The TIME magazine issue for the week of Aug. 27 had a big story on
the war in Afghanistan.
In it, it cites leading Human Right organisations, and relief
organisations about civilian casualties in the war waged by the US,
Britain and its NATO allies against resurgent Taliban rebel groups.
According to humanitarian relief groups and others monitoring this
war, they have now managed to kill the same number of civilians as the
Taliban and its terrorist allies.
This factor is turning a lot of the Afghan rural population against
the foreign forces.
The strategy now it seems is to train local forces and deploy them to
rural areas.
The reaction is that “this is unfortunate collateral damage” in war.
However it is very important that everyone in Sri Lanka know that the
allied forces including a lot of Europeans have been accused of very
many acts of indiscriminate and large scale shelling and air raids.
I would like to caution NATO representatives in Sri Lanka and
Ambassadors to the US, Britain and other EU nations with troops in
Afghanistan to refrain from throwing stones at the Sri Lankan Air Force.
Compare how much money and technology you have.
You have satellite imagery that can pinpoint a licence plate on a
truck, you have real time feeds from aerial surveillance that can recall
an aeroplane seconds before a strike.
You have billions of dollars worth of equipment and research behind
you. Yet your Governments shrug their shoulders and say “that is war and
there will be collateral damage.”
MANO RATWATTE
USA
In order to protect the elephants from the danger of their extinct
facing today, a solution to human-elephant conflict should be found
sooner than later.
Taming and domesticating elephants is not a solution to conserve the
reducing number of our elephant population. Finding elephants to parade
in Perehera for festivals and other events are not priorities while many
number of elephants are killed in their own environment as a result of
human, elephant conflicts.
One of the key issues for this problem is uncontrolled clearing of
jungles that destroys natural habitat for these animals.
Their shelter and freedom to live in peace are taken away from them.
In most areas clearing for cultivation and logging the jungles for
commercial use have become a common practice. In many instances, they
are done with the knowledge of the area politicians who gives a blind
eye in favour of their political supporters.
Taming elephants for domestic purposes worsen the danger of their
extinction from our jungles. The domesticated elephants are chained all
day and suffer because of the restricted area to move around. They have
lost the freedom to live in the jungle where they belong to.
Some animals are handled very roughly and tortured by the cruel
drunken keepers.
Their breeding pattern slows down in captivity than in natural
environments. Therefore, conservation of wild elephants is more
important than taming elephants for the purpose of parading in festival
pageants.
It is time that as civilised people we must spare these noble animals
from human cruelty and take necessary steps to keep them in their own
natural environment.
There have been many instances where elephants had fallen into wells
and pits and had agonising slow deaths without having proper equipment
or care to save their lives. There should be specialised staff and heavy
equipment readily available for rescue operations when needed and to
transport them when necessary.
RANJITH CHANDRASEKERA
Trains are definitely very economical and about the lowest priced in
the world. But, yes there is a but.
The service is poor, employees are typically lazy, cares little of
service, cannot keep the trains clean, inside or out.
Complaints are always answered with elaborate explanations, amounting
to nothing, but aimed at perpetrating the status quo and perpetuating
the poor service.
Some suggestions:
Suggest someone to clean the trains, inside - out at least once a
day, evaluate them via passengers (not any CGR employees) and fire them
(should be hourly contract workers) if the cleanliness is not at the
best. They keep hotels quite clean, exceed that standard or more.
Make special provision for tourists, visitors, with luxurious trains,
charge more, but re-establish a level of luxury, cleanliness,
politeness, treating the customer as being always right.
Dispense with all excuses, except excellent service (no excuses, they
are responsible even for so called acts of gods) then only we can
progress.
DR. DE SILVA
USA
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