Daily News Online
 

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

News Bar »

Security: Canada won’t support LTTE ...        Political: Voters think different ...       Business: No country will show higher growth in 2009 - NDB CEO ...        Sports: Bangalore Royals beat Mumbai Indians ...

Home

 | SHARE MARKET  | EXCHANGE RATE  | TRADING  | PICTURE GALLERY  | ARCHIVES | 

dailynews
 ONLINE


OTHER PUBLICATIONS


OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified
Government Gazette

A friend in need

France has always been a close friend of Sri Lanka and many are the times the French Government has come to our assistance in times of need. This trait was witnessed in the aftermath of the tsunami catastrophe too when France dispatched both men and material to assist the distressed.

This was particularly seen in the medical field when the French Government and its agencies dispatched teams of experts to deal with the thousands of victims and also handle the post trauma aspect of the afflicted.

Once again France has come to the assistance of Sri Lanka - this time to help alleviate the conditions of the IDPs. As reported in our inside pages yesterday, the French Government has made arrangements to donate two hospitals to treat the IDPs.

One of the hospitals consisting of 35 beds and 25 doctors has been set up at Chettikulam in Mannar while the other hospital comprising 100 beds donated by Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) will be set up at Manik Farm, Vavuniya. The Government of Sri Lanka no doubt would be enamoured by this gesture of the French Government.

The Government on its part had lost no time in taking steps to attend to the thousands of the sick and the wounded among the deluge that fled the LTTE. True, the physical and mental devastation subjected to by these people is out of the ordinary and the Government will need all the national and international assistance it could muster to ease the suffering of these people.

No doubt the Sri Lankan Government would need several such hospitals to satisfactorily treat the large number of IDPs who are afflicted with wide range of ailments not to mention gun shot wounds and mutilation under the LTTE. Hopefully, similar assistance will pour in once the full magnitude of the plight of the IDPs becomes known to the outside world.

For the moment, whatever assistance in the interim to alleviate the suffering of these people are welcome and as before the French Government has once again stepped into fill the breach.

No doubt the Government is confronted with a huge challenge to bring back the stricken IDPs back not just to their former selves but beyond that into a new life, away from the nightmares of their former lives. It is not just their physical conditions that needs healing but also the deep mental scars of three decades of war have to be addressed.

A project much bigger in scale than the post tsunami recovery will have to be put in motion to address this aspect. Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has said that hospitals in the North were facing a staff shortage and promised to resolve the problem soon.

This is the time for our doctors, nurses and other medical staff to rise to the occasion and volunteer to take up assignments at these hospitals. They would not only be performing a noble task but would also be complementing the troops who are engaged in humanitarian mission similar to theirs.

The massive flood of goods, materials and other donations that are being collected from the general public on behalf of the IDPs are a clear indication that the country as a whole is in tune with this line of thinking. It is a noteworthy development that augurs well unity, brotherhood and national reconciliation.


Another O/L crash

Once again this year’s GCE O/L results have made appalling reading. A high 49 percent have failed in Maths and 55 percent in science subjects. What is more serious is the staggering 69 percent “F”s in English.

The situation is so alarming that a top level conference was summoned where Examinations Chief Anura Edirisinghe had briefed the Education Secretary on the deteriorating standards of the GCE O/L Examination. According to an Education Ministry official, this year’s results were even worse than last year where the standards plummeted to an all time low.

The heavy failure rate even in the Sinhala language paper clearly shows that is something inherently wrong with the current system and that a complete overhaul is needed. Is it that, today, there is less time devoted to study by the young with so many attractions and diversions to take away the attention or is it the shortcomings in the prevailing teaching methods and the structure in operation.Are we still imbued in teaching methods that are moribund and obsolete which have no attraction to the present day young?

The Ministry of Education needs to do some serious thinking before the situation deteriorates even further. What this means is this year there will be less students entering the Advanced Level stream. Not the ideal recipe for a country striving to catch up with the fast moving world.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa we believe would move in the matter and call for suggestions and remedies from experts in the field to arrest this alarming trend.Lest we be left with a country devoid of a generation of educated which the Government is relying on to achieve its massive development goals.
 

Reining the NGOs, INGOs

Certain standards are required to regulate these organizations. The standards should be included the Constitution with minimum requirements decided by law. This is the basic paper which governs the entire process of the organization.It also requires certain financial standards such as Sri Lanka Accounting Standard to ensure that all the accounts are being prepared in a uniform manner with utmost transparency. There should be a law to wind up an organization, to take action against any erroneous act or malpractice of an organization and the persons involved.

Full Story

Feeling Asia’s economic pulse

There is now a debate whether the worst of the global economic crisis is over. Meanwhile, recent reports and data show that the Asian region and particularly South-East Asia is suffering from declining economic and industrial growth and collapsing export earnings.

Full Story

A river for Jaffna – the Arumugam Plan

Eng. S Arumugam published A River for Jaffna in 1954 which became known as the Arumugam plan. His son Eng. Thiru Arumugam provided a synopsis of the plan for a Pugwash workshop on “Learning from ancient hydraulic civilizations to combat climate change”, Colombo, Nov. 2007, as follows: Jaffna Peninsula with an area of about 400 sq. miles, is relatively flat and has no rivers.

Full Story

Who is afraid of the Diaspora?

A young Adolf Hitler then a down and out tramp walking the streets of Vienna with ambitions of becoming a successful painter, records in ‘Mein Kamph’ written much later at a mature thirty five, his first encounter with a Jew.

Full Story

 

EMAIL |   PRINTABLE VIEW | FEEDBACK

Ceylinco Banyan Villas
LANKAPUVATH - National News Agency of Sri Lanka
www.peaceinsrilanka.org
www.army.lk
www.news.lk
www.defence.lk
Donate Now | defence.lk
www.apiwenuwenapi.co.uk

| News | Editorial | Business | Features | Political | Security | Sport | World | Letters | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2009 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor