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| Sunday, 20 January 2002 |
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Letters |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The Peoples Alliance which comprises former red shirts and marxists who shamelessly resorted to communalism in the past (Marx and Trotsky would have turned in their graves) for sheer political existence, once again tried to create anti - tamil feeling indirectly, to attract Sinhala rural voters at the hustings by letting loose false allegations against the UNP and the UNP leader. The antics of renegade mediamen who turned the state print media into 'Begalgederas' and the electronic media into 'viroopavahiniyas' giving abode to 'Mada Pahaharayas,' failed miserably to mislead the masses. In contrast, the UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, maintained a gentlemanly posture throughout campaign as expected of a national leader. He did not hurl abuse at his opponents though he and his party were the target of a vicious campaign. He called for restraint and tolerance when his opponents resorted to an invitation to a murder call. The people yearn for peace. They want an end to the war. The country needs a resurgence of the economy which has fallen into a mess. Towards that end the people have given their verdict. They voted for a change of Government. They want Ranil Wickremesinghe to lead the country towards peace and prosperity. The UNF Government headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe, of course, has to deliver the goods. To do so the people should cooperate by staying calm. Extremists and saboteurs should not be permitted to create disturbances and chaos to prevent solutions to national problems, being implemented. Discipline should be maintained and the law should be enforced without favouritism and discrimination. It is equally necessary that political sycophants and henchmen
especially in high places, including the Police, who brought the public
service into disrepute and turned a blind eye to wrong doing, who resorted
to corruption, be sent home whilst taking disciplinary action against the
miscreants as a deterrent. May I suggest to reintroduce the Wealth Tax. This would help the Tax Department to net the tax evaders to a greater extent. In addition it would help the collection of additional tax from the
rich. We are a recently formed national NGO involved in AIDS activities and located in the outskirts of Colombo. On 29th November 2001 we tried to contact the Director AIDS Programme of the Health Ministry on the official telephone (695183), which gave a recorded reply stating that the "Number you dialled is temporarily out of service" (probably due to non-payment of bills). One of our members who went to the AIDS Unit found that the Director had gone abroad. On 13th December 2001 we again attempted to contact this Director and got the same reply on the phone. When we went to the AIDS Unit, we found that the Director's room closed. On inquiry we found that the Director had again gone abroad. Our objective in meeting the Director was to get a true picture of the AIDS problem in Sri Lanka before submitting a project proposal for funds. There appears to be some confusion about the number of cases of AIDS in Sri Lanka. The Health Ministry gives one figure and the World Bank estimates are almost double. Where are these patients located and what are their occupations ?All over the world it is mostly NGOs who care for AIDS patients. In Sri Lanka we are unable to get even the districts where these patients are located so that we could concentrate our activities on some of these areas. If the Director AIDS is able to go abroad twice in two weeks solving World AIDS problems where is the time to solve national problems ? May be they are "Blue Eyed" persons. Will the new Minister of Health please help us ? Sri Lanka, the paradise isle to all of us, where man and beast roamed freely undisturbed by animosity resentment and violence, is now threatened by terrorism. Their minds are turbulent with anger causing bloodshed and hatred. This everlasting battle should be extinguished resulting in
reconciliation, then only will our beautiful island be a haven of
happiness, freedom and peace. The jury trial is one arena that has attracted a considerable amount of attention from psychologists. One important line of research on juries considered the effect of the selections of jurors on the outcome of trials. In some countries like the United States where the jury selection is carried out by both the prosecution and the defense the involvement of psychologists play a crucial role in the outcome of the trial. Lawyers tend to look for specific prejudices and overlook the possibility that a juror may harbour certain psychological dispositions that will influence his or her reaction to the evidence. Detecting such psychological factors can allow jurors with unfavourable predisposition to be screened out. Psychologists who study these dispositions of jurors may thus be able to furnish lawyers with information that can help them win their cases. Psychologists have made an effort to locate general factors that might predict jurors' decisions. Jurors who are under thirty years of age tend to be more lenient than older jurors are. Jurors who are high on authoritarianism are often more punitive than jurors who are low in authoritarianism. Jurors who believe that crime is primarily a product of "bad people" are more likely to vote to convict a defendant than are jurors who believe that crime is the result of social conditions. Jurors with more education tend to be more lenient than jurors with less education. Jury composition also can have an effect on the verdict. For example, socially undesirable jurors cause other jurors to take an opposite stand. Thus if you are a lawyer, selecting a socially disreputable juror who is sure to vote against your client would be fruitful. For most cases that reach a jury the evidence is so powerful that there
is little likelihood of personal values influencing the conclusion. Most
of the time judges and juries agree in their verdicts. Most jurors try to
shed their prejudices and make impartial decisions. But when the case is
ambiguous, however, a psychologist's participation in the jury selection
seems to count. It is a shameful situation that being such a small minority, the Muslims of Sri Lanka cannot agree on the date of Ramadan festival. The tug of war of prestige between the so called "leaders of the Muslim Society" not only left the ordinary Muslim citizens confused and bewildered on such an important issue, but also made us a laughing stock for the other ethnic groups. It had been a well-known secret that the Trustee board of the Grand Mosque decide on these important dates, arbitrarily without following the guidelines laid down in the Shariah. And that they never give a hearing to those from Jamiathul Ulema - the rightful leaders of the Islamic society, but publish their own views as that of Jamiathul Ulema. The latter too is blameworthy, since they never come out in the open publicly, maybe for respect for social harmony. But for the last three years Allah brought this hypocrisies out into the open, but even then the Trustees continued in their own way - out of ignorance or arrogance, one cannot say, overruling majority ulemas opinion. This is one reason why some intelligentsia opted to conclude their own decisions regarding the dates of the festivals. Though, according to Shariah, the common man should follow the Religious leaders, when he has no religious knowledge enough to discern what is right. Here the matter of "who are the religious leaders of Sri Lanka?" itself became questionable. It is a blessing in disguise that this year everything came out into open there the Grand Mosque Trustee board blatantly refused to accept the witnessing of trustworthy Muslims, and that too at a time when the new Minister to Muslim Cultural Affairs had been appointed. people can see very clearly where the fault lies. However, the Muslims must realise that these decisions are not trivial matters. it is not a mere fact of celebrating the festival one-day or another. A grave matter of fasting or giving up fasting - which is a mandatory duty of every Muslim - comes into question. Therefore whoever who decides wrongly will have to bear the sin of all those who followed their decisions. If anyone out there is adhering to their decisions irrespective of it
being wrong, let them beware of Allah's Wrath on such crucial matters.
Besides, it is ugly to see the Muslims - who are supposed to be the flag
bearers of Peace - fight publicly on matters, of all things, religious. It
is the politicians who give clout to the wrongdoers. Therefore we, the
Muslim Ummah urge them humbly, to please sort out their differences behind
closed doors and to unite in guiding the Ummath in the straight path. Official figures reveal that there are nearly nine hundred thousand Sri Lankan expatriate workers employed in high level, middle level and low level jobs in countries of the Middle East, Europe and other countries like America, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea etc. etc. who have most unwillingly bade goodbye to their near and dear ones and left the shores of Mother Lanka with the main objective of earning a 'fortune' for their future well-being and stability. Their remittances to Sri Lanka in hard currency is said to run into colossal millions of dollars per annum, which undoubtedly have helped every Government to build its foreign reserves to an appreciable level. Time and again, these migrant workers have pinpointed the grave injustice done to them by every Government in not taking meaningful action for them to vote at Presidential, Parliamentary, Provincial Council and Local Government elections. Their pleas appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Though the names of these unfortunate persons appear in the Electoral Registers of the country, they are however deprived of this civic right as they happen to reside in foreign countries. The funniest part of this episode is that unscrupulous persons are prone to impersonate their votes at elections in the mother country, hoodwinking even Polling Agents who are expected to identify voters or raise objections if any voter has come to impersonate someone or other. In other words an indirect encouragement is given on a platter to dishonest people to make hay while the sun shines. Many countries like England, Germany, Switzerland, France, USA, the Netherlands and our immediate neighbour India had made adequate provisions in their electoral systems to enable their migrant compatriots to exercise their civic rights at elections in their mother countries by casting their votes at the various Embassies, High Commissions, Trade Missions, Consulates etc. It shows that these countries have held the sanctity of the 'vote' in high esteem while our own country on the other hand has profaned its inviolability. It is possible that previous Governments would have encountered constitutional difficulties in giving legal effect to this requirement without introducing amendments to the election laws of the country. Hence it would have pigeonholed this crucial change for attention later. Now that a new Government is in the saddle commanding a comfortable majority in Parliament, it is hoped that this civic right would be bestowed on our compatriots soon as the Government is now making arrangements to move the 17th amendment to the Constitution within the next few days which would enable it to cast aside barriers hampering the smooth functioning of the Government machinery. The granting of this right would be considered by all citizens as a
feather in the cap of the new Government. "Sellam Gedara" - a children's program which telecasts on Mondays at 7.30 p.m. on ITN is known as one of the finest programs which telecasts on behalf of children. Plenty of people admire it and kids love it. The name on its own builds a nice picture in our mind about our lovely childhood. But pathetically, kids dressed up like grown up people act in numerous incidents in buses, offices etc. The objective of a children's program should be appropriate for children. Those programs should teach them good qualities, manners etc. But, the director of 'Selam Gedara' seems to portray a child as an adult, in order to show the meekness of adults. I appreciate the acting of those kids, of course, their acting is superb. But there are plenty of children who watch this in front of the screen.
Once the kids of 'Sellam Gedera' acted out the unscrupulous method that
parents resort to, when they want to enter a child to school. Children who
watch these things try to imitate them. So Sellam Gedara totally distorts
the tender minds of children. Development Banks getting their role mixed up A meeting attended by key office-bearers of the various provincial chambers of commerce was held in November to discuss problems faced by entrepreneurs and industrialists of this country. The consensus was that there were 3 fundamental problems faced by this sector that can be identified as follows: 1. lack of a proper official policy towards the small and medium scale industrialists. 2. The lethargy in the state sector. 3. Absence of adequate sources of long-term finance needed to under take long-term capital investments. One reason for the PA's failure to generate employment was that their seemingly anti-business policies failed to create the required level of confidence needed to encourage investments. In the absence of investments there was no creation of employment which resulted in unemployment rates going sky high. Participants of the meeting were optimistic that this situation could be corrected by the newly installed UNP regime. However it is unlikely that the third problem, inadequacy of long-term lenders, could be corrected by any government unless decisive action is taken by the new Finance Minister and the Central Bank. In the past this function was fulfilled by the then government owned NDB which was competing aggressively with the semi-government DFCC. They did an excellent role in granting medium and long-term loans under the SMI projects with the support of the rest of the banks in this country. Where an Industrialist could not get a facility from one of the private banks they could easily go to DFCC or NDB and get the same facility very often on better terms even though it may have taken a little longer time to process the facility. Today there are many large industrialists who started in a very small way thanks to the assistance given by NDB and DFCC under their SMI loans. Sadly, today the situation is quite different as both institutions are obsessed with short term profits. Rather than engaging in their original task of nation building through long-term lending, they are engaged in short-term lending through their own commercial banking arms and other forms of lending such as leasing, hire purchase and short-term loans. It was the opinion that both these institutions had got into some sort of a cocoon after having bad experiences in lending excessively to one or two sectors of our economy. In the case of DFFC it can be their over exposure to the prawn farming and real estate sector and NDB's commitments to the garment industry. Simply because they burnt their fingers on one or two sectors it does not mean that all the other sectors should suffer. With the new government in power there are indications that there will be an early settlement to the war situation in the North and East. This will mean that a vital need will arise in this country for the development banks to play a major role in developing the Northern and Eastern provinces which have been totally neglected. When the development banks have such an important role to play it is difficult to understand how these two institutions have decided that their role is not in development lending but in commercial banking. The monetary authorities should give all the possible assistance to
these institutions to get back into their core business of development
lending if necessary by re-capitalising NDB and DFCC and making available
new lines of credit. Once their capital resources are strengthened these
two institutions can play the expected role in the rebuilding of our
beloved country without experimenting with commercial banking. We continue to encourage all communities to end the conflict which has had such a terrible and costly impact in Sri Lanka. The new government leader, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has invited all the parties to work together. I think it will be wonderful if all communities - Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim who have lived together for so long can respond positively to this call. All of us are hoping that the future will be a blessed and peaceful one
for Sri Lankans everywhere and we expect that this transformation of
society will be realised under the new Government of Sri Lanka. Mr. Gotabya B. Kirimani (an engineering student USA) suggests to the Ministry of Power and Energy to distribute free of charge energy saving C.F.L (Compact Florescent Lamps) bulbs to every household in the country in order to overcome the power crisis". He claims that it would reduce electricity consumption on lighting purpose by 80% and the total electricity consumption of the country by 50%. He has failed to take to account the energy consumed by other household appliances such as iron, refrigerator etc. Therefore whether this strategy would obviate the necessity for new power plants, remains a moot question. Be that as it may, Mr. Kirimani's manifestly bona fide proposal will invariably be hailed by one and all as laudable, but seemingly it is not feasible for the government to supply CFL bulbs free, which according to him entails a colossal sum of Rs. 5 billion, especially at a time when it is supposed to be confronted with and unprecedented economic crisis as well. However, there is no gainsaying the fact that CFL bulbs save energy and thereby reduces the electricity consumption substantially. But, the bulbs are beyond the reach of middle and lower income groups on account of the exorbitant price. In this context, I am of the view that most pragmatic approach to the problem is to launch a scheme that will afford every householder an opportunity to purchase his entire requirement of CFL bulbs in bulk on instalment basis, preferably at a reduced price. Electricity Board and the Electricity Co. Ltd. could be entrusted with the task of giving effect to the proposed scheme, as it is convenient for them to include the instalments in the monthly electricity bills. Payment of instalments in this manner will strains not be much of a strain to the customers since the electricity charges will be decreased correspondingly as they will be using CFL bulbs. Instead, it will serve as an impetus to replace ordinary bulbs with CFL bulbs. Electricity Co. is already providing 4 CFL bulbs to a household and recover the cost in instalments, which are included in the monthly electricity bills. On the contrary, this scheme does not involve any extra expenditure. If the latter suggestion is implemented forthwith it will help ease the
power crisis situation to an appreciable extent, whilst at the same time
will benefit the people, who possibly will not hesitate to avail of this
facility immediately they become aware of the scheme, which should be
given publicity. New slaughter house for Colombo A news item in the Sunday Observer of December 16 under the title "New abattoir equipped for humane slaughter", refers to Colombo Municipal Council's plans to construct a new slaughter house at Dematagoda in place of the present abattoir at the same place. This slaughter house, "equipped for humane slaughter," is to be constructed with "new infra-structural requirements, buildings and equipment at a cost of Rs. 243 million". The vegetarian organisations in Sri Lanka are deeply interested in the humane treatment of animals. In our view, what is called humane slaughter is not part of the humane treatment of animals. Moreover, cattle slaughter is abhorrent to the large majority of Buddhists and Hindus of Sri Lanka. We have a vigorous on-going movement among Buddhists, which seeks to reduce and if possible eliminate this practice, which they intensely dislike. In that context, we have a few questions to pose to the CMC in regard to this project. Rs. 243 million is a very large sum of money and it appears that the Council is embarking on a project of expanding the slaughtering capacity at Dematagoda. A larger abattoir will be a waste of money unless it is for more slaughter than is presently done. We would like to know how much larger is the killing capacity of the new abattoir and how is this capacity expected to be utilise? If there has been no increase in the demand for beef, which we think is the case, having a larger killing capacity may lead to a dangerous temptation to create new demand. We certainly do not like to see the premier local body of Sri Lanka in the business of promoting the consumption of beef, i.e. the killing of more and more cattle. Secondly, Dematagoda is situated in the heart of our very congested capital city. It is impossible to rear animals for beef in or around Colombo. With its larger capacity, from where will the abattoir get the animals for slaughter? Will it not be from distant rural areas, as it is at present? All over the world, some of the worst instances of animal abuse occur in the course of transport of cattle to the slaughter house. How will the new abattoir contribute to better treatment of animals in this regard? We must sincerely express our third and worst fear. And that is how can
the CMC guarantee that the new abattoir, with its increased killing
capacity, will not lead to exporting meat from our island to other parts
of the world? This is an aspect of immense concern to all Buddhists,
Hindus and animal welfarists. The CMC must address this issue and make its
plans explicit, as the public has every right to expect from it.
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