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| Wednesday, 16 February 2005 |
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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.
In the present day world, there are a lot of electronic and mechanical time savers which go to make life easy and smooth sailing. Few examples that can be cited are as follows; Most of the modern motor vehicles are clutchless, resulting in the left foot calf muscle and ankle denied of exercise. The side glass windows can be electronically operated. The boot of the car could be opened whilst the driver is at the steering wheel. It is the same with the car radio antenna, which prevents the exercising of the hands, elbow joints, wrists, upper and lower arms, shoulder joints and fingers. The car can be locked and unlocked by remote control, which minimizes exercise, once again from shoulder downwards. Take the case of the modern motor cycle. It can be started by remote control, which denies exercises for the hips, knees, ankle, calf muscle, foot, toes, etc. unlike during the good old days when the Triumph TIGER 100 Motorcycle had to be kick started. Present day lifts and moving stair-cases (escalators), moving floors - like at the Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Amsterdam Airports, definitely deny much needed exercise for the human body. What about the womenfolk. The grinders, floor polishers, washing machines, electrically operated sewing machines, percolators, water on tap etc. make them obese and lazy. Women in the village who use the motor and pestle, the rock by the stream on which they wash their clothes after applying soap, chopping firewood to keep the home fires burning, drawing water from the well and various other chores keep their figures slim and trim. It is predicted that half of the population in the world by 2025, will be suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes - the main reason attributed is obesity and lack of exercise. The present day mankind trots out the excuse of lack of time for exercise because they are runners in the rat race. Whereas, in the past, what was daily tasks as explained earlier, was sufficient exercise for the anatomy. Are not the modern day gadgets both electronic and mechanical, making the world full of men and women who are sick mentally and physically? BANDULA SENEVIRATNE, Tsunami aftermath and child trafficking The most vulnerable segment of the tsunami displaced is the children and specially the female children. Over 600 children in the Southern Province alone are destitute because they have lost one or both parents or dependents to the tsunami waves. These displaced children easily become victims to unscrupulous people. There is no doubt that some people are trying to help the innocent children. Most children after the trauma are in a state of confusion, and they are unable to identify themselves correctly or even give information about their closest relatives. Adoption can be done only through normal court procedure or legal procedure. keeping such a child even by a relative is illegal. Some people have tried to sell children in refugee camps at Hambantota and Galle. Various people identifying themselves as children's guardians and others as relatives have tried to sell them. At the camp near Balapitiya, a man was arrested for attempting to sell his two grandboys to foreigners pretending to buy orphans. The foreigners were used as decoys to nab the man. Several unscrupulous people praying in refugee camps are taking advantage of tax security and the children are sexually abused, or else forcibly taken away by so called adoptive parents. They also fall victims to racketeers because of the practice which allow children to be included in the parents passport, to smuggle victims abroad. They attempt to smuggle children for child prostitution, child labour etc. The Government should be vigilant on issuing visas for local children accompanied by locals and foreigners posing as parents. The latest news report says that the Indian Coast Guard along with the Indian Navy and Police are trying to locate a fishing trawler said to be packed with Sri Lanka tsunami orphans to be sold to Western couples by child traffickers. In spite of the good work done by the National Child Protection Authority, Department of Probation and Child Care, UNICEF and the Government Medical Officers' Association, this shows to what extent these child traffickers will go to carry on their notorious activities. K. P. P. JAYATILAKA, Hurricane Ivan and the Asian Tsunami When Hurricane Ivan swept across the Caribbean, its eye went through Grenada in West Indies, destroying their crops, buildings and power lines. My sister has a Grenadian friend and I heard much about the damage caused to their homeland. We were very sorry for them, but Haiti was the worst hit. Soon after Hurricane Ivan, Grenada was invaded by mosquitoes. There were no mosquito nets in the market as mosquitoes were never a problem before and the coils that were sold were not very effective. My sister therefore asked me to send mosquito nets from Sri Lanka for her Grenadian friend's family, which I did. Hurricane Ivan made me read a book I had on natural disasters. I read about all natural disasters, including Tsunamis. I read with a feeling of sympathy towards all the people in all those countries that were subjected to these natural disasters and was thankful that we were born in a country that was free of all those disasters - so I thought. Little did I know that very soon our country will be devastatingly stricken by the worst Tsunami in the history, leaving a death toll, unimaginable at that time. An earthquake registering 7 on the Richter Scale is said to be equivalent to the power of One Million tons of TNT (Trinitrotoluene). Richter Scale is a logarithmic scale. An increase of 1 on the scale means a tenfold increase in magnitude. So the earthquake which registered 9 on the Richter Scale should have the equivalent power of Hundred Million tons of TNT! Soon after the Tsunami, I observed swarms of tiny, black, winged insects I have never seen before. They have a very short life span, as they are found dead the following day. Like the mosquitoes in Grenada after Hurricane Ivan, could these swarms of tiny flying insects have anything to do with the Tsunami? A. GUNARATNA, Henry Jaysena in his interesting weekly column in the Artscope of 19.01.2005, under the heading 'Awards and felicitations' in the concluding paragraph apologises for taking all the space in the column that week. It is in fact, so good that he had written much about the theatre and the festival. His mentioning of the presenter Jayalath Manoratna's request to the Minister of Cultural Affairs to see that the theatre persons who come to Colombo in connection with theatre activities are provided with suitable accommodation is a worthy one that had to be brought out to all concerned, including the public. A few years ago, there was a proposal to have a cultural complex in Colombo funded by a foreign government, where all the needs of the theatre people would be met - residential accommodation, library, training in all the aspects, rehearsal facilities and so on, and the Municipal Sports Club adjoining the John de Silva Theatre was acquired for that purpose and foundation stone laid by the then Minister of Cultural Affairs Lakshman Jayakody. But upto now it had not got off the ground. On the day before the State Drama Festival Awards presentation, while I was seated next to Rev. Fr. Prof. N. M. Saveri, the Director of the Centre for Performing Arts, whose play was being enacted, he introduced me to the young person who was seated on the other side of him Mr. Chandrasekeran, MP who had been the chief guest at the previous day's play which too was a production from the C.P.A. I told Mr. Chandrasekeran about the cultural complex project, which had not got off the ground and asked him to see that it is resurrected without delay. He said he would look into the files in the Ministry and take action. I had written about this dormant complex as far back as 2003 (DN 11.08.2003) and in other papers later. Prominent theatre people like Messrs Henry Jayasena, Jayalath Manoratna and others, if not the Actors' Associations, should pursue this matter. I hope they will get about the matter soon. ARUL, |
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