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No pluses for punctuality

The First in the Land is always the first at public fora and that too well ahead of schedule. This is a truth about President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which should be known.

However, not very many, officials are famous for their punctuality and their alacrity to "rise and shine".

We hope everyone holding public office would accept the challenge of being on the spot always and in time too.

This is a pointer to the enthusiasm and readiness of a country to measure up to challenges emerging on the path of development and progress. However, the sad truth is that we, as a people, are notorious for our lassitude and our so-called easy-going ways.

As the old saying goes, 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy', but the problem with most Lankans is that they dislike to push themselves too far. As a result the economy is lacking the dynamism expected of it. We would not be wrong in saying that the majority of Lankans would not mind allowing things to drift dangerously - so complacent and smugly satisfied with our lot are we.

No doubt, glowing examples of hard work and punctuality from "the top" would set the required bench mark in this regard for the rest of the country. We hope that every Minister and public official would model themselves on the President in this respect.

The extent to which we are lagging way behind in punctuality could be gauged from an incident revolving around a Lankan VIP in New Delhi recently. It is said that the latter kept an Indian VVIP waiting for nearly half an hour at an important inter-governmental meeting. This amounts to letting Sri Lanka down in the eyes of the world.

The Lankan VIP has indeed proved that Lankans could not be counted on to be dynamic and energetic.

Sri Lanka should guard against being lulled into a sense of complacency. Abstract figures on economic "growth" could be extremely misleading, given our poverty levels. "Growth" is concentrated predominantly in the Western Province, with the rest of the country lagging behind in material wealth.

We could make a deep dent in the problem of underdevelopment if we forge steadily ahead with the task of material advancement. That is, work with great enthusiasm and gusto and that too without counting the cost too exactingly. We need to ask what we could do for the country rather than call on the country to do things for us.

We could launch ourselves on this "Long March" by, first, ensuring that we are number one in punctuality. We need to be time-conscious and prove expert time managers. Without these attributes our development dream would prove a mere bubble.

Discipline needs to flow right down the line, from the highest rungs of the public sector to the humblest levels of society; in the farms and factories. These humbler levels tend to model themselves on the upper reaches.

If the latter is wanting in discipline, much could not be expected in this regard from the former. So, let the "top" be exemplars, is what we urge.

Majoritarianism and the Mother of Parliaments

I use the word local about all three advisedly, even though current wisdom is that the Soulbury Constitution was an import from Britain. On the contrary, it was drafted by Sir Ivor Jennings at the behest of D S Senanayake.

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Fast tracking access for the disabled

The word accessibility means the ability to 'gain entry' to something. We usually think of physical infrastructure when we use the term. Accessibility, as applied to the disabled, has become a major issue in modern society. Developed countries are far more advanced than the developing world in this regard and every building is designed from the ground up to accommodate the disabled.

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