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Biography of Ranasinghe PremadasaName: Ranasinghe PremadasaBirth Date: June 23, 1924 Death Date: May 1, 1993 Place of Birth: Columbo, Sri Lanka Nationality: Sri Lankan Gender: Male Occupations: president Ranasinghe Premadasa A long-time leader in the United National Party, Ranasinghe Premadasa (1924-1993) became the second president of Sri Lanka in 1988.Ranasinghe Premadasa, the ninth prime minister and second president of Sri Lanka, was born on June 23, 1924, in Colombo. He came from a family of modest means. Politically a self-made man, he was the first "commoner" to be at the helm of affairs, breaking a tradition of the top leadership being in the hands of high caste landed aristocracy or those coming from affluent families.Educated in a Christian missionary college in Colombo, Premadasa initially opted for a career as a journalist. He was a prolific writer in his mother tongue, Sinhala, including a translation of the autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru. Keenly interested in neighborhood welfare affairs since his youth, he became increasingly involved in municipal politics, which led to his election to the Colombo Municipal Council at the early age of 26. Five …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, printed by the Sri Lankan Government Press (n.d.). Another official publication entitled People's President: Ranasinghe Premadasa--His Vision and Mission has, in addition to some of the major policy speeches during 1988-1989, a brief biographical sketch. A testimonial edited by Christie Cooray was Ranasinghe Premadasa. A Felicitation Volume (Colombo: 1985). A biographical sketch also appears in the Ceylon Daily News, Parliament of Sri Lanka, 1977 (Colombo: 1980), which provides a who's who of the members of Sri Lankan Parliament. Though a number of his speeches are available in pamphlets, his select speeches under one cover are available only for the years 1979-1980 and 1989. The former is entitled Time for Action, complied by Christy Cooray (Colombo: 1980); the latter is Selected Speeches of His Excellency R. Premadasa--President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (Colombo: 1989). Accounts of his assassination can be found in Sri Lanka newspapers. |