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I read with interest Jagath Savanadasa's article on President
Rajapaksa's visit to St John's Nugegoda on March 27 published in your
newspaper of April 8 and wish to add the following.
The article includes memorable insights into the institution's
history and products. It may be pertinent to mention for the sake of
record a few more landmarks.
(a) St John's first began as a Christian missionary school in 1915 at
the height of British rule. It was then a mixed school.
(b) In 1935 following the clamour for a separate school for girls the
institution was divided and St John's boys school came into existence.
(c) Among the first students of the boys' school were brothers Jungle
and Jingle Dissanayake, Dr R Abeyratna the Dean of the Faculty of
Medicine. All three of them however completed their school education
later at Royal College, Colombo.
(d) Jingle Dissanayake and later Cyril Herath another distinguished
Johnian who also completed his education at Royal, became Inspectors
General of Police. Cyril Herath also became Defence Secretary
culminating an outstanding public service career.
(e) Among the other brilliant students of my time were Niel
Bandaranayake who entered the coveted Civil Service and ended his career
as a Permanent Secretary, George Candappa, President's Counsel and Even
Melder of the World Bank.
This letter is just to supplement the article. It is not intended to
take the shine off Jagath Savanadasa's many vital contributions towards
documenting the history of this leading school.
Capt Douglas de Silva Homagama
The ballot paper designed and printed for the General Election held
on April 8 is far from satisfactory. The public has not been adequately
educated of the concept of the design and the selection of their
optional votes.
The names of the parties contesting look almost identical in print
and pronunciation. When there are so many parties with similar names,
the voter is in a quandary to find out the name of the candidates of
his, her choice. A notice is displayed outside the hall displaying the
names of the candidates and the font of the print used cannot be read
even with the support of a magnifying glass. To read the full list, you
will have to have a support of a sitting chair to stand on or a small
ladder as they are hung above the eyes, horizon.
Most of the voters enter the hall with the thinking that the name of
their preferential candidate is appearing in the ballot paper and his
duty is only to mark a 'X' in front of the name. But, the ballot paper
contains only the names of the parties contesting. Of course it is
admitted that all the names of the candidates cannot be printed in the
ballot paper as they runs to a few hundreds.
In this case, a conspicuous notice should have been displayed at the
entrance of the polling booth advising the voters to select the
preferential number of their candidate before the receipt of the ballot
paper. A list of names in bigger fonts should be displayed in one or two
places.
These are only intelligent thinking that the polling staff should
have thought of before the conduct of the poll.
J Nagodavithana Nugegoda
The Election result of April 2010, clearly is an indictment on the
Leader of the UNP, Ranil Wickremesinghe. In 2004 - 3.7 million people
cast their vote for the UNP at the General Election. This election the
numbers have dropped to 2.2 million, which reflects the disinterest of
the UNP voter to cast their vote to their party and instead kept away
from exercising his/her franchise.
The UNP is the oldest party and led this country and made many Prime
Ministers and Presidents. In the 2010 General Election the UNP Leader
shamelessly exited from contesting and backed Sarath Fonseka, knowing
very well that he would face defeat and thereby his leadership will be
subject to challenge before this Parliamentary Election.
Any self respecting leader would stand down from the leadership as he
has to take total responsibility for the defeat and not blame the
system, but it is a known fact that Ranil Wickremesinghe will not hand
over the leadership and would continue to hold on to the UNP leadership
up to the next Presidential Election and even after losing that, he
would say that still he is younger than his uncle J R Jayewardene, who
became the President at the age of 72 and would want to stand for
General Election. This is the apathy of the UNP members and the public
who support the UNP which has been their party for decades.
Ranil Wickremesinghe is known to be a very selfish politician. He
ruined the Colombo Municipal Council in the year 2002 when he denied
Omar Kamil the opportunity of contesting the Council as the Mayoralty
candidate. Thereafter in 2006 he was responsible for having manipulated
the Nomination List by permitting his close confidante in changing and
tepexing names of people who have already signed the nomination list and
thereafter the Nomination List itself was rejected by the Elections
Commissioner as an invalid list.
At that time he was subject to pressure to step down as he has openly
supported Milinda Moragoda and Mohamed Mahroof for the invalidated
Nomination List. Although 45 or 50 percent Members of Parliament who
have won under the UNP in 2004 defected for his weak leadership, still
he refused to stand aside and allow the party to go down while he too
was slipping down.
The UNP has no future with Ranil Wickremesinghe and it is very sad
that honourable men like Karu Jayasuriya, Rukman Senanayake among others
are languishing in the Opposition ranks, while he is still holding the
post of Leader of Opposition, continues to enjoy the perks of a Cabinet
Minister with over 150 Security Personnel and other facilities that goes
with the position. What a shame and why can't UNPers realise that they
will get nowhere, with this leader except ending up in the debris of the
polls.
M N Perera Colombo 6
We have already started teaching the public. The credit must go to
the Colombo Municipal Council workshop and engineers. For over an year
the new 'CMC Engineers English' is displayed to the public. To my
knowledge no one has written to the newspaper on this. Is it because we
readers have accepted our re-education in English by the CMC? Here are
some of the changes in my area:
Street names
In the Wellawatte area alone here are the changes in street names:
Originally Now in CMC English
Canal Road Cannel Road
Hampden Lane Hamden Lane
Pennyquick Lane Penniequick Lane
Grero Place Grairo Place
Pereira Lane Pareira Lane
Peterson road Perterson Road
Here is a change in the huge overhead sign with road directions on W A
Silva Mw.
Peterson Road Perterson Road
There are others all over the city. I request other readers to write
in and complete the record.
Changing road names. The CMC workshop changed the name. It is not a
decision of the Council members.
Flower Road (in Colombo 7) Malpara
Front Street (in Pettah) would it become Issaraha Para
Gasworks Street (in Pettah) would it become Waatha Kammal Para
The CMC does the letter painting at its Maradana workshop. Earlier
the road signs were re done on contract with a firm.
What is amazing is why cannot the engineers devise a simple way to
prevent these errors. Even if the engineers do not know enough English,
surely a copy can be made of the original spelling before it is erased
for re painting? Or use one of the many road directories available in
bookshops.
Is it the lack of intelligence and commitment to the job by Municipal
engineers?
W R P Wellawatte
I was a patient in Ward No. 25 (surgical) and the Intensive Care Unit
(Medical) of the above hospital for a about a week in December, 2009 for
a major surgery.
This letter is written in appreciation of the services rendered by
the doctors as well as nurses and the minor staff to all patients in the
Ward and the ICU. They are duty conscious and courteous and always
prepared to help the patients irrespective of their status. Further both
the Ward and the ICU are well maintained and the toilets kept clean at
all times.
H W Goonesekera Panadura
The road from Colombo to Galle named Galle Road which passes through
several towns including Moratuwa, had a new diversion at the Cross
Junction in Moratuwa up to Egodauyana (Moratuwa) joining Walana (Panadura)
with a new bridge.
This took place in the 1970s during the stewardship of the writer,
when he was the MP for Moratuwa from 1970-77. He acceded to the requests
of several social service organisations in Moratuwa South and started
the project.
It is true however that the proposal could not be concluded during
his time and his successor, the late Tyronne Fernando completed the
construction whilst Minister Fowzie supplied electricity to the new
road.
People correctly called the old Galle Road section from Cross
Junction to the Digarolle Bridge, 'Old Galle Road' and the new diversion
upto the new bridge (Egodauyana-Walana) 'New Galle Road'. Recently
however the City Fathers in Moratuwa have named the old Galle Road
section 'W D Amaradeva Mawatha' and the new diversion 'Tyronne Fernando
New Galle Road'.
This change is quite uncalled for, since Galle Road should continue
to carry this name if at all the Moratuwa City Fathers want to honour W.
D. Amaradeva and the late Tyronne Fernando, they could very well name
two other roads in the villages of Koralawella and Laxapathiya
respectively from where the two respectable Moratuwites hail.
A similar change took place in the past when the then Urban Council
changed the name of 'Moratuwa Railways Station Road' to 'E T de Silva
Mawatha' and the 'Egodauyana Railway Station Road' to 'T. L. C. Peiris
Mawatha'. However people still continue to call the two roads 'Moratuwa
Railway Station Road' and 'Egodauyana Railway Station Road'.
Incidentally it might be mentioned that all the above mentioned roads
are maintained by the Highways Department, and not by the Moratuwa
Municipal Council. Public opinion should be sought and wiser counsel
should prevail in changing existing names of roads.
WIMALASIRI DE MEL Moratuwa
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