Daya Dissanayake
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Daya Dissanayake
Daya Dissanayake (born 8 March 1947) is a bilingual Sri Lankan novelist, poet and blogger. His work spans a critical study of king Ashoka, nine novels in English, six novels in Sinhala and a collection of poems, and numerous articles in newspapers, journals and magazines. He is the author of the first e-novel in Asia, 'The Saadhu Testament' (1998), and the first e-novel in Sinhala, 'Vessan Novu Wedun' (2003). His first nonfiction work is "Who is Ashoka?" He is the only Sri Lankan writer to receive the Sri Lankan State Literary Award for the best English novel three times and was awarded the SAARC Literary Award in 2013. Being the first Sri Lankan to release his work online and for free access, he is often seen as one of Sri Lanka's earliest and most vocal advocates for the ebook format, copyleft and Creative Commons. Early life Dayananda Dissanayake (he later shortened his name to Daya) was born on 8 March 1947 in Galle, Sri Lanka. He has five siblings and is the eldest offsprin ...
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Daya Dissanayake
Daya Dissanayake (born 8 March 1947) is a bilingual Sri Lankan novelist, poet and blogger. His work spans a critical study of king Ashoka, nine novels in English, six novels in Sinhala and a collection of poems, and numerous articles in newspapers, journals and magazines. He is the author of the first e-novel in Asia, 'The Saadhu Testament' (1998), and the first e-novel in Sinhala, 'Vessan Novu Wedun' (2003). His first nonfiction work is "Who is Ashoka?" He is the only Sri Lankan writer to receive the Sri Lankan State Literary Award for the best English novel three times and was awarded the SAARC Literary Award in 2013. Being the first Sri Lankan to release his work online and for free access, he is often seen as one of Sri Lanka's earliest and most vocal advocates for the ebook format, copyleft and Creative Commons. Early life Dayananda Dissanayake (he later shortened his name to Daya) was born on 8 March 1947 in Galle, Sri Lanka. He has five siblings and is the eldest offsprin ...
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ...
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Sinhalese Language
Sinhala ( ; , ''siṁhala'', ), sometimes called Sinhalese (), is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million people as of 2001. It is written using the Sinhala script, which is a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka. Along with Pali, it played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature. The early form of the Sinhala language, is attested as early as the 3rd century BCE. The language of these inscriptions with long vowels and aspirated consonants is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi, a regional associate of the Middle Indian Prakrits that has been used during the time of the Buddha. The closest relatives are the Vedda language (an endangered, i ...
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SAARC Literary Award
SAARC Literary Award is an annual award conferred by the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) since 2001 Shamshur Rahman, Mahasweta Devi, Jayanta Mahapatra, Abhi Subedi, Mark Tully, Sitakant Mahapatra, Uday Prakash, Suman Pokhrel, and Abhay K have been some of the recipients of this award. Nepali poet, lyricist, and translator Suman Pokhrel is only writer to have been given this award twice. Award Recipients The year wise list of the award recipients are as follows: FOSWAL also confers "SAARC Young Writers Award" to the emerging poets and writers from South Asian countries. Khalida Froagh, Rubana Huq, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, Nanda Tint Swe, Manu Manjil, Nayyara Rahman are some of its recipients. References External linksFoundation of SAARC Writers and LiteratureFOSWAL Advisory Committee
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Ebook
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as "an electronic version of a printed book", some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. In the 2000s, there was a trend of print and e-book sales moving to the Internet, where readers buy traditional paper books and e-books on websites using e-commerce systems. With print books, readers are increasingly browsing through images of the covers of books on publisher or bookstore websites and selecting and ordering titles online; the paper books are then delivered to the reader by mail or another delivery service. With e-bo ...
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Copyleft
Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, and the ability to modify, copy, share, and redistribute the work, with or without a fee. Licenses which implement copyleft can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works ranging from computer software, to documents, art, scientific discoveries and even certain patents. Copyleft software licenses are considered ''protective'' or ''reciprocal'' in contrast with permissive free software licenses, and require that information necessary for reproducing and modifying the work must be made available to recipients of the software program, which are often distributed as binary executables. This information is most commonly in the form of source code files, which usually contain a copy of the license terms and acknowledge the authors of t ...
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Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public. These licenses allow authors of creative works to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license. Content owners still maintain their copyright, but Creative Commons licenses give standard releases that replace the individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, that are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management. The organization was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal ...
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Unawatuna
Unawatuna is a coastal town in Galle district of Sri Lanka. Unawatuna is a major tourist attraction in Sri Lanka and known for its beach and corals. It is a suburb of Galle, about southeast to the city center and approximately south of Colombo. Unawatuna is situated at an elevation of above the sea level. Despite significant development in the last decade it is still home to the endangered and endemic purple-faced langur, an usually shy monkey species that can only be found in Sri Lanka's forests. Mythical roots From Ramayana The description of the beach paradises in Valmiki's epic Ramayana sounds like Unawatuna. :"a seashore dotted with thousands of trees, coconuts, and palms dominating, strings of houses and hermitages along the coastline, human beings and superior beings such as Gandharvas, Siddhas, and ascetics, living in them and countless bejewelled celestial nymphs thronging the shore, the coast intermittently visited by heavenly beings, Gods and demons.": Unawat ...
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Colombo
Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo metropolitan area has a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 in the Municipality. It is the financial centre of the island and a tourist destination. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to the Greater Colombo area which includes Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the legislative capital of Sri Lanka, and Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. Colombo is often referred to as the capital since Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is itself within the urban/suburban area of Colombo. It is also the administrative capital of the Western Province and the district capital of Colombo District. Colombo is a busy and vibrant city with a mixture of modern life, colonial buildings and monuments. Due to its large harbour and its strategic position along th ...
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Sigiriya
Sigiriya or Sinhagiri (''Lion Rock'' si, සීගිරිය, ta, சிகிரியா/சிங்ககிரி, pronounced see-gi-ri-yə) is an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. It is a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of rock approximately high. According to the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle the '' Cūḷavaṃsa'', this area was a large forest, then after storms and landslides it became a hill and was selected by King Kashyapa (AD 477–495) for his new capital. He built his palace on top of this rock and decorated its sides with colourful frescoes. On a small plateau about halfway up the side of this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. The name of this place is derived from this structure; ''Sīnhāgiri'', the Lion Rock (an etymology similar to ''Sinhapura'', the Sanskrit name of Singapore, the Lio ...
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Regi Siriwardena
Kala Keerthi Regi Siriwardena (15 May 1922 – 15 December 2004) was a Sri Lankan academic, journalist, poet, writer, playwright and writer of screenplays. Early life and education Reginald Siriwardena (known as 'Reggie' until the 1980s) was born in the Colombo suburb of Ratmalana to Sinhalese Buddhist parents. His Macaulay-quoting father sent him for his schooling first to St. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia where he found the Anglican elite colonial atmosphere uncomfortable. In his poem 'Colonial Cameo', he remembers the day his mother, who only spoke Sinhala, took him to school and said 'goodbye' in that tongue, to the amusement of his English-speaking classmates: :''My mother pretended not to hear that insult.'' :''The snobbish little bastards! But how can I blame'' :''them? That day I was deeply ashamed of my mother.'' :''Now, whenever I remember, I am ashamed of my shame''. ::::::: – Regi Siriwardena, ''Colonial Cameo'' He later went to Ananda College, where ...
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Copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States. Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution. Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered "territorial righ ...
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