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Saturday, 18 February 2012

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Hard realities about fuel

The violent reaction on the part of some sections to the rise in fuel prices could be traced to a considerable extent to the unexpected nature of the price hike. That is, the public was totally unprepared for the price announcement, nor did it bargain for so steep a rise. Accordingly, when the 'price blow' came many were floored.

However, it is not only the relatively steep hike in the prices that need to be factored in when assessing public reactions to the state decision. As pointed out in this commentary yesterday, there is the political dimension to be taken cognizance of and one should never forget the penchant on the part of subversive political forces to exploit situations which could deeply embarrass the government. In understanding the recent violence in Chilaw this possibility should be borne in mind and it should have been clear that a very complex scenario had arisen in the coastal town, which cannot be understood in simplistic terms.

Be that as it may, it is quite clear that sections of our public are somewhat in the dark about basic realities with regard to the use of fuel in this country and connected economic realities. It is the responsibility of the government to educate the people on these issues regularly and public reactions to the recent price announcement would not have taken the unsettling forms they did in some areas, if lucid explanations of price escalations and their causes were made to the public the way Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa did yesterday in this newspaper. The Minister elucidated the reasons for the fuel price hike and connected issues in the simplest terms and we hope this process would be taken forward with regard to many other issues on which the public would need to be fully informed.

Admittedly, the fuel picture is a highly complex one. Even sections of the more informed public may not have grasped the totality of the questions which constitutes the energy crunch and it is the responsibility of the state and other relevant sections to unravel the full dimensions of the problem. For instance, it may not be known by all that our vehicle population has more than doubled since 2003. The number of registered vehicles of numerous categories in 2003 stood at a little over two million. Today it stands at a little over four and a half million. Correspondingly, our fuel bill too should indicate an increase in the relevant expenses.

Likewise, according to informed sources, petrol consumption increased by a little over 14 percent in 2011. This corresponded with a rise in the demand for fuel in the North-East, on account of the opening up of the region for development, along with the revival of the region's fisheries sector and an increased demand for diesel, necessitated by our thermal power generation plants. These are just a few relevant facts which the observer needs to bear in mind while analyzing the present problems on the fuel consumption front.

However, true to its welfarist traditions, the Lankan state has been continuing to subsidize the prices of diesel and fuel down the years, notwithstanding the fact that the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has been labouring under astoundingly high losses.

Considering even these few facts, a fuel price rise could be considered justified, but what went wrong in this instance was that some sections of the public were not prepared for the change. If the state had spoken more to the public, perhaps, their apprehensions on this score could have been defused. However, those forces resorting to destructive politics would have, in any case, rendered the situation unmanageable for the relevant agencies of the state.

So, simplistic thinking needs to be shunned on these issues. The realities are complex and the challenges facing the state correspondingly difficult to overcome. However, disaffected sections would be only making their lot more difficult by falling for the dark schemes of political forces which are bent on adversarial and confrontationist politics. There needs to be mutual understanding and accommodation between the state and those crying 'foul' over public questions that are divisive.

‘Make universities strategic partners in development’

In Sri Lanka there are 15 universities with an academic strength of around 4,500, including about 500 Professors and Associate Professors and over 1,750 Senior Lecturers with PhDs or equivalent qualifications. An appreciable number of these senior academics are promising scientists,

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Their rights and ours

On Wednesday, Minister of Water Supply and Drainage and Chief Government Whip Dinesh Gunawardena was reported as saying the United States of America was pressurising Sri Lanka without knowing the full facts.

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Lessons Learnt of the LLRC

The latest reaction from the United States, which had from the outset indicated it was keeping an open mind on the LLRC, was encouraging. There was no outright rejection of its findings, but a more balanced position as seen from the comments made by Under Secretary Maria Otero and also echoed by Assistant Secretary Robert Blake at the conclusion of their visit to Sri Lanka earlier this week,

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Bountiful heart from Karachi, artist Jimmy Engineer is here once again

A unique artist, Jimmy has created his aesthetic vocabulary sourced by his own inner vision. He says: ‘My inspiration was addressed by nature. Sometimes I was motivated by children I saw in the streets, also people who were suffering and those who had nothing in their lives. Without inspiration, I could not paint’,

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