11th July, 2004 Volume 10, Issue 52 |
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Letters |
How can we identify a Buddhist monk now?
The
Buddhist monk is not supposed to be a man with a short hair cut, wrist
watch, tinted eye glasses, with mobile phone, elevator sandals, carrying a
brief case and dressed in a Roman toga of red, maroon or brown colour. So
who is this man or men like him. They are increasing in number. Am I to get
up and give him my seat in a bus? Where do we draw the line? If this man
comes in a green or blue coloured toga am I to consider him as a Buddhist
monk? When
will the people of this country realise that when there in this type of men
there is potential for inter religious, if not, civil conflict? Denrot
President
playing havoc with people's freedoms I
am an old man, a retired journalist. In my day there was only one newspaper
worth talking about. It was the Gospel, the Oracle. It reported the
country's daily life with power and authority. But now, I am told, that
people have begun to call it by all kinds of names like, The Daily Noise,
The Daily Joke and such. Yet, I know people who think it is still a great
buy in this day and age when real toilet paper is so very expensive. Do
I still buy this paper? Sure. For the advertisements and death notices. It's
a habit, you see. Increasingly, like a bad habit because I can't believe a
word of what it says. How can you when a newspaper thinks that all in the
government are cowboys (and girls) and all in the opposition are crooks?
Surely there must be a cowboy or two in the opposition too! Something seems
to be very rotten in the Republic of Sri Lanka when characters of good men
and women are daily assassinated in screaming headlines by this newspaper
which is expected to be the model for all others. What
is frightening is that all this bare-faced lying is accompanied by a kind of
hubris, a shameless daring. They seem to be enjoying what they are doing.
Don't they see their shameless wallowing in the political mire as polluting
all genuine journalists and journalism? There seems to be a calculated
conspiracy, an editorial policy to hoodwink this country into a Mugabe's
Zimbabwe, a military junta's Myanmar, or a Hitler's Germany. Are they trying
to compel us into a cult of the dear leader as in Kim's North Korea, where,
the 'Dear Leader' is all over the newspapers and the walls; where the 'Dear
Leader' is busy making nukes while the people go hungry? How else can we
explain all the words and the noises of the President daily editorialised
and glorified while news about the plight of the country is glossed over or
misreported? As
one connected to the institution in the past, knowing the standards we had
always maintained there, the question I have is: aren't there at least a few
good men over there who will stand up to this sham, this great deception? If
I am to believe all what people say: that the walls of that great House by
the Lake are studded with the eyes and the ears of the Big Sister watching
and listening: that there are Sandanaya goons (mainly the JVP kind who have
the necessary expertise) with guns behind the desks; and that the place is
teeming with spies reporting directly to the Presidential Secretariat? Then,
I can try to understand this new KGB here in Sri Lanka. Could it be possible
that all the infamous muck of the Beira Lake and the sewage lines of Colombo
have converged on this institution to produce this poisonous stink? From
what I see, this beloved country is in deep trouble and there seems to be no
way out: A President playing havoc with people's freedoms and the state
media dancing to her tune and singing her praises! To
whom can we appeal? To the Supreme Court? To the Chief Justice? Retired
journalist Madame
Hitler and her Gestapo Madame
Hitler may be away but her Gestapo is in action. The
attempt to abduct Ravi Karunanayake was aborted and the A.S.P who had been
entrusted with the task, looked distinctly sheepish and foolish, being
unable to provide any valid reason for the attempted abduction. But it was
frightening in its implications. It
was too closely reminiscent of the JVP abductions of former years when
opponents were forcibly taken away from their homes, never to be seen alive
again. Are
we sliding back to the horrible deeds of that period? Are opponents of the
P. A. / JVP (mis) Alliance to be abducted like this? If it can happen to a
prominent MP, what hope for humble 'puravasiyo' like us. Frightened 'Best
Speaker' did not deserve the accolade! Let
me introduce myself as a lover of the English language. I have attended
virtually all the All Island Best Speakers Contests held in Colombo year in
year out. The
last one was no exception. Armed with an invitation, purchased for Rs. 100,
I took my seat by 5.20pm at the Colombo Plaza and waited expectantly for the
show to begin. In
the past I have been enthralled by the sheer speaking genius of wonderful
public speakers of the calibre of Mohamed Adamally (if I remember right, was
the first 'Champion Speaker' of this contest) followed by equally gifted,
top quality speakers such as the suave Rajiv Gunatilleke, talented stage
personality Feroze Kamaldeen, the eloquent and articulate Dyan Seneviratne;
lady champion speakers such as ex TNL's news anchor Michelle Perera and the
well known English teacher, Jamna Pathmanathan. With
the memory of such unforgettable entertainment etched in my mind and starved
of good English events I eagerly awaited this year's contest. What
a rude shock I received. Standards had dropped alarmingly, epitomized by the
'performance' of the eventual, pathetic winner. Most well informed, unbiased
non Toastmasters in the audience felt that the so-called winner did NOT
deserve the accolade of A 1 Public Speaker of the Island for 2004. I
prefer to live with the memory of those great champion speakers of the past
and shall never attend this so-called All Island Best Speakers Contest
again. Shame! Basil
C. Fernando, Hobson's
choice for Muralitharan There
appears to be a tug of war, regarding Murali's visit to Australia.
On one side High profile persons like Ricky Pontin,Shane Warne and
John Howard, (now with a complete turn around) are inviting Murali with open
arms. Some sections of the biased media, and sinister unseen hands seem to
hold the other end of the rope. The
other day a query about Murali was raised by a member of the Channel 7-news
panel. The leader of the panel without even inquiring what the query was, at
the sound of Murali's name, went into a xenophobic fit.
He exclaimed: "Muralidaran!, So what about him? If he is a
chucker, he is a chucker, and if he is a cheat, he is cheat."
Now his arrogant, puerile outburst was on national TV. These words
would have been music to the ears of people who are already biased against
Murali. Under
these unfavorable conditions , we fully appreciate Murali's decision not to
come to Australia. It appears that a stage is set for another bout of
humiliation and insults. After
all he not only holds a world record, but he holds a squeaky clean record
both on and off the field. He was never accused of ball tampering, boorish
and uncouth behaviour, match fixing, drug abuse or sexual misconduct. He
is head and shoulders above the rest of the high profile sportsmen. The
humiliation, insults and innuendoes not only hurt
him but millions of his admirers and the
country he represents. So Murali rest on your laurels and keep doing
whatever you are expected to do in Sri Lanka. F.S.R.
Jayamanne Priorities
for Amunugama and Jayasundara Despite
the difficulties and opposition from the JVP, it is clear that the new
Minister of Finance, Dr. Sarath Amunugama, and his Secretary Dr. P. B.
Jayasundara, are keen on adopting economic policies which will not be
harmful to the country in the medium to long-term. Whatever promises given
at election time these two seem to have realised that promises are easier to
make than to fulfill. Now it is upto them to convince others in the cabinet,
particularly the JVP'ers who know next to nothing on public finance, and of
the need to follow sound macroeconomic policies. Otherwise, inflation will
pick up, prices will rise and the government will be voted out of power. What
is most difficult would be to convince the JVP'ers who only yesterday were
blissfully giving election promises, one after another, not pausing to think
how to fulfill them. This has always been the case with even other political
parties. But having been in and out of power for the last 50 years, failing
to fulfill election promises was not an issue to the UNP and SLFP. But the
JVP is not prepared to let down the masses without a fight and after all,
their reputation is at stake. This will make the task of the
Amunugama-Jayasundara duo next to impossible. But
there are other far easier ways in which this duo could help the small and
medium sectors involved in agriculture, industry, horticulture, fisheries,
acquaculture, transportation, power generation and so many other sectors
that actively create employment, by way of direct and indirect taxes. A
major mistake of the UNF was to neglect these sectors totally. Not only were
they denied any exchange and tariff based protection but they were also
deprived of the services available from the only two main long-term lending
institutions, DFCC and NDB. Both these institutions were set up for the
specific purpose of meeting the medium and long financing requirements of
the important small and medium enterprises (SME) sector. This type of
lending is known to be more risky than short term lending, requires
long-term deposit bases and also multidisciplinary project evaluation
skills, which the normal commercial banks seriously lacked. Equipped with
all these and led by visionary and unselfish CEOs in the 1970s, 80s and 90s'
both DFCC and NDB were able to inspire confidence among multilateral lending
agencies and NGOs who readily channelled their credit lines through these
tow lending organisations. As
a result, DFCC and NDB were able to play a very important role in the high
rates of economic growth achieved and jobs created during the past. Of
course all credit for this success was taken by the politicians of that era.
Since then, due to the shortsighted policies of the new authorities at DFCC
and NDB, they decided to gradually give
up development banking and thereby lose focus on this important function. At
their behest, the former Treasury Secretary, Charitha Ratwatte, was even
contemplating amendments to the DFCC and NDB Acts of Parliament. It was a
major mistake, which was only avoided by the timely dissolution of
parliament. The
result was a steady decline in the number and type of SME projects financed
by DFCC and NDB, forcing these two to depend even more on commercial banking
to maintain the bottom line. With over 25 commercial banks already in
operation, that also proved to be difficult, weakening both institutions.
Finally, their priority became maintaining bottom lines and not financing
and upgrading the SME sector. The final loser was not DFCC nor NDB but the
last UNF regime. That's
why the Amunugama - Jayasundara duo should use all their authority to bring
back the old glorious days of DFCC and NDB when they were funding job
creating industrial projects and not playing the stock market and engaging
in commercial banking which market is already saturated. That would be the
far easier and more practical way of fulfilling election promises for the new UPFA regime. Cleatus
Jayawardena Vendetta
of a cheap government If
what happened to Ravi Karunanayake, a respected parliamentarian is not a
vendetta of a cheap government with a petty minded cabinet, then where do
the public and fair minded journalists who have been trying to expose evil
stand? At
the will and pleasure of a scheming head who organises all these
conspiracies with a crafty smile and surreptitiously runs away overseas on
one of the many pleasure trips to enjoy the ill-gotten wealth accumulated
between 1994 todate. Has
Ranil Wickreme-singhe realised that gentlemanliness and clean politics do
not pay in this country. He is paying for the sins of omission in not
impeaching her and a few others who are ruling the roost in these past three
months again and abusing power to the extreme. The
national media is a public disgrace. It is amusing and ludicrous to observe
the new media minister mouthing falsehoods and profanities and abusing TV. Trouble
shooter
On
March 11, one of the most eminent public servants this country passed away
at the age of 83. C.
A. Coorey (Chanda to his friends) was a person who had a truly outstanding
academic record. His performance at Royal College which he joined in 1930
and left in 1937, was probably unparalleled. He won every single form prize.
He was my cousin ( I was seven years younger than he was) and all of us
younger cousins of whom there were many because the Jayawickrama clan (of
which Sargo was a famous figure) was prolific and held him in awe. I
remember one day when I was holidaying at his home in Panadura ( a lovely
mansion called 'Leelamal') he took me to his room and pulled out from a
drawer a carefully preserved sheaf of school reports. I believe he did this
to inspire me to try to emulate him. What I saw was something extraordinary.
Term after term, year after year, he had been placed first in his class.
Never second or third - always first. He
won a number of prizes in school, apart from the annual form prize. Among
them were the De Soysa Science Prize, the Governor's Prize, The Old Boy's
Prize for the Junior Cambridge, and the Turnour Prize for Best Student. My
brother, Dr. Raja de Silva, recalls the fact that the Principal, L. H. W.
Sampson, had announced one day at assembly, that C. A. Coorey had won the
Turnour Prize from the Fifth Form beating a brilliant competitor (whom he
did not name, though the cognoscenti knew he referred to the fabled S. A.
Jayawardena) who was in a higher form. Chanda
had an equally brilliant contemporary at school, in the person of Baku
Mahadeva who always came first whenever he was in a parallel class. Chanda
went on to get the inevitable first (in Chemistry) at the university. He was
awarded the Coomaraswamy Prize for Science, the Bhikaji Framji Gold Medal
for Chemistry and the Government University Science Scholarship for
post-graduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford University . He was unable
to proceed to Oxford because of the war but went on to lecture in chemistry
at the university. I
remember one night at Leelamal when I was chatting alone to his father Dr.
Henry Coorey, he told me he would prefer Chanda to sit the Civil Service
examination rather than continue his career as a lecturer in Chemistry. He
was concerned that there could arise some undesirable competition between
Chanda and my elder brother C. L. de Silva who was also a lecturer in
chemistry, having got a first and won the government scholarship to England
two years before Chanda. Be that as it may, Chanda did sit the civil service
examination and pass it as everybody expected. I believe Baku Mahadeva and
he came first and second that year. Thereafter,
Chanda's career was what you would expect of a brilliant civil servant. He
spent much of his time in the Treasury and ended up as secretary to the
Treasury. He was a strict and punctiliously correct man who earned the
soubriquet of 'Dr No'. In 1975 he was appointed executive director of the
ADB, Manila, for Sri Lanka, Laos, Afghanistan and Vietnam. He returned to
Sri Lanka in 1979 to set up the
National Development Bank of which he was the founder chairman. It
was about then that I became the founder chairman of Lanka Orix Leasing
Company Ltd (LOLC). Chanda, as chairman of the NDB that had, among other
institutions, invested in LOLC, was one of the first directors of LOLC and
we worked together from 1980, until 1989. I was able to observe the
sharpness of his intellect at first hand. I was fortunate enough to have
that other towering intellect, Baku Mahadeva take this place on my board,
when Chanda and he swapped the chairmanships of the DFCC and the NDB in
1989. In
recognition of his services to the country Chanda was awarded the Desamanya
in 1993. Throughout
his long and illustrious career Chanda had the support of his wife, Lakshmi,
daughter of Dr and Mrs Alfred de Silva of Kalutara. I recall, with pride,
being a junior member of the family group that accompanied Chanda on the
occasion of his betrothal. To
sum up I would say that Chanda was a wonderful example of an upright,
fearless, dedicated, public servant who never sought any favours from
politicians. Desamanya
Charitha P. de Silva
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