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Showing posts from 2017

Sri Lankan Holidays 2018 - Google ICS File

We are at the end of yet another year. To make it things easier for people, I've created the ICS file with all the Sri Lankan holidays as announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs through Extraordinary Gazette No. 2024/55 published on the 24th of June 2017. ( http://www.moha.gov.lk/web/images/holiday_calendar/holiday_calendar_2018_e.pdf ) PLEASE NOTE THAT THE HOLIDAYS LISTED BY GOOGLE ON THEIR HOLIDAY CALENDAR FOR 2018 IS WRONG! So dont put your trust on this! Looks like they have missed some Poya days as this year we have 13 poya days as there are two months with 2 poya days each (its a double blue moon this year) You can download the calendar from  https://goo.gl/3AXhVB Here's some interesting stats about the holidays next year.. 18 of the 26 holidays listed are falling on weekdays. But be sure to check how many of them are mercantile since your organization may be giving you only mercantile holidays. January and March will have 2 poya days each on the 1st and 3

And then I changed my mind..

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I've been working with TEDxColombo and the team putting together the show for 5 years now, but 2017 was a little bit different for me (may be for a few others too). I was at one point thinking to myself if I should leave as I had so many other things to be concentrating on among many other reasons.. I was not giving my 100% to the team as I had used to in the previous 4 years. Mind you, I left the hospital 3 days after having surgery for appendicitis and was in 2016 controlling the backstage 6 days after my surgery. As usual, one morning I turned up for rehearsals and I heard for the first time Aritha​ doing his first cut of the talk. After the talk, we had a really long conversation about many things related to his talk and other stuff. I've been working with different types of people throughout my life in different projects. I've talked to so many people. My ability to speak and understand Sinhala and Tamil has helped me understand the stories from both sides of

Waste Management Failure in Sri Lanka : We The Citizens Are To Be Blamed!!

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After the incident at #Meethotamulla recently, I see so many who are posting articles about Waste Management and how its effectively done in other countries in the world and the big question in the end being WHY CANT SRI LANKA DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS? "Waste is not waste but a resource that has value" said Chinthaka Abeysekara at TEDxColombo 2016. He showed us how countries around the world have successfully monetized waste and recycled it to produce alternate sources of energy and much more. So, again, why haven't we been able to do it yet? Well, the answer is simple. it is us. Yes, us, the people of this country! We the people of this country are stupid enough to elect the same corrupt irresponsible greedy pigs into power all the time at every election and they in-turn want bribes, commissions, favors from those who want to make these waste management plants which then discourages the private sector and the investors and today, we have over 10 innocent lives inc