Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput dead at 34

Rajput: ‘Nobody invites me to their parties and functions. Bollywood is not accepting me as a family’. Sushant Singh Rajput, the star of 2016 blockbuster based on the troubled life of Indian cricketing superman Mahendra Singh Dhoni, was found dead…

June 15, 2020 · by soma ·

Thosapala Hewage, top Sri Lankan civil servant, passes away in New Zealand

Hewage appearing in a TV interview during his tenure as ambassador for Nepal Halfway through my self-quarantine in Toronto, I was devastated to hear the death of an old friend, senior Sri Lankan civil servant and ambassador Thosapala Hewage. Known…

April 16, 2020 · by soma · 0

World-renowned, blind Sri Lankan educator Rienzie Alagiyawanna’s services to humanity forgotten

Rienzie Algiyawanna with his German wife and two children. Several Sri Lankan special needs schools bear his name A visually-impaired Sri Lankan educator who served his country of birth and the world for more than four decades remains a forgotten…

February 2, 2020 · by soma · 0

US-based Sri Lankan academic Prof. Ari Ariyaratne publishes text book on cultural anthropology

Professor Ariyaratne is a graduate of University of Kelaniya. Inset: In his university days in the late 70s Prof. Ari Ariyaratne, a university batchmate and now a professor of anthropology at Heartland Community College, Illinois, has created history by publishing…

January 3, 2020 · by soma · 0

Collecting classic cars Cecil Mannamperuma’s childhood passion

Cecil with awards won by his 1929 Mercedes-Benz at a car show Passion for antique cars was a childhood dream of Cecil Mannappeurma, a son of a school principal serving in difficult areas in rural Sri Lanka in the mid-50s.…

October 26, 2019 · by soma · 0

Toronto man who killed 10 last year, including Sri Lankan-born woman, says lack of attention from women made him stage van attack

Renuka Amarasinghe started a new job on the same day Alek Minassian, the man who plowed 10 people to death with a rental van last April, including a Sri Lankan-born woman of one child,  said a lack of attention from women…

September 27, 2019 · by soma · 0

Who killed Sharmini Anandavel?

The picture that Sharmini’s parents gave a Toronto Star reporter.  (Courtesy: CBC) Twenty years ago, June 12, 1999, 15-year-old Sharmini Anandavel left her Toronto home telling her parents that she was going for a job interview. She never came back.…

September 16, 2019 · by soma · 0

Cult figure Prof. Carlo Fonseka dies at 86

Prof. Carlo Fonseka…irreplaceable personality At an exhibition to celebrate hundred years of Colombo Medical Faculty in the early 70s, I saw Prof. Carlo Fonseka and his students walking on live charcoal to debunk a belief that fire-walking had a spiritual…

September 6, 2019 · by soma · 0

Poverty makes rural kids to use kitchen utensils, metal food cans in their school band

Band leader Sachini in a tearful appeal for help A few months ago we applauded and cheered a Sinhala film which portrayed a village school band winning a musical competition by using kitchen gadgets and other rudimentary items as instruments,…

August 11, 2019 · by soma · 0

Sri Lankan-born Nishan Duraiappah appointed as police chief in Ontario’s Peel Region

25-year veteran Nishan Duraiappah in his Halton police uniform. He is seen with his children. Son Luke (4) wearing his dad’s police cap. Sri Lankan-born Nishan (Nish) Duraiappah will be appointed as the police chief in Peel region, Ontario, on…

August 3, 2019 · by soma · 0