Daily News Online
http://www.liyathabara.com/   Ad Space Available Here  

Saturday, 2 February 2013

Home

 | SHARE MARKET  | EXCHANGE RATE  | TRADING  | OTHER PUBLICATIONS   | ARCHIVES | 

dailynews
 ONLINE


OTHER PUBLICATIONS


OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified
Government Gazette

GOOD NEWS IS NOT NEWS?!

The surest sign that Sri Lanka is a functional democracy that is a shining beacon of hope for her people, and the entire Asian region perhaps, is the fact that newspapermen these days are looking for human interest stories on education, social issues etc., to fill their news and comment spaces. War is definitely not on the news radar, there being no hostilities since 2009. The brief storm in the teacup over the impeachment has definitely abated.

Differently put, newshounds and commentators find that there is no calamity that is halfway real about which to beat their breasts. Imagined disasters and fantasy doomsday scenarios can take sensationalists only so far, as they cannot sustain any real reportage with that kind of fiction.

They have no choice therefore, but to write about the unfortunate but bright and beautiful law student who had the bad fortune to have her hand amputated due to medical negligence, or about the seemingly confused and accident prone 'snake girl.' Or, the commentariat has to write about dengue, or the new marriage registrar's fees that are incurred by the Veddah community ...

Obviously, when the bad news is about -- broadly speaking -- marginal concerns of that sort, it is the surest sign that the country is functional, it is brimming with hope, and that for the first time in decades, things are beginning to happen in an atmosphere of peace and security, in which there is room for a contestation of ideas, but there isn't any room for disruptive conflict and rebellion without a cause.

This is precisely what makes the Cassandras and those who perceive themselves to be on the losing side of the war unhappy, which is why they take the slightest societal disturbance and try to make a mountain out of each such molehill. Those who perceive themselves as being on the losing side of the war, are not the Tamil people of course.

Curiously, its not any part of the population that feels aggrieved either, in Killinochchi or in Colombo, about the fact that that the vermin horde called the LTTE was eliminated.

But its the marginal actors that thrived in the misery of others that are most unhappy today that there is no news except good news by and large, that makes journalists have to go behind negative stories, and cling on to one when they find one -- because they feel that good news is not news!

That little back-burner stories are sometimes headline news in today's national dailies and weeklies, is however, a good thing because issues that should be resolved, such as the relatively high price of vegetables, are getting the attention they deserve. This is a sign that in a maturing society, people's day-to-day concerns get the priority that is requisite. The reality used to be quite different.

Legitimate concerns about kitchen and school-room issues used to get subsumed in the past in the vast bog of negative war reportage, and in the cacophony of static about the so called governance issues. But, the people now seem to have reclaimed the right to manage their own lives.

In this permeating atmosphere of hope and optimism, it will be good to look around and convert the saboteurs and the nattering nabobs, and make them realize that they too have a great deal to contribute to the collective rebound of the people. But, the fact is that the Paikiasothys and the Weliamunas and Jehans are such consummate no-hopers.

Some people cannot be weaned away from the bad they do, and the misery they regularly seek to perpetuate. These people are wedded to the dark-side, and it is not as if they refuse to see reason; it's just that they are impelled by the sinister urges of sabotaging, retarding or outright destroying.

But, those who seek a good life for the people ought not to quit trying. The more the saboteurs try to destroy the progressive trend, the more nonchalantly positive the rest of us should resolve to be ..

Vasu, DO NOT KILL Ananda Samarakoon again

In December 2010, it was reported that the Cabinet of Sri Lanka headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa had taken a decision to scrap the Tamil translation of Sri Lanka Matha at official and state functions, as “in no other country was the national anthem used in more than one language”

Full Story

Canada’s colonial oppression of its FIRST NATIONS

It is interesting to know that while shouting out so much about the treatment of Sri Lanka’s Tamil people, with little regard to the context of an extended period of terrorism, in which all communities in this country were affected; Canada is itself oppressing her own important minority – the aboriginal or indigenous people Canada - known as the First Nations.

Full Story

 

EMAIL |   PRINTABLE VIEW | FEEDBACK |

ANCL TENDER for CTP PLATES
KAPRUKA - Valentine's Day Gift Delivery in Sri Lanka
Destiny Mall & Residency
Casons Rent-A-Car
LANKAPUVATH - National News Agency of Sri Lanka
www.army.lk
Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL)
www.news.lk
www.defence.lk
Donate Now | defence.lk
www.apiwenuwenapi.co.uk

| News | Editorial | Business | Features | Political | Security | Sport | World | Letters | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2013 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor