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Business Times
2 hours ago
- Business
- Business Times
Jewels meet national treasure at Bvlgari's trunk show
[SINGAPORE] Luxury brands are always on the lookout for exceptional spaces in which to launch collections or stage events. So you could say it was a big score for Bvlgari when it became the first luxury maison to present its high jewellery and high-end watch trunk show at the historic House of Tan Yeok Nee last Wednesday (Jul 23). Built between 1882 and 1885, the national monument belonged to Teochew businessman Tan Yeok Nee. It is one of 'Four Grand Mansions' in Singapore built by businessmen from the dialect group; it's also the only one remaining. The very elegant property, which sits prominently at the junction of Penang Road and Clemenceau Avenue, is distinct for its Teochew architecture, including intricate timber carvings, calligraphy and fine paintings. The house's Teochew architecture includes intricate timber carvings, calligraphy and fine paintings. PHOTO: BVLGARI Its courtyards and beautifully carved woodwork made the perfect backdrop for the Roman jeweller's trunk show, where gemstones in a kaleidoscope of colours were displayed across various halls and rooms. A total of 145 masterpieces were presented, including selections from its latest high jewellery collection, Turmali. The term is derived from the Sinhalese word for 'stone of many colours', or what we call tourmaline today. Bvlgari's high jewellery and high-end watches displayed in a hall on the property. PHOTO: BVLGARI The jewels from the Turmali collection mark the final chapter of the maison's Colour Journey saga – a series of high jewellery capsule collections featuring rare and vibrant gems that started in 2020. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up Previous editions put the spotlight on other coloured stones: paraiba tourmaline, spinel, kunzite and morganite and mandarin garnet. Given that it comes in a wide spectrum of colours, tourmaline offers jewellers much to play with – and Bvlgari certainly took advantage of that. Known for its use of gemstones in bold, vivid hues, the jeweller was one of the first maisons to incorporate tourmalines in high jewellery in the 1970s. Its latest trunk show featured the gemstone in various forms, including paraiba tourmalines and rubellites, as well as specimens in striking hues of lagoon, mint, pink and green. In the Serpenti Azure Mirage, Bvlgari's iconic serpent motif is crafted in lifelike form into a necklace (pictured), bracelet, brooch and earrings. PHOTO: BVLGARI Bvlgari fans have come to expect spectacular jewels from the maison and they were not disappointed. One is the Serpenti Azure Mirage, where Bvlgari's iconic serpent motif is crafted in lifelike form into a necklace, bracelet, brooch and earrings. The paraiba tourmaline is the highlight of the set, its luminous, Mediterranean blue hue standing out against the opaqueness of turquoise inserted along the snake's body. Pave-set diamonds enrich the yellow gold serpents, whose eyes sparkle with buff-top emeralds. The Rhapsody of Colour necklace is the star of the set, which also includes a pair of earrings and a brooch. PHOTO: BVLGARI For those who prefer a riot of happy hues, Rhapsody of Colour is definitely a set to fall in love with. The ensemble of necklace, earrings and brooch is a proud display of gemstones carefully selected to create a harmonious and delightful celebration of light, tone and transparency. What you have is a gorgeous palette of green tourmalines, rubellites, mandarin garnets, amethysts and mother-of-pearl, accompanied by pave-set diamonds. Naturally, the star of the set is the necklace, from which five pear-shaped green tourmalines totalling 70.53 carats dance. The Serpenti Misteriosi Dragone Cabochon is a diamond-encrusted timepiece with a hidden Jaeger-LeCoulture movement. PHOTO: BVLGARI The trunk show also featured fabulous high-end watches. One of our favourites is the diamond-encrusted Serpenti Misteriosi Dragone Cabochon with a hidden Jaeger-LeCoulture movement. The timepiece's snake head is topped with a 9.06 carat cabochon emerald, making it appear – to us at least – as if it's wearing a Chinese skullcap. Quite appropriate, we thought, for the location.
Time of India
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
IIM-Bodh Gaya hosts 24 political leaders from Sri Lanka
Patna: Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bodh Gaya hosted 24 young political leaders from Sri Lanka for a specially designed academic module as part of the ongoing Young Political Leaders Programme (YPLP), organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). The Sri Lankan delegation represents a diverse cross-section of the island nation's political spectrum, comprising sitting members of Parliament, local govt councillors, youth leaders and legal professionals. Delegates from 15 political parties participated, including four representatives from National People's Power, three each from Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Samagi Jana Balawegaya, two from Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, and one each from ten other national and regional parties. The cohort comprises 20 male and 4 female participants, representing the Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim communities, reflecting the country's political and cultural diversity. IIM-Bodh Gaya director Vinita Sahay said, "This is not merely an exchange of knowledge, but a forging of democratic kinship. As future leaders of South Asia engage with each other at IIM-Bodh Gaya, they are laying the groundwork for a region defined by cooperation, empathy and shared progress."
News18
14-07-2025
- Politics
- News18
History In Motion: Razeen Sally's Journey Through Sri Lanka's Past And Present
In his book "Return to Sri Lanka – Travels in a Paradoxical Island," Razeen Sally skillfully blends the narrative styles of George Orwell and Bill Aitken. Razeen Sally's transition from his traditional academic and policy advisory roles into travel writing marks a significant breakthrough. In his book ' Return to Sri Lanka – Travels in a Paradoxical Island," he skillfully blends the narrative styles of George Orwell and Bill Aitken. The work is both scholarly and engaging, combining elements of history, religion, people, and politics, as Sally explores his Sri Lankan roots. Although raised in England, Sally is of Sri Lankan Muslim descent, with family ties in and around Colombo. He describes himself as 'half and half," born to an Anglo-Welsh mother and a Sinhalese Muslim father, yet he has grown into a Sri Lankan British writer. The book is divided into two parts: Sally's Sri Lankan childhood and his adult travels across the island. Accompanied by two trusted drivers, Nihal and Joseph, Sally traverses the teardrop-shaped island, formerly known as Ceylon. His narrative is enriched with quotations from renowned explorers and pioneers of Sri Lanka, primarily British, who once made the island their home. Sally's historical account begins with the arrival of Muslim traders from Arabia and Java, who were predominantly Sunnis. His personal recollections start from the 1960s Ceylon to modern-day Sri Lanka. The author's empathy with the country stems from his experiences with the IPKF, which aimed to subdue ethnic conflict, and his enduring affection for Sri Lankan friends. This bond drew him back to the island repeatedly, retracing familiar paths. Both Sinhalese and Tamils migrated from India, with frequent Tamil Chola invasions from South India. These invasions fostered a paradox: a minority complex among the majority Sinhalese and a majority complex among the minority Tamils. This dynamic prompted the Sinhalese to move their citadel from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruwa, then to Kandy, and finally to Colombo—places Sally vividly describes. The Sinhalese-Tamil tensions were also influenced by four and a half centuries of colonial rule, which ended with the British period beginning in 1815 with the capture of the Kandyan kingdom. The Sinhalese attempts to reverse their minority psyche are symbolised by two military victories: King Dutugemunu's triumph over King Elara at Anuradhapura and the defeat of Tamil Tiger leader Prabhakaran's insurgent forces at Nandikadal by Sri Lankan security forces. The Sri Lankan Army Chief's office features a portrait of Elara's surrender. Domestic racial conflicts were not limited to Sinhalese and Tamils but also involved Sinhalese-Muslim and Muslim-Tamil tensions. The Burgher community largely avoided these conflicts. Sally highlights the distortions in Theravada Buddhism that led to Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, fuelled by post-independence political leadership. The origins of political parties and their ideological paths for electoral victory contributed to recent history, culminating in the rise of the Rajapaksa dynasty. Following the 30-year civil war, Sri Lanka faced the COVID pandemic, Easter Sunday bombings by indigenous Muslim terrorists, and a 2022 economic meltdown due to a sovereign default. The Argalaya movement and the subsequent fleeing of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa mark a sad chapter in contemporary Sinhalese Buddhist politics. Between 2015 and 2018, Sally served as a policy advisor to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, gaining insight into the disastrous rule of the first Unity government. A major irony was the resurgence of the urban Marxist JVP movement, which twice failed to seize power in Colombo, reinventing itself through the Argalaya movement as the ruling NPP. This movement secured a massive parliamentary majority, with the little-known Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake becoming President. Sally covers Dissanayake's narrow victory in the presidential elections. At the heart of Sri Lanka's issues lies the 1978 Republican constitution, which no president or political elite has sought to alter despite promises. Sally's encapsulation of political history is facilitated by his engaging writing style. The book's narration of ancient history, including Buddhism, is equally superb. Few books offer such comprehensive knowledge about a country, seamlessly blending with the author's travels. Sally describes Buddhism's arrival from India, the preservation of the Theravada tradition distinct from the Mahayana tradition, and Anuradhapura as the cradle of Theravada Buddhism. He details the Bodh tree sapling from Bodh Gaya in India, where Buddha attained enlightenment, and Buddha's relics in Sri Lanka—a collar bone, a foot, and a tooth. The descriptions of the world's largest standing, recumbent, and seated Buddha statues in Gala Vihara are mesmerising. The travelogue begins in Sally's hometown of Colombo and its surroundings, followed by trips to the south, including Galle, Tangalle, Hambantota, and Kathiragama, Sri Lanka's national shrine. The Kandy road takes him to hill areas, tea and coffee estates, and stunning landscapes. He also travels to Rajarata, the original Sinhalese Buddhist kingdoms, ending in Anuradhapura. Sally's longest journey takes him to the northeast, a region scarred by the civil war. Amparai district, with its significant Muslim population, and Kathankudy in Batticaloa, home to Sri Lanka's largest mosque, are significant stops. Sally recounts the war and post-conflict situations well, also noting that JVP rebel leader Rohan Wijeweera was captured from a tea estate in 1990 and shot on the 13th tee. Sally's prognosis for Sri Lanka's future is bleak: 'Drift, Relapse and Take off." He believes the country will oscillate between drift and relapse, never achieving take-off. This dire prediction is a harsh truth. Prompted by his driver Nihal, Sally's journey of Sri Lanka culminates in a self-discovery. The 'half and half" Sally realises that his true home is Sri Lanka. view comments First Published: July 14, 2025, 12:16 IST News opinion Book Review | History In Motion: Razeen Sally's Journey Through Sri Lanka's Past And Present Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. 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New Indian Express
13-07-2025
- New Indian Express
Rock that became a temple
After 14 years in hiding, when King Valagamba finally returned to reclaim his throne in Anuradhapura around 89 BCE, he paid homage to a cave—a dark, wind-swept sanctuary carved deep into a 160-metre granite rock in the heart of Sri Lanka, just outside the dry plains of Dambulla. Here he carved a reclining Buddha into a rock, leaving behind a legacy that would only grow as other kings came; Nissanka Malla gilded the walls and left inscriptions of his generosity in Sinhalese. Today, the Dambulla Cave Temple—also called the Golden Temple of Dambulla—is not just the largest and best-preserved cave complex in Sri Lanka, it is a place where 2,000-year-old walls bear mural-painted Buddhas; more than 150 statues of the Enlightened One sit, stand, lie, meditate, gaze down at you with half-closed eyes. You climb slowly—360 steps if you're counting—past monkeys and neem trees and clouds that drift below your feet. Take the King's Way to pass resting ledges where pilgrims pause and gaze out across the dry plains of central Sri Lanka, until finally the mouth of the cave opens before you like a secret revealed.
India.com
08-07-2025
- Politics
- India.com
Who was Prabhakaran? Dreaded LTTE chief and mastermind of ex-India PM Rajiv Gandhi assassination
LTTE founder Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed on May 18, 2009. (File) Velupillai Prabhakaran, the notorious leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who masterminded the shocking assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, is regarded as one of the most infamous yet influential insurgents in the last 50 years. The 54-year-old who was reportedly killed by Sri Lankan forces on May 18, 2009, led a decades-long insurgency that transformed the serene island nation into a warzone in which hundreds of thousands were killed, maimed and injured, and millions displaced. Who was Prabhakaran? Born into a middle-class family in Valvettiturai, a fishing town on the northern coast of Sri Lanka's Jaffna peninsula, Prabhakaran was the youngest of four children, however, not much is known about his early life. 'My childhood was spent in the small circle of a lonely, quiet house,' Prabhakaran had said in a 1994 interview. In the interview, the slain LTTE chief revealed that his deep-seated anger against the military as he recalled a teacher in his middle school extorting students to take up arms against the violence perpetrated against the ethnic Tamilians by the state. 'It is he who impressed on me the need for armed struggle and persuaded me to put my trust in it.' At the time, Jaffna was considered the heart of Tamilian culture and literature in Sri Lanka, and soon emerged as the center of the growing Tamil nationalist movement, which demanded greater autonomy for Tamil-majority areas to protest against the alleged discrimination against Tamils by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority. How Prabhakaran emerged as the leader of LTTE? In 1975, Prabhakaran emerged as one of the faces of Tamil New Tigers– the predecessor of the LTTE– after the group claimed responsibility for the assassination of Alfred Duraiappah, the then mayor of Jaffna city. A year later, Prabhakaran established the LTTE, a guerilla movement which later evolved into a full-scale civil war in 1983, when the group ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan army troops in Jaffna. In retaliation, more than 3,000 Tamils, mainly in Colombo, were killed in wanton violence that lasted several days, marking the beginning a full-blown civil war that lasted for decades, and tore apart the Sri Lanka to its very core. According to Prabhakaran, the 1983 'holocaust', infamously dubbed 'Black July', 'united all sections of the Tamil masses'. Soon, the onset of July instilled fear among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority as the the LTTE would commemorate the month with bombings and assassinations, while Prabhakaran rose from a radical Tamil nationalist to a feared terrorist insurgent. Why Prabhakaran assassinated Rajiv Gandhi? India is home to a large population of ethnic Tamils and the Indian state is believed to have clandestinely supported the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka since its very inception. However, in 1987, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi decided send in Indian peacekeeping troops to Sri Lanka, to crush the LTTE and Tamil nationalist movement in the neighboring country. Consequently, the LTTE, under the leadership of Prabhakaran, orchestrated the assassination of the then Indian Prime Minister, when he was targeted by a female suicide bomber in during a public meeting in Tamil Nadu in 1991. The incident made Prabhakaran the most wanted man in India and changed the public opinion about the Tamilian cause in Sri Lanka, even though the LTTE leader never claimed responsibility for the assassination. 'It is a tragic incident that happened 10 years ago. We are not in a position to make a comment,' Prabhakaran told reporters in 2002. Prabhakaran's cult of personality Over the years, the LTTE became a cult of personality centered around Prabhakaran as the group steadily acquired massive caches of conventional weapons, and also pioneered two of the most brutal tactics of modern guerrilla warfare; child recruitment and suicide bombing. As per 1996 UN report, children as young as 10 deployed to kill women and children in remote rural villages, while about 40%-60% dead LTTE fighters during the 1990s were children under 18, according to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report. Later in 1987, Prabhakaran founded the Black Tigers– suicide cadres of the LTTE, most of whom were young women. These future suicide bombers would be graced with a private dinner with Prabhakaran, before being deployed on their missions, as per reports. How Prabhakaran was killed? On May 18, 2009, the Sri Lankan government announced that Prabhakaran had been killed in action by Sri Lankan forces, decades after the dreaded terrorist leader had been pursued by the country's armed forces through jungles and other rough terrains. Akin to other LTTE fighters, Prabhakaran had pledged to die by suicide, and reportedly wore a cyanide capsule around his neck if he was ever captured by the Sri Lankan Army. In a 2002 press conference, the LTTE supremo revealed that he has directed his aides and bodyguards to kill him if his capture was imminent, and he was unable to end his life at that time. A day after his death, the Sri Lankan army released images of his dead body, still draped in LTTE fatigues, on state-run TV, where his face was clearly visible.
