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Monday, 26 October 2009

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News: Sri Lanka, Vietnam boost trade ...        Security: Perform duties without fear or favour ...       Business: CRIB to bring credit scoring ...        Sports: Subhani Udeshika steals the limelight ...

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An excellent relationship

Sri Lanka has maintained consistently excellent diplomatic relations with South East Asian countries, most of which share common cultural and religious values with us. Buddhism is one factor that links Sri Lanka with these countries. In the modern era, Sri Lanka has increased trade with the Association of South East Asian countries and established firm diplomatic and political links with them.

Sri Lanka is also a frontline member of the Non Aligned Movement which has a large number of Asian nations. Sri Lanka recently hosted the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, of which many ASEAN countries are members. Sri Lanka is thus playing a major role in the region, in addition to its commitments to SAARC (The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) whose summit was held in Colombo last year.

In international diplomacy, interactions at Heads of State level are vital to foster relations among various countries. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken this policy a step further with his personal commitment to develop links with our neighbours and other Asian countries.

This is a sharp departure from the line adopted by certain previous Governments which were overtly subservient to the West at the expense of our links with Asian countries. We need to cultivate equally good relations with all friendly countries and Asia should necessarily be given prominence.

President Rajapaksa has been instrumental in reinforcing our excellent relations with countries such as India, China, Myanmar, Iran and Japan through official visits. His latest State visit - to Vietnam - is another symbol of Sri Lanka’s affinity to Asia. It should be noted here that Sri Lanka was one of the very first nations to recognize the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and later following reunification, the Vietnamese nation. Sri Lanka was also one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the 1970s.

The Vietnamese leaders and the people know all too well the horrendous effects of war, having experienced the terror perpetrated by imperialist powers. Today, it is a rapidly developing nation aspiring to become the next Asian Tiger.

The conflict in Sri Lanka was certainly different from the one in Vietnam, though the suffering of the ordinary people in the North who were subject to LTTE terror was almost the same. We should ponder how Vietnam achieved national reconciliation, unity and development in the post-war era. Vietnam emerged even more strongly from divisions - we too should shed divisions, real and imagined, to emerge stronger on the world stage with the help of our friends in Asia and the rest of the world.

It is thus not surprising that Vietnam fully concurs with the steps taken by the Sri Lankan leadership to crush terrorism, unlike certain Western powers.

Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet has highly appreciated and lauded the bravery and bold steps taken by President Rajapaksa and the Sri Lankan Security Forces to defeat LTTE terrorism. Vietnam firmly supported Sri Lanka’s battle against terrorism in multilateral fora, most recently at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva when attempts were made by certain countries to discredit the good image of Sri Lanka.

The Vietnamese leader has commended the well orchestrated democratic humanitarian mission to rescue the innocent civilians held hostage by the LTTE.

Both Sri Lanka and Vietnam should now look forward to increasing trade and tourism (people to people contact). The two countries should explore the possibility of commencing direct flights to the capital cities and signing a visa waiver arrangement. Sri Lanka’s Buddhist heritage and sacred cities should be promoted among the Vietnamese people. More Vietnamese investors should be encouraged to start ventures here, especially in the emerging North and the East. Our exporters should also raise their exports to Vietnam.

Sri Lanka and Vietnam do compete in the world trade arena, especially in fields such as garments. But Asian countries should not always depend on the West, which imposes various conditions and restrictions, for trade.

The time has come for Asian nations to increase intra-regional trade significantly and help each other in times of crises. It is also essential that they raise a single voice on various issues at world fora, acting as a formidable barrier against the domination of world bodies by a few rich countries. They should also join hands to fight terrorism in the region to make it even more economically and politically powerful on the world stage.
 

Random thoughts on healthcare

From the medical science angle, the most basic change in healthcare in the past decades has been our view of human biology, and the way we see the individual. Previously we used to visualize the individual purely from a biological and molecular level as a “Case”, but now we see him also from a cultural angle, as part of a family and society, and this has altered the way we look at health and sickness. Therefore we now know that simple disease models are not enough, and we have to understand how personal and collective behaviours contribute and give rise to disease, and therefore regard the whole family and the community as the “patient”.

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Student politics, anomalies and responsibilities

I recently wrote about vandalism, focusing on two university students who had been arrested for defacing a wall with graffiti and extrapolating to other forms of defacement of public space, especially by politicians. A friend of mine, agreeing with my general thesis, faulted me for not elaborating on the plight of undergraduates, their right to protest and the need to respond to legitimate grievance.

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Are Sri Lankan women visible only statistically?

A woman's place is in the home - that's what they used to say long ago. Today, only few would endorse that view. Ask ten of your male friends. Eight of them would agree that there should be equality in employment and wages. Seven would also agree that women should have the same rights under the law as men do. These are statistically proven facts.

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