Bachelor's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

This project examines the literal and literary bodies associated with the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka as they are represented in literary, journalistic, and anthropological accounts. These texts are populated by historical personages and fictional characters spun from imagination or based on actual people who serve as representatives of those who live in the day to day reality of violence. The goal of this project is to offer a re-visioning of the power relations between the aggressor and victim, the victor and vanquished, in violent conflicts. Island of Blood: Frontier Reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints, a memoir by Anita Pratap, and The Terrorist, a feature film by Santosh Sivan, illustrate how Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, fashioned his own absent or invisible body and the bodies of the suicide bombers as the focal point of Tamil nationalism. Prabhakaran developed the cult of personality around himself by fostering an aura of mystery and employing religious symbolism. In particular, feeding emerges as the quintessentially nurturing function misappropriated by this malignant maternal figure Prabhakaran. The other category of bodies is comprised of the victims: the dead, the raped, and the other defiled bodies that are anomalous in military conflicts. These are the profaned and violated bodies. In Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, the unidentified bodies of human rights violations provide forensic evidence for legal proceedings and in turn attain sanctified status as the survivors use their remains to build legal cases against the atrocity. Their mute presence serves as a powerful amplifier for the survivors. A. Sivanandan’s When Memory Dies has as its focal point an ethnically incited rape and murder. During intergroup conflicts rape is often used to weaken the enemy group’s integrity. However, I argue that When Memory Dies challenges this norm and suggests that those who are considered threats to group integrity, whether they be minorities, outcasts, unwed mothers or raped women, could paradoxically be the agents of social integration, especially in the time of unrest. / text

The main purpose of the study was to analyze and compare higher educational systems and the major variables affecting them in Sri-Lanka and Kenya. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, and literature reviewed. The conceptual framework of the study is in accordance with a model for a cross-cultural national study of comparative education systems developed by Dr. Herbert B. Wilson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona. The findings of the study indicated that a comparative education system is significantly intertwined and affected by a number of important variables including (1) certain national characteristics such as culture, traditions, religion, politics, patriotism, international contact, life cycles, geography, economy, climate, demographic trends, and social organization; (2) socializing agents including family, tribe, clan, caste, social institutions, religion, military, media, literature, communication, schools, research stations, museums, publications, and public libraries; (3) the history and philosophy of education in public, private, religious, and proprietary sectors; (4) curriculum and instruction including scope, level, sequence, methodology, and mission; (5) enabling activities including administration, authority, control, financing, and political climate; (6) providing activities including availability and preparation of faculty, students, and administrators, and (7) certain current problems and issues affecting education. The major conclusions indicate that the building of a strong system of higher education is an accretive process involving not only the availability of resources but the arising national aspirations and attitudes as well as the development within the population of an awareness of the personal, regional, and national returns from education, particularly higher education. Such public and private awareness is the catalyst for the development and effectiveness of a productive higher education system.

The Tamil Tigers were one of the most organized, focused, and influential organizations in Asian politics during the last three decades. Throughout the existence of the organization, the goal of the LTTE was to establish a separate Tamil state – Tamil Eelam - comprising the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka where Tamil-speaking populations were dense. The Sri Lankan civil war, which ended in May of 2009, claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, and impeded the economic well-being of Sri Lanka. This thesis employs the operational code analysis as a way to better understand the character, behaviour, and norms of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. An additional purpose of this thesis is to test the utility of this model in the case of a terrorist organization such as the LTTE. The Operational Code Analysis framework was premiered by Nathan Leites in his two-part study of the Bolshevik Party, and was subsequently revived and re-imagined by a number of academics. The iteration of the Operational Code framework used in this thesis is a qualitative analysis which is comprised of ten questions: five ‘philosophical’ and five ‘instrumental’. This examination reveals that while this model has much to offer in analyzing this terrorist organization, it is in some ways a flawed method of exposition. However, the model produces unexpected insights about the stated beliefs of the LTTE.

Global awareness of environmental issues such as climate change and resource depletion has grown dramatically in recent years. As a result, there has been a surge of interest in developing alternative building techniques and materials which are capable of meeting our structural needs with lower energy and material consumption. These technologies are particularly attractive for housing. Much of the global demand for housing is currently being driven by economic growth in developing countries. Additionally, natural disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami have destroyed houses in many countries where limited economic wealth makes reconstruction a challenge. This has resulted in shortages of permanent housing in these areas. This thesis explores the structural behaviour of earthbag housing under vertical compressive loading, in an attempt to broaden our quantitative understanding of this alternative building technique. Furthermore, this technique is assessed, along with other alternative construction techniques, for suitability in southern Sri Lanka, an area heavily damaged by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It was determined that the compressive strength of unplastered earthbag housing specimens meets or exceeds the vertical compressive strength of conventional stud-frame housing technology using a variety of fill materials, with the greatest strength being observed for soil-filled bags. Furthermore, the results of observational research from a site visit to Sri Lanka in 2006, combined with resource availability data and interviews with Sri Lankan citizens, suggest that earthbag housing is a very promising technique for housing construction in the southern coastal region. / Thesis (Master, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-10 16:29:45.005

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the bilateral air services agreements of Sri Lanka under the existing legal, regulatory and the infrastructural framework of civil aviation in Sri Lanka. In order to achieve this objective, this thesis is divided into following chapters, Chapter One - Deals with the history and evolution of bilateral air services agreements in the history of world civil aviation. / Chapter Two - This Chapter has two sections. Section one addresses briefly the history and evolution of the air transport industry of Sri Lanka. Section two looks into the legal and regulatory framework within which the air transport industry works in Sri Lanka. Negotiation and Conclusion of bilateral air services agreements is also explained in this section. / Chapter Three - Contains a detailed analysis of the main provisions of the bilateral air services agreements concluded by Sri Lanka. / Chapter Four - The existing infrastructure and the prospects for the future is discussed in this chapter along with the challenges faced and to be faced in the future. / Finally, the findings of this research are presented with recommendations for the betterment of air transport industry of Sri Lanka.

This thesis provides an in-depth account of the Low-Country, ritual, drumming tradition of Sri Lanka. Low-Country drumming is characterized by its expressive and illusive sense of timing which makes it appear to be free of beat, pulse and metre. This makes it special in respect to other drumming cultures of the world. However, the drumming of the Low-Country is marginalized, unaccepted and unexposed. Drawing on original fieldwork from the Western province of Sri Lanka, this study analyses the drumming of three distinct rituals: devol maḍuva, Kalu Kumāra samayama and graha pūjāva of Raigama, the dominant sub-tradition of the Low-Country. The thesis reveals key features of the drumming tradition, some of which are hidden. These features include the musical structure that is beneath the surface of the drumming, timing, embellishment, improvisation and performance practice. It also documents the Low-Country drum, the yak beraya, its construction and relationship to the musician. The thesis addresses some of the changes that are occurring in the contemporary ritual and argues the need for the drumming to be brought out of its ritual context, for its survival in the future. It also documents a collaborative performance between Low-Country ritual performers and musicians from New Zealand.

University of Technology Sydney. Institute of Sustainable Futures. / Sanitation in rapidly growing cities of developing Asian countries is a complex problem that often appears intractable and unyielding to standard problem-solving approaches. In this thesis, I provide a conceptual foundation aligned with sustainability to provide fresh guidance towards resolving this problem. I frame urban sanitation in developing Asian countries as a ‘messy’ planning-related problem, characterised by associations with multiple perspectives, key uncertainties and conflicting interests. In recognition that ‘messy’ problems cannot be confined within traditional disciplinary boundaries, the research uses transdisciplinarity as a guiding principle and methodology. It explores how new processes and complex systems ideas relevant for ‘messy’ problems can be applied to resolving urban sanitation. To ground the work in a real context, much of this work is explicated with reference to Colombo, Sri Lanka. My research highlights the role of dominant perspectives and worldviews in the organisation of sanitation practice. A review of sanitation history exposes changing paradigms, and the potential for developing Asian countries to move to radically different practices aligned with sustainability. I demonstrate that conceptions of costs and cost recovery for sanitation depend on perspective, by comparing how neoclassical economics’, ecological economics’ and Buddhist economics’ perspectives indicate different approaches to these, with different alignments with sustainability. By arguing that these perspectives are complementary rather than mutually exclusive, I integrate them to propose necessary principles for sustainable sanitation, namely, that: arrangements for sanitation should emphasise cooperation between stakeholders; efficiency goals should include entropy considerations; society as a whole should live within its means; and ethics and ‘goodness’ should underpin decision processes and choices. The thesis proposes a framework for participation to support decision-makers in resolving problematic sanitation. This supports the principle of cooperation between stakeholders, and the sustainability discourse’s emphasis of democracy and participation in decisions that affect them. It is a learning process based on soft systems methodology, bringing participants with specialist knowledge, stakeholder interests and broader societal values into dialogue that is explicitly designed to be deliberative, that can lead to a path to resolving the problem. Finally, I explore how ethics and ‘goodness’ can be woven into the provision of sanitation services, particularly with private sector actors who can potentially play a key role. I propose that their representation as metaphorical persons within current legal structures be extended so their behaviour is guided by a moral framework like real people in society. I propose that Buddhist economics can provide such a framework, raising expectations of behaviour grounded in ethics and goodness.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of deregulation on financial market efficiency in Sri Lanka. The concept of efficiency used here is due to Fama (1970) who defines an efficient market as one in which prices fully reflect all available information. Given the significant expansion of Sri Lanka???s financial markets in the post deregulation period, efficiency is investigated in the context of these markets. To this end, the study employs a number of standard tests for market efficiency including; the expectations hypothesis of the term structure, the Fisher hypothesis, uncovered interest parity, speculative efficiency, real interest rate equalization and tests of capital mobility. Although the overall results presented in this study suggest that Sri Lanka???s financial markets are not fully efficient, the evidence provides significant insight to the performance of these markets. The main policy lesson to be learnt from this analysis is that financial deregulation will not automatically promote market efficiency unless accompanied by positive policy action to reinforce the impact of these reforms. In conclusion therefore, the study makes a number of recommendations which could help to reinforce the impact of financial deregulation on market efficiency.

Cancer pain is a serious problem that requires specialised nursing knowledge to manage. This ethnography study explored the experiences and practices of cancer pain management among nurses at the Cancer Hospital, Sri Lanka. Data were collected at the Cancer Hospital in Sri Lanka during October 2007 to January 2008. Data consisted of participant observation of nursing practice in a cancer ward, semistructured interviews with 10 participants and researcher diary. Analysis of data was undertaken with Richard’s (2005) method of handling qualitative data and consisted of coding data initially and an integrative process to develop categories. Findings identified Sri Lankan nurses have minimum cancer pain management practice because of a lack of resources, large number of patients to care for, shortage of nurses and unbearable workload in this hospital setting. Additionally the nurses are powerless as they have no autonomy in practice as well as no prospects of career promotion. They are stuck in a task oriented system that rarely acknowledges cancer patients’ pain management needs. It is anticipated that this study may lead to improve nursing pain management for cancer patients as well as curriculum change in nursing courses in Sri Lanka. Nursing curriculum change is required to include cancer pain management education as well as care of acute and palliative cancer patients. Additionally, the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka needs to acknowledge the importance of palliative care service as well as pain management service and a recommendation is made to implement policies at the Cancer Hospital addressing these areas.