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Tuesday, 18 January 2005  
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Rejuvenation effort begins

With the initial stage of the Government-inspired programme of re-building the nation beginning tomorrow in Hambantota, President Kumaratunga has struck the correct note in this national rejuvenation effort by calling on all Lankans to rise as one man to meet this challenge and to convert adversity into triumph.

Join hands in 'turning bitterness into happiness, shedding all petty differences', the President told the country.

It is best that both the rulers and ruled of this land regard the present crisis as a unique opportunity to rebuild Sri Lanka from its foundations, as it were. When viewed in this light, the present could be seen as presenting us with useful opportunities and not as a great setback which threatens to plunge us into a perpetual state of defeat.

For instance, we couldn't have come by a better opportunity to sink all differences - whether they be political, ethnic, social or religious - and rise Phoenix-like from the debris of catastrophe, to united and amicable statehood. The need for unity on all these fronts is underscored by the fact that disunity among Lankans from this point onwards, would spell simple and unalloyed disaster.

However, an important ingredient for progress and prosperity is hard, unrelenting labour and examples of such need to come from the very top of the polity. We are glad that our political leadership has seen the need for this because Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse has set the recovery process in motion from Hambantota, where a new town will be built, ably helped by President Kumaratunga.

While initial work in this direction will begin tomorrow, the rebuilding effort will eventually be made to cover all devastated areas of the country.

Houses will be built for all those who have lost their homesteads, North, South, East or West, while all displaced persons will be provided help in cash and kind, to bring normalcy into their lives. A package of relief for the displaced and affected was announced by Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama recently.

Prime Minister Rajapakse, enjoying the President's consistent backing, is conducting himself in a manner which is most exemplary at the current juncture because he is giving of his best to the recovery drive. Despite his normally busy schedule, the Premier is working round-the-clock in a spirit of ardent patriotism to put the country back on its feet.

The Premier's work in Hambantota, we find, is most instructive because creative solutions are being found to problems brought by the tsunami waves. The construction of new sources of water distribution is being strongly considered. Likewise, the fishing industry is being revived islandwide by the Premier with multi-day fishing emerging as a workable option for fishermen.

All this and more will see the light of day from now on. As announced by the Finance Minister, every affected family will receive Rs. 5,000 as an allowance to tide over the crisis. Besides the medium and small scale entrepreneurial community will be entitled to special loan schemes to be back in business, along with substantial State succour for bigger businesses.

However, we all need to rally round the Government and give of our best if we are to experience collective rejuvenation.

######

A Titanic venture

It took seven years, 3.2 billion dollars and 3.5 billion kilometres, but now we have a man-made object on the surface of Titan, the enigmatic moon of Saturn.

Huygens, the probe that is sending pictures from Titan and its US-built mother ship Cassini comprise the most ambitious project conceived by the European Space Agency (ESA). The probes, more than 25 years in the making, have literally made a picture-perfect landing.

Why Titan ? Apart from being the largest satellite of Saturn, it is the only moon in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere.

Its thick mix of nitrogen and methane is suspected to be undergoing chemical reactions similar to those that unfolded on Earth billions of years ago. That process eventually provided the conditions for life.

In short, Titan is a candidate for extra-terrestrial life. It may exist now or may evolve over the next millennia. Moreover, studying Titan could provide clues about the origins of our own planet. No wonder, then, that some experts call Titan "a time machine".

Nevertheless, many scientists argue that life - or life as we understand it - is unlikely to exist on Titan. It is so far from the Sun, receiving negligible solar heat and light. The moon's surface temperature is estimated to be -180 Celsius and winds can reach up to 500 kms per hour.

The first pictures from Titan's fog-strewn surface show what appear to be rivulets winding their way towards the shoreline of a vast ocean. Some pictures taken by the tiny robot laboratory appeared to show boulders dotted across a flat landscape, others showed what looked like channels cutting through the surface. These are among more than 300 photographs of Titan's surface received by ESA mission control.

One can imagine the excitement there. After all, we are seeing close-up pictures from one of the most distant, intriguing and promising places in the Solar System. It will take years of analysis before the pictures finally give up their secrets, but it will be worth every minute.

The success of Huygens, named after Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens who discovered Titan in 1655, is all the more creditable because no robot probe has landed on a celestial body so far away from Earth. This makes it the most complex interplanetary mission ever.

But this is only one stop on a long journey, as more probes are on their way to the far corners of the Solar System and beyond. Others are still being designed. A manned mission to Mars is likely within the next 50 years. Manned missions will necessarily be more complex and costly than unmanned ones; robots will continue to be our eyes and ears in the dark and hostile depths of space.

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