Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
The sea came inland beyond the usual limits and damaged huts and fishing boats on shore.!!!
Supermoon high tide causes damage, panic
March 21, 2011, 10:13 pm
High tide, created by the Supermoon effect, damaged some boats and huts in Talaimannar yesterday afternoon and spread panic among area residents.
One fisherman in the area, Sudharshan, speaking to News Now.lk said that the sea came inland beyond the usual limits and damaged huts and fishing boats on shore.
The fisherman said that navy officers had later advised people near the sea to move away till the tide settled. However, he said that they needed urgent assistance as their huts were damaged.
The Disaster Management office in Mannar said that the high tide was caused by the Super-moon effect and that a few huts were damaged after the sea came some 50 feet inland.
The ‘super-moon’ is a natural phenomenon when the moon is closer to Earth, during which there is increased gravitational pull, creating higher tides.
On Saturday night, the moon was closer to Earth than at any time since 1992 - just 221,567 miles away. It meant it was around 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than typical full moons.
The reason for this was a phenomenon called the ‘lunar perigee’. The moon’s orbit around Earth is not a circle, but an eclipse.
At its closest approach - the perigee - the moon appears brighter and larger in the sky. When it is furthest away - the apogee - it is smaller and dimmer.
A lunar perigee occurs once a month. However, next week’s perigee coincides with a full moon - a combination of events that happen just once every two or three years. (News Now.lk)
March 21, 2011, 10:13 pm
High tide, created by the Supermoon effect, damaged some boats and huts in Talaimannar yesterday afternoon and spread panic among area residents.
One fisherman in the area, Sudharshan, speaking to News Now.lk said that the sea came inland beyond the usual limits and damaged huts and fishing boats on shore.
The fisherman said that navy officers had later advised people near the sea to move away till the tide settled. However, he said that they needed urgent assistance as their huts were damaged.
The Disaster Management office in Mannar said that the high tide was caused by the Super-moon effect and that a few huts were damaged after the sea came some 50 feet inland.
The ‘super-moon’ is a natural phenomenon when the moon is closer to Earth, during which there is increased gravitational pull, creating higher tides.
On Saturday night, the moon was closer to Earth than at any time since 1992 - just 221,567 miles away. It meant it was around 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than typical full moons.
The reason for this was a phenomenon called the ‘lunar perigee’. The moon’s orbit around Earth is not a circle, but an eclipse.
At its closest approach - the perigee - the moon appears brighter and larger in the sky. When it is furthest away - the apogee - it is smaller and dimmer.
A lunar perigee occurs once a month. However, next week’s perigee coincides with a full moon - a combination of events that happen just once every two or three years. (News Now.lk)
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Promoting research in our universities: a critical examination..!!!
Promoting research in our universities: a critical examination
March 8, 2011, 7:07 pm
Peradeniya University
By Panduka Karunanayake
ISLAND.LK
Recently, there were some news items and feature articles on research in our universities. They all concurred that research is important for national development. There was tacit acceptance that much of the responsibility for meeting the national research output requirement should be borne by state universities and their academics. It is, furthermore, now common knowledge in academic circles that serious consideration is being given by those at the top level in higher education to linking financial incentives or disincentives for academics to their individual research ‘productivity.’
Indeed, the prevailing belief there appears to be that university research will constitute the make-or-break factor in the nation’s future, or at least in its industrial development and economic growth.
This essay hopes to critically examine this issue, focusing on laying a broad, inclusive groundwork for discussion.
What is research (for)?
Never mind how the word ‘research’ is defined in dictionaries – what matters to us ought to be what it amounts to in reality. In reality, research is a strategy that achieves certain ends and we should see it in terms of these ends. Therefore, the question "what is research?" Is it better if it is reframed as; "what is ‘research’ for?"
As far as the universities are concerned, research is an indispensable activity – but what is it indispensable for? This in turn depends on what a university should be.
If there is one universally accepted definition or description of ‘the university,’ then it must be one that incorporates the idea of the disinterested pursuit of truth. Different organisations might pursue truth with their own ‘interests’ in mind (e.g., religious organizations, industrial organizations), so that what an organisation might discover as the truth during its pursuit is assessed in relation to the values it holds. Hence, a truth that conforms to these values is flaunted, while a truth that does not conform is suppressed, ending up in a secluded part of its archive, accessible only to those who are so indoctrinated with the values that they will not squeal on it to the outside world. The university, on the other hand, is willing to go where the discovered truth takes it – hence, the disinterestedness of its pursuit. It is the knowing of the truth itself that the university values, not how such a truth may or may not serve sectarian interests.
It is not very important here to attempt to solve the esoteric problem of objectivity. Even if a totally objective representation of reality (and therefore, disinterestedness) is not possible, we still have to solve the practical problem of conceptualizing reality in a manner where the subjectivity is not so great as to compromise its reliability. The elimination of such levels of subjectivity will demand that the pursuit of truth actively and aggressively hunts out and exposes ‘interestedness’and eliminates them from the pursuit. Therefore, the disinterestedness is no longer an esoteric, ‘academic’ matter – it is a matter of immense practical importance, because it ensures the reliability of the truth that the pursuit yields.
In general, various interests that flaunt or suppress different truths do so because they possess controlling power in society and would want to see this power unchallenged – they want to preserve the status quo. The danger of this approach is that society will not make the best decisions when tackling the uncertainties of the future. As a result, its future is compromised. Even the powerful, sectarian interests themselves will suffer in time, because it will suffer when society itself suffers generally, and in any event the elite status in a society keeps changing hands from one group to another with passing generations. (As sociologist Vilfredo Pareto observed, "History is a graveyard of aristocracies.") In the end, the selfishness of successive, changing elite formations will forever compromise the future of society.
This is why the disinterestedness of the pursuit of truth is important to society’s future, including the future of even those who resist it. And that is why the institutional autonomy inherent in the idea of the university is an important investment for the future – the future not of the university, but of the society.
India’s celebrated philosopher-statesman Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan summed it up thus:
"Conformity has been the dream of despots…The ideal of the university is the promotion of liberty of mind or freedom of thought. It has little to do with the protection of privilege or call for conformity…"
But how does one ensure such disinterestedness? By critically examining the process of the pursuit of truth, until all (or as many as possible), of its inaccuracies and ‘interests’ are exposed and eliminated. This critical activity is what it likes to call research, and the doctoral thesis epitomizes it. That is why in the university, research has been described as ‘the engine of critical thinking.’ It is for this purpose that the university values research; the gift that such research gives society is the reliability of the truth in the face of an uncertain future.
The university is society’s intellectual compass – not its computing machine.
What is research not?
Seen in this way, research is not innovation. What the industry wants from the university is actually innovation or development, not research itself – it simply wants to find technical solutions to the problem of enhancing profit. It might call these activities ‘research,’ and these activities might consist of certain components that are in the technical domain hard to differentiate from research as we generally know it. But as far as the university is concerned, the primary interest of innovation is application or profit, not the truth, and therefore it lacks disinterestedness. Research ensures reliability – innovation ensures utility.
Industries are not inherently evil organizations seeking to suppress the truth and convert society into some kind of an ignorant entity, as perhaps some religious organisations may be. But industries would at best not care what the truth is if it does not enhance profits (e.g., how the biopharmaceutical industry ignores the so-called ‘neglected tropical diseases’), and at worst, wants to suppress or hide it from society if it might damage profits (e.g., the tobacco industry). This means that even if the university does not carry out any such research, it must still perform the important task of determining, on behalf of society, the societal implications of research or innovation.
As Indian anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan, referring to the issue of transfer of technology from developed countries to developing (or underdeveloped) countries, wrote:
"The innovation chain as a structured sequence is an attempt to link science, technology and society through the sequence of invention, innovation and development (or diffusion). To quote text book officialese, invention represents the creation of a scientific idea and its initial visualization as a technological product; innovation is the upscaling and commercialization of an idea; and diffusion its eventual absorption or distribution into the wider society…In a geographical sense, science originates at the center and development occurs at the per-iphery…The civics of (transfer of technology) represents a policy map, a model of hegemony, a vision of knowledge and a metaphor for democracy. Science and democracy play out their repertoire of possibilities within an innovation chain. There is a sense of pre-empted futures here because in official visions the alternative to development is not alternative development, but museumization and marginalization."
It is the great fear of becoming ‘museumized’ or marginalized in an ever-changing world that drives us into this innovation chain and the clutches of this hegemony. We are like the driver who accelerates, rather than brakes, when he sees the traffic light change from green to amber. We are so anxious about being left behind that we forget to reflect on where we are heading – we are scrambling for speed at the expense of direction.
In that context, I would leave the reader to decide the serious nature of the following suggestion, which was part of a recent article on university research ("The role of the private sector in university research in Sri Lanka" by Dr Jayaratne Pinikahana: ‘The Island’, 23 February2011):
"Once the university-private sector research forum is established, the academics who are keen to pursue research along the lines demonstrated by private sector representatives have the opportunity to design a few projects with a representative of private sector. In the end a panel of experts from both organisations can review the merits of the applications for funding and finalize the successful candidates" (my emphasis).
The suggestion here is in effect to hand over the university’s prioritization process to the expediency of finding research funds, hence handing over research direction to the dictates of the industry.
Let me emphasize that I am not suggesting that universities should not take part in university-industry innovation projects. The society needs its industries. The industries need technologically sound solutions to its problems. The universities can and ought to help the industries find them. But this is innovation. It is not the research that the society needs – even if it wants it.
Furthermore, it is not partnerships, be it university-industry or public-private, which are objectionable here – mutually acceptable sharing of risks and benefits is clearly advantageous to both parties and to the nation in general. What is objectionable is the increasingly commanding and consuming nature of partnerships in the university’s worldview, so that it is relegated to being the industries’ research wing.
Continued next week
March 8, 2011, 7:07 pm
Peradeniya University
By Panduka Karunanayake
ISLAND.LK
Recently, there were some news items and feature articles on research in our universities. They all concurred that research is important for national development. There was tacit acceptance that much of the responsibility for meeting the national research output requirement should be borne by state universities and their academics. It is, furthermore, now common knowledge in academic circles that serious consideration is being given by those at the top level in higher education to linking financial incentives or disincentives for academics to their individual research ‘productivity.’
Indeed, the prevailing belief there appears to be that university research will constitute the make-or-break factor in the nation’s future, or at least in its industrial development and economic growth.
This essay hopes to critically examine this issue, focusing on laying a broad, inclusive groundwork for discussion.
What is research (for)?
Never mind how the word ‘research’ is defined in dictionaries – what matters to us ought to be what it amounts to in reality. In reality, research is a strategy that achieves certain ends and we should see it in terms of these ends. Therefore, the question "what is research?" Is it better if it is reframed as; "what is ‘research’ for?"
As far as the universities are concerned, research is an indispensable activity – but what is it indispensable for? This in turn depends on what a university should be.
If there is one universally accepted definition or description of ‘the university,’ then it must be one that incorporates the idea of the disinterested pursuit of truth. Different organisations might pursue truth with their own ‘interests’ in mind (e.g., religious organizations, industrial organizations), so that what an organisation might discover as the truth during its pursuit is assessed in relation to the values it holds. Hence, a truth that conforms to these values is flaunted, while a truth that does not conform is suppressed, ending up in a secluded part of its archive, accessible only to those who are so indoctrinated with the values that they will not squeal on it to the outside world. The university, on the other hand, is willing to go where the discovered truth takes it – hence, the disinterestedness of its pursuit. It is the knowing of the truth itself that the university values, not how such a truth may or may not serve sectarian interests.
It is not very important here to attempt to solve the esoteric problem of objectivity. Even if a totally objective representation of reality (and therefore, disinterestedness) is not possible, we still have to solve the practical problem of conceptualizing reality in a manner where the subjectivity is not so great as to compromise its reliability. The elimination of such levels of subjectivity will demand that the pursuit of truth actively and aggressively hunts out and exposes ‘interestedness’and eliminates them from the pursuit. Therefore, the disinterestedness is no longer an esoteric, ‘academic’ matter – it is a matter of immense practical importance, because it ensures the reliability of the truth that the pursuit yields.
In general, various interests that flaunt or suppress different truths do so because they possess controlling power in society and would want to see this power unchallenged – they want to preserve the status quo. The danger of this approach is that society will not make the best decisions when tackling the uncertainties of the future. As a result, its future is compromised. Even the powerful, sectarian interests themselves will suffer in time, because it will suffer when society itself suffers generally, and in any event the elite status in a society keeps changing hands from one group to another with passing generations. (As sociologist Vilfredo Pareto observed, "History is a graveyard of aristocracies.") In the end, the selfishness of successive, changing elite formations will forever compromise the future of society.
This is why the disinterestedness of the pursuit of truth is important to society’s future, including the future of even those who resist it. And that is why the institutional autonomy inherent in the idea of the university is an important investment for the future – the future not of the university, but of the society.
India’s celebrated philosopher-statesman Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan summed it up thus:
"Conformity has been the dream of despots…The ideal of the university is the promotion of liberty of mind or freedom of thought. It has little to do with the protection of privilege or call for conformity…"
But how does one ensure such disinterestedness? By critically examining the process of the pursuit of truth, until all (or as many as possible), of its inaccuracies and ‘interests’ are exposed and eliminated. This critical activity is what it likes to call research, and the doctoral thesis epitomizes it. That is why in the university, research has been described as ‘the engine of critical thinking.’ It is for this purpose that the university values research; the gift that such research gives society is the reliability of the truth in the face of an uncertain future.
The university is society’s intellectual compass – not its computing machine.
What is research not?
Seen in this way, research is not innovation. What the industry wants from the university is actually innovation or development, not research itself – it simply wants to find technical solutions to the problem of enhancing profit. It might call these activities ‘research,’ and these activities might consist of certain components that are in the technical domain hard to differentiate from research as we generally know it. But as far as the university is concerned, the primary interest of innovation is application or profit, not the truth, and therefore it lacks disinterestedness. Research ensures reliability – innovation ensures utility.
Industries are not inherently evil organizations seeking to suppress the truth and convert society into some kind of an ignorant entity, as perhaps some religious organisations may be. But industries would at best not care what the truth is if it does not enhance profits (e.g., how the biopharmaceutical industry ignores the so-called ‘neglected tropical diseases’), and at worst, wants to suppress or hide it from society if it might damage profits (e.g., the tobacco industry). This means that even if the university does not carry out any such research, it must still perform the important task of determining, on behalf of society, the societal implications of research or innovation.
As Indian anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan, referring to the issue of transfer of technology from developed countries to developing (or underdeveloped) countries, wrote:
"The innovation chain as a structured sequence is an attempt to link science, technology and society through the sequence of invention, innovation and development (or diffusion). To quote text book officialese, invention represents the creation of a scientific idea and its initial visualization as a technological product; innovation is the upscaling and commercialization of an idea; and diffusion its eventual absorption or distribution into the wider society…In a geographical sense, science originates at the center and development occurs at the per-iphery…The civics of (transfer of technology) represents a policy map, a model of hegemony, a vision of knowledge and a metaphor for democracy. Science and democracy play out their repertoire of possibilities within an innovation chain. There is a sense of pre-empted futures here because in official visions the alternative to development is not alternative development, but museumization and marginalization."
It is the great fear of becoming ‘museumized’ or marginalized in an ever-changing world that drives us into this innovation chain and the clutches of this hegemony. We are like the driver who accelerates, rather than brakes, when he sees the traffic light change from green to amber. We are so anxious about being left behind that we forget to reflect on where we are heading – we are scrambling for speed at the expense of direction.
In that context, I would leave the reader to decide the serious nature of the following suggestion, which was part of a recent article on university research ("The role of the private sector in university research in Sri Lanka" by Dr Jayaratne Pinikahana: ‘The Island’, 23 February2011):
"Once the university-private sector research forum is established, the academics who are keen to pursue research along the lines demonstrated by private sector representatives have the opportunity to design a few projects with a representative of private sector. In the end a panel of experts from both organisations can review the merits of the applications for funding and finalize the successful candidates" (my emphasis).
The suggestion here is in effect to hand over the university’s prioritization process to the expediency of finding research funds, hence handing over research direction to the dictates of the industry.
Let me emphasize that I am not suggesting that universities should not take part in university-industry innovation projects. The society needs its industries. The industries need technologically sound solutions to its problems. The universities can and ought to help the industries find them. But this is innovation. It is not the research that the society needs – even if it wants it.
Furthermore, it is not partnerships, be it university-industry or public-private, which are objectionable here – mutually acceptable sharing of risks and benefits is clearly advantageous to both parties and to the nation in general. What is objectionable is the increasingly commanding and consuming nature of partnerships in the university’s worldview, so that it is relegated to being the industries’ research wing.
Continued next week
Friday, December 10, 2010
Arippu:The Abandoned,Ancient TAMIL Seaport,Ruined & Forgotten.!?SINHALA Vijaya’s landing with his followers in Thamiraparani TAMIL VILLAGE.!!??
Arippu:
The Abandoned,
Ancient Seaport, Ruined and Forgotten
December 10, 2010, 12:00 pm
by M.U.A.Tennakoon, P hD, DSc
Arippu was the ancient seaport of Sri Lanka during the time of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The stone bridge (gal palama) constructed across the Malwatu Oya which leaves the ancient Anuradhapura city boundary north-westwards bears testimony to a road linkage of Anuradhapura with the Arippu seaport in the northwestern coast of the island, very close to a point where the Malwatu Oya enters the Gulf of Mannar. This was the ancient gateway of the island to the Indian sub-continent as well as to the Arabian Sea.
Being so near to India, people from the Peninsular India may have crossed the narrow sea strip between the Indian sub-continent and Sri Lanka in frail boats from India even during the proto-historic Iron Age (1,500 -500 B.C.). Since they have come from relatively low rainfall areas of the Sind valley in the northwestern part of the Indian sub-continent the dry peninsular Indian parts of the Deccan plateau and finally from the dry southernmost India , they brought crops such as finger-millets (kurakkan or Eleucine coracana)), mustard, and cotton to be cultivated in the equally drier parts of the northwestern Sri Lanka under rain-fed conditions long before irrigate agriculture evolved in Sri Lanka by about third century B.C. (Panabokke, 2010 and Tennakoon,2010). Thus the northwestern part of Sri Lanka, that is, that part of the land to the northwest and west of Anuradhapura was long under sedentary human habitation first with rain-fed highland farming and very much later that was the during the Early Historic ‘circa’ 500 B.C and the subsequent Middle Historic period commenced by about 300 A.D,. with irrigated farming where it was possible.
This land, that is the northwestern part of the Anuradhapura kingdom was clearly the land of dry grain cultivation from immemorial times of our history. This we got to bear in mind in any future expansion of dry grain cultivation to supplement or support rice farming to feed the millions, that, this particular land area in the northeastern Sri Lanka is of vital importance. It is fatal to ignore the significance of dry grains in feeding an increasing population anywhere in the Tropical World.. It is also noteworthy to keep in mind that 60 % of food of over a billion of people in India comes from dry grains!.
Vijaya’s landing with his followers in Thamrapanni in this populous northwestern region may not have been a pure accidental event. They may have had a prior knowledge of the populous Northwestern Sri Lanka which would have been the cradle of that past civilization, though the later day monk authors of our history have down played this area’s significance.
The prominent seaport, Arippu, in this area appeared to have played a significant role in the external relations of the Anuradhapura kingdom not only with South India, but with the countries in the eastern rim-land of the Middle East. The archaeological evidence unearthed in Anuradhapura shows that there were also exchange of emissaries and ambassadors with far flung western kingdoms such as the Roman Empire. Such vital links would have bee through Arippu.
With the decline of the Anuradhapura kingdom, after about 700 A.D. and the final abandonment of it as the state capital in favour of Polonnaruwa in 900 A,D. due to a variety of political and economic reasons and Gokanna (Trincomalee) becoming the new gateway of Rajarata to the world, the importance of Arippu as the national seaport had gradually faded in to oblivion.
Historical evidence of clear references to Arippu are hard to come by there after until the 17th century when Robert Knox refers to it in describing his ‘escape route’ from the Kandyan Kingdom very roughly following the course of the Malwatu Oya to Arippu to join a Dutch vessel, ending an 18-year imprisonment in Sri Lanka.
From the early 16th century to the 19th century, the western sea fairing nations such as the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British with a lust for trade and conquest were interested in the maritime areas of the island. The British had a keen desire to hold sway in the northwestern coast of the island mainly because pearl fishery in the Gulf of Mannar and particularly from Kondachchi to Vankalai with the bay of Arippu as the epicenter of pearl fishery.
A t the beginning of the 19th century, pearl fishery was the number one revenue source of the British invaders. Therefore, they established a permanent post in Arippu. Fredric North, the First British Governor in Sri Lanka had a permanent residence established by 1804 in Arppu.
Very near the Governor’s Bungalow there is a part of the foundation of a building which was most probably where the governor used to address the native pearl fishermen and other person in sundry businesses. Further inland from the Bungalow at a ‘stone’s throw distance’ from it, there remains a partially destroyed small chapel, which means the governor had spend considerably continuous periods of time if not during the entire pearl fishing season of about seven months of the year until the onset of the rough southwest monsoon in the month of May.
As the above mentioned notice reads, the governor’s two-storied mansion had four .bedrooms, a large meeting/dining hall, a staircase leading to the upstairs of the mansion from the central hall and many other utility areas, built on a low cliff at a stone’s throw distance from the then prevailing beach. The centuries of sea erosion had not only eroded that land space between the then beach an d the mansion but it has caved in to the very basement of the building, making a half of it to collapse in to the sea. The process is still continued unabated.
The special interests of the British in having Arippu under their sway appeared to have lasted through the second half of the 19th century when they were actively engaged in plantation agriculture in the Hill Country. R.W. Ievers thrice the Assistant Government Agent of the North Central Province (NCP) before becoming its Government Agent during the early 1890s has given a very authentic description of the status of Arippu in his book, Manuals of the North Central Province, published by the Government Printer in 1899 He has vividly described how the commissioned agents in South India brought the indentured South Indian Tamil labourers for disembarkation tr- the Arippu seaport and the trials and tribulations that they were subjected to in their long march from Arippu to the central highlands through Wilachchiya, Medawachchiya, Rambewa , Kekirawa, Dambulla, Naula and Matale.
Consequent to this long march, the British planters in the Hill Country got the windfall of having almost free labour to work their plantations following shipment after shipment of this human cargo while the poor Sinhalese living in the NCP villages en route of the South Indian Tamil labourers from Arippu to the Hill Country, were abundantly cursed with widespread bouts of cholera soon after the infected Indian labourers disembarked at Arippu. The menace was so frightful that some of those wayside villages in the Wilachchiya Korale in the NCP, abandoned their ancestral villages and moved far in to the jungles to escape the cholera epidemic and establish safe, new settlements.
Ievers has vividly described how he saw, during his field inspections at the times of cholera epidemic, that the fallen dead bodies blanketed with swamps of flies rotting on the way side, as there were no people to bury the dead. In one of his inspection visits to Puwarasankulama of Kende Korale (edging the northern rim of the Wilachchiya Korale) plagued with the cholera epidemic, Ievers has noted that there were only three surviving people in the whole village and that the marauding crocodiles surfaced from the village tank were ripping human carcasses to feast on. Such were the prices that the NCP villagers had to pay for the development of plantation agriculture in the Hill Country. Alas, the historians have totally failed even to make a passing reference to this sacrifice!
During the 20th century, the Survey Department established under the British administration conducted some of the finest topographical surveys and various maps of the island including the one-inch-to-one mile scaled topographical sheets which have been published. In many of then Arippu is located and named. .If not for this, by now, no body would know where the ancient seaport of Arippu was.
During the recent near 30 years of civil war agitated by the Tamil separatist movement, it is plainly clear that the Archaeological Department could not have been able to get anywhere near Arippu, let alone preservation of its remains... This desolation may have further accelerated the destruction and decay of the old buildings’ remains due to, the active natural events of expansion, contraction and rain and sea water erosion of the materials used in the construction of those building The Governor’s mansion referred to earlier has already partially destroyed and the remaining portion of it is being steadily eroded by the wave action of the sea its preservation efforts need to be pursued immediately because of its architectural and historical significance to us.
ISLAND.LK
The Abandoned,
Ancient Seaport, Ruined and Forgotten
December 10, 2010, 12:00 pm
by M.U.A.Tennakoon, P hD, DSc
Arippu was the ancient seaport of Sri Lanka during the time of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The stone bridge (gal palama) constructed across the Malwatu Oya which leaves the ancient Anuradhapura city boundary north-westwards bears testimony to a road linkage of Anuradhapura with the Arippu seaport in the northwestern coast of the island, very close to a point where the Malwatu Oya enters the Gulf of Mannar. This was the ancient gateway of the island to the Indian sub-continent as well as to the Arabian Sea.
Being so near to India, people from the Peninsular India may have crossed the narrow sea strip between the Indian sub-continent and Sri Lanka in frail boats from India even during the proto-historic Iron Age (1,500 -500 B.C.). Since they have come from relatively low rainfall areas of the Sind valley in the northwestern part of the Indian sub-continent the dry peninsular Indian parts of the Deccan plateau and finally from the dry southernmost India , they brought crops such as finger-millets (kurakkan or Eleucine coracana)), mustard, and cotton to be cultivated in the equally drier parts of the northwestern Sri Lanka under rain-fed conditions long before irrigate agriculture evolved in Sri Lanka by about third century B.C. (Panabokke, 2010 and Tennakoon,2010). Thus the northwestern part of Sri Lanka, that is, that part of the land to the northwest and west of Anuradhapura was long under sedentary human habitation first with rain-fed highland farming and very much later that was the during the Early Historic ‘circa’ 500 B.C and the subsequent Middle Historic period commenced by about 300 A.D,. with irrigated farming where it was possible.
This land, that is the northwestern part of the Anuradhapura kingdom was clearly the land of dry grain cultivation from immemorial times of our history. This we got to bear in mind in any future expansion of dry grain cultivation to supplement or support rice farming to feed the millions, that, this particular land area in the northeastern Sri Lanka is of vital importance. It is fatal to ignore the significance of dry grains in feeding an increasing population anywhere in the Tropical World.. It is also noteworthy to keep in mind that 60 % of food of over a billion of people in India comes from dry grains!.
Vijaya’s landing with his followers in Thamrapanni in this populous northwestern region may not have been a pure accidental event. They may have had a prior knowledge of the populous Northwestern Sri Lanka which would have been the cradle of that past civilization, though the later day monk authors of our history have down played this area’s significance.
The prominent seaport, Arippu, in this area appeared to have played a significant role in the external relations of the Anuradhapura kingdom not only with South India, but with the countries in the eastern rim-land of the Middle East. The archaeological evidence unearthed in Anuradhapura shows that there were also exchange of emissaries and ambassadors with far flung western kingdoms such as the Roman Empire. Such vital links would have bee through Arippu.
With the decline of the Anuradhapura kingdom, after about 700 A.D. and the final abandonment of it as the state capital in favour of Polonnaruwa in 900 A,D. due to a variety of political and economic reasons and Gokanna (Trincomalee) becoming the new gateway of Rajarata to the world, the importance of Arippu as the national seaport had gradually faded in to oblivion.
Historical evidence of clear references to Arippu are hard to come by there after until the 17th century when Robert Knox refers to it in describing his ‘escape route’ from the Kandyan Kingdom very roughly following the course of the Malwatu Oya to Arippu to join a Dutch vessel, ending an 18-year imprisonment in Sri Lanka.
From the early 16th century to the 19th century, the western sea fairing nations such as the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British with a lust for trade and conquest were interested in the maritime areas of the island. The British had a keen desire to hold sway in the northwestern coast of the island mainly because pearl fishery in the Gulf of Mannar and particularly from Kondachchi to Vankalai with the bay of Arippu as the epicenter of pearl fishery.
A t the beginning of the 19th century, pearl fishery was the number one revenue source of the British invaders. Therefore, they established a permanent post in Arippu. Fredric North, the First British Governor in Sri Lanka had a permanent residence established by 1804 in Arppu.
Very near the Governor’s Bungalow there is a part of the foundation of a building which was most probably where the governor used to address the native pearl fishermen and other person in sundry businesses. Further inland from the Bungalow at a ‘stone’s throw distance’ from it, there remains a partially destroyed small chapel, which means the governor had spend considerably continuous periods of time if not during the entire pearl fishing season of about seven months of the year until the onset of the rough southwest monsoon in the month of May.
As the above mentioned notice reads, the governor’s two-storied mansion had four .bedrooms, a large meeting/dining hall, a staircase leading to the upstairs of the mansion from the central hall and many other utility areas, built on a low cliff at a stone’s throw distance from the then prevailing beach. The centuries of sea erosion had not only eroded that land space between the then beach an d the mansion but it has caved in to the very basement of the building, making a half of it to collapse in to the sea. The process is still continued unabated.
The special interests of the British in having Arippu under their sway appeared to have lasted through the second half of the 19th century when they were actively engaged in plantation agriculture in the Hill Country. R.W. Ievers thrice the Assistant Government Agent of the North Central Province (NCP) before becoming its Government Agent during the early 1890s has given a very authentic description of the status of Arippu in his book, Manuals of the North Central Province, published by the Government Printer in 1899 He has vividly described how the commissioned agents in South India brought the indentured South Indian Tamil labourers for disembarkation tr- the Arippu seaport and the trials and tribulations that they were subjected to in their long march from Arippu to the central highlands through Wilachchiya, Medawachchiya, Rambewa , Kekirawa, Dambulla, Naula and Matale.
Consequent to this long march, the British planters in the Hill Country got the windfall of having almost free labour to work their plantations following shipment after shipment of this human cargo while the poor Sinhalese living in the NCP villages en route of the South Indian Tamil labourers from Arippu to the Hill Country, were abundantly cursed with widespread bouts of cholera soon after the infected Indian labourers disembarked at Arippu. The menace was so frightful that some of those wayside villages in the Wilachchiya Korale in the NCP, abandoned their ancestral villages and moved far in to the jungles to escape the cholera epidemic and establish safe, new settlements.
Ievers has vividly described how he saw, during his field inspections at the times of cholera epidemic, that the fallen dead bodies blanketed with swamps of flies rotting on the way side, as there were no people to bury the dead. In one of his inspection visits to Puwarasankulama of Kende Korale (edging the northern rim of the Wilachchiya Korale) plagued with the cholera epidemic, Ievers has noted that there were only three surviving people in the whole village and that the marauding crocodiles surfaced from the village tank were ripping human carcasses to feast on. Such were the prices that the NCP villagers had to pay for the development of plantation agriculture in the Hill Country. Alas, the historians have totally failed even to make a passing reference to this sacrifice!
During the 20th century, the Survey Department established under the British administration conducted some of the finest topographical surveys and various maps of the island including the one-inch-to-one mile scaled topographical sheets which have been published. In many of then Arippu is located and named. .If not for this, by now, no body would know where the ancient seaport of Arippu was.
During the recent near 30 years of civil war agitated by the Tamil separatist movement, it is plainly clear that the Archaeological Department could not have been able to get anywhere near Arippu, let alone preservation of its remains... This desolation may have further accelerated the destruction and decay of the old buildings’ remains due to, the active natural events of expansion, contraction and rain and sea water erosion of the materials used in the construction of those building The Governor’s mansion referred to earlier has already partially destroyed and the remaining portion of it is being steadily eroded by the wave action of the sea its preservation efforts need to be pursued immediately because of its architectural and historical significance to us.
ISLAND.LK
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
MICROWAVES ...HOW THEY AFFECT YOUR HEALTH...!!!???
Well.I paused maybe you will too!..................... The amount of times we're late & to warm up use the microwave!!
Microwaved Water - See What It Does To Plants
Below is a science fair project. In it she took filtered water
and divided it into two parts. The first part she heated to
boiling in a pan on the stove, and the second part she heated
to boiling in a microwave. Then after cooling she used the
water to water two identical plants to see if there would be
any difference in the growth between the normal boiled water
and the water boiled in a microwave. She was thinking that
the structure or energy of the water may be compromised by
microwave. As it turned out, even she was amazed at the
difference.
I have known for years that the problem with microwaved
anything is not the radiation people used to worry about, It's
how it corrupts the DNA in the food so the body can not
recognize it. So the body wraps it in fat cells to protect itself
from the dead food or it eliminates it fast. Think of all the
Mothers heating up milk in these "Safe" appliances. What
about the nurse in Canada that warmed up blood for a
transfusion patient and accidentally killed them when the
blood went in dead. But the makers say it's safe. Never mind
then, keep using them. Ask your Doctor I am sure they will
say it's safe too.
What do the dying plants in the pictures say?.. continue microwaving your food?
Change our attitude?
Remember You are also Living. Take Care.
FORENSIC RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Prepared By: William P. Kopp
A. R. E. C.. Research Operations
TO61-7R10/10- 77F05
RELEASE PRIORITY: CLASS I ROO1a
Ten Reasons to Throw out your Microwave Oven
From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. Based on this research, we will conclude this article with the following:
1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven
causes long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting
out" electrical impulses in the brain [de-polarizing or
de-magnetizing the brain tissue].
2). The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the
unknown by-products created in microwaved food..
3). Male and female hormone production is shut down
and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.
4). The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual
[long term, permanent] within the human body.
5). Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food
is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no
benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that
cannot be broken down.
6). The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free
radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.
7). Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous
growths [tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased
rate of colon cancer in America ..
8). The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes
cancerous cells to increase in human blood.
9). Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune
system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum
alterations.
10). Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory,
concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of
intelligence.
Have you tossed out your microwave oven yet?
After you throw out your microwave you can use a toaster oven as a replacement. It works well for most and is nearly as quick.
http://www.healingdaily.com/microwave-ovens.htm
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