A few days ago, I saw three large photographs of a leading party
candidate for the Parliamentary Elections pasted prominently on a
parapet wall close to my residence. When I passed this area the
following morning, I noticed three larger photographs of an Opposing
Party candidate pasted over the three photographs pasted earlier. The
following morning I noticed the photographs had been torn off, and
pieces of paper strewn all over the place, provoking the feelings of any
sensitive person.
Minister Champika Ranawaka’s directive to the local authorities to
make arrangements to recycle polythene and other degradable materials
that will be used by candidates for the General Election campaign has to
be admired as a laudable proposal.
Candidates for the forthcoming Parliamentary Elections have commenced
displaying their photographs printed on expensive paper. Exhibiting
attractive photographs is appropriate in selling cosmetics or in
selecting a beauty queen and not for the election of representatives to
the supreme legislature of the country.
The use of expensive printing paper, involving large amounts of funds
is disastrous. The quantity of paper used at a Parliamentary Election
may be sufficient to print schoolbooks for the country’s entire student
population for one year.
I wish to propose an environment friendly, rational method to meet
the needs of all parties. It will also eliminate rivalries among the
electors as well as the candidates. Immediately after the conclusion of
nominations, the respective Returning Officers of the districts can
collect the relevant details of each of the candidates. The essential
information will be as follows:-
1. Full name, address and telephone no:
2. Educational and professional qualifications:
3. Experience in social and political activities:
4. Assets and liabilities of candidate and his/her spouse:
5. Fields of interests and proposals for local/national development:
6. Any other relevant facts:
The above information compiled into a book can be printed by the
respective Returning Officers and distribute among each of the
households through the Gramaseva Niladhari. The cost of publication and
distribution can be recovered from each of the candidates through the
political party or group.
If the above scheme can be implemented, the candidates will not have
the need to carry out their propaganda campaign throughout the length
and breadth of the electorate. The cost for each candidate can be
greatly reduced. At a glance, following benefits will accrue:
a. Details of each candidate will reach each household,
b. Cost of propaganda will be minimal,
c. Interparty and intraparty rivalries can be eliminated,
d. Environment pollution caused by the propaganda material can be
completely eliminated,
e. Each of the electors will be educated about the candidates and
will be able to use his/her vote constructively,
f. Good Governance can be achieved.
It is hoped that these proposals will receive due consideration of
the Government and the Commissioner General of Elections.
D. A. Rupasinghe - Pannipitiya
It is my humble opinion that all schools in Sri Lanka should hold a
competition to get children to write songs of praise for the President
and the Armed Forces.
It is due to the correct political leadership and gallantry of our
President and the Armed Forces that we are free of terrorism today. The
virtues of our great leader are:
1. Kindness
2. Fearlessness
3. Removing opponents out of the way
4. Speaking the truth
5. Caring for family
VEMINDRA BOTEJU
I am a long-standing reader of the Daily News. In fact it’s the only
newspaper that I think has quality reporting and articles in circulation
in Sri Lanka today.
Many other papers write malicious articles without finding out facts
and are influenced by politicians.
I wish to pay tribute to the staff of the Daily News for keeping the
Sri Lankan public well informed and free from political bias.
Gayan Hettihewa - Akurana
I am a pensioner living in England. It cost me 20 Sterling Pounds to
get my Life Certificate certified by a professional who has a seal of
his profession. I even have to pay the same amount to our family doctor
to get the Life Certificate certified. There is nothing free in the UK.
The cost of posting this Certificate will cost 1.50 Sterling Pounds.
Therefore, the total cost is 21.50 Sterling Pounds, which is equivalent
to Rs 4,350 approximately. If this holy letter is lost in post or
misplaced by the clerk, how much will it cost. So out of a pension of Rs
11,500, I have to set aside Rs 4,350.The balance I get is Rs 7,150.
The Pension’s Department Director should think that we are living in
a Computer Age. Since all offices of the Divisional Secretaries are
equipped with modern computers, the Director should be satisfied with a
scanned copy of the ‘Life Certificate’ rather than an original paper
Certificate. Even some banks in Sri Lanka accept scanned copies of
applications for withdrawals instead of written letters.
The advantage of the scanned copy is:
It reaches the destination without fail.
It is not alterable as it is electronically copied.
It is quick and instant.
The sender is quite sure that the Divisional Secretary has received
it.
The only thing is that the computer operator has to retrieve and
print it.
Secondly, I know some of my friends who had worked in the UK and live
in Sri Lanka, who get their pension from the Pension’s Department
without the Life Certificate. When the pensioner dies, his spouse writes
to the Pension’s Department in the UK and the spouse gets the pension as
she is entitled to her husband’s pension.
Where as in Sri Lanka the pensioner has to suffer the cast iron rules
and regulations before he gets his pension. The Pension’s Department
Director should not think that the pension is a gift or a Christmas
present, but as a entitlement of the pensioner. The pensioner has
contributed during his life long carrier and he is entitled to get it
easily.
Therefore, I would suggest to do away with the Life Certificate, as
it is not suitable to present day society. Furthermore, most of the
pensioners are honourable and responsible persons and most of them had
been appointed by the PSC. By doing away with the Life Certificate, the
workload and the running cost of the Department will be less.
M. F. E. Peiris - Pensioner - I/175380
It is duty bound that Crimes reported to the Local or Military Police
be recorded for appropriate action. The pros and cons of statements were
weighed and authorities took the retired General to protective custody
not as a prisoner.
With passage of time the case will be heard and Independent Judiciary
alone will decide according to the law whether to free or punish the
offender. “All’s well that ends well” if he is acquitted.
The Opposition Leader rushing to Temple Trees to seek a pardon from
the President to release the ex-Army General besides being corporal
works of mercy a mischievous twist knowing that the President cannot
interfere with an independent judiciary. ‘Fools rush in where Angels
fear to tread.’
A General Election is at hand. Party contestants are busy howling to
woo voters. The General’s episode is the bait to catch votes. You cannot
fool all men for all time. Dogs bark at the wrong tree the saying goes;
similarly, Goose cackled to save the City of Rome is history.
In the context, those that take up to streets to bark at Temple Trees
and Goose that cackle demanding the impossible release from the
President is calculated mischief to upset ‘the apple cart’ of good
governance.
Lucifer revolted against Almighty God - Prabhakaran revolted against
the President of a sovereign State. Both were annihilated from the face
of this earth never to raise the ugly heads.
“In the broad field of battle
In the bivious of life
Be not like dumb driven cattle
Be a hero in the strife.”
C. L. Terence Fernando - Moratuwa
Sarath Fonseka’s trick - the excuse of fasting as a result of the
withdrawal of his usage of a mobile phone to ring his daughters just
goes to show what we all knew in advance - how very childish and totally
immature the man really is.
After having entertained vain and unattainable ‘dreams’of being able
to defeat the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa on January 26, 2010,
Fonseka has now, no doubt aided and abetted by his friends both in the
Western world and in Sri Lanka as well commenced a new ‘trick’- that of
wailing from the rooftops with regard to the withdrawal of the use of
the mobile telephone facilities that were granted to him as a goodwill
gesture.
This man who thinks of himself as the reincarnation of some of the
great international generals of the past is nothing but an arrogant
megalomaniac and a totally spoilt brat whom the Sri Lanka Government has
treated far too leniently compared to others who might have found
themselves in the same situation as Fonseka finds himself at this moment
pending trial.
Tired of his antics, one really hopes that the Army tribunal will get
on with his court martial with the least possible delay, and in the
meanwhile, let him continue with his fast which is yet another JVP
backed scam to try and gain the sympathy of the SL general public
similar to the one pedalled by the self appointed ‘genius’ of the JVP,
Somawansa Amarasinghe under the heading ‘computer jilmart’ which turned
out to be nothing but a damp squib and coming after Fonseka’s crushing
defeat.
Sri Lanka should indeed consider herself most fortunate and thank the
powers above for the fact that Sarath Fonseka failed so miserably and
utterly in his bid to be elected President.
Rohan Amarasinha - Denmark
A piece of writing I read was on the utmost importance of female
education that I wish to share with readers.
It is the height of selfishness for men, who fully appreciate in
their own case the great advantages of a good education, to deny these
advantages to women.
There is no valid argument by which the exclusion of the female sex
from the privilege of education can be defended. It is argued that women
have their domestic duties to perform, and that, if they were educated,
they would bury themselves in their books and have little time attending
to the management of their households. Of course it is possible for
women, as it is possible for men, to neglect necessary work in order to
spare more time for reading sensational novels.
But women are no more liable to this temptation than men, and most
women would be able to do their household work all the better for being
able to refresh their minds in the intervals of leisure with a little
reading.
Nay, education would even help them in the performance of the
narrowest sphere of womanly duty. For education involves knowledge of
the means by which health may be preserved and improved, and enables a
mother to consult such modern books as will tell her how to rear up her
children into healthy men and women, and skilfully nurse them and her
husband when disease attacks her household.
But according to a higher conception of women’s sphere, women ought
to be something more than a household drudge. She ought to be able not
merely to nurse her husband in sickness, but also to be his companion in
health.
For this part of her wifely duty education is necessary, for there
cannot well be congenial companionship between an educated man and an
uneducated wife, who can converse with her husband on no higher subjects
than cookery and servants’ wages. Also one of a mother’s highest duties
is the education of her children at the time when their mind is most
amenable to instruction.
A child’s whole future life, to a large extent, depends on the
teaching it receives in early childhood, and it is needless to say that
this first foundation of education cannot be well laid by an ignorant
mother. On all these grounds female education is a vital necessity.
Vidana Gamage Ratnasiri - Matara
Everyone must obey the state authorities, because no authority exists
without God’s permission and the existing authorities have been put
there by God. Whoever opposes the existing authority opposes what God
has ordered; and anyone who does so will bring judgement on himself.
Romans 13.1, 2
The will of the Lord Alone is Always carried out.
Lamentations 3.37
Upatissa Attygalle - Colombo 7
Having been under treatment for bowel disorder for sometime, I was
directed by my family Physician (a Consultant himself) to a Medical
Consultant who happens to be a Professor in his field of specialty.
During his busy schedule the Professor accommodated me as an urgent case
probably as a mark of respect for one of his seniors - the referee.
After going thro’ my medical reports and examining me and realizing the
gravity of the condition, he requested me to avail myself for a test
early in the immediate following morning (a Saturday) prior to beginning
his scheduled day’s work.
Inside the clinic prior to the test I had a chat with the Professor.
His opinion was that it was a cancerous tumour with big growth which
requires a immediate course of treatment. My position was that it has to
wait 2 1/2 months in silence.
He took great pains to explain to me the clinical and medical
position of such a delay giving me the probabilities that could arise
during that period which would anyway cause dilemma in the minds of the
studious children.
After spending nearly an hour in discussion the Professor got me
committed to meet him in two weeks. He requested me to get a Biophy Test
and a CT Colonogram and bring the reports.
On that day I agreed to let my immediate family members including my
two children know about the actual situation and the planned course of
action, and also to take my two children to meet him as soon as
possible.
The day I along with my wife and children went to meet the Professor,
he greeted us very cheerfully and made my two children at ease first by
inquiring about their studies and their future plans, etc. and gradually
diverted them to their father’s illness.
After explaining them the present position, he boldly opened the
platform to them inviting them to ask any and questions regarding their
father’s medical treatment and future prospects after the completion of
treatment.
It took over two hours for all three of them to clear the air and
come to the conclusion that his proposed course of action has to be
followed and it has to be started forthwith. The Professor on that day
spent 2 1/2 hours of his channel consultation time on behalf of this one
patient.
His commitment and devotion towards his patients is amply displayed
in this episode. When I went up to him to say ‘Thank You’ for spending
such a long period of his Consultation Time for my sake, the Professor
humbly said, “That is a part of our duty, Gamini.” Tears came to my
eyes. I only could not give him a warm hug.
This Professional is Prof. Kemal Deen. I salute you Professor. He is
an example to the Medical Profession, and an Icon to the budding Medical
Professionals. I thank Dr P.T. de Silva, for directing me to Prof. Deen.
Gamini Panadura
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