The "Sri Lanka Matha" is the national anthem of Sri Lanka. "Sri Lanka Matha" was composed by Ananda Samarakoon and was originally titled "Namo Namo Matha".
Don Stephen Senanayake was a Ceylonese statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of Ceylon having emerged as the leader of the Sri Lankan independence movement that led to the establishment of self-rule in Ceylon. He is considered as the "Father of the Nation".
The Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) is a political party in Sri Lanka that has traditionally represented Sri Lankan Tamils of Indian origin working in the plantation sector of the economy.
Mass media of Sri Lanka consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and Web sites. State and private media operators provide services in the main languages Sinhala, Tamil and English. The government owns two major TV stations, radio networks operated by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), and newspaper titles in Sinhala, Tamil, and English.
Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka are Tamil people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka. They are also known as Malayaga Tamilar, Hill Country Tamils, Up-Country Tamils or simply Indian Tamils. They predominantly descend from workers sent during the British Raj from Southern India to Sri Lanka in the 19th and 20th centuries to work in coffee, tea and rubber plantations. Some also migrated on their own as merchants and as other service providers. These Tamil speakers mostly live in the central highlands, also known as the Malayakam or Hill Country, yet others are also found in major urban areas and in the Northern Province. Although they are all termed as Tamils today, some have Telugu and Malayalee origins as well as diverse South Indian caste origins. They are instrumental in the plantation sector economy of Sri Lanka. In general, socio-economically their standard of living is below that of the national average and they are described as one of the poorest and most neglected groups in Sri Lanka. In 1964 a large percentage were repatriated to India, but left a considerable number as stateless people. By the 1990s most of these had been given Sri Lankan citizenship. Most are Hindus with a minority of Christians and Muslims amongst them. There are also a small minority followers of Buddhism among them. Politically they are supportive of trade union-based political parties that have supported most of the ruling coalitions since the 1980s.
The Official Language Act , commonly referred to as the Sinhala Only Act, was an act passed in the Parliament of Ceylon in 1956. The act replaced English with Sinhala as the sole official language of Ceylon, with the exclusion of Tamil from the act.
Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam was a Ceylonese lawyer, politician and Member of Parliament. He was the founder and leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and a political leader of the Ceylon Tamil community for more than two decades. Chelvanayakam has been described as a father figure to Ceylon's Tamils, to whom he was known as "Thanthai Chelva".
The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. The war has been described by social anthropologist Jonathan Spencer as an outcome of how modern ethnic identities have been made and re-made since the colonial period, with the political struggle between minority Tamils and the Sinhalese-dominant government accompanied by rhetorical wars over archeological sites and place name etymologies, and the political use of the national past.
British Ceylon, officially British Settlements and Territories in the Island of Ceylon with its Dependencies from 1802 to 1833, then the Island of Ceylon and its Territories and Dependencies from 1833 to 1931 and finally the Island of Ceylon and its Dependencies from 1931 to 1948, was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between 1796 and 4 February 1948. Initially, the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka.
The Soulbury Commission was a prime instrument of constitutional reform in British Ceylon that succeeded the Donoughmore Commission. It was announced in 1944 and headed by Herwald Ramsbotham, 1st Viscount Soulbury. The immediate basis for the appointment of a commission for constitutional reforms was the 1944 draft constitution of the Board of Ministers, headed by D.S. Senanayake. This commission ushered in the Soulbury Constitution and independence to the Dominion of Ceylon in 1948. Its constitutional recommendations were largely those of the 1944 Board of Ministers' draft, a document reflecting the influence of Senanayake and his main advisor, Sir Ivor Jennings.
British Sri Lankans are an ethnic group referring to British people who can trace their ancestry to Sri Lanka. It can refer to a variety of ethnicities and races, including Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors/Muslims and Burghers.
Dinamina is a Sinhala language daily newspaper in Sri Lanka. It is published by the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited, a government-owned corporation. The newspaper commenced publishing in 1909. It was founded by the Sinhalese scholar H. S. Perera who acted as both owner and editor-in-chief of the paper at the outset. Upon Perera's death in December 1914, D. R. Wijewardena bought out the company. It is now owned by the government of Sri Lanka.
Ramaya Muttusamy was a prolific Sri Lankan music director and singer. He handled the music for most of K. Gunaratnam's productions.
The Ceylon Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 was a controversial law passed by the Ceylon Parliament which did not grant citizenship to Indian Tamils, who were 11% of the population.
The Sri Lankan diaspora are Sri Lankan emigrants and expatriates from Sri Lanka that reside in a foreign country.
PPR Subramaniam Chettiar (1901-1975) was an Indian journalist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
George Rosario Motha was a Ceylonese politician, lawyer and Tamil activist.
Robert Bruce Kadramer was a Ceylonese politician.
Annalakshmi Rajadurai also spelt as Annalatchumi Rajadurai is a Sri Lankan newspaper editor, author, novelist and journalist. She is regarded as one of the few women to have worked extensively for newspaper publications in Sri Lanka during the 1960s era, at a time when Sri Lankan newspaper were predominantly dominated by men. She played an instrumental role in raising the weight of expectations and standards of the Sri Lankan Tamil daily newspaper Virakesari which eventually became the most popular and sought-after Tamil newspaper among the Sri Lankan Tamil population.
