kept secret, and not be done for praise by others […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando I was deeply saddened to learn about the demise of Reggie Fernando, on 22 April 2018, in Sri Lanka, the veteran journalist and a worthy friend from London. He commenced journalism as a staff writer at the ‘Daily News’. Subsequently, in the UK, he continued with his writing to the […]

By Dr.Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today A friend in Melbourne sent me a stimulating email last week, about a novel experience inside the SriLankan Airlines, single aisle Airbus 320, Karachi-Colombo Flight (UL184). The incident which occurred on 8 March, has been already been brought to the notice of the Director Flight Security of the airline […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today Politicians in this land have done it in the past, they are repeating the same at present, and they will continue to do the same in the future too! There has been a lot of hue and cry, about the presence of foreign workers in Sri Lanka, in […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today Private Hospitals have been focusing of late, mainly on their charging system especially with regard to Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG). Many have written columns and articles in newspapers covering a whole gamut of incidents and experiences of people after visiting private hospitals in Sri Lanka. The […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today Three years ago, on the 4 March 2015, Dr. Buddhadasa Bodhinayake had to answer the inevitable call from above, at the age of 75, in London. This tribute is, therefore, devoted to this great personality (an old boy of Ananda College), on his third death anniversary, for the […]

By Dr.Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today After listening to many TV discussions and analyses on the latest Cabinet reshuffle of the ‘Yahapalanaya’, following the well-defined message given to the Unity Government by the voters during the February local council elections, Udaya had gone to bed with weary sleepy eyes. He could hardly finish his bedtime […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando. With the Municipal and Local Council elections held on 10 February 2018, introducing a new electoral system, the Lotus Bud (Pohottuwa) of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna [SLPP] supported by Mahinda Rajapaksa, blossomed with a sweeping landslide victory, thus serving a sledge hammer blow on the two leaders of the Unity […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Is it Kuveni’s centuries-old curse still affecting our nation that it makes impossible to get the simplest form of a job done out of a Government office? Lassitude is different from that of inefficiency, but if politically placed square pegs in round holes are up to monkey pranks, it becomes […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando For many in the modern society, Valentine’s Day has turned out to be an occasion filled with an impressive series of events, especially for the teenage crowd. 14 of February becomes a day filled with fun, for all those who have received a Valentine’s Day card, an invitation for a […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando The British created the first Constitution for British-Ceylon and crafted the Donoughmore Commission in 1927. It being not very successful, Ceylonese demanded a Constitutional reform. Consequently the State Council of Ceylon, consisting 58 members was formed in 1932, with A.F.Molamure as the first Chairman. The State Council granted the universal […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando People in this country appointed Maithripala Sirisena as the President in January 2015, with the backing of several political parties and civic groups, to abolish the executive presidency, hold Parliamentary elections and to execute various political reforms and to appoint commissions to oversee the Judiciary, Police, Elections Department, Auditor General’s […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando 2018-01-13 The month of January 2018 strikes a chord with the writer for two reasons; firstly he has grown older by yet another year, and secondly, it dawns on his second anniversary with Ceylon Today Newspaper. In the 1980s, The Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in London, Chandra Monerawala, had come […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today    2018-01-06 When clouds gather in high skies, they are usually accompanied by rain, lightning, and thunder. In the same manner, education too should be accompanied by wisdom, knowledge, and intelligence. Children of today are going to be the future citizens of this nation. The responsibility rests entirely […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Twelve months have faded away like the stars, and it feels like yesterday. Here again, we are on the eve of another new year with full of hopes. Everyone, in Sri Lanka, expected so many changes, year on year, particularly from the dawn of January 2015, with full of optimism […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today The latest chorus song by Sunil Perera, Desmond de Silva, Anesley Dias, and Rajiv Sebastian, dedicated to the theme, ‘The Sarong,’ is doing the normal rounds on the Internet and via emails. The song itself is humorously entertaining. I have written earlier too, on this subject, but the […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy  Ceylon Today 2017-12-16 The year 2017 has been on a roller coaster ride, where the ordinary folk on it have been screaming each time there was a bump on the ride, while a few selected privileged ones have been throwing their hands up and enjoying the ride. At the end […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando  Courtesy Ceylon Today The term ‘Dutch Burgher’ is used to identify the ethnic group involving the descendants of Dutch Origin, who settled down in Ceylon after the British took over the Southern and Western coastal areas. In the early 17th century, Portuguese and Ceylonese Kingdoms ruled the country constantly, by battling […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando. Dilshani Palugaswewa highlighted in the Ceylon Today (Sunday Edition), the discourse made by Ajitha Wickremesinghe, the Financial Legal Equality Advisor and Director of iProbono, and the Founding Trustee of Think Equal, at a function held at  the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, on 21 November, to mark The International Day […]

By Dr. Tilak S Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today We arrived at the Angunna Badulla Junior School in Matara, where 139 students from poor village families get an education. The school Principal M.A Jayasiri, introduced us to three deserving students in need of medical attention. Among the three was a six-year-old boy, Dilshan, whom we were especially […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando  Sirasa TV1 initially stimulated the writer and wife to visit Habarana, when a little seven-day-old girl was mauled by a dog and died. Upon arrival in Habarana, it was found that the entire area, consisting three villages, Asirigama, Eppawala, and Haba Divul Wewa, did not have pure water for consumption, […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today The precipitous petrol crisis in the country emerged, on 3 November, from rumours by word of mouth, while the line Minister and the Petroleum Development Resources Secretariat kept mum until the delinquency hit a crisis level, and the exasperated motorists started to go on a rampage. The Minister’s […]

Dr. Tilak Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today On 10 October 2017, South Asia’s Policy Makers gathered in Colombo to discuss the success and failures of women, who appear to be disregarded in society. A current issue under discussion in Sri Lanka is to have a guaranteed quota of 25- 30 per cent of women in politics, in […]

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Politics appears to be a ‘dirty game’ throughout the world. In Sri Lanka, it has stooped to gutter level with corruption spearheading like a contagious disease. Many Sri Lankan politicians entered the political arena, in the past, out of sheer patriotism and the yearning to work for the people. Besides, […]

By Dr.Tilak S. Fernando Last Saturday, this column highlighted how helpless Asirigama villagers in Habarana have been ‘Deprived and Discarded’. The news went viral on the Internet to generate overwhelming responses from fellow Sri Lankans and the expatriate community living aboard. The main story revolved on the seven-day-old baby Kavishka Sandaruwan, who was killed by […]