Features

R.E. de Alwis (1891-1945) – Lake House’s scoop-getter in the DR Wijewardene era

Published

3 years ago

2024/01/28

Thilina Walpola

R. E. de Alwis at a historic interview with George Bernard Shaw

(Excerpted from Selected Journalism by HAJ Hulugalle)

R.E. de Alwis, one of the greatest newspaper men Ceylon has produced, died 25 years ago (when this book was published) on April 13. The news of his death came to his colleagues with a shock as he was at the peak of his career as a journalist and apparently in good health.

I say he was a great newspaperman not merely because he was a remarkably conscientious and successful reporter. He literally lived for his newspaper and one might even say died for it by driving himself too hard. There were better writers and desk-men in the office, but it was Alwis who carried the flag and made the sorties across new and disputed frontiers. He helped more than anyone else to put the “Daily News” in front as a journal of news. As a character he could have come straight out of Philip Gibbs’ “Street of Adventure” which was a newspaper classic 50 years ago.

Alwis had served briefly in two short-lived newspapers, the “Ceylonese” and the “People”. They were hard times. The editorial staff used to wait at the gate for anyone coming with a death notice to find the price of a dinner.

With his employment by D.R. Wijewardene about 1919, he seemed to have entered his spiritual home with a chief after his own heart. There were more experienced reporters with a sound knowledge of shorthand on the staff but Alwis was anxious to make an immediate impact. This he did by concentrating on getting front page news, a task in which he enjoyed the cooperation of the best news-getter in the establishment, the boss himself. A time came when every first-class “scoop” was promptly rewarded with a bonus.

Alwis had a disarming boldness which opened many official doors to him. When he met Mr. George Bernard Shaw at the Grand Oriental Hotel (now the Taprobane), he asked: “Mr. Shaw, are you going round the world because the world cannot go round you?” The great mean gave him one of his fetching smiles and asked in turn: “Young man, where did you get that from?”

As the star reporter Alwis met all the celebrities who came to Ceylon, such as Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, Ramsay MacDonald and Mahatma Gandhi. But his forte was the exclusive and often sensational news story to be splashed on the front page. During the agitation for constitutional reforms a secret memorandum was sent by those who were opposed to the reform, to the Colonial Office in Whitehall. In the Legislative Council the Colonial Secretary refused to table a copy. He was fully confident that none of the signatories would give it. Alwis was able to obtain a copy surreptitiously from a member of the household of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan. Sir Ponnambalam was one of the instigator’s of the memorandum.

It was often good fun tracking a piece of news with him. When I was editor of the paper he came to my room one day with the information – obtained no doubt from Mr. D.S. Senanayake, though he rarely disclosed his sources truthfully – that Sir Bernard Bourdillon, the Chief Secretary at that time was about to be transferred elsewhere. I had seen in “The Times” of London that the Governor of Uganda was about to retire. I asked Alwis to telephone Sir Bernard at Nuwara Eliya, where he was on holiday, to find out whether he was going to Uganda.

Alwis did so, to be told that there was no foundation whatever for such a surmise. Two weeks later I sent Alwis a telegram, congratulating him on his “scoop.” He did not know whether I was referring to the birth of his eldest son, which had occurred during the previous night, or to something else. What happened was that I had received a letter from Sir Bernard Bourdillon apologizing for his denial of the news. He assured me that he had no idea he was going to Uganda and wondered how we had got the information before he did.

Until Alwis joined the “Daily News” the paper carried very little news as such. Meetings were reported at great length, official reports were published in full and there were columns and columns of the attendance at weddings and funerals. Government information was carefully guarded by European officials. A reporter in the “Ceylon Morning Leader” V.B. Ernst, who had a brother-in-law at the Colonial Secretary’s office, often obtained exclusive news of appointments and transfers. Mr. Armand de Souza, the able editor of that paper, had contacts with the higher officials and was sometimes able to get something special for his news columns.

Alwis raided the same field and made his presence felt. But it was after Mr. D.S. Senanayake was elected to the Legislative Council that Alwis emerged as a news-gatherer par excellence. Senanayake’s friendship with D. R. Wijewardene made his task easier. “D.S.” was the Secretary of the unofficial block in the Council and the most active member of its Finance Committee which had all the inside information of what went on in the Government.

Alwis was soon on friendly terms not only with Senanayake’s friends and allies but also with some of the European officials, the most important of whom was Sir Wilfrid Woods, Colonial Treasurer and later Financial Secretary. Woods, who had a crusty sense of humour, regarded Alwis as a new phenomenon and found time for him. He pumped Alwis for news of “D.S,” Oliver Goonetilleke and Kotelawala, and their machinations. What Alwis gathered from Sir Wilfrid he passed on to “D.S.”

When Senanayake became a Minister in the State Council Alwis was always at hand to get information from him and keep him informed of what went on in political circles. When the Minister had his lunch brought to his office the sweet, which he was not allowed to eat, was always kept for Alwis.

There was indeed no politician of any importance who did not welcome Alwis. He was quite capable of discussing Vedantic philosophy and the Christian gospels with Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, singing fish with E.R. Tambimuttu and Catholic politics with H.A.P. Sandarasegara and Father Long. Anyone who gave him news was his friend and he rewarded his informant with small favours from his more influential patrons.

In the office he often managed to upset his fellow-workers by his mysterious movements, his furtive relations with important persons and his readiness to work long hours. There were certain institutions which could not be criticized in his presence with impunity, among them the Roman Catholic Church, the proprietor of the “Daily News” and Mr. Senanayake’s political circle. Loyalty, he often repeated, was greater than love. For the majority of his colleagues journalism was a way of earning a living; to him it was a way of life.

He was never in a hurry to hand in his “copy”, a practice which irritated the sub-editors, Orion de Zylva in particular, who were in a hurry to catch their trains. Alwis who started his working day in the morning, almost invariably caught the last train. For the paper, he scorned delights and lived laborious days. When his family was on holiday he lingered in the office to make telephone calls to his informants or to write a letter to his wife. When there was a big news story in hand he waited till the pages were closed and the paper was put to bed.

He was the born journalist. When he died a great newspaper man passed. I was his editor for seventeen years and his colleague for a much longer period and am glad to be able to pay this tribute to his memory.

(This article, headlined ‘Story of a reporter’ first appeared in the Ceylon Daily News on April 13, 1970)

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Features

New US sanctions on ICC, a fillip to worldwide political repression

Published

15 hours ago

2026/10/15

Thilina Walpola

The International Criminal Court in session. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s warning to the International Criminal Court (ICC) was stark: ‘Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.’ It followed US central administration accusations that the court was unfairly targeting Americans on the basis of trumped-up war crimes charges.

However, a new plethora of sanctions has been clamped on the ICC by the US, which in turn has spurred accusations by sections of the world that the latter has unleashed an ‘assault’ on the international legal order.

What some of the sanctions would mean for the ICC was outlined by Rubio: ‘We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling their ability to operate against us.’

The ICC has shown consistency of purpose over the years. Despite some operational constraints it has indicted a large number of political strongmen from around the world, accused of war crimes and other governance excesses that come under its purview. Two such recent figures are: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rather than enjoy a mere nominal presence in the world community, the ICC has proved its effectiveness by detaining and bringing to justice scores of VIP politicians and others of their ilk who have been found guilty of human rights abuses and kindred excesses that come within the terms of reference of the ICC.

Accordingly, the international justice system would be stymied considerably as a result of the ICC being dis-empowered, particularly financially. Needless to say, potential and real perpetrators of the species of crime coming under the jurisdiction of the ICC would stand to gain most from such anarchic tendencies. That is, political repression globally would be enabled to enjoy a new lease of life.

A detailing of the types of crime coming under the purview of the ICC provides an idea of what it would cost the international community if the ICC’s operations are gravely hampered. They are mainly: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

That is, the part of the world to be worst affected would be the global South, since the latter is awash with the mentioned crimes. Needless to say, a chronically-disaffected South will sooner rather than later undermine the well being of the world dangerously. The world is already being put through these paces.

At the time of writing, ‘illegal migrants’ from the South, for example, are aggravating many a Western economy’s woes, besides creating for them acute law and order issues. The fact that these migrants’ presence goes on to become a virtual test of the migrant receiving states’ ability to forge domestic social inclusion in the face of jingoistic protests by mainly white supremacist groups is evidence of the latter. As is known, the US, to take just one example, has been up against this crisis for quite a while.

Accordingly, it will be in the best interests of the West if ‘illegal’ migrant arrivals on their shores are stemmed. If the socio-political and economic problems assailing the South are effectively managed through North-South collaborative, ‘trouble-shooting’ efforts the causes leading to ‘illegal’ migration and connected issues could be resolved at source as it were. For, it is the aggravation of the South’s material questions that lays the basis for the emergence of repressive and anti-democratic regimes in the hemisphere.

Until such time that the aforementioned issues in North-South relations are visited afresh and addressed urgently, a vibrantly functioning ICC would be needed. For, the latter would prove a deterrent to Southern political and military strongmen, highly prone to power abuse and like excesses, from coming into being in the wake of the South’s chronic material woes and the wars and conflicts that result from them.

It stands to reason then that the US would be acting in its own interests by enabling the ICC to perpetuate its mandate without hindrance. For a crop of issues that impinges negatively on internal law and order would be defused.

Meanwhile, there needs to be a meeting of minds among the rest of the West to put back in place a North-South dialogue process aimed at reducing some of the economic pressures that are weighing on the South.

Since economics usually drives politics it will be in the interests of the world community to scrutinizingly re-visit North-South issues of the past and put in place economic relief packages for Southern publics that would enable them to tide over their material hardships rather than permit the latter to aggravate into social disaffection and eventually armed militancy. It is the latter juncture that paves the way for the emergence of authoritarian rulers in the South who then go on to be a blight on their publics.

Accordingly, the Southern-based global development thinking of the past that envisaged a more equitable world economic order needs to be seen as an urgent need. That is, NAM’s international development paradigms need to be resuscitated to the extent possible.

It is unlikely that rightist governments of the West, such as the current Republican administration in the US, would find these projects feasible, but democratic states of Europe, led by perhaps the UK, are likely to think otherwise. For it would not be beneficial for the democratic world to be having on their hands repressive governments in the South who would be gravitating towards the major military and economic actors of the South, such as Iran and North Korea, who tend to be in constant power struggles with the West.

However, until such time that the mentioned, pro-people initiatives are given serious thought the ICC would need to be enabled by the international community to be in place comfortably and carry on with its mandate of bringing repressive rulers to book. Besides the ICC should pave the way for the peoples of the developing world to enjoy some substantial respite from the political repression and even terror which tend to be their lot.

Meanwhile, the wars of West Asia are relentlessly aggravating the economic hardships of people everywhere, driving the point home to enlightened sections that there is no alternative to peacemaking. A challenge is to convert the US under President Trump to this line of thinking.

Features

Clear, soft and shine-free skin

Published

15 hours ago

2026/10/15

Thilina Walpola

This week, I give you five simple, time-tested homemade remedies that help reduce the appearance of blemishes, control excess shine and leave your skin feeling softer and smoother.

The Honey and Lemon Brightening Dab:

For stubborn blemish marks, this is a classic. Mix one teaspoon of pure bee honey with three to four drops of fresh lemon juice. Apply gently, only on the affected spots, and leave for 10 minutes before rinsing with lukewarm water. While honey soothes and softens, lemon helps to brighten naturally. Use twice a week in the evening.

Besan and Rose Water Oil-Control Pack:

An ideal remedy to combat shine, especially on the T-zone. Take two teaspoons of besan (gram flour) and mix with sufficient rose water to form a smooth paste. Add a pinch of turmeric for its antiseptic goodness. Apply evenly, keep for 15 minutes and wash off. It absorbs excess oil without over-drying, leaving a beautiful matte finish.

Aloe Vera and Cucumber Ice Soother:

Blend fresh aloe vera gel with the juice of a grated cucumber and freeze the mixture in an ice tray. Each morning, wrap one cube in a soft muslin cloth and gently rub over a cleansed face for 30 seconds. It calms, tightens pores and imparts a baby-soft smoothness.

Oatmeal and Curd Gentle Polish:

Roughness and old blemish marks need gentle exfoliation. Combine one tablespoon of finely powdered oatmeal with one tablespoon of fresh curd (yoghurt). Massage very gently, in circular motions, for one minute, leave for five minutes and rinse. It removes dead cells and unveils softer, clearer skin.

Multani Mitti and Green Tea Magic Mask:

Brew some green tea and allow it to cool completely. Mix one and a half teaspoons of Multani Mitti (Fuller’s Earth) with the tea water to make a fine paste. Apply for 10 to 12 minutes – do not let it dry and crack completely – and wash off. It draws out impurities, fades blemishes and bestows a fresh, shine-free glow.

A Gentle Reminder:

As with any natural remedy, always do a patch test on your inner arm first. For those with oily or combination skin, avoid heavy coconut oil application and harsh scrubbing, as they tend to aggravate shine and blemishes.

Features

Compete, shine and be discovered at WCOPA 2027

Published

15 hours ago

2026/10/15

Thilina Walpola

Dream of performing on a world stage? Well, here is your unique, golden opportunity!

The World Championships of Performing Arts (WCOPA) — the one and only official “Talent Olympics” — is the world’s premier global platform for aspiring singers, dancers, actors, models, instrumentalists, etc., to compete, shine and be discovered!

And, yes, this world stage is open to YOU, Sri Lankans living in Sri Lanka and overseas!

Held annually in glittering Las Vegas, WCOPA brings together over 70 countries, all competing for Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals, just like the traditional Olympics.

Lakisha Bernard: Will represent Team Sri Lanka at WCOPA 2027

Outstanding performers vie for the coveted titles of Junior and Senior Grand Champion Performer of the World, with winners and standout participants awarded over $500,000 in scholarships, cash awards and prizes to catapult their education and careers!

Sri Lanka is already making waves! At WCOPA 2026, Natharie Wickramasinghe, representing Team Sri Lanka, made the nation proud by winning a Bronze Medal in the Ethnic/Folklore Dance category!

Lakisha: Accomplished freelance Model and Fashion Design graduate

Recruitment for this prestigious competition is handled through a system of scouts and licensed National Directors — and this is where our very own Chris Rajendra, now based in Las Vegas, and National Director for Team Sri Lanka, comes into the scene.

If you are a singer, dancer, actor, model, instrumentalist — if you have talent burning inside you — contact Chris Rajendra today for registration and, who knows, you may find yourself in Las Vegas, and proudly draped in the Sri Lankan flag, at WCOPA 2027!

The contact address is: Chris Rajendra, wcopa.nationaldirector.sl@gmail.com

or chris.rajendra@gmail.com

Meanwhile, a star is born for 2027, in the form of Lakisha Bernard who is all set to represent Team Sri Lanka at WCOPA 2027.

Originally hailing from the sun-drenched coastal city of Colombo and now carving out her creative career in Canada, 22-year-old Lakisha is stepping into the international spotlight.

This accomplished freelance Model and Fashion Design graduate has officially been appointed as the Team Sri Lanka Promoter for Canada as she prepares to represent Team Sri Lanka at WCOPA in Las Vegas.

Lakisha brings a unique blend of high-fashion sensibility, captivating camera presence and expert garment design to the Team.

Having built her career, from local college shoots to high-glamour concepts, Lakisha’s inspiring journey embodies the true spirit of cultural bridge-building and creative resilience, bringing immense pride and recognition to Sri Lanka on the global stage.

WCOPA 2027 will be held at the legendary Westgate Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, from 12th to 20th July – the very same iconic arena where the late, great Elvis Presley himself performed!

Your moment is now. Your stage is Las Vegas, so hurry and contact Chris Rajendra.