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| Tuesday, 25 May 2004 |
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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.
Sri Lankan politicians have nothing to show more fair than help intensifying the food growing campaigns and increasing livestock production. A glut of grains, vegetable, fruits, eggs, poultry in the market will not only enhance the prestige of the politician but also greatly help the statistician of the Government to illustrate a better mosaic picture of the Cost of Living figures. Till very recently we had the Food Dept., Food Production Dept. and the Marketing Dept. to help the consumer and the producer. One evening a certain Finance Minister came and wiped the slate clean by stating that they are redundant and bade the staff to go home and rest with a pension assured. That was rabid transition. During the World War II, there were no food scarcities or any reduction in the money supply in the island. Employment facilities were commendably fine in civilian and military sectors and the state machinery was in full swing. In the present millennium, money is scarce, employment facilities are unfavourably low and the food production is not very conspicuous because of the very low returns. Internationally there is protectionism and in USA and UK the farmers are subsidised, so as to prevent over-production and thereby reduce price levels. At a recent conference of the World Trade Organisation, at which one of our representatives was present, many suggestions were placed in regard to protectionism and the delegates created an uproar against it. The delegates were also asked not to take the trouble of producing food and livestock since the developed countries could export their productions at cheap prices to fit the economic conditions of the demanding countries. Accepting globalism as the end all and be all, we will be committing Hara-kiri. We must plan swiftly; short term plans and long term plans should be by now in the blue print stage to be implemented before the lapse of the month of June 2004. L. G. ANDERSON, Galle According to news reports the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has accepted full responsibility for the shameful defeat of the UNF in the last election at a party meeting held at their headquarters. If so, the honourable step is to resign from the party leadership making way for a democratically elected new leader. The saying goes that no one is indispensable' what the country wants is a people friendly leader who could understand their problems. Vasantha Senanayake had written to the newspaper at the election time from Polonnaruwa to say that the present UNP is not what was organized by Mahamanya D. S. Senanayake his grandfather but a group of dishonest unpatriotic self seekers indulging in bribery and corruption. The UNP should be mercilessly purged if they want to win public confidence and it is hoped that the restructuring process will be carried out without fear or favour. I. P. N., Kalutara The Town 'Kandapola' and 'Nona Thotum' were in the news recently. Where is this Nonathotum? Obviously it is a tea garden in the Nuwara Eliya District. The tea garden known to the outside world 'Portswood' is primarily called by tea workers as Nona Thotum. On the whole there are fourteen tea gardens well spread in Sri Lanka, known as Nona Thotum. Bellain in Puwakpitiya Franklands in Kadugannawa, Ratagama Kellie in Galle, Stamfordhill in Dickoya, Eildonhall in Lindula, Forest Hill in Kegalle, Lochnagrar in Matala North, Portswood in Nuwara Eliya, Hermitage in Hantane, Rosewood in Kurunegala, Penrhos in Ambagamuwa, Westtenne in Rakwane, Parawa le in Kalutara and Fairlee in Dolesbage, all these estates (Gardens) known in Tamil as Nona Thotum. These gardens are called as Nona Thotum because originally the owners of those gardens register these lands either on their wives' name or mothers' name. The workers called them with respectfully Nona Thotum. There are 2,748 gardens on the whole and out of these, 2,000 gardens are either planted with tea or rubber. These gardens have two names, one in English and the other in Tamil. The Tamil names are appearing under vernacular names. This vernacular names used by the labourers are known even in South India from where they came to Sri Lanka. This land once clad in evergreen jungle turned into garden by the hard work of these workers. If some one undertake Toponym Study on these gardens the history of the plantations could be written. N. SARALNADAN, Kotagala A few days ago there was a news item wherein it was stated that the Minister for the Environment together with Ruk Reka Ganno, a society formed in the mid seventies to protest against the cutting of a few teak trees at Welisara to make way for the widening of the Colombo-Katunayake Road in view of the non-aligned conference in Colombo had started a campaign to protect the trees that are by the side of city roads. Only a few hours had passed since the publication of this story, the public passing through R. A. de Mel Mawatha were shocked to see a team of CMC workers chopping down two healthy trees that provided shade at the R. A. de Mel Mawatha, Bauddhaloka Mawatha. The date was April 30 around noon. These two trees posed no threat to man or buildings. The only reason was that the trees stood on the pavement opposite a new building put up by a multi-national company. In any other country the owners of the building which stood behind the trees would have been fined heavily if they cut even a branch let alone chopping off the entire tree. The irony of this is that the CMC aided and abetted in this crime by getting their own staff to execute this foolish act. I hope the local authorities only cut down trees that pose a threat to passers by or buildings. T. FERNANDO, Colombo 6 I am a British Sri Lankan living in the United Kingdom. There are hundreds of thousands Sri Lankan acquired other nationalities due to their own convenience since the country's ethnic problem heighten. We are seriously affected by the current visa system treating us like other tourists. When we travel to Sri Lanka to visit on holidays, pilgrimage or to spend time with our extended families, we were only given a month visa like other foreign tourist entering the country for sight-seeing, business and other purposes. I am in the opinion that the foreign nationals of Sri Lankan origin and their children should be treated under a different visa system to give them more relaxed extended time period. e.g. If a British Citizen of Sri Lankan Jaffna origin came to Sri Lanka to see his sick parents or ailing family member, if he was only given 30 days like others, in case he has to face a family bereavement or to spend more time with his elderly parents he has to stay longer in Jaffna. As he was given only 30 days his visa might finish within that 30 days. If he has to stay longer, then he has to travel to Colombo again to extend his visa. This arrangements is impracticable. Their extended stay will bring more foreign exchange to the country and the country will benefit out of this. India has a system of issuing unlimited stay visa for five years at a time for people of Indian origin. Probably we may able to follow them or modify our system better than theirs'. SELLIAH NAGESWARAN, via email MPs of the Parliamant of Sri Lanka is the cynosure these days. It's mostly on the Bhikku MPs, their behaviour had deteriorated than ever before. Bhikkus had a reputation until now, they were venerated and during home visitation, a chair is offered even with a cover. Lay people worship them leaving aside age, size, cast, creed etc. They are the sons of the Buddha. All of a sudden their plight turned into the wrong side with the establishment of their political party called Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). According to them they were fighting vehemently to protect Buddha Sasana, Sinhala race and above all, the country from the LTTE or our own Tamil speaking Sri Lankans. With that slogan, they fought the past General Election and were able to obtain nine Parliametary seats, due to JR's Constitution. From the day they entered Parliament, instead of setting examples to lay MPs they started a pandemonium. It's a clear indication and proof of their ignorance of the Parliament system, other than a little of their religion. Most of these priests had won the minds of laymen before they became MPs. Therefore, a small proportion of the population to get revenge from the two major political parties, voted them into office. Their shoes became too big for them, as a result started fighting. The last one in the series was an abduction of one of their MPs, hauled into a vehicle, beaten up and taken to his temple. Then they went ahead further and obtained a letter of resignation from the seat in the Paliament by force. Are these Bhikkus really following the teaching of Buddha? Perhaps they do not seem to know much about Buddhism. PROFESSOR J. JINADASA, USA It is really gratifying to learn that the Government in keeping with its solemn pledge, has already begun calling applications from about 27,000 unemployed graduates from the different faculties, but we wonder why qualified Dental Surgeons have been left out, why has no provision been made to absorb a very small number of unemployed Dental Surgeons into this scheme. There are only about two hundred fully qualified and trained Dental Surgeons, whose problem, in our view, can be easily sorted out, before the numbers increase. The question of providing any training does not arise, as such, the relevant ministry should devise ways and means to accommodate the few into the fold. We are optimistic that this matter will receive the attention of the relevant authority. L. V. N. GUNASEKARA, Embilipitiya |
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