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Saturday, 15 May 2010

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Government Gazette

G-15 Summit

The fourteenth Summit meeting of the G-15 nations will take place next Monday. The preliminary stage of the G-15 Conference which begins today (15) at the level of Secretaries would be followed by the Sunday meeting at Ministerial level.

The G-15 was originally set up at the Ninth Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Belgrade in 1989. Currently it has 18 members though the name G-15 remains unchanged. It is primarily a bloc of countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America that shares a common interest in bringing about a change in the world economic system, especially the world trading system.

Though much water has flowed under the bridge since then the principal objectives of the G-15 remain the same. The present Conference in Teheran would deal with economic cooperation among its members, new avenues for cooperation and review international developments since its last Conference.

Essentially a forum of South - South Cooperation the importance of G-15 is highlighted by the fact that several newly emerging powers are among its members. They are India, Brazil and Malaysia.

Among the leaders attending this Summit are President Lula da Silva of Brazil, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, President Ahamedinejad of Iran, President Bashar-al-Assad of Syria. President Mahinda Rajapaksa will assume the chair of G-15 at this Summit.

These countries have much potential for development. In fact, they are key players in the international struggle of the developing countries for a new economic order.

The Summit will forge consensus on the need for a change in the global economic system, particularly the need for changing the world trading system which is heavily biased against the developing countries.

Of much interest will be the exploration of possibilities to develop technological cooperation among its members.

Sri Lanka has a challenging task in taking over the leadership of the G-15 at this juncture when the world is engulfed in the deepest economic and financial crisis in the past 100 years. Fortunately regional cooperation remains a means for developing countries to avoid the adverse effects of the crisis brought about by untrammeled greed of the financial oligarchy in the global power houses - the US and Europe.

The advance of leading countries such as India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia has already compelled the Chairman of the World Bank to predict the end of the Third World. Sri Lanka by taking over the G-15 at this juncture could play a vital role in this unfolding transformation of the Third World.


The mess that is education

It has been revealed that nearly half (actually 49 percent) the candidates who sat the GCE (Ordinary Level) Examination in December 2009 had failed. The number that had not got a pass in a single subject is almost one-fifth (actually 19 percent).

These figures alone would demonstrate the mess to which education has fallen into in this country. Apparently everything, teaching, administration and learning, all have been unsuccessful. A large part of the blame should be shared by the administrators who did everything except administrating. This includes workshops in star class hotels, foreign jaunts, conducting the business of school examinations.

To make matters worse, the standard of education has fallen to such low depths due to lack of physical infrastructure, teacher shortages etc. that in nearly one fifth (to be exact 19 percent) of the schools the number of pupils had decreased to below 300. While the ill-fed rural and even urban schools faced closure, a handful of popular schools were bursting at the seams due to overcrowding posing a direct threat to the standards of teaching and management. The entire system of Grade One admissions became such a mess that the Supreme Court had to intervene to fix it.

The unenviable task of clearing this mess has been entrusted to the new Education Minister, who is not to blame for it. One could only sympathise with him. His predicament is not second to that of the new Health Minister.

However, the new Minister has wisely decided to take all stakeholders into confidence in sorting out the mess that is education. He has rightly called for a consensus on education policy.

We wish the Minister success.


 

Water will not be privatised

Poor people should be provided water at low cost. The public should be made aware of the social responsibility to protect water, purified water is being used by some people to wash vehicles and clothes. Clean water is a must for good health, so it is our duty to use water sparingly and by thinking about the future. These are the extracts of an interview conducted with Water Supply and Drainage Minister Dinesh Gunawardena. He is the leader of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and the Chief Government Whip

Full Story

The Morning Inspection - Malinda

What kind of hero do you want to be?

There are two kinds of radicals in universities. Well, to be honest, I can’t speak for today’s undergraduates. Back then, in the eighties there were two kinds of radicals and I suspect these two categories exist today as well, wearing different clothes, speaking different languages, screaming different slogans etc., but beneath it all, the same two individuals I noticed when I was an undergraduate.

Full Story

A probe to heal the wounds of war

On My Watch - Lucien Rajakarunanayake

Known widely as the San Francisco Conference, at this meeting of nations held in September 1951, it is accepted that JR Jayewardene representing what was then Ceylon, played a major role in admitting Japan back into the world community, after the enmities of war.

Full Story

 

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