3rd month of the Gregorian Calendar and has 31 days.
First month of the old Roman Calendar.
Events
Taw Hlan Yay Nay
The resistance against the Fascist regime started on March 27, 1945. March 27 is celebrated as Taw Hlan Yay Nay (Resistance Day).
Coup d’etat
The Union of Burma lost Democracy on March 2, 1962. The 17-man Revolutionary Council led by General Ne Win staged Coup D’etat. Many were detained. They include Mahn Win Maung, President of the Union of Burma; U Nu, Prime Minister; Shan Sawbwas / Saophalongs
Phone Maw & Soe Naing
Ko Phone Maw (5th year RIT student and Lanzin Lu Nge) was hit by a stray bullet on March 13, 1988.
Phone Maw 1Phone Maw 2
Ko Soe Naing and Ko Myint Oo were also hit and hospitalized in not-so-humane conditions. Ko Soe Naing succumbed to the gun shot wounds. Ko Myint Oo survived.
March 13 was declared as “Burma Human Rights Day” and “Phone Maw and Soe Naing Nay”.
During the Pwint Linn Era, requisites were offered in memory of Ko Phone Maw and Ko Soe Naing.
In most parts of the world, December 31st is celebrated as New Year’s Eve. In the Times Square in New York, many tourists wait for the count down to the New Year.
January 1st is celebrated as the start of the New Year. For many, it is a holiday.
Peasants’ Day
In the early days, Burma celebrated January 1st as Peasants’ Day. It was a holiday.
The Revolutionary Council staged a Coup D’etat on March 2, 1962. The BSPP government moved Peasants’ Day to March 2nd.
Birthdays
Saya U Than Lwin (Eric Lwin, my cousin uncle, GBNF) celebrated his birthday on January 1st.
Ye Than
For several years, U Ye Than (Winner Inn, son of my cousin brother Sayagyi U Ba Than) has celebrated his birthday on January 1st with a Soon Kyway.
The Class of 69 (mostly M69) paid respect to Sayagyi U Ba Than on October 1, 2017.
U Aung Min was the organizer.
U Ba Than
The group attended the birthday celebration ceremony and received blessing from sayargyi. The group handed over garawa birthday gifts that they had collected before and on the monthly breakfast gathering held earlier that day.
Sayagyi U Ba Than
Sayagyi usually performs dana with the Garawa money he received for his birthday and for attending the SPZPs and mini-SPZPs.
Sayagyi has supported various charitable associations for the needy, the sick, the blind, the deaf and dumb, old people and “Nar Ye” . They include
Little Sisters for the Poor
U Hla Tun Foundation
Jivitadana ဇီဝိတဒါန
Hnin Si Gone Bo Bwa Yeik Tha နှင်းဆီကုန်းဘိုးဘွားရိပ်သာ
Mary Chapman
Kyaw Thu Nar Ye (နာရေး အဖွဲ့)
Medical Clinics
On his Birthday every year, Sayagyi offers “soon kwyay” ဆွမ်းကျွေး at Yaw Sayadaw’s monastery.
The Soon kwyay held on October 2, 2017 was attended by sayas, alumni, relatives and friends.
Updates
During the pandemic, physical gatherings were put on hold. Celebrations were done virtually, e.g via Zoom
U Tin Htoon compiled a Photo Album for Sayagyi’s 90th birthday in 2020.
U Ba Than
Sayagyi passed away peacefully after his 94th birthday.
On December 1, 1920, Rangoon University was established with Rangoon College and Judson College as its constituents. There were only three Faculties : Arts, Science, and Law.
Matthew Hunter
RU later extended its offerings. The opening of engineering classes was planned around 1923 and executed in 1924.
In 1927, the first batch of engineering students (who had Bachelors degree) graduated with the “accelerated courses” option.
In 1928, the second batch of engineering students (who joined after finishing the I.Sc.) graduated.
RU celebrated the Golden Jubilee in 1970.
Dr. Aung Gyi (Professor of Civil Engineering) and U Thet Lwin (Burmese saya at the Institute of Economics) were GJ organizers.
The term “Swel Daw Yeik” became synonymous with RIT, its predecessors and successors.
GJ Performers
Swel Daw Yeik Ah Nyeint (စွယ်တော်ရိပ် အငြိမ့်), Htee Yein (ထီးယိမ်း) & Tabin Daing Ah Ka (တပင်တိုင်အက) were hits at the GJ celebration.
Htee Yein
First RU Students’ Strike
On December 5, 1920, several students led the Boycott of the Rangoon University Act of 1920.
The boycott was responsible for the amendments to the RU Act.
A pillar was set up on Shwe Dagon Pagoda in memory of the Boycott.
The event is honored as National Day (Amyotha Aung Pwe Nay အမျိုးသားအောင်ပွဲနေ့) . The Burmese date & not December 5th is used for the celebrations.
National Schools (Amyotha Kyaung အမျိုးသားကျောင်း) were opened. U Po Kyar, Arzani U Razak, U Nu and U Thant are notable sayas from the National Schools.
U Ba Toke
Book about U Ba Toke
He was born on December 26, 1920.
He is one of the oldest and senior sayas associated with the engineering schools in Burma.
Even though RU was closed during the Japanese Occupation, he completed his M.Sc. and taught at the make-shift classes on Mogul (Shwe Bon Tha street ရွှေဘုံသာ လမ်း) .
He served as Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer and Professor of Maths at RU and RASU.
He was promoted to Rector, MASU. After some time, he volunteered to relocate to RIT as Professor of Maths.
As a Saya of engineering sayas, he was invited to attend SPZP-2000 and give a speech.
He attended all SPZPs except SPZP-2002 (which he had to forgo due to Sayagadaw’s health and demise).
He played Chinlon and Soccer in his University days.
He headed the Burmese delegation to the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 1964.
He served as Commandant of the Luyechun Camp.
Saya U Ba Toke’s birthday
Until his 80s, he was active (e.g. walk to Shwe Dagon Pagoda with his dhamma friends).
In his 90’s, he had physical limitations, but his mental faculty remained.
He passed away on December 2, 2020 — the day after the RU Centennial. It was a few days short of his Centennial birthday.
HlaMin 