Fishman's Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) emphasizes the family in maintaining the heritage languages of immigrant communities. This study uses interview data from Sri Lankan Tamil ...communities in the U.S.A., U.K., and Canada to explain how families account for the rapid loss of Tamil in the diaspora. It shows how the positive valuation of English since British colonization, the need to make up for past deprivations because of caste, religious, and gender inequality, the pressure for migrants to join the social mainstream, and the need to resolve intergenerational tensions influence the family to forego language maintenance goals. The findings encourage us to situate the family in macro‐social institutions, power, and history in order to understand the prospects for language maintenance. The article provides an inside view of the Sri Lankan Tamil migrant families to explain how they resolve the tensions of valuing cultural identity and yet disregarding heritage language proficiency.
The purpose of this research is that the reader can find out the problem of Sri Lanka's dependence on China in the Hambantota Port development project which ultimately ended up as a debt trap. In ...this research authors used qualitative research methods. And from the results of research that has been done, it is found that basically the cooperation carried out by China and Sri Lanka is a collaboration between hegemon countries and third world countries. Debt trap diplomacy itself has close links with other Chinese policies, namely the Belt and Road Initiative, this policy focuses on infrastructure development which includes the construction of railroad networks, the construction of roads to ports located in the territories of other countries and has a strategic position and will good impact for the achievement of Chinese interests in realizing the "new Silk Road". Sri Lanka proposed cooperation to build the port of Hambantota with the aim of helping to improve Sri Lanka's economy. Cooperation that is expected to have a positive impact on Sri Lanka actually brings disaster, because it leads to a debt trap that makes Sri Lanka must hand over the port of Hambantota to the China’s government.
The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) Identifying the risks that are critical for risk management of road construction projects in Sri Lanka on a life cycle basis and (2) defining the shares of ...the parties involved in projects in terms of handling the identified risks. A Delphi study was conducted among 33 Sri Lankan experts (consultants, project managers, contractors) in three rounds. The findings showed that the construction and design phases are prone to many major risks. Moreover, 'delays in payment by the client' was the most critical risk factor in the construction stage. Furthermore, it was established that some major risks could occur in more than one phase of the project life cycle, stressing the necessity of handling these risk factors as a prerequisite for project success. The discussions presented in this study would enhance the effectiveness of implementing risk management practices in Sri Lankan road construction projects. From a broader vantage point, it will also serve the risk management body of knowledge in the construction industry.
Introduction: This study aimed to assess attitudes, confidence in practices and perceived barriers toward the promotion of tobacco cessation in the dental setting among clinical dental students in ...Sri Lanka. Methods: Role of dental schools on moulding future dental professionals with regards to education on tobacco cessation promotion is remarkable. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on all the dental students from clinical years in 2018 using a self-administered structured questionnaire. Ninety-four per cent of the dental students from clinical years of faculty of dental sciences, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka completed the questionnaire (65% Females and 35 % Males) with a mean age of 24.65+ 2.24 years.Results: Clinical dental students possessed positive attitudes towards the professional responsibility of dentists in tobacco cessation whilst only 34% strongly agreed counselling offered in the dental setting has an impact on the same. More than half of the students remained neutral or disagreed the fact that nicotine replacement is within the scope of dentistry. Respondents expressed their confidence in tobacco cessation counselling. They identified “patients’ disinterest in receiving advice” as the main barrier to perform tobacco cessation practices in the dental setting. It is prudent to include formal education on tobacco cessation to the undergraduate curriculum of dental students to alleviate misconceptions related to practices of tobacco cessation in dental settings. Conclusion: It is of prime importance to identify training needs related to tobacco cessation promotion among dental undergraduates and compose a separate training module for them.
Since the third century BCE, when the king of Sri Lanka converted to Buddhism, the island nation off the southern coast of India has represented a central interest of Buddhist scholarship. The ...association between its politics and religious life has not always remained harmonious, however, and has contributed to the contemporary turmoil that threatens to tear it apart. In this valuable book, renowned religious scholar Bardwell Smith elucidates the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka from the time of one of its earliest rulers through to its present-day strife.
The essays collected here for the first time explore various themes of Sri Lanka’s long history in novel and constructive ways. Topics include Sinhala Buddhists’ sense of manifest destiny arising from Sri Lanka’s oldest historical chronicles, the Mahavamsa and the Dipavamsa; the nationalist implications of the chronicles’ depiction of the third-century Mahavihara monastery as the site of original Buddhism; and concepts of order and legitimation of power in ancient Ceylon. With a new introduction and final chapter, Smith sheds fresh light on today’s Sri Lanka, connecting historical studies with contemporary issues.
Sri Lanka has recently emerged from nearly three decades of protracted conflict, which came to an end five years ago in 2009. A number of researchers have explored the devastating effect the conflict ...has had on public health, and its impact on Sri Lanka's health system - hailed as a success story in the South Asian region. Remarkably, no attempt has been made to synthesize the findings of such studies in order to build an evidence-informed research platform. This review aims to map the 'research landscape' on the impact of conflict on health in Sri Lanka. Findings highlight health status in select groups within affected communities and unmet needs of health systems in post-conflict regions. We contend that Sri Lanka's post-conflict research landscape requires exploration of individual, community and health system resilience, to provide better evidence for health programs and interventions after 26 years of conflict.
In May 2009, the Sri Lankan army overwhelmed the last stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-better known as the Tamil Tigers-officially bringing an end to nearly three decades of civil ...war. Although the war has ended, the place of minorities in Sri Lanka remains uncertain, not least because the lengthy conflict drove entire populations from their homes. The figures are jarring: for example, all of the roughly 80,000 Muslims in northern Sri Lanka were expelled from the Tamil Tiger-controlled north, and nearly half of all Sri Lankan Tamils were displaced during the course of the civil war. Sharika Thiranagama'sIn My Mother's Houseprovides ethnographic insight into two important groups of internally displaced people: northern Sri Lankan Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims. Through detailed engagement with ordinary people struggling to find a home in the world, Thiranagama explores the dynamics within and between these two minority communities, describing how these relations were reshaped by violence, displacement, and authoritarianism. In doing so, she illuminates an often overlooked intraminority relationship and new social forms created through protracted war.In My Mother's Houserevolves around three major themes: ideas of home in the midst of profound displacement; transformations of familial experience; and the impact of the political violence-carried out by both the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan state-on ordinary lives and public speech. Her rare focus on the effects and responses to LTTE political regulation and violence demonstrates that envisioning a peaceful future for post-conflict Sri Lanka requires taking stock of the new Tamil and Muslim identities forged by the civil war. These identities cannot simply be cast away with the end of the war but must be negotiated anew.
Two major drawbacks of the present cervical cancer screening programme in Sri Lanka are, the suboptimal sensitivity of the pap smear and the low coverage. The sensitivity of the HPV/DNA screening ...test is high. The objective of the study was to explore the acceptability relevance and simplicity of the new HPV/DNA screening implementation among ever-married women in a district of Sri Lanka.
Focus group discussions (FGD) (n = 3) in the public health divisions of the Kalutara district were used to collect data during December 2018. The study population comprised of ever-married women 35 years old, who, carried out an HPV/DNA test at a community Well Woman Clinics (WWCs) (n = 89). A list of WWCs was prepared according to an alphabetical order under urban, rural, and estate sector categories and allocated a number. One WWC was selected from each sector randomly for the three FGDs representing the estate, rural, and urban clinics. A convenient sampling technique was used to select participants for each FGD (n = 8). The information collected at each interview was summarized at the end of each interview. The analysis was done with manual content.
Most of the participants were Sinhalese (n = 17, 70.9%), Buddhist (n = 18, n = 75%), and non-working (n = 18, n = 75%). The community awareness of HPV/DNA screening and field staff performance were highly appreciated by most of the participants. Most were aware of the high sensitivity of the HPV/DNA test, therefore the early detection rate of cervical cancer precursors is high. Most of the participants expressed the HPV/DNA test as a convenient and neutral test. Most were mentioned the necessity of repeated clinic visits for the pap test and colposcopy in HPV/DNA screened positive follow-up but there was marked acceptability (n = 23, 95.8%) for HPV/DNA test.
Acceptability of the new HPV/DNA screening test was high. Most of the participants perceived the HPV/DNA test to be simple and also relevant. Therefore, the HPV/DNA screening test can be recommended to be incorporated into the National Cervical Cancer Screening Programme as its suitability was well explored in the Sri Lankan setting.
This book examines the relationship between ethnic conflict and economic development in modern Sri Lanka. Drawing on a historically informed political sociology, it explores how the economic and the ...ethnic have encountered one another, focusing in particular on the phenomenon of Sinhala nationalism. In doing so, the book engages with some of the central issues in contemporary Sri Lanka: why has the ethnic conflict been so protracted, and so resistant to solution? What explains the enduring political significance of Sinhala nationalism? What is the relationship between market reform and conflict? Why did the Norwegian-sponsored peace process collapse? How is the Rajapaksa phenomenon to be understood? The topical spread of the book is broad, covering the evolution of peasant agriculture, land scarcity, state welfarism, nationalist ideology, party systems, political morality, military employment, business elites, market reforms, and development aid.
Militarizing Sri Lanka is a study of the militarization that has buttressed the war between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE for over two decades. It highlights militarization as a process through ...which the ideology of militarism is shaped and shared in a manner that makes militant solutions to conflict a part of institutional structures and ways of thought. It foregrounds militarization as activity and agency, capable of adaptation and transforming society in significant ways; and as a deeply gendered, contingent and shifting process. It also analyzes both the construction and resistance to militarization and militarism, but in a manner that draws attention to their relationality rather than as self-evidently oppositional categories.