Features

Dr. C. Sivandran (1948-2024): Engineer, Industrial Entrepreneur

Published

1 year ago

2024/12/15

Thilina Walpola

Indo Energy Head Office

by Rajan Philips

Writing obituaries becomes a poignant burden when those near and dear to us keep taking their turn while we wait for ours in life’s departure lounge. I have had my share of writing obituaries in the last two years, but this one gets preciously close because Sivandran, who passed away suddenly in Semarang, Indonesia, was my roommate throughout our Peradeniya years and later after graduation. We were best friends.

We were emailing on November 28 and his last email said that his health was a hassle; so, he was winding down in Indonesia and was heading home to Perth. Next day I received the sad news of his demise. “Death, be not proud,” John Donne’s Holy Sonnet came to mind, but more in anger than as assurance of what comes “one short sleep past.”

Sivandran graduated in Civil Engineering, in 1972, and went on to obtain his MSc and PhD in Geotechnical Engineering at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. He married Indrakanthi in 1976, at a gala wedding hosted by her parents, R. Yogarajah and Indranee Yogarajah, in their house that had once been the old Eighty Club on Queens Road. Sive was already bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and was onto a number of initiatives in Colombo. Their two sons, Gajan and Subajan, were born in Colombo.

The family moved to Perth, Australia, after 1983. He had earlier spent time in Australia when he had a two year (1980-82) affiliation with Monash University in Melbourne. In Perth, Sive turned to waste management and recycling industry with a global focus to find a satisfying outlet for his intelligence, enterprise, organizational abilities and entrepreneurial ambitions. We met in Canada when he came on a visit to solid waste recycling facilities in Vancouver and Guelph run by municipalities.

What he started in Perth eventually led him to land in Semarang, as Jakarta is too congested, and launch a new company, the PT Indo Energy Solutions, for extracting feedstock from Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) and supplying it as raw material for low carbon fuel production in Indonesia and elsewhere. The company is quite far flung in Indonesia – the head office in Semarang, marketing offices in Jakarta, processing and storage facilities in Lampung and six other locations, and multiple sites for waste collection from Palm Oil Mills. Sivandran had built up multiple clients within Indonesia, along with BP Singapore and clients in EU countries.

Sivandran had been scouting the Southeast Asian region for a number of years before locating his enterprise in Semarang, the capital of Central Java. Kanthi joined him from Perth, and Semarang became a convenient hub for them to travel from – to Perth and to Chicago and Singapore to visit Gajan and Subajan, their families, including their two grand children, Ella and Caiden.

Gajan and his wife Rebecca studied Environmental Engineering in Australia and went on to complete their PhDs at MIT. After stints at the Ohio State University and Boston Consulting, Gajan has recently started a faculty position as Professor at the Quantitative Science Centre, University of Washington, Seattle. Rebecca works as an international Consultant in Water and Climate Research, Public Engagement and Communications. Ella is their daughter, Sive’s and Kanthi’s first grandchild.

Subajan did Mechanical Engineering and followed it up with an MBA from HEC Paris, the well known French business school. He was a Director with Deloitte’s Asia in Singapore, and has now joined Bureau Veritas in Paris, working in Strategy, M&A and Sustainability. His wife Renee is a Psychologist with specialization in Early Childhood Development. They have a son, Caiden, Sive’s and Kanthi’s grandson.

Gajan and Subajan and their partners have done their parents proud. Sive was obviously pleased and proud that his two sons were well set on their own trajectories of accomplishments and achievements. It would have been gratifying for Kanthi, the children and the grandchildren to have had Sive around for many more years. That was not to be. But they have long memories of him that will stay with them without growing old or weary. I would hope that the few reminiscences that I sprinkle below will be a little addition to their trove.

Reminiscences

Sivandran was the youngest son of V. Coomaraswamy and Rukmani, after four sisters and two brothers. His father was an Irrigation Engineer, the family lived in Colombo and Sive started schooling at Royal College. He moved to St. John’s College when the family relocated to Jaffna after 1958. Old Coomaraswamy was a good volleyball player, known as “beauty Coomaraswamy” in the Department for his aerial smashes. Card games, especially bridge, carrom and table tennis were popular pastimes of old school Irrigation Engineers, and Sive’s whole family was groomed in them.

Sive was a shrewd bridge player and was also a good badminton player, thanks to his bother Vijeyndra. Vijey was a final year Medical student at Peradeniya when we entered Engineering, and already a national badminton player for Ceylon. Sivandran was student champion at Peradeniya and was captain and member of the University badminton team. Dr. Vijeyndra passed away in England a few years ago, and Sive’s surviving siblings are his oldest brother Mahendra, himself a Civil Engineer of the Colombo faculty vintage, now living in Perth; and sister Pathma Sokkanathan, a Lawyer, living in London.

Old relationships may not mean much for the younger generation, but it is worth recalling that Sivandran’s mother was the youngest sister of GG Ponnambalam, Q.C., a dazzling lawyer and a political colossus during the middle decades (1930-1970) of the twentieth century. Her other brother, Rev. GM Balasundaram OMI, was a prominent Catholic Priest in the Jaffna Diocese. The two brothers were exceptional orators of their generation.

Sivandran’s oldest sister Parameswari, a doctor, married Alfred Duraiappah, who would not only become the Mayor of Jaffna but would go on to create a national upset by defeating GG Ponnambalam in the 1960 March and July elections in Jaffna. Ponnambalam’s first defeat in 25 years. So, as a 12-year old, Sivandran would have had an early exposure to the tumults, as well as the twists and turns of the local Jaffna politics. But he was never consumed by politics at any level.

Yet, Sivandran had a real talent for organizational politics which he would quietly use to set his own goals, but always to positive ends, and skillfully pursue them without ruffling feathers, making arguments or hurting feelings. They were all evident throughout his university days at Peradeniya and later in Bangkok, and they would have come to full fruition in his entrepreneurial ventures. He was also a conscientious and disciplined student, who would never miss a lecture, was punctual with his coursework, and would divide his time efficiently between subjects regardless of whether he liked them or not.

We were first year roommates at Jayatilaka Hall. There were three of us sharing the room, including Karunaharan, Sive’s classmate at St. John’s College, and now living in Sidney. Our room was on the ground floor in the south wing of the Hall, and our balcony opened quite a vista extending through the expansive sports fields, the Arts Faculty, the Main Library and the Geography Theatre. The vista is still there even as it is etched in my mind.

From our early interactions, it became apparent that Sive knew more about galaxies and planets, and I knew more about federal and unitary constitutions. Outside studies, Sive was busy with badminton and Sports Council politics. I was drawn to debating and perorating in Tamil at the Tamil Sangam, and in English at the Engineering Students Union. Sive had no interest in voluble participation, but would provide critical observations on my omissions and lapses. We had many contrasts, but for all the years we were roommates, we had no differences over anything. Once at the Nallur Temple, he got me to remove my shirt to accompany him to the Sanctum Sanctorum. The first and the only time I have stood shirtless in a public square.

After Jayatilaka Hall, we moved to Meewathura, right by the Mahaweli River, renting a room in staff quarters and cooking our own food. Eating out became a convenient excuse. What was also convenient was that my uncle, Rev. Thani Nayagam had retired from the University of Malaya and was living in Lewella. He would invite us for weekly meals that were served and partaken with priestly aplomb. Sive took it in his stride but would later have a good laugh at the whole formality of the experience.

For our final two years, we moved to the Nell wing of the Akbar-Nell Hall that had nothing scenic about it, but was very convenient as it was next door to the Engineering Faculty. A good majority of the students who were with us at Akbar-Nell are now living abroad. Many of them left after 1983, and quite a few of them have died. I have not seen Sive in person for some time and occasionally lost contact with him. But when we resumed contact some time last year, it was as if we had never stopped corresponding. In his last email he said, “Hope to meet with you someday.” I caught its premonition only when it was too late. I have to live with that till it is my turn.

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Features

Maduro abduction marks dangerous aggravation of ‘world disorder’

Published

23 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Venezuelan President Maduro being taken to a court in New York

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on January 3rd and his coercive conveying to the US to stand trial over a number of allegations leveled against him by the Trump administration marks a dangerous degeneration of prevailing ‘world disorder’. While some cardinal principles in International Law have been blatantly violated by the US in the course of the operation the fallout for the world from the exceptionally sensational VVIP abduction could be grave.

Although controversial US military interventions the world over are not ‘news’ any longer, the abduction and hustling away of a head of government, seen as an enemy of the US, to stand trial on the latter soil amounts to a heavy-handed and arrogant rejection of the foundational principles of international law and order. It would seem, for instance, that the concept of national sovereignty is no longer applicable to the way in which the world’s foremost powers relate to the rest of the international community. Might is indeed right for the likes of the US and the Trump administration in particular is adamant in driving this point home to the world.

Chief spokesmen for the Trump administration have been at pains to point out that the abduction is not at variance with national security related provisions of the US Constitution. These provisions apparently bestow on the US President wide powers to protect US security and stability through courses of action that are seen as essential to further these ends but the fact is that International Law has been brazenly violated in the process in the Venezuelan case.

To be sure, this is not the first occasion on which a head of government has been abducted by US special forces in post-World War Two times and made to stand trial in the US, since such a development occurred in Panama in 1989, but the consequences for the world could be doubly grave as a result of such actions, considering the mounting ‘disorder’ confronting the world community.

Those sections opposed to the Maduro abduction in the US would do well to from now on seek ways of reconciling national security-related provisions in the US Constitution with the country’s wider international commitment to uphold international peace and law and order. No ambiguities could be permitted on this score.

While the arbitrary military action undertaken by the US to further its narrow interests at whatever cost calls for criticism, it would be only fair to point out that the US is not the only big power which has thus dangerously eroded the authority of International Law in recent times. Russia, for example, did just that when it violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it two or more years ago on some nebulous, unconvincing grounds. Consequently, the Ukraine crisis too poses a grave threat to international peace.

It is relevant to mention in this connection that authoritarian rulers who hope to rule their countries in perpetuity as it were, usually end up, sooner rather than later, being a blight on their people. This is on account of the fact that they prove a major obstacle to the implementation of the democratic process which alone holds out the promise of the progressive empowerment of the people, whereas authoritarian rulers prefer to rule with an iron fist with a fixation about self-empowerment.

Nevertheless, regime-change, wherever it may occur, is a matter for the public concerned. In a functional democracy, it is the people, and the people only, who ‘make or break’ governments. From this viewpoint, Russia and Venezuela are most lacking. But externally induced, militarily mediated change is a gross abnormality in the world of democracy, which deserves decrying.

By way of damage control, the US could take the initiative to ensure that the democratic process, read as the full empowerment of ordinary people, takes hold in Venezuela. In this manner the US could help in stemming some of the destructive fallout from its abduction operation. Any attempts by the US to take possession of the national wealth of Venezuela at this juncture are bound to earn for it the condemnation of democratic opinion the world over.

Likewise, the US needs to exert all its influence to ensure that the rights of ordinary Ukrainians are protected. It will need to ensure this while exploring ways of stopping further incursions into Ukrainian territory by Russia’s invading forces. It will need to do this in collaboration with the EU which is putting its best foot forward to end the Ukraine blood-letting.

Meanwhile, the repercussions that the Maduro abduction could have on the global South would need to be watched with some concern by the international community. Here too the EU could prove a positive influence since it is doubtful whether the UN would be enabled by the big powers to carry out the responsibilities that devolve on it with the required effectiveness.

What needs to be specifically watched is the ‘copycat effect’ that could manifest among those less democratically inclined Southern rulers who would be inspired by the Trump administration to take the law into their hands, so to speak, and act with callous disregard for the sovereign rights of their smaller and more vulnerable neighbours.

Democratic opinion the world over would need to think of systems of checks and balances that could contain such power abuse by Southern autocratic rulers in particular. The UN and democracy-supportive organizations, such as the EU, could prove suitable partners in these efforts.

All in all it is international lawlessness that needs managing effectively from now on. If President Trump carries out his threat to over-run other countries as well in the manner in which he ran rough-shod over Venezuela, there is unlikely to remain even a semblance of international order, considering that anarchy would be receiving a strong fillip from the US, ‘The World’s Mightiest Democracy’.

What is also of note is that identity politics in particularly the South would be unprecedentedly energized. The narrative that ‘the Great Satan’ is running amok would win considerable validity among the theocracies of the Middle East and set the stage for a resurgence of religious fanaticism and invigorated armed resistance to the US. The Trump administration needs to stop in its tracks and weigh the pros and cons of its current foreign policy initiatives.

Features

Pure Christmas magic and joy at British School

Published

23 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Students of The British High School in Colombo in action at the fashion show

The British School in Colombo (BSC) hosted its Annual Christmas Carnival 2025, ‘Gingerbread Wonderland’, which was a huge success, with the students themseles in the spotlight, managing stalls and volunteering.

The event, organised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), featured a variety of activities, including: Games and rides for all ages, Food stalls offering delicious treats, Drinks and refreshments, Trade booths showcasing local products, and Live music and entertainment.

The carnival was held at the school premises, providing a fun and festive atmosphere for students, parents, and the community to enjoy.

The halls of the BSC were filled with pure Christmas magic and joy with the students and the staff putting on a tremendous display.

Among the highlights was the dazzling fashion show with the students doing the needful, and they were very impressive.

The students themselves were eagerly looking forward to displaying their modelling technique and, I’m told, they enjoyed the moment they had to step on the ramp.

The event supported communities affected by the recent floods, with surplus proceeds going to flood-relief efforts.

Features

Glowing younger looking skin

Published

23 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Hi! This week I’m giving you some beauty tips so that you could look forward to enjoying 2026 with a glowing younger looking skin.

Face wash for natural beauty

* Avocado:

Take the pulp, make a paste of it and apply on your face. Leave it on for five minutes and then wash it with normal water.

* Cucumber:

Just rub some cucumber slices on your face for 02-03 minutes to cleanse the oil naturally. Wash off with plain water.

* Buttermilk:

Apply all over your face and leave it to dry, then wash it with normal water (works for mixed to oily skin).

Face scrub for natural beauty

Take 01-02 strawberries, 02 pieces of kiwis or 02 cubes of watermelons. Mash any single fruit and apply on your face. Then massage or scrub it slowly for at least 3-5 minutes in circular motions. Then wash it thoroughly with normal or cold water. You can make use of different fruits during different seasons, and see what suits you best! Follow with a natural face mask.

Face Masks

* Papaya and Honey:

Take two pieces of papaya (peeled) and mash them to make a paste. Apply evenly on your face and leave it for 30 minutes and then wash it with cold water.

Papaya is just not a fruit but one of the best natural remedies for good health and glowing younger looking skin. It also helps in reducing pimples and scars. You can also add honey (optional) to the mixture which helps massage and makes your skin glow.

* Banana:

Put a few slices of banana, 01 teaspoon of honey (optional), in a bowl, and mash them nicely. Apply on your face, and massage it gently all over the face for at least 05 minutes. Then wash it off with normal water. For an instant glow on your face, this facemask is a great idea to try!

* Carrot:

Make a paste using 01 carrot (steamed) by mixing it with milk or honey and apply on your face and neck evenly. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes and then wash it with cold water. Carrots work really well for your skin as they have many vitamins and minerals, which give instant shine and younger-looking skin.