Nanda Wanninayaka nanda.wanninayaka@gmail.com Jokers (and jerks – including Mr. Anura Dissanayaka) apart, there are two mainstream candidates in the run-up to the presidential election on November 16, 2019. Well, whether you like it or not, it is Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (GR) and Mr. Sajith Premadasa (SP) who are the frontrunners for the contest and the others are just vote ...
Kularathna Rajapaksha Many adults in Sri Lanka are against the use of social media, especially Facebook, as they see only the negative sides of it. Public school principals and teachers are the most vociferous among them. But today I am going to talk about a public school principal who does a yeoman service for the students and the community in ...
The below are a few pictures of the Jaffna lagoon, Sri Lanka. Fishermen use these fiberglass boats at night to go fishing in the sea. They go about 5 km from the shore into the Indian Ocean. Some who could afford, use outboard motors on their boats, but many just use oars to row the boats. In fact, I ...
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa One main surprising difference is how both his admirers and even some of the distractors, largely the youths irrespective of petty ethnic, religious and class differences got together without any directions from the top started making the cities and the villages beautiful on their own initiative. I am not sure if such a reaction happened even once ...
Valkyrie Poster I had the pleasure of watching the 2008 movie “Valkyrie,” which is based on a true story that took place during World War II. Valkyrie shows the last of the known 15 attempts to assassinate the German dictator Adolf Hitler. The most important military conspirators of this final assassination attempt were General Friedrich Olbricht, Major General Henning von ...
I stopped enjoying the ‘Sri Lankan New Year’, which falls in the mid-April each year, since I was a teenager. Endless sweetmeats, innumerable friends who visit you and the obligatory return visits you have to make and so forth. At times silly fights by stupid intoxicated people, much the worst from liquor, having to acknowledge and pay homage to every Tom, Dick and ...
Isn’t it ironic that within 24 hours of me deciding to travel in Kalinga (present day Odissa) extensively for a month on a motorbike in November this year that this article http://scroll.in/article/814562/are-the-sinhalese-people-descendants-of-bengali-and-odiya-sea-merchants appeared out of the blue? I have a great friend from Kalinga and he will find me a bike, food and lodging throughout my tour. He is ...
Our route from Mahawilachchiya to Dambana I started the trip to Bandarawela from Mahawilachchiya around 7.00 am on May 15, 2017 with Aleksandar Isailović from Serbia and reached Mirahawatta (off Bandarawela) via Mahiyanganaya the first day. Despite having an international license, Aleksander could not ride the bike as my Bajaj Pulsar 150 is not a model he had any experience ...
Route to Bandarawela from Mirahawatta In the morning of May 16, 2017, Aleksandar Isailović from Serbia and I went to Devananda Public School (Sri Devananda Madya Maha Vidyalaya) in Mirahawatta with Nimal Gunarathna, the ICT teacher of the school and did a presentation on how the school can be benefitted with foreign volunteers as teachers. Presentation at Mirahawatta Devananda Public ...
Jobs movie poster I watched two feature movies and one documentary based on the life of the Founder of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs. The first movie I saw was “Steve Jobs” (2015) and then “Jobs” (2013.) I prefer the latter as Ashton Kutcher looks more similar to Jobs than Jobs himself!!! I watched the movie “Jobs” several times as I ...
Nanda Wanninayaka at the International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability (ICIAfS) – 2018. Following is the succinct transcription of the presentation on ICT & Automation for Rural Developmentmade by me (Nanda Wanninayaka), at the Galadari Hotel in Colombo on December 22, 2018 at the International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability (ICIAfS) – 2018. “Good evening everybody. I am ...
Image courtesy Daily Mirror Many (unfairly) criticize the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) saying that they “exploit” students by providing services when the students use internet for online education. I have been teaching online for the last 8 months and I did a comparison of the two main ISPs (Dialog and Mobitel) that provide the widest mobile broadband services in Sri ...
A Walk to Remember poster A Walk to Remember is an American teen romantic film made in 2002. It was based on the romance novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film was directed by Adam Shankman and the main cast includes Shane West and Mandy Moore. Rebellious Landon Carter (Shane West) and bookish Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore) ...
