Batticaloa is specially called as “singing fish”

Batticaloa is one of the districts in Srilanka. Batticaloa is specially called as “singing fish”. There are many historical places such as Dutch fort, light house, beach and river are in batticaloa. Many tourists who are coming to Srilanka are watching the beauty of this district. There are temples, Churches, mosques for various religious people. Other than the other districts here most races such as Tamils, Islam, and burgers are living here.

Pasikudah
		Pasikudah or Pasikuda ( Pronounced Paasi-Kudah, Tamil translation Green-Algae-Bay) is a coastal resort town located about 35 kilometers northwest of Batticaloa, Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. It used to be a popular tourist destination, however due to 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and Sri Lankan Civil War tourist numbers have declined. Pasikudah and Kalkudah are located few km apart.

Tourist Information Centre
		Batticaloa town in the East Coast like most other coastal townships was under Portuguese and Dutch rule. A Dutch Fort stands close to the Batticaloa lagoon. The most famous attraction of Batticaloa is its ‘Singing Fish’. On full moon nights a faint but distinct musical sound rises from the lagoon waters. This is attributed to a noise emanated by a kind of fish found in the lagoon.

Dutch Fort
		Originally a Portuguese settlement, the Fort of Batticaloa was first constructed in 1628 as a trading and administrative center. Set upon a small island, the fort protrudes into a swampy lagoon, surveying the brackish waters protected by the city’s outer banks. The Dutch had arrived in 1602, drawn to the prospects of trade and the abundance of pepper and cinnamon grown by the local community. However, it was not until King Rajasinghe in Kandy urged Dutch intervention that the European colonial power took action, capturing the fort in 1638 and establishing sovereignty in the region.

Light House
		Batticaloa is a beautiful and tranquil fishing town located in the eastern part of Sri Lanka. Home to many picturesque lagoons and beaches, the town lies upon a flat coastal plain that is bordered by the aquamarine waters of the Indian Ocean. One of the most popular attractions of the town is its historic lighthouse that stands majestically against the clear blue skies of Batticaloa along Bar Road. This rounded masonry tower was built in 1913 by the British during the period when they ruled the island of Sri Lanka which was previously known as Ceylon. For many years, the lighthouse acted as a beacon of hope and light to seamen upon the Indian Ocean. Today, it stands as a symbol of the history and heritage of the eastern coast of Sri Lanka.

Tour Island
		Tour Island is situated in Batticlaoa surrounded by the lagoon with lots of bio diversity such as rare plants and birds.

Unichai Resevior
		Unichai Reservoir is the largest dam in the east part of the srilanka it was built in before 1957 and it was breached by the cyclonic flood an 1957 and renewed and strengthened in the year 1985.

Butterfly Peace Garden
		The Butterfly Peace Garden (BPG) is a non-governmental organization established in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka in 1996. Since that time the BPG has provided counseling and support to children traumatized by civil conflict in the region. In late 2004 the BPG also became a centre for helping victims of the tsunami which devastated the Batticaloa area. The BPG and its staff have been supported by a variety of local and international agencies and charities, including the governments of Canada and the Netherlands, WarChild International and Ashoka International, which named BPG co-founder Paul Hogan a fellow in 2003.

Arugambay Beach surfing
		Situated in the district of Ampara, Approximately 314 km from Colombo, Arugam Bay is Known as one of the best three surfing spots in the world. this typical fishing village to the south of the small town of Pottuvil can be reached via A4 from Colombo. The unspoilt town of Arugam Bay offers an abundance of opportunities for those with a passion for water sports and underwater photography.

Ampara district Thambuluvil Kalaimahal Vidyalayam obtained 193 marks to top the list in the Tamil Medium grade V sholorships

Malavan Supatha of Thambuluvil Kalaimahal Vidyalayam obtained 193 marks to top the list in the Tamil Medium.Shukri Mohomed Safeer of Sri Ramakrishna Madya Maha Vidyalaya, Kandy came second with 192 marks while Yogeswaran Priyanesan of Vipulananda Vidyalayam, Vavuniya came third with 190 marks.


In Sinhalese medium
Sanuja Kalkara Edirisinghe of Dharmapala Vidyalaya, Pannipitiya topped the list with 196 marks. Navin Yasanka Pramaratne of Moragasmulla Primary School in Minuwangoda, J. Kalani Pabasara of Meegahatenna Primary School in Matugama and R.L. Lasith Navodya ofMahinda College,Galle emerged in a tie with 194 marks each.



The cut-off marks are as follows:

01 Colombo– Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks.

02 Gampaha – Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

03. Kalutara – Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

04. Mahanuwara (Kandy) - Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

05. Matale – Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

06. Nuwara Eliya – Sinhala medium 140 marks & Tamil medium 140 marks

07. Galle– Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

08. Matara – Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

09. Hambantota – Sinhala medium 144 marks & Tamil medium 137 marks

10. Jaffna–Tamil medium 142 marks

11. Kilinochchi –Tamil medium 139 marks

12. Mannar –Tamil medium 141 marks

13. Vavuniya – Sinhala medium 139 marks & Tamil medium 143 marks

14. Mullaitivu – Tamil medium 139 marks

15. Batticaloa – Tamil medium 142 marks

16. Ampara – Sinhala medium 142 marks & Tamil medium 143 marks

17. Trincomalee – Sinhala medium 139 marks & Tamil medium 142 marks

18. Kurunegala – Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

19. Puttalam – Sinhala medium 142 marks & Tamil medium 141 marks

20. Anuradhapura– Sinhala medium 142 marks & Tamil medium 140 marks

21. Polonnaruwa – Sinhala medium 142 marks & Tamil medium 138 marks

22. Badulla – Sinhala medium 142 marks & Tamil medium 141 marks

23. Moneragala – Sinhala medium 141 marks & Tamil medium 143 marks

24. Ratnapura – Sinhala medium 145 marks & Tamil medium 140 marks

25. Kegalla – Sinhala medium 148 marks & Tamil medium 145 marks

The Pandit who became a Swami

Batticaloa-born S. Mailvaganam, born of one of those rare Northern and Eastern Province alliances in Ceylon, studied both Arts and Science, excelling in both, before going on to be the first from Ceylon to pass the Pandit Examination of the Madurai Tamil Sangam c.1915. It was while he was Principal of the Manipay Hindu College, Jaffna, that this staunch Saivite got interested in the teachings of Swami Ramakrishna. To pursue his interests further, he arrived at the Ramakrishna Mission in Madras in 1922. Two years later, he was initiated into the Order and took the name Swami Vipulananda. While with the Mission in Madras, he edited its Tamil and English monthly journals, Ramakrishna Vijayam and Vedanta Kesari, respectively. He also, during those years, began to delve deeper into Tamil language, literature and history, publishing prolifically on them in English and Tamil.

When a University Commission met in Madurai in 1926, Swami Vipulananda addressed it and urged the establishment of a Tamil University in the Tanjore-Trichinopoly area — an idea that was to become reality over 75 years later. Annamalai Chettiar (later to be titled Rajah Sir) was one of those who heard his plea, and after discussions with him, decided to establish Annamalai University in Chidambaram. In 1931, Swami Vipulananda was to become its first Professor of Tamil. When the University of Ceylon was established in 1937, he was appointed its first Professor of Tamil, but kept urging the establishment of a Tamil University in Nallur, Jaffna, the capital of the Arya Chakravarty dynasty.

The Tamil Swami-Pandit during all these years kept contributing significantly with his pen to the Ramakrishna Mission. Then the Mission beckoned — and after a spell in Calcutta in charge of education, he was sent to his birthplace, Batticaloa, to establish the Mission at a new frontier.

In 1945, giving evidence before the National Languages Commission in Ceylon, he advocated Swabhasha and a three-language formula — education from kindergarten to university in the mother tongue (Tamil or Sinhalese), with the other language and English, which he stressed, compulsory subjects. It's a dream that still awaits fulfillment.

The holy relics of St. Anthony which were brought to Batticaloa ,Sri Lanka for the first time

The holy relics of St. Anthony which were brought to Sri Lanka for the first time from Padua in Italy were brought to Batticaloa. Trincomalee Bishop the Rt. Rev. Dr. Kingsley Swamipillai received the relics after performing the traditional rites. They were placed at the St. Anthony’s Church in Batticaloa for public veneration. From there they were taken to St. Anthony’s Church at Manipay, Jaffna on Saturday and were worshipped by a large number of devotees, sources said. MONDAY, 15 MARCH

Kallady Beach, Batticaloa

The Traveler's Journey: Dutch Reformed Church

The Traveler's Journey: Dutch Reformed Church: "1639 the Dutch won over Trincomalee and Batticaloa from the Portuguese and handed over to the Sinhala Rule."

Vaalai: Autonomy District council solution for Sri Lanka

http://www.tamilwin.com/view.php?2a36QVF4b43F98Me4b46IP5ce2bf1GU2cd2uipD3e0dpZLuQce03g2FP0cd3tjoCd0

This picture has been taken in Sri Lanka, Kalmunai

Canoi and Beach

Africans descendants survive only in pockets along the island's coastal regions of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Negambo, according to Census Department

The African-Sri Lankans are known as "Kaffirs" but not in an insulting way

SIRAMBIADIYA, Sri Lanka — In a village deep in west Sri Lanka, one of the island's few remaining communities of African descent breaks into song -- a poignant elegy to a disappearing culture.

The music starts with a slow, gentle rhythm played on a tambourine, spoons and coconut shells, before it builds to a climax with dancers swinging their hips, hands and feet wildly.

The performance is a direct link back to the tiny minority's distant African past.

"We are forgotten people," Peter Luis, 52, said. "We are losing our language and, having inter-married many times, our children are losing their African features."

The population of African-Sri Lankans -- now numbering about 1,000 -- is mainly descended from slaves brought to the island after about 1500 by Portuguese colonialists.

They are known as "Kaffirs", but the term is not the savage racial insult here that it is in other parts of the world, notably South Africa.

"We are proud of our name. In Sri Lanka, it is not a racist word like the word negro or nigger," said Marcus Jerome Ameliana, who believes her ancestors came to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, as Portuguese slaves.

The slaves were also used as soldiers to fight against Sri Lanka's native kings, in the first stage of a long history of oppression under a series of imperial masters.

When Dutch colonialists arrived in about 1600, the Kaffirs worked on cinnamon plantations along the southern coast.

After the British took over Sri Lanka in 1796, the Kaffirs were further marginalised by an influx of Indian labourers who took most work on tea and rubber estates.

Lazarus Martin Ignatius, 82, remembers her grandfather telling how their ancestors were chained up and forced by the Dutch to take on the Ceylonese army.

Her memories, like those of most other Kaffirs, are fragmented, and she speaks a lyrical creole language with a mix of native Sinhalese and Tamil.

"We never learnt how to read or write, only to speak. Now young people go to school. They marry outside the community, so I think education comes from that influence," the frail Ignatius told AFP.

Louisa Williams, 17, dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt, said she may train to become a traditional Kaffir dancer but admitted she rarely uses the dialect.

"I like to dance and will perhaps join a local dance troupe," she said. "I have heard about my ancestors from aunts and uncles, but I only speak a few words of creole like 'water', 'eat' and 'sleep'."

The future looks bleak for the Kaffirs, according to Anuthradevi Widyalankara, senior history lecturer at the University of Colombo.

"They have been denied education so they have a lack of interest in sustaining their language or culture -- unlike some other minority groups," Widyalankara told AFP.

Widyalankara, who is writing a book on the ethnic group, said the Kaffirs had assimilated over generations, having married Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

But in the palm-fringed village of Sirambiadiya, about 100 Kaffirs remain, living in modest brick houses and earning a living as labourers and cleaners.

At lunchtime, the men chat and doze in hammocks as the women sing catchy creole tunes while preparing a meal on outdoor stoves.

Their songs, mostly repeating a few basic lyrics, speak of love, the sea and wildlife, explained George Sherin Alex, 43, one of the village dancers.

The performing arts remain one of the few expressions of the Kaffirs' roots, Shihan Jayasuriya, a senior fellow of the London-based Institute of Commonwealth Studies, told AFP.

"Music and dance seem to be the best indicators of African ancestry, other than their physiognomy. Their other cultural traits are not African because they have adopted local customs and habits," Jayasuriya said.

The Kaffirs were originally Muslims, but now they practice a range of faiths from Catholicism to Buddhism, and wear typically Sri Lankan clothes of long skirts for the women and sarongs for the men.

No one knows how many Africans were brought to Sri Lanka, but their descendants survive only in pockets along the island's coastal regions of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Negambo, according to Census Department officials.

Jayasuriya, who has done extensive research on the African diaspora in the Indian sub-continent, said the Kaffirs' predicament is centred on their struggle to find a place in post-colonial Sri Lanka.

"They have become disempowered because their patrons, the European colonisers have left the island. They have lost their role as a part of the colonial machinery," said Jayasuriya.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iaORVW-MuvhsMtFdeGJzuUj1infw

Human smuggling begins in East

By Chris Kamalendran and Damith Wickremasekera

While Australia and Indonesia are engaged in diplomacy to resolve the problem of the growing number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers drifting into their seas, the people-smuggling racket originating from the eastern coast of Sri Lanka is continuing unabated, the Sunday Times learns. Young men desperate to get away from the country are paying anything between Rs. 150,000 to Rs. 500,000 to board a deep-sea fishing trawler with the hope they can make it to Australia and claim asylum there. The money is paid to a middleman, after which the asylum seekers are given short notice to meet at a particular point to board the boat. More than 600 persons are reported to have already left on the perilous route, according to Rest House owners in Batticaloa who provide shelter to the men till the day of their departure arrives. One young man who is waiting his chance to board a boat after having failed to get on the last one that left Batticaloa two weeks ago, said, that in spite of the defeat of the LTTE, he feels unsafe and thinks he will have a better life in Australia. “We know that once we get there, we will not be sent back. I am hopeful of getting there and in a few years I will help my family members to do the same,” said Nirmalan, a 34 year-year-old man from Passekudah. The trip is estimated to take 13 days during which time they would be given cooked meals on board. With the east coast becoming the new launching pad for human smugglers, Police in the area are trying to track down those behind the operation. DIG (Eastern range –Central) Edison Gunatillake confirmed that since the defeat of the LTTE, the eastern coast has become the setting-off-point for those trying to leave the country illegally. “Some people are encouraging people to leave the country in this manner so that it gives a negative picture of the situation of the north-east, even after things have returned to normal. There is an organized group of people behind this and we are investigating to find out who they are,” DIG Guantillake said. On Thursday police apprehended one person in the Batticaloa area in a trawler that had met with a mishap before the perilous journey. There were more people on board, but they had got off, when the trawler met with the accident. He is being questioned now to ascertain the modus operandi of the agents behind the human-smuggling trade, he added. The issue has now gained international significance after the latest boat-load of 78 asylum seekers were picked up by An Australia customs ship “ Oceanic Viking” in Indonesian waters two weeks ago. They are since stranded in Indonesian waters with neither country willing to accommodate them. Source:Sunday times

SunRise at Batticaloa

Genocide of Batticaloa district of the East.

In 1958 Hon Velupillai Chelvanayakam, the Opposition Leader of the parliament of Sri Lanka, commenced the “tar-brush” campaign against the state and against the Sinhalas. This was a copy from the Dravidistan & anti-Hindi agitators of Tamil Nadu who tar-brushed Hindi letters.

After brushing tar over Sinhala letters on a number plate of a bus in Jaffna, he traveled all the way to Batticaloa to repeat his actions. His willing followers also indulged in this act. It started the 1958 riots killing hundreds of Tamil people. Though the riots ended within days, the message was loud and clear – in Sri Lanka other than North and the East has no place for tamils.

Sinhala population percentage of Batticaloa district was 5% in 1971 but by 2007 it has fallen to zero percent!

Sinhala and Tamil people disliked this form of politics but had no political choice as communal politics ensured that no collective multi-ethnic politics take root in the North by eliminating everything non-Tamil. ITAK’s escalation of aggression saw it graduate into the TULF (Tamil United Liberation Front) by merging with its arch rival the ACTC.

The boy from Batticaloa, Dineshkanthan Thangarajah brought Sri Lanka glory by winning the singles crown at the ITF Junior Circuit Week-Two Tournament

The boy from Batticaloa, Dineshkanthan Thangarajah brought Sri Lanka glory by winning the singles crown at the ITF Junior Circuit Week-Two Tournament concluded at the SLTA hard courts on Saturday morning.

With like concrete concentration , Thangarajah warded the strong challenge offered by Chung Hyo Woo of Korea in the final. The first set with exciting with the scoring going either way from the start before Thangarajah broke Woo’s service point to win on 7/5.

Thangarajah managed to give away only three games (6/3) to Woo to finish off in style and amidst vociferous cheering from his supporters who gathered in large numbers.

This was the most cherished moment for the boy from St. Michael’s College in the East who was brought to Colombo and enrolled at St. Peter’s College after his talent was spotted during a junior tournament.

Thangarajah had the distinction of winning a double when he also won the boys’ doubles event with partner Amresh Jayawickrema on Friday afternoon.

Fighting over fish

Photo: Anupama Ganegoda

Fishermen working in the shallow waters off Batticaloa in Sri Lanka complain that their catch has gone down with the arrival of multi-day fishing trawlers

COLOMBO, 16 October 2009 (IRIN) - The seas off Batticaloa in the country's former war-torn east are home to one of the most fertile spawning grounds off Sri Lanka, and fishermen rarely had to travel far for a good catch.

But of late, traditional fishermen who use boats powered by outboard motors or canoes to fish have complained of meagre harvests.

"I went out on five consecutive days, and only yesterday did I return with some fish, but only 6kg," said Tamil Chelvam, who operates a boat from Tirivendu beach, just south of Batticaloa.

Locals blame a recent influx of large fishing trawlers into their waters for their dwindling catches. Before the encroachment, a good catch would earn fishermen up to US$174, and a normal catch, about $85.

But now, after paying helpers and offsetting other expenses, including fuel, the small catches do not leave them with much, they say.

"They have big boats, big nets and they stay out at sea for days," S. Paskaran, who has been a fisherman for more than two decades, told IRIN. "The problem for us is that they catch in shallow waters and deep sea, but we can only go a certain distance."