{"id":84864,"date":"2019-01-14T15:12:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T22:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=84864"},"modified":"2019-01-14T15:12:35","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T22:12:35","slug":"thai-pongal-message-from-western-province-governor-hon-azath-salley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/01\/14\/thai-pongal-message-from-western-province-governor-hon-azath-salley\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai Pongal Message from Western Province Governor Hon.Azath Salley."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I am delighted to convey my greetings and good wishes to all those who are celebrating the Thai Pongal throughout Sri Lanka and abroad on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Being my maiden Thai Pongal message to the nation as Governor of the Western Province, \u00a0I feel happier and more honored to pass on my sincere greetings on this auspicious day to all those who participate in the festival.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Thai\u00a0Pongal\u00a0festival\u00a0celebration is believed to have started more than 1000 years ago. Thai\u00a0Pongal\u00a0is a harvest\u00a0festival\u00a0which is celebrated by Hindhus. It is also a festival that highlights \u00a0the importance of agriculture which provides rice and other food products to the people.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>On the day of the festival, it is a tradition that sweet rice meal is made, dedicated to the sun god, and then consumed by families in festive meals. The rice is boiled in milk, along with spices, raisins, cashews, and various other ingredients. The cooking is done outside in the sunlight, and is normally done on a porch or in a courtyard. The cooking pot is made of clay and is decorated with colourful patterns. The final product is served up on banana leaves and can be either very sweet or very savoury.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0As you celebrate the\u00a0festival\u00a0of\u00a0Pongal, with a lot of fervor and cheers, this warm greeting comes your way, with a world of good\u00a0wishes\u00a0for every joy and happiness. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Pray and hope that this\u00a0festival marks the beginning of a harvest season, that \u00a0is happy and cheerful and one which brings with it good luck and prosperity to everyone of you.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am delighted to convey my greetings and good wishes to all those who are celebrating the Thai Pongal throughout Sri Lanka and abroad on Tuesday. Being my maiden Thai Pongal message to the nation as Governor of the Western Province, \u00a0I feel happier and more honored to pass on my sincere greetings on this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}