Talk:Sri Lanka/Archive 1

Untitled

Removed this political screed from Sri Lanka/Government:

Attention is requested to the suffering of innocent civilian victims of the protracted war (more than 20 years) at the hand of openly nationalist racist governments. It is worth noting that most of this ugly war effort is perpetrated with aid money channeled for globalisation efforts by the west and international monetary institutions.

These very foreign influences are suspected as the international forces behind the credibility given to the blatant misinformation propagated by successive (at present an undemocratically elected) government amid ongoing censorship (End of Sep. 2001). All students of the Sri Lankan politics and ethnicity are requested to be vigilant for mass misinformation campaigns and tactics in use in mass media

-- ansible

Removed from Sri Lanka/History the bit about Kotte being the last pre-colonial capital, as there were multiple kingdoms, with multiple capitals, and the last was Kandy, no?

-- John Abbe

Kotte was the last capital before the first western colonial presence (the Portugese). The distinction is that Neither the Portugese or the Dutch got to the hill country, thus leaving Kandy independent.

Are you saying there was only a single Sinhalese political unit when the Portuguese arrived? -- John Abbe

Yes.

Text of former Tourism in Sri Lanka article

The following is the text of a former unwikified stub. On WP:CU it said

Tourism in Sri Lanka - wikify

should be deleted, all info already available under Sri Lanka Salasks

Is there anything in it worth adding to Sri Lanka?
--Jerzy(t) 19:33, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

---

Sri Lanka, an island located in the middle of the Indian Ocean and enjoys typical tropical climate with almost same temperature throughout the year.

The island of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, lies within the Indian Ocean, with the Bay of Bengal to the northeast, separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Adam's Bridge, a land connection to the Indian mainland that according to Hindu mythology was constructed during the rule of Rama, is now mostly submerged with only a chain of limestone shoals remaining above sea level. The pear-shaped island consists mostly of flat to rolling coastal plains, with mountains rising only in the south central part of the island, amongst which are Adam's Peak and the Pidurutalagala, the highest point at 2,524 m.

The Sri Lankan climate is tropical and characterised by monsoons; the northeast monsoon which lasts from December to March and the southwest monsoon from June to October. The administrative and commercial capital is Colombo, but parliament is located in nearby Kotte. Other major cities include Jaffna, Galle, and Kandy.

Sri Lanka offers wide range of hotels suitable for everyone with any budgets. One can easily find 10$ room to 1000$ five star hotel in Sri Lanka.

Names of Sri Lanka in Sinhala and Tamil

Does somebody know how to write the short native names of Sri Lanka in Sinhala and Tamil in the orginal character, using charset=iso-8859-1. -- Gangulf 10:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you mean in the native writing system, that's not possible. ISO-8859-1 only contains latin characters. — Gwalla | Talk 20:25, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I meant the same way as we do with arabic countries, so it might be ISO-8859 without -1 --Gangulf 20:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You mean using Unicode character entities? — Gwalla | Talk 23:19, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sri Lanka is referred to as இலங்கை (ilaṅkai) (as in the article) in Tamil. Or did you want a literal transliteration of "Sri Lanka"? Ambarish | Talk 23:56, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It would be nice if there is also a transliteration of the full Sinhala name of Sri Lanka. Currently, the name exists in Tamil script, Sinhala script, English, and Tamil transliteration.

Arun 06:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Is it not possible to write "Sri Lanka" correctly in Sinhala using unicode? "Sri" should be only one letter (with two modifiers), it is currently written as Sh+Ri. Bodhitha 16:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Moved English

Moved english from category official languages to category other languages since it is not a official language.

changed spelling "Ilangai Jananayaka Socialisa Kudiarasu" to correct form "Illankai Chananaayaka Chosalisa Kudiyarasu"

"Duttagamani", "Dutthagamani" and "Dutugemunu"

The same text of this note is posted to all the three articles Kandula, Dutthagamani and Sri Lanka.

Some inconsistency may lurk in description in those articles.

1. The article Kandula talks about King Duttagamani (101 - 77 BC) who mounted Kandula the elephant during the wars that led to the unification of Sri Lanka.
2. The article on Dutthagamani (king of Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, from 101 to 77 BC) says, "He had to fight his brother, Saddha Tissa, to gain his crown," and "He marched north and killed the Tamil leader Elara."
3. Sri Lanka recites defender kings of the Sinhara nation against Tamil invasion, one of whom is Dutugemunu, but gives no account of his reign years.
4. King Dutugemunu (161-137 BC) calls Dutugemunu a king who defeated a Tamil king Elara, and "united the Sinhalese for the first time." His reign is 161-137 BC. Also described is that as a prince Dutugemunu fought and beat his younger brother Tissa to have Kandula the elephant, and as the king he mounted Kandula in battle with the Tamil army.
5. Daily Mirror Online : Opinion says, "the great king Duttagamani, better known as Dutugemunu."
6. Unfortunately not so readable as a whole, DUTUGEMUNU EPISODE RE-EXAMINED includes a passage "whether the Dutthagamani's war is an isolated event in history, we find that it antedates the reign of Duttagamani at least by one generation."
7. Here is an English translation of a few chapters of Mahavamsa (the Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka), which may or not serve for solving our problem.
   • The Mahavamsa - the Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka
     1. The Mahavamsa - Chapter XXII - The Birth Of Prince Gamani
     2. The Mahavamsa - Chapter XXIV - The War Of The Two Brothers
     3. The Mahavamsa - Chapter XXV - The Victory Of Dutthagamani

Toby (YebisYa) IQUEPPE 18:53, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)

Colony?

Does Sri Lanka belong in British colonies? The colony was Ceylon—and it seems to inappropriate to list a currently existing independence nation-state as under "British colonies". "Former British colonies", maybe—but that's a whole other category that would not include things like "Basutoland". And non of the others are listed anyway. I am thinking we need a Category:Commonwealth Countries. Haven't found an existing one.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:36, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Spelling in Tamil

I changed the spelling of the second word of Sri Lanka's official name from Jananaayaka ( ஜனநாயக) to Chananaayaka (சனநாயக) correcting with information from the image at the top of the following (non-unicode) webpage Government of Sri Lanka Tamil homepage If that webpage is wrong, please correct it.

--Arun 06:09, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC) This page is boring!

Colonial Rulers

I have a link , for the name sof the Colonal, governers, military leaders, residents http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/european%20rulers.htm, do we want to great a list for this and expand it into part of the article? More info. The links listed together are practically the same thing written elsewhere in that site. http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo.html(contains links below)

POrtuguese Rule http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/portu2.htm http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/portu3.htm

Dutch Rule http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/dutch.htm http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/dutch/dutch2.htm http://lakdiva.org/codrington/chap09.html

British Rule http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/British/history4.htm http://lakdiva.org/codrington/chap10.html

Sri Lankan in World wars http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/ww.htm

Misc http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/kandy1815.htm http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/haeckel/ceylon_e/index.html

History and Demographics Changes

Changed the sentences in History section to clear some errors that have come about mostly through careless editing. Such as the sentence giving the impression that Portuguese established Kotte.

More of the same is required in section dealing with Tamils.

Also changed the Demographics section with regard to Muslims being referred to as Tamils.

--sittingnut 1 July 2005 20:56 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:2004Earthquake

Template:2004Earthquake has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:2004Earthquake. Thank you.

Clarification requested

Perhaps someone more familiar with the subject would care to address the entry Status of religious freedom in Sri Lanka? - ILFoxtrot 22:25 hrs 7/21/05

English name in infobox

Not sure why the English name of the republic was removed from the infobox (this is, after all, an English-language encyclopedia), so I put it back. Tom Radulovich 20:41, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Capital city

An user from Sri Lanka in Tamil wikipedia says that Columbo's status as the executive capital status has been changed and it is no longer the capital city. Can someone verify and change that? -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 11:17, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

That's correct. The official capital is now Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte, which I think is a district of Colombo where the legislature sits. Adam 11:32, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. I got an edit conflict when I tried to post this. MSN Encarta says that Kottee is the administrative capital. I'm fixing it. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 11:37, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Sri Jayawardenapura-Kote is just just a part of Colombo. Most ministries and the president's house is still in the Colombo city. Only a handful of institutions (including the parliament) have been moved to Kotte. But it's just 15 minutes from the city anyway. - Chinthaka Dayaratne

Oh, thanks for the info. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 03:38, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't alter the fact that it is now officially the capital of the country. Adam 05:13, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Sri Jayawardenapura-Kote is not part of colombo, it is a seperate municipal council outside the colombo city. with no connection with colombo. its 20 km away from colombo city - Suren

Reverting back the reverts by Share Bear

I added a note here, same opinions apply for this edit I did to this article. Greenleaf 06:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

indo-Lanka accord

this was signed in 1987 not 1989. in 89 premadasa was president not jayawardene. it was signed between jayawardene and rajiv gandhi. Following the Indo-Lanka Accord, the 13th constitutional amendment of 1987 tamil was made an official language.

External Links - cleanup

I deleted a whole lot of links from External Links section. Reason was that most of those links were not notable enough to represent a country. Greeting cards sites, blog collections, advertisising and directory pages. We don't have to include every link just for the reason they are about Sri Lanka. This is an encyclepedia, not a web directory.

See also: Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files, which specifically says:

"Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding a list of content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia."

Search engines are there for such purposes. We don't have to include a link to Sri Lanka phone directory, Sri Lanka yahoo category and sites like this in an encyclopedia article. (I'm an expat myself, but we must understand that all countries have their share fo expats.)

I might have missed some of the links that must be deleted, or accidently deleted links that must be kept. Please have a look if there are any remaining nn links. Greenleaf 01:35, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Changing Matale image

I replace a picture of a clock tower being renovated with a pic of temple of tooth. I guess that is a better way to represent SL than a non-notable clock tower going under mason work. I hope no one would claim that article is being biased; ToT is also a tourist destination as well as a religious place; besides, the article already has pictures of a mosque and a kovil. Greenleaf 05:57, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

unknown people

who is this "nimal of bbc", i have never heard of him in sri lanka so how can be in "Famous Sri Lankans". btw just because someone is famous in another country does not make them "Famous Sri Lankans" they must first be famous in sri lanka.

I agree - I was mostly a deletionist, but left him because I couldn't verify. But I guess "famous Sri Lankans" must be people who are both *very* famous **and** Sri Lankan - rather than people famous inside Sri Lanka, or people who are famous only in some other country but not in Sri Lanka. If we are to include all people who are famous in Sri Lanka, we'll run out of space.

So, Arthur C. Clarke and some others in the list may qualify. I do not vouch for Nimal Mendis. Having said that, I don't think B&S and Gypsies must be in. We cannot mention every singer who are currently popular in a Country page. What about leading businessmen, gifted painters, talented athletes? Why only popular singers? There has to be some limit where to stop including information - to avoid clutter: Read Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. - Greenleaf 07:10, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

liberal economy

the economy article constructed as to imply that ther was no liberal economy in sri lanka before 1977, which is quite untrue. the economy was always liberal under unp regimes it only during slfp regimes during 57, 60, 70 the economy was restricted. even then full scale socialist economy was imposed only in 1970. - suren

Can people stop adding pointless links

I have this page on my watch list and people are constantly changing official and proper links. The recent of which User:Greenleaf fixed. I dont know who he is, but it saves him and others time if people would stoop doing it. Only add links if information has been obtained from them. Thanks CooldogCongo 08:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

thanks for joining the link police ;-). in an earlier occasion, I had to delete about half of the links that were there. Really hope that people would stop spamming links for commercial reasons. Greenleaf 08:50, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

propagandist edits

I deleted a whole bunch of propagandist edits from the page. Any country has it's own share of attacks on media, and they don't go in country page. True, SL is not very good in it's media freedom, but so is it in health facilities, transport etc. If someone who is interested about health comes and adds stuff on how bad health is there, and someone on transport sector comes and added stuff about how bad transport in SL is, this page would eventually lack *usefulness* for someone who want's to get an idea about country. It's great to be enthusiastic activists, but that does not mean anyone who opens an encyclepedia to look about Sri Lanka is necessarily looking for presss freedom. Please stop adding peripheral matters, for the sake of quality. It's clear whoever edited that part was biased from his removing much of the existing links. Greenleaf 02:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

New Additions and Questions

1) Added U.S. Department of State report on Sri Lanka to the Overviews. Why ? It was the most recent document and the information put in their are balanced, neutral and the most accurate compared to the others.

2) Added Tamil Net to the News Section. Why ? I know you have put BBC Tamil, Virakesari and Thinakural to represent the Tamil's view but unforuntately all of these papaers are in Tamil, most people visiting this page won't be able to read it. TamilNet is the only news that share the Tamil's view on Sri Lanka. BBC website has listed TamilNet on their website. If is is good enough to be listed on the BBC website as a useful link, it is good for Wikipedia.

Agreed, but imho most of those links, the ones you mentioned and ones that represent non-tamil views (eh? - just implying this from your words) don't belong there in the first place, when compared with other country pages. Greenleaf 06:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

3. Need clarification: "The international anti-terrorism focus may have influenced the main Tamil rebel group to seek the ceasefire, as the LTTE was declared a terrorist organization by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Canada and Sri Lanka." We all know that LTTE is banned in USA, UK and India. Can you please point to the documents showing that is the case in Canada and Australia ?

I have removed Canada and Australia from the list. I'm pretty sure they haven't declared as a terrorist organizaiton yet. If you could show me the documents, then we could put it back.[User:MapleLeafFan] 09:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

4. Need to change the statement "This was seen as dicriminatory": "Post independence governments implemented a series of pro-Sinhalese measures in order to support the majority community who were disadvantaged compared to the minorities due to the policies of European colonialists. This was seen as discriminatory by the Tamils and lead to tensions between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil politial/military groups which erupted in violence in 1983 following the killing of 13 soldiers of the Sri Lankan Army in Jaffna.".

"This was seen as dicriminatory" make it sounds like there weren't actually any discrimination and the Tamils perceived it as one. There was clear discrimination against the Tamils and it not a perceived one. In 1948, the Citizenship Act stripped 85,000 Tamil of Indian Origin stateless. 1956 "Sinhala Only" act made "Sinhala" as the official Language leaving Tamil behind. There were anti-tamil riots in 1956, 1958, 1977 and 1983. I don't think anyone were prosecuted for those crime as of today. There are still traces of discrimination left in Sri Lanka against the Tamils even today. See the latest report from an independent organization on the massacre of "child soliders" in a government run Rehabilitation Centre in Sri Lanka and how the government failed to find anyone guilty.

http://www.achrweb.org/reports/srilanka/SLK0105.pdf

In any case, this is the country page, not the place to discuss that. There's a seperate article Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka which specifically address exactly that. This is like talking Bush's policy on Iraq in USA article just because it's one of the most discussed topics in news regarding USA.

I totally agree. Let's move all of the issues on ethnic conflict to a separate page and keep this page for general info on the country. In that case, we also need to address issue #5 I raised earlier. If people want to keep a page free of politics, I'm fine with it, but when they want to discuss politics, I want to make sure it is presented in a balanced and truthful manor. [MapleLeafsFan] 10:41, 30 October 2005.

Apart from that, "there was a clear discrimination" is subjective. See the talk page on the relevent page and you'll see counter arguments. Please think in terms of article quality, not in terms of making one's point - such as "tamils have been wronged, that fact should be there everywhere attached to words Sri Lanka". Think out of 100 people who open an encyclopedia to know about Sri Lanka, how many would be interested to read long-winded passages on political brawls?

Agree. But someone have to address #5 first. That to me is politically motivated. We should come up some guildelines on what should be part of the country profile and what shouldn't. Then people will not put other pages. [MapleLeafsFan] 10:41, 30 October 2005.

For more info, read Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine. I do believe, honestly, that you did all those edits in good faith, and hope you'd take my objection in the same spirit. Greenleaf

Agree Wikipedia should not be used as a propaganda machine. However, when I first read the page on Sri Lanka, I found it to be nothing but propaganda. It was NOT upto the highest standards of Wikipedia. It sounded very much like a government propaganda to me. On the very top of the page contains info on the recent political events. Then I moved to the history section. There were mentions of Kindoms in Sri Lanka, but no mentioned about an independent Tamil Kindom in Jaffna. Then the sentence goes "This was seen as discriminatory by the Tamils", made it sounded like there is no real discrimination in Sri Lanka. No mentioned about the "Citzenship Act, Language Act". No mentioned about the riots prior to 1983. Mentioned LTTE being listed as a terrorist organization in Canada and Australia. I don't think that is the case yet. Mentioned about Tsunami but no word on the P-TOMS. One of the Amnesty international report was listed under the Overview section (It still is), eventhough there are many avaialble againt both the government and LTTE. That's why I wanted to provide a more balanced view on Sri Lanka. [MapleLeafsFan] 10:41, 30 October 2005.

5) I reviewed Wikipedia sites on United_States, United_Kindom, Canada, India and many others. In the top section none of them mention about recent events. This is making me wonder why Sri Lanka need the following on the top ? This should be part of history or politics or others. Is the following paragraph really necessary to be on the top ? Even page on Lebanon doesn't mention the assasination of their Prime minister.

I agree to this hands-down. Quality wise, this article is horrible imho - and I did some edits some time back to fix it - then got occupied with other stuff. Current happenings and most of the "famous people" part are just noise. I removed a lot from that famous people part, but people keep adding.

Have to admit that most of editors in this page are not veterans compared to the pages you mentioned - and it shows. Greenleaf 06:12, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

"Life on Sri Lanka has been marred by more than two decades of ethnic conflict, mainly between the national government and the Tamil militant separatist groups led predominately by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, pronounced L-T-T-E) insurgency. In early 2002, the two sides agreed on a ceasefire. The conditions of this ceasefire are currently under renegotiation, and the political stability of the country is uncertain. In late 2005, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated. President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka blamed the killing on the LTTE. The assasination of the Foreign Minister has plunged the peace process with the LTTE into its worst crisis since 2002."

I have removed the following section as it doesn't really belong in the top of the page. [User:MapleLeafFan] 09:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

6) History section needs corrections. If you want to talk about Kindoms in Sri Lanka, there were three kindoms before the Europeans arrived. There were two Sinhalese kingdoms of Kotte and Kandy and the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna. After the fall of Kindom of Kandy, the British decided to unify the three kindoms under one rule for administrative purposes. Lonely Planet on Sri Lanka states "In 1802 Sri Lanka became a crown colony and in 1818 a unified administration for the island is setup." I would recommend for people to revisit and update the history section.

I have added info about the three kingdoms. [User:MapleLeafFan] 09:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

7) Is the 'culture' section supposed to be blank? Seems like it's been blanked?

Famous Sri Lankans Sections must go!

Unless we come up with some criteria to decide Famous Sri Lankans, it is going to be very subjective. There are lot of questionable people listed in there now. Some of them could be considered as a terrorist in today's world.

Removed the "Famous Sri Lankans Section" for now. Why ? I have looked any many country profiles India, UK, Australia, Canada and so on. Not a single country provided this list. It is very subject to decide who is a famous person. The current list consists of foreign nationals (Arthur C. Clarke), and many other questionable people. Until we come up with a criteria on who should be considered a Famous person, we should omit the section for now. [MapleLeafFan] 1 November 2005.

P-TOMS info added

Added some info about the P-TOMS in the history page as it was a crutial agreement for Tsunami relief.

North and East province

We don't have North and East as two province anymore. They are currently under one province of North Eastern province.

Removing most of the external link

Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files. What Wikipedia is not!

Accuracy

In 1978 under the new constitution of JR Jayawardene, the country's title was changed from 'Free Sovereign and Independent Republic' to 'Democratic Socialist Republic'. Kotte was not made the capital in 1978 but in 1982. 220.247.226.110 13:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Capitol City

To be clear, is Kotte or Colombo the capitol city of Sri Lanka, and if there is dispute of this, should not both be listed with context? - Hidoshi 04:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Nope Kotte is the capitol, Colombo is just the largest city. The parliament & most government offieces are in kotte. Suren

Some govt. offices remain in Colombo. I denoted Colombo as former capital in the infobox. El_C 11:36, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I think this choice is confusing. The infoboxes, in my view, are meant to provide at-a-glance summaries of the current status of the country, not historic material. The article text should indicate that all or part of the government moved from Colombo to Kotte, and when it happened. --Epl 06:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

There should be no dispute here. Kotte is the administrative capital. --Preveen 09:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and these fact should be reflected in the articles on Colombo and Kotte as well. Presently, they are not. --Epl 06:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Reordering

We should move the geography section to the top of the page, nearer history, actually before history. And include the longitude and latitude (No, I don't know what they are) I'm rambling, ok here is the proposal. We reorder the existing sections as Geograhpy, Provinces, Ecology, Demographics, History, Politics and Economy. Rest of the sections stay as is.

Also propose moving the P-TOMS from History to Politics. I'm not really sure about this usage of the Politics section, tho. Seems to me that we should not be putting current affair like the current events, but rather a description of how it's supposed to work, like the 1st 2 paragraphs in the section. --Preveen 09:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Religion in Sri Lanka

A section on religion in Sri Lanka, particularly with respect to the Sinhalese and Tamil, would be very fitting. --Epl 06:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Sri Lanka/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Wasnt independance declared in 1947. Remember 50th anniversary celebrations in 1997?

Last edited at 05:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 22:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)