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| Friday, 5 September 2003 |
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Letters | |
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Please forward your letters to [email protected] in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
It appears that there is a protest from within the service that there should be no direct recruits to the grade of ASPs. The Police is not for the policemen but for the people. Their protest itself shows the poor mentality, immaturity and selfishness of some of the officers. Direct recruitment to a higher grade with greater academic excellence itself is a strength, an asset and an ornament to the service. It is a must for any service, not only for the Police. New recruits will bring in fresh blood, advanced knowledge, fresh thinking and higher learning to any service whether public or private. If their protest is heeded next time the clerks will scream that they all must be promoted Government Agents. The apothecaries will assert that there should be no direct recruitment of doctors. The technicians will say that they should be promoted as engineers. There will be no end to these demands. The talented hard-working intelligent officers below should be however, absorbed into the higher grades at a certain percentage because their experience and knowledge at grass-root level is extremely useful. But, infusion of fresh blood from the elite among the learned youth should not be stopped at any level in any service. It is a disservice to the people. E.M.G. EDIRISINGHE, Kandy just completed another Esala Pageant and saw the town bursting at its seams due to the visiting crowds. The daily life of the citizens and businessmen in town too was disrupted due to this large inflow of people. In addition to these annual problems, a perennial problem in town is the acute congestion, pageant or no pageant, due to bus traffic, parking of private vans by shop owners in front of their shops the whole day, thereby denying parking to the genuine shopper and users of the town and of course the main culprits being the daily Schools traffic both vans and cars! The past decade saw international schools springing up along the approach roads to Kandy town and even in some residential areas. The old established schools in town too have contributed to this problem by doubling or trebling their intakes, even though their school compounds are congested. Hence it is about time the Minister for Regional Development, the Chief Minister, and the Mayor of Kandy gave serious thought to their policy on schools due to their contribution to this problem, their locations or re-location and the development of future policy regarding permanent locations for schools. It is therefore suggested that schools be encouraged to re-locate out of town. Land should be made available free or at special rates along with suitable local tax incentives and convenient transport facilities. Schools should be asked to move out progressively over a set period of time. The old established schools should be encouraged to re-locate their primary and secondary sections in the first instance so that congestion in these schools could be considerably eased and the quality of education imparted in them improved. ANANDA PILIMATALAVUVA, Dr. N. M. Perera's policy on language issue Having read the article by Dr. Tissa Vitharana recently, in commemoration of the 24th death anniversary of Dr. N. M. Perera, I wish to make the following comment. I agree with Dr. Vitharana that if the policies of Dr. N. M. Perera and Lanka Samasamaja Party were followed, present unfortunate and calamitous situation could have been avoided. I quote a few words expressed by the then leader of the opposition A. Amirthalingam in addressing a large gathering attended the cremation of Dr. N. M. Perera. "... I have learnt Marxism from Dr. N. M. Perera at his residence. Dr. N. M. Perera always eschewed communalism. Had he preached and promoted communalism, he would have been the Prime Minister of the country decades ago. If his principles were respected I would not have been following my present policies ..." Rev. Balangoda Ananda Maithreya Thera, who was one of Dr. Perera's teachers at Ananda College also approved the views of Mr. Amirthalingam in his dhamma anushasana. It was an excellent tribute paid to a patriotic far-sighted erudite politician. As Dr. Vitharana said Dr. Colvin R. de Silva's speech in the Parliament while participating in the debate of the official language bill, "two languages one country and one language two countries" also cannot be forgotten. Mr. Bandaranaike who had promised to make only Sinhala the official language of the country within 24 hours, was able to push the official language bill through the parliament, with the help of some opposition members who also supported the move. Thereafter, opportunistic politicians vehemently propagated and inculcated communalism in the minds of ignorant people of the country. As a result country tended to divide ethnically. People of both communities were made enemies of each other. Communalism became the easiest way of winning elections. Only few families have been politically and economically benefited from vicious communalism. Thousands of lives and properties worth millions of rupees were lost during the past decades owing to culminated ethnic wars. If the views of Dr. N. M. Perera were least respected, Sri Lanka would have been one of the most prosperous countries in Asia, if not in the world. R. D. P. GUNAWARDENA, I refer to the letters of D. E. Abeyweera of Kelaniya and Dr. (Mrs.) Mareena Thaha Refai of Dehiwela in your editions of D/N 28th and 29th of August 2003 respectively on SLT's unjustifiable hike of rentals from Sept. 2003 and I would like adding further criticism on that. I am relatively a new subscriber of SLT, who shifted to SLT in July 2002 thinking that SLT is cheaper than any other telephone services. What has happened now is that I have to pay for {(495-240)/3}=85 units and those who have provided the instruments to the SLT will pay for {(425-206)/3}=73 units additionally without even touching the telephone. The 200 units free (effectively only 115 and 123 units respectively) at the rate of 60 seconds per unit during the peak hours and 540 seconds per unit during resting hours, will not help the elders, patients, emergency aid callers and disabled who use their telephones mostly in peak hours. Therefore the free units announced is an absolute bait to hook the shark of 125% increase in the rentals and is a telling blow to the middle class home users. If I resort to the telephone services I had been using before July 2002, it will cost me only Rs. 975 for three months and some balance in the Rs. 1000 card, I inserted to operate that telephone! Let the joy chatters use SLT telephones during midnight to early morning to the maximum gain! Let us hope SLT consider its subscribers wise people! Let us hope that SLT and Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka would be wise enough to do away the free units and offer a reasonable rental hike! Dr. S. MAHADEVA, An instrument called the Octopad has over the recent period taken over our local performing groups, and extended to almost all recorded and live songs heard over all the radio and visual media. As to how this contraption overide the standard percussion (the drum set) is a mystery. It is now played alongside the normal drums but has for some time almost drowned out the rich sound of the drum set. The Octopad emanates a staccato sound akin to a small boy bashing a tin sheet ('takaran') and deadens the sound of other instruments including the singer. The player of course enjoys it as he has only to bash the pad with the sticks at will with little or no skill required. It is amazing to know that even the so called famous singers have allowed this abomination of an instrument to be played at almost all their recordings and performances. Nobody has bothered to tell them that the overall effect of it may distort the quality of the music and distract the listener and annoy him. It is time that this Octopad be removed from the musical scene as soon as possible to regain the original quality of music in this country. R. WICKRAMASINGHE, |
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