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| Monday, 31 January 2005 |
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Scouts volunteer for tsunami relief
As tsunami tidal waves hit the coastal line of Sri Lanka on December 26, displacing thousands of people while many other thousands got perished, good samaritans rushed to affected areas with lorry loads of food and clothing and other essential items. Doctors attended to all medical needs of the injured people while voluntary groups made numerous contributions to support the people who have undergone a traumatic experience. Colombo District Scouts were also among these volunteers. The team visited the areas on December 27 itself when the tragedy was still a 'shock', and only a few volunteers would have gone to assist the victims by then. The Scout team included Assistant Scout Commissioner (Special Activities), Janaprith Fernando, Assistant Scout Commissioner, Capt R. K. K. Jayatilleke, Assistant Headquarters Commissioner, Sanath Rohana, Tissa de Silva and Ranil Gammanpila. The group had decided to support some of the hospitals in the South by way of providing medicines and supporting the doctors to clean the hospitals. On hearing the pathetic situation in several rural hospitals in Imaduwa and Ahangama, the team first went to Imaduwa hospital after a seven-hour drive from Colombo. Having donated medical items required by this hospital, the team volunteered to speak to the doctor (MO) and the patients and took down the details of the patients who were there from various areas in the island, to inform their kith and kin after their return to Colombo. From Imaduwa, the team planned to go to Ahangama. But, since it was already very late in the night, they stayed overnight at Dikkumbura, Janaprith Fernando said. The next day, the group went to the rural hospital in Ahangama. By the time they reached the hospital, the MO had already transferred the patients and was about to close the hospital as there had been so many dead bodies. The hospital wards were full of blood and the stench was unbearable. The hospital did not have sufficient medicine to treat the patients. There was no water and electricity. The generator of one of the villagers used by the hospital could not be run as there was no diesel. It was a total breakdown. The Scout team decided to clean the hospital. They also provided diesel for the generator. The hospital did not have any disinfectant, cotton wool, gauze, bandage, antibiotics and other basic medical items; the scouts donated them all. When the scouts got on to cleaning-up work, the villagers who had not come to the hospital since the catastrophe occurred, came one by one and joined the scouts in their cleaning process. After that, the group made a visit to the Ahangama town. Since the group was in their uniforms, several persons came to them for seeking help; the scouts cleaned and dressed their wounds and handed them bandages, cotton wool and antiseptic for future use. After Ahangama the team went to Karapitiya Teaching Hospital and Mahamodara Hospital in Galle and met several doctors and senior health officials and Government officials. Mahamodara had been shut down due to damages. The Group inspected the hospital and found out that the parapet wall had been destroyed by the tsunami tidal waves. Also, there was no water and electricity in the hospital. One of the team members spoke to a commercial bank and got a sponsorship to reconstruct the wall. The Scouts also gave donations to Galle Scouts to be given to camp
residents in the area. That was not all. In the next few days, the Scouts
were busy collecting funds among the members for their second project in
the South - that was to set up temporary toilets. On their first visit,
they had noticed large crowds of 700 - 1,000 had only a few toilets for
their needs. The Scouts immediately attended to this need too. And within
the next few days, they set up 20 toilets in Ambalangoda, Galle and two
places in Ahangama. Classical piano music concert to raise funds To mark the silver jubilee year Worldview Sri Lanka raises funds for
its projects 'Assisting Tsunami Affected Children in Sri Lanka' through a
classical piano music concert with Mozart, Chopin, Strategier and
Rachmaninov brought to life by David Mannesse (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
at the Galle Face Hotel, Grand Ballroom on February 7 at 5.00 p.m. Bonsoir new programs from today The well-known French-Sri Lankan TV magazine will come to your home TV screens with an entirely new look from today (31). Bonsoir is now under the creative supervision of Anoma Rajakaruna, well-known Sri Lankan media personality. Two fresh faces, Muthu Padmakumara and Dilshan Boange will be anchoring Bonsoir in the months to come. The combined effort with French international media partners has also helped Bonsoir to enrich its creative content, allowing it to procure high-quality images from French television channels. Plans are also under way to develop a Sinhala version of the program in the near future. Look forward to watch the first new programs that comes forth under
this new format today (January 31) at 9.30 p.m. on Channel Eye. Music festival for tsunami funds COLOMBO, Jan. 28 (Lankapuvath) A music record company in India is organising a music festival on February 19 to raise funds for the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka. Evocatively titled Teardrop, the music festival is also being organised to clear misconceptions about Sri Lanka, Chief Executive Officer of Bodhi Music Paul Jacob, told Lankapuvath. The festival would create an awareness about Sri Lanka's music of which little was known outside the island country, he added. The day and night festival would allow five Sri Lankan groups to showcase their talents. The star performer would be Manickam Yogeswaran, a Britain-based Sri Lankan, a carnatic singer of repute, he is equally well- versed in western music. Musicians from Chennai would accompany Manickam, who has sung in two Hollywood movies, Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' and Spike Lee's 'Twenty-Fifth Hour'. Pop music performers from Sri Lanka would include Bathiya and Santush with groups 'Byla', 'Iraj' and 'Brass Monkey', 'Gypsies' would perform folk music. The Teardrop music festival would be held in the open air theatre of
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Campus. It would be hosted by the
southern spice TV music channel. Bollywood looking to do business the Hollywood way BOMBAY, (Reuters)
Armed with an MBA degree from Melbourne and an understanding of modern financing, Shravan Shroff is at the vanguard of dragging India's prolific yet ponderous film industry into the 21st Century. The 34-year-old is one of a breed of young movie executives looking to tap new sources of cash and create integrated entertainment companies that are revolutionising the way Bollywood does business. The son of a founder of the Bombay-based film distributor Shringar group, Shroff blazed a trail in 2002 by opening Bombay's first multiplex, the most visible sign of reform in an industry still beset by high taxes and a disorganisation. Since then he has raised private equity capital and added two, and is on track to set up four more multiplexes this year. "It wasn't a breeze raising money in 2001, as we were an unproven story and the industry was not regarded well," he told Reuters in Bombay, the heart of India's film industry which churns out nearly 1,000 movies every year. India has an estimated 12,000 movie screens, most of them housed in single-screen cinemas where losses have risen in recent years because of competition from cable television and rampant piracy. But large regional players such as Shringar and New Delhi multiplex chain PVR Cinemas, in which ICICI Ventures made an investment of 380 million rupees, are looking to expand. |
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