• Errant public servants

• English as a language in all schools

• Fate of the 'Free' world

• Federal system

• Traffic rules

• Joint Contributory pension scheme
   

Errant public servants

Most of the Sri Lankan Government Servants go by the phrase 'More Work - More Trouble, Less Work - Less Trouble, No Work - No Trouble'. Those exempted from this lotus eaters are the Forces and Police personnel who have no specific time of duties.

On page 1 of the Daily News of August 29 appeared a news item in bold letters under the caption 'Crack down on errant public servants'.

The crux of the article is that how the Public Administration and Home affairs Minister had acted promptly on a public tip-off and ordered punitive action against the staff of the Kaduwela Divisional Secretariat.

This office which had to be opened at 8.30 a.m., had not been opened till 9.15 a.m. on this said day.

When the Minister had made inquiries, he had found that the Divisional Secretary had gone out on an official matter, and the peon who brings the key which is kept in the Police Station had not brought it till 9.10 a.m.

The Minister had very correctly interdicted the peon forthwith and had ordered an immediate inquiry into this whole incident to take further disciplinary steps.

Minister Sarath Amunugama must be loudly applauded for this type of quick action.

This is a clear case of indiscipline and lack of proper supervision on the part of staff officers.

It is a well-known fact that Government servants do the least of work when compared to private sector and banks.

They come to work after 8.30 a.m. or little later and sign the book at 8.30 a.m., as the red-line is not drawn at 8.30 a.m. in most offices, and go for their breakfast and take their own time to start work.

This practice should be stopped, and they should work for the eight hours expected of them to uplift the country. The incident at the Kaduwela Divisional Secretariat is an eye-opener for all Government Servants.

What the Minister should do is to have Divisional Strike Squads and the members of the public must be requested to make their complaints to them.

The people selected for Flying Squads or Strike Squads should be vetted for their integrity, impartiality and efficiency.

After the Ministry of Health started its Striking Squads, private practice of Government doctors during working hours were drastically reduced.

Ananda Jayasena, Boralesgamuwa.

English as a language in all schools

That was a very good editorial. No country can have one ethnicity, one language etc. We are all human beings of the same flesh and blood. We must learn to live together. Today there are so many who have married from other ethnic groups, other religions, other countries, all over the world, but they are living together.

We must make English - the world language, the language taught in our schools. We introduced this foolish idea of Sinhala only and began to teach Sinhala to Sinhalese and Tamil to Tamil children with the result that we separated them still further.

Please begin to teach English in all schools even in rural ones so that they can communicate with each other in a world-language and live in peace, and still make them learn their mother tongue or both Sinhalese and Tamil till about Grade 5 or 6.

No country has one religion. Religion should not be forced on anyone. Let people follow whatever religion they believe in and for that Religious education can be continued in Churches and Temples and Kovils on weekends for children etc.

OLGA MENDIS, via email.

Fate of the 'Free' world

The corporate globalizers are promoting their agenda by linking resistance movements to terrorism. The perpetrators of war expect to market future wars and resulting occupations to the publics of the West. They intend to force capitalism down the Arab throats by systematically subjugating them and demoralising them.

In doing so, they would expropriate vast natural resources and broker capitalism as part of a new world order, at the point of a gun.

Any nation resisting globalisation would be labelled 'terrorist states' or at least 'rogue states' and be declared that they pose an imminent threat to the US and the 'free' world. The corporate media will promote a non-existent moral high ground for the shameless propaganda, created to deceive a gullible audience into believing that the threat to their freedom must be dealt with by brute force.

These people have little regard for life in the third world, while kidnapping, torturing and assassinating their foes, after deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure (not 'collateral' as claimed). Speaking out will be tantamount to acts of sedition, and described as appeasement of terrorists or sympathising with the enemy.

The control imposed on the will of the people will result in falling intellectual curiosity, not having the gumption to question authority or challenge the status quo, with less and less of historical fact published.

The future generations will have no conception of reality and will be mere consumers of fiction and entertainment. Is this the world we want for the future?

LASANTHA PETHIYAGODA, Australia, via email.

Federal system

Let me respond to the letter in the Daily News of September 2 by a Tamil postgraduate student in the PGIA, University of Peradeniya. He assumes that the "whole world including the Government of Sri Lanka has accepted" that the 'Best Solution' for the problem in Sri Lanka is to have a Federal System.

One does not need to assay the views of the whole world - which is not genuinely interested in us. Let this student know that the vast majority in Sri Lanka alone is against a federal state.

What we need is to make it possible for the Sinhala people and others like Muslims, Burghers etc. to be able to move around, live, work and buy land in the pockets of territory now under the control of Tamils and Tamil terrorists.

Also, let the Sinhala students selected to the University of Jaffna study and learn in Jaffna, just as Mr. Kirubananda does at Peradeniya.

About the aspirations of the majority, one major aspiration is to live freely in any part of our island including pockets now invaded and colonized by the Tamils. These pockets need to be redeemed from their clutches.

Little does the postgraduate student appear to know that the homeland of the Tamils is Tamil Nadu; the Tamils in Sri Lanka first came in not as migrants but as marauding invaders, next as indentured labour brought in by the Dutch to work on the spice plantations, then as labour, again indentured, this time by the British, to work on the tea plantations and finally as illegal immigrants (kalla thoni).

Tamils who want to make Sri Lanka their homeland should not confine their claims to the pockets now controlled by the Tigers but live as the majority of the Tamils do, among the Sinhala, Muslim and other communities, and integrate with the population at large.

As for his point that 'God created the cosmos and he is the only one who has the genuine power to determine these facts,' it is strange that such a God cannot control the terrorists. This alone proves God's helplessness if not his non-existence.

This point he raised is irrelevant to the point of making Sri Lanka a federal state.

Another matter unrelated to his main point is that there is sea water intrusion in Jaffna and Government should prevent it turning into a desert. Well, let alone prevent Jaffna from turning into a desert), there is no reason for the Government even to send food and other essentials to an area where the inhabitants do not pay taxes but allow extortions by the Tigers.

Sinhalanka, Nawala.

Traffic rules

Almost everyday we see and hear news of drastic accidents losing valuable human lives and causing considerable loss to the economy. One of the main reasons for the accidents is non-adherence to traffic rules.

The right of way near roundabouts and junctions is almost non existent now. The right of way is for those who are brave enough to take a risk or who have a larger vehicle. On many instances the vehicles going on the left side of the road have to move off the road and make room for vehicles coming in their lane from the opposite direction.

There are many vehicles crossing junctions with traffic lights, even when the red light is on. At night the majority of motorists are going with their head lights on disregarding other vehicles, thus causing a risk not only to the other vehicles but also to the innocent pedestrians.

I have seen on a number of occasions the traffic police officers who are present at those locations do not take any action against such errant drivers. Thus the law of the jungle prevails. Increasing fines to whatever amount is irrelevant unless the laws are properly implemented. Laws not implemented are not existent.

M. B. M. IFTHIKAR, Nugegoda.

Joint Contributory pension scheme

The President has directed the State Banks to increase the wages of employees. It is high time that State Banks had a Contributory Pension Scheme for all employees. The Bank of Ceylon had a good pension scheme. But after 1997 new recruits were not entitled to pensions.

The State Banks should get together and setup a Joint Contributory Pension Scheme.

Lionel. J. Seneviratne, Mount Lavinia.