Courtesy Adaderana

The China National Energy Engineering and Construction Company Limited (CNEE), a Chinese state-owned energy conglomerate, has offered to invest USD 800 million on 400 MW Renewable Energy Projects in Sri Lanka. 

The equipment and knowhow will be supplied by KE Electric, according to the Sri Lankan Embassy in Beijing.

Ambassador of Sri Lanka to China Dr. Kohona had recently visited the massive KE Electric plant in Shijuazhuang producing a range of equipment for the generation and distribution of electricity. 

He was hosted by the Chairman of KE Electric, Chengsuo Zhang together with the Senior Management Team and was given a comprehensive tour of the establishment. Of particular interest was the equipment produced to generate and distribute electricity produced from solar, the statement said.

Dr. Kohona explained the Government policy to produce 70% of Sri Lanka’s electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030. He also touched upon the locations being made available by the Government for the purpose. 

He emphasised that the Government was looking for investors and will not take loans to finance any projects. The CINEE, which had already done some preliminary work on potential locations together with the KE Electric, was in the process of preparing its proposals.

Subsequently, the Sri Lankan team was taken on a tour of an impressive solar installation, Hongji PV Plant Project and Solar Demonstrative Project, in Beizhuang in Pingshan County of Shijiazhuang. Barren hillsides were covered with solar panels. 

KE produced control equipment, inverters, transmission lines, etc., were evident. Interestingly, 25% of the revenue generated from this project was directly allocated to village upliftment and poverty alleviation. 

A nearby village, which had witnessed devastation during the war against the Japanese, was now prospering from this novel source of income.

The proposed CNEE project is expected to be on a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) or Build-Own-Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis, the embassy said.

Courtesy Hiru News

The United States, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), announced an additional $2.5 million in urgent COVID-19 assistance for Sri Lanka. This assistance will accelerate equitable access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccinations and strengthen the ability of health workers to address COVID-19.

The U.S. is working hand in hand with partners at the community, provincial, and national levels to address COVID-19,” said Reed Aeschliman, USAID Mission Director for Sri Lanka and Maldives. This additional donation will bolster health systems, support health care workers, and improve access to vaccinations.”

The $2.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds will strengthen the oxygen ecosystem in Sri Lanka, provide personal protective equipment kits for infection control in health facilities, and build the resilience of health care workers. The Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka will also use the assistance to coordinate vaccine distribution, provide cold chain support for the Pfizer vaccine, and strengthen the ability of staff to administer vaccine programs.

USAID has contributed $17.9 million to Sri Lanka since the pandemic first broke out in March 2020. This assistance has reached millions of Sri Lankans across the country and is helping to control the spread of COVID-19, address the urgent health needs of Sri Lankans, and mitigate the pandemic’s negative economic impacts.

These efforts build on decades of life-saving work and U.S. leadership in tackling global health crises such as Ebola, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and now COVID-19. The U.S. remains committed to partnering with Sri Lanka to end the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigate its devastating social and economic impacts, and build back a world that is even better prepared for future outbreaks.

Courtesy Hiru News

It was reported to Hiru News team that Sri Lanka had received the patent for the production of nano nitrogen fertilizer which can be applied to the soil even though nano nitrogen liquid fertilizer was imported from India.

This fertilizer developed in 2010 using nanotechnology, specializes in minimizing the amount of urea released to the soil and environment.

However, it is reported that the patent for these nano nitrogen fertilizers produced by a research team including Professor Nilwala Kottegoda, a scientist at the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC), was later sold to a fertilizer company in India.

A senior official of SLINTEC told the Hiru News team that the technology was sold for US $ 3 million subject to the approval of the Sri Lankan government. A senior official of SLINTEC stated that the money was used for the development activities of SLINTEC.

Meanwhile, the University Teachers’ Association said in a statement that it does not recommend the use of nanotechnology for organic farming.

The University Teachers’ Association further states that fertilizers produced by nanotechnology are synthetically developed and therefore not used as organic fertilizers and the liquid fertilizer compound containing nitrogen recommended for spraying on the leaves is 4 percent.

The university lecturers said that the synthetically developed nanotechnology fertilizer, which was approved by the Indian Department of Agriculture for large-scale commercial production in March, could not meet the plant’s nitrogen requirements.

Meanwhile, an adjournment debate was held in Parliament today regarding the fertilizer issue

Courtesy Hiru News

Doctor’s view expressed following the birth of sextuplets

Many people are curious to know more about the birth of the first sextuplets (six babies born of one pregnancy) reported today in Sri Lanka.
Sextuplets which includes three girls and three boys were born to a 31-year-old mother from Angoda and the father is an engineer by profession.

Professor Tiran Dias, an obstetrician and gynecologist, performed the caesarean section with the assistance of a 30-member medical staff.

Speaking at a media briefing on the children, Prof Tiran Dias said that after the mother was detected to be pregnant with six babies, she underwent regular clinical check-ups which assisted in performing the surgery successfully.

Two anesthesiologists assisted in the operation.

Professor Tiran Dias further stated that a team of three was deployed to supervise each child.

The birth of the first sextuplets (six babies born of one pregnancy) in the country was reported today (21) at a private hospital in Colombo.

The babies were delivered by Caesarean sections between 12:16 and 12:18 this morning under the guidance of Professor Tiran Dias.

The happy parents were blessed with three daughters and three sons.

Hospital sources stated that all six babies, born to a 31-year-old, are in good health.

Only the second child born is currently under intensive medical supervision.

The mother and father of the twins are residents of the IDH area in Colombo.

 Garvin Karunaratne, PhD Michigan State University*

The DDCP was the major development programme undertaken by the Government of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayake during her 1970-1977 rule.

This was also the first major islandwide development programme ever to be implemented in Sri Lanka. Earlier there was the Rural Development Programme and the Small Industries Development Programme which were smaller programmes aimed at rejuvenating the rural areas with small industries and Powerlooms. However, the DDCP was far major in scope and the Government had high hopes of great success. The Government head hunted the most eminent economist on the island, Professor HAdeS Gunasekera the professor of Economics at the University of Peradeniya. A new Ministry of Plan Implementation was formed under the Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayake and Professor Gunasekera was appointed as the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry. The importance given to the programme was such that helicopter travel was authorized for him.

The main aim of this DDCP was to bring about employment for the youth. The aims, in the words of the Budget Speech of Dr N.M.Perera, the Minister of Finance;

The main objective of this programme is “to create employment opportunities in the rural areas and through small scale projects  in agriculture, industry and the provision of infrastructural facilities, making use of the resources available locally; increase national production and involve the people in national development work.”

The method was to enlist the support of all officials and elected personnel in every Division.  In detail,” An entirely new structure for planning is being established (within which) each local authority will be the focus for development planning and plan implementation. Popular participation will be secured through the Divisional Development Council in which the elected organs of the village, the cooperative society, the cultivation committee, the village council will have a planning and coordinating role in the overall development of their area.”.

The DDCP was a crash programme to create employment for the youth. The target was to create 100,000 jobs in the first year.

The Government enlisted the services of the Government Agents to implement this programme. Even before the Ministry of Plan Implementation recruited graduates as Development Assistants and   Planning Officers the Government Agents selected the best officers who were working in the District and the programme was immediately commenced. I was serving as the Government Agent of the Matara District.

There was a major setback because of the Janata Vimukti Peramuna(JVP) Uprising on April 5th 1971. This took on the form of an attack on all Police Stations and army units. It was an attempt to capture power in a single day like what Fidel Castro did in Cuba. The JVP controlled the hinterland- the rural areas and had their kangaroo courts etc. and it took a few months for total order to be restored. The JVP had been instrumental in working for the SLFP – for Mrs Bandaranayake at the 1970 election and the DDCP was a programme that was specially meant to provide employment to the youth.  No reasons were given for the sudden uprising but it was found that the North Korean Embassy had spent a massive sum of money at this time and there was some evidence of some connection with the Uprising.  The Government closed down the North Korean Embassy.  This was an unfortunate episode that delayed the implementation of the DDCP for months. Since that day officials travelled the least possible and further all investors- estate owners, rice millers etc.who had made rural areas their homes left for security reasons to the cities.

The development councils were formed in every division. The Councils comprised all officials and elected officials of cooperatives, cultivation committees and local government institutions. The Head of the Council was the Divisional Revenue Officer(DRO) of the area. He was given a new designation of Assistant Government Agent. Meetings were held and the Councils identified small scale industries and agricultural projects- farms which were funded and commenced all over the island.

In Matara District, in addition to a number of agricultural farms and small craft type of industries, the Councils suggested many industries and feasibility reports were prepared and approval sought.  It was generally difficult to get approvals a few small industries were approved and the Ministry made an allocation of funds to buy the machinery, put up structures and also funds to pay a stipend to the youths till the projects were established and incomes generated.

I suggested that a Mechanized Boatyard should be approved to be constructed at Matara on land bordering the Nilwala River. A Feasibility Report was drafted and submitted. The Ministry called me for a meeting where the Director of the Fisheries Department was also present. The Ministry officials were not interested and there were objections by the Director of Fisheries. The meeting was ultimately put off for another discussion on another day.  This was the first cooperative industry to make seaworthy 30 foot long boats and perhaps the Ministry was worried that it could be a failure and be a blot on the Ministry. Anyhow after a major battle, we obtained approval and the boatyard was established. It was a great success.

The Councils were agitating for more industrial units and we suggested that at Deniyaya we could establish a Water Colour Industry making watercolour paint boxes. This was import substitution in action because at that time Sri Lanka imported the bulk of our watercolour requirements. The Ministry submitted our Feasibility Report to the Industrial Development Board(IDB)  and a meeting was held at the Ministry.  The Ministry agreed with the IDB recommendation that this should not be approved because the Deniyaya area did not have any of the ingredients that went into making watercolours. I argued that if Japan could buy cotton from as far as Egypt, take it all the way to Japan, make textiles and market the sales back in countries as far as Egypt, we too could do it. We were at an advantage because our country itself needed the watercolour paint boxes. I  lost the battle. The Ministry was amply satisfied with the small craft type of projects and the farms that we had got working.

However, we wanted to do better. I suggested a Dairy Project in the Deniyaya- Mawarala area where we will get Estate owners to plant grass on all their unused land. We could get private farmers too to have more cows. The only proviso I insisted was that we should have a Creamery to make butter and cheese. because it was impossible to sell more milk.  My feasibility report created problems.  It was argued that small creameries were not commercially viable and the Ministry said that we did not have grasslands to feed the cattle. It ended up with heated arguments at the Ministry. I did not know then that Switzerland doted on small creameries.

 It was quite evident that the Ministry was not going to approve any new industry for our District. The only sophisticated industry ever done in the rest of the island was a Paper Making Industry at Kotmale.  The Ministry told me to get going making bricks and tiles if I was interested. I pointed out that in tiles and bricks the private sector had already established factories in the District and it would not be prudent to try to create a problem of oversupply.  The Ministry and I clashed not once but many a time. It happened because once I had served as a Deputy Director of Small Industry and I knew more about industries than anyone in the Ministry.  The Ministry never appreciated my ideas. Theirs was always on the beaten track.

The officers at the Katchcheri were very innovative and we had many meetings. Finally, I summoned my Planning Officer Vetus Fernando, a chemistry graduate of the University of Colombo, just out of the University who did not have a day’s experience in chemistry after graduating. I fed him all I knew about making watercolours. Once as Deputy Director of Industries, I had approved an allocation of dyes to a watercolour industrialist and I had seen him making watercolours. I knew the ingredients but not the proportions and details of mixing it- temperatures etc. Vetus and I decided to try to find the art of making crayons. The science teachers at the school also helped us.  We commenced work at the Residency in the evenings and came to a point where we needed science equipment and it was suggested that we should use the equipment at a school lab. I approached Mr Ariyawamsa the Principal of Rahula College Matara and he readily agreed for us to use the science lab after hours.  The Science lab at Rahula was our domain from around six in the evening till midnight every working day. The workers were the science teachers and Vetus, the only scientists and we, myself, and a few staff officers were all cheerleaders.  The Cheer Leaders had to keep the momentum going when every night we tried different methods and we failed every day for close upon two months. Then Vetus got a brain wave. The crayons we made were never of good texture and he said that  I should approve his going to Colombo to his university dons in chemistry and he was certain they will help. I readily agreed and authorized him travelling and subsistence payment. I was happy that he had thought of this method and I dreamt of success. Vetus turned up on the fourth day and narrated in disgust that none of the professionals at the University of Colombo was interested in helping him. He had begged of them but was told to get lost.  My staff officers and I were not going to take things lying down to submission. We started experiments in earnest – from six till midnight sipping black coffee with a sing-song once in a way to keep the momentum going. In a month of experiments, we came across the method to make crayons. Then I supervised fine-tuning the art again and again till we got to be near the Crayola grade- then it was Reeves.  We won the day.

Next came- how to establish a small scale factory. I could not get approval from the Ministry.  I was certain that they will turn it down. I could have summoned Harischandra or an industrialist and I knew many personally and could have told them to put up a factory, but then it won’t be us. Finally, I decided that it should be cooperative.  The Cooperative Unions had funds but not the authority to establish an industry.  Then I thought of Sumanapala Dahanayake, the Member of Parliament for Deniyaya, who was the President of the Morawak Korale Coop Union because he was a maverick, a daredevil type if that was required. He was in charge of the funds at the Coop Union. When I broached the subject to Sumanapala he readily agreed to establish a Crayon factory. However, he had no authority to use cooperative funds for that purpose. The Government Agent too had no authority to direct cooperatives. However for purposes of coordination in the case of the agricultural development programme, the G.A.had been gazetted a Deputy Director of Cooperative Development. I usurped powers that I did not really have based on this gazette notice and authorized Sumanapala to spend cooperative funds and establish the Crayon Factory.

Sumanapala needed only a nod. He got cracking with purchasing the equipment and gas burners, recruiting youths. This was done in two days. A few rooms at the Cooperative Union at Morawaka were cleared and the Katchcheri staff too moved in to commence making crayons. It was a 24-hour operation, with youths working in shifts, working under the watchful eyes of Vetus Fernando the Planning Officer. There were Chandra Silva the DLO, Wimalaratne the AGA, Daya Paliakkara a Development Assistant. They were all involved in the experiments at Rahula College and were at hand went Vetus took a few hours rest. The youths had to get trained to do every single crayon to perfection- a difficult task. It was a hand made crayon-like most industries in China today. I broke rest on two days till everything got off the ground. We sipped black coffee and sweetmeats brought by Gunam Tambipillai, an estate owner who was very supportive of all our efforts at development. Sumanapala was in his elements and in around two weeks,  Coop Crayon packets were printed and crayon packets made to fill two large rooms.

Then I took off with Sumanapala to meet the Minister of Industries, TB Sunbasinhe who was surprised to see the quality of the crayons. He readily agreed to come for the opening ceremony when we would commence sales.  That was a grand occasion.  With that aura of authoritative approval, I felt safe for all I had done without any Ministry approval.

Coop Crayon was fully functional. The Youths managed it well. However, one major hitch was the purchase of dyes that had to be purchased in the open market at high prices. I approached the Ministry of Industries, the people that gave permits of foreign exchange to industrialists- the place where I had worked two years earlier. They said that their foreign exchange was only for the private sector industrialists and not for cooperatives. The mandarins were not going to bend rules. We were lost.

In a few days, a brain wave struck us and we went to meet the Controller of Imports, Harry Guneratne, Harry was authorizing imports and confided that he was approving foreign exchange to import crayons. We argued that if he only gave us an allocation of a twentieth of what he would approve for the import of crayons to import dyes, he could cancel all imports and save the rest of the allotted foreign exchange. This had never been done earlier but Harry was an immediate convert. However, he said that this was the first time that such an allocation was made and wanted us to approach his Minister and get his approval.  Minister Illangaratne not only approved it but also insisted that we should open a crayon factory at Kolonnawa his electorate. This detail has been included to show how we can save foreign exchange through establishing import substitution type of industries.

Coop Crayon was developed fast by Sumanapala and he stepped it up to have island-wide sales.  All the units I had established in industries and agricultural farms were active and in good health.  Coop Crayon and the Matara Boatyard were at the top performers in entire Sri Lanka.

In another year in April 1973, I left the Administrative Service to proceed to the UK for further studies. Sumanapala handled the Coop Crayon well. The other industries and employment ventures were well looked after by Vetus and the Katchcheri staff.

Then in 1977 came the General Election where the Government of Sirimavo Bandaranayake lost and the United National Party under JR Jayawardena won.

 Before long President Jayawardena caved into the IMF which insisted that if he needed Financial Aid, he had to invariably follow the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme. (SAP) The main condition was that the Government could not handle any commercial undertakings. Everything that the earlier Governments had done in the name of commercial undertakings, to create employment etc had to be totally abolished. The DDCP industries and farms were totally abolished and hundreds of youths were inevitably consigned to the scrap heap of unemployment and poverty.

Political rivalry became the order o the day. My Headquarters Assistant GA Ranjith Wimalaratne, a kingpin in industries and who handled the Powerlooms with great efficiency was a persona non grata and was hunted down. To save his life he had to forego everything and run away to Canada.

A few years later, I met AT Ariyaratne, a senior member of the Administrative Service and when I told him that I had last served as the GA at Matara he spoke of a special assignment he got in 1978 when he worked as a Deputy Commissioner of Cooperative Development. He had been assigned to proceed to Morawaka to inspect Coop Crayon and somehow find fault with Sumanapala Dahanayake the Member of Parliament who in his capacity as the President of the Morawaka Coop union handled Coop Crayon.  Coop Crayon was at that time in full swing with islandwide sales and was easily the flagship industry of the DDCP. The Government wanted Coop Crayon discredited and to also find fault with Sumanapala for him to get punished. Ariyaratne told me that he had spent days inspecting and auditing and could only report that Coop Crayon was a very successful cooperative industry, with all books kept in perfect order. Sumanapala was saved from a sojourn in the gallows. Ariyaratne was not an officer who would stoop to create evidence to put a person into trouble at the bidding of someone in authority.

Under the DDC Programme the Divisional Secretary at Kotmale successfully established a Paper Making Factory using Waste Paper. Sad to say even today there is no waste paper to paper  or cardboard making factory in Sri Lanka. Instead  we collect waste paper and waste cardboard and despatch it some 30 ,000 tons a month to india, get them to make cardboard and buy cardboard from the. Surely, we need to have our heads examined!

In 1977, the new Government of President jayawardena in order to get foreign loans,  caved in and on IMF advice destroyed all that we had created to bring about youth employment. The Matara Boatyard where youths built seaworthy inboard motorboats- some 40 every year and earned good incomes was scrapped and the valuable machinery was neglected, sold and also left in the scrap heap. Coop Crayon was stopped. All other industries and agricultural farms were stopped and a few hundred youths lost their jobs. Getting loans was the priority, and the UNP Government did not care whether youths who earned a living were destined to the realm of poverty. The aim was to satisfy the IMF. The IMF barked orders to be carried out.

  The UNP Government of President Jayawardena played poodle to the IMF and did everything that the IMF wanted it to do. As far as the DDCP was concerned all industries and agricultural farms were abandoned and the thousands of youths involved were destined to unemployment and poverty. Imagine what the youths who were making crayons felt in Morawaka, what the youths fromMorawaka who were selling crayons at both Alimankada and Pamankada felt and the youths that were making boats felt at the Matara Boatyard felt when they were ordered to close down and get lost.

I hope to see a development programme that is better than the DDCP in the new future. 

That is the only hope for our Motherland.

These words come to you from a Sri Lankan administrator who once in 1982 and 1983 was working as the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Labour and Manpower in Bangladesh, who was able to obtain approval to establish a Youth Self Employment Programme, and within two years did create the Programme and trained Bangladeshi staff to continue it- a programme that has guided three million youths into self-employment, which is today the premier employment creation programme that has withstood the sands of time.

*Garvin Karunaratne, PhD Michigan State University

Author of How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development (Kindle/odages:2017)

How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of Success(Kindle/Godages:2006) 

Editorial

That things are indeed getting out of hand and out of control in Sri Lanka
according to the latest statistics seems an understatement. Consumer prices are rising rapidly according to the latest reports which are incomprehensible and ludicrous as the Rajapaksa clan consolidates their hold on the country in more ways than one and the man on the street wonders whether the 2/3rd  mandate given to The President was a justifiable one as the Nation careens on an erratic path causing apparent mayhem for the consumer which is not completely based on the Covid pandemic although there are people within the hierarchy that would like people to believe this which is not entirely true.

A recent editorial was quoted as saying “The government is behaving like an inebriated lifeguard who watches a drowning man flailing, instead of throwing a lifeline.

Powerful businesses are having a field day, jacking up  prices according to
their whims and fancies. Businessmen determine the prices of their products and services, and announce them at press conferences, making one wonder whether there are any consumer protection laws in this country. There is no one the hapless consumer can turn to. What is this world coming to when a  government looks on while the people are being fleeced so savagely?” end quote and nothing seems to be further from the truth that Sri Lanka is not in a perilous state today with lackeys handling administrative decisions by virtue of no experience towards their responsibilities and the “till robbers” once again doing their thing in gay abandon with no impunity. The country which was recovering well after the new administration took over is now teetering on the brink of disaster. Unless remedial action is taken post haste where all the blame points towards bad decisions made by inept legislators who have absolutely no right to the positions they hold and are making a mockery of Government there could be worse to follow.

 It is no fairy tale to point out that Consumers have been suffering heavy
 blows, repeatedly in the recent past as well as the present day where even
 basic food items and commodities essential to  normal living are hard to
 come by in a nation of suffering people at the mercy of unscrupulous
 merchants and eye-gouging business individuals who need to be taken to task and punished at the highest level towards restitution for the all suffering people who pinned their faith in the Rajapaksa administration. They deserve better but are now left in limbo and nowhere to turn to.
 It has become a double whammy as from one side the hardships are economy-related and on the other, it is the fear of the dreaded Covid Virus taking its toll on the impoverished people where the affluent have access to means towards their personal well being and that of their families where the poor and people of low or no income do not. An apathetic shame if one were to describe it in the best of terms in the world of today.

 In the simplest of terms, most consumers feel that they are being abandoned by an uncaring administration and left to their own resources in a country with no GDP or sustainable income and a failing economy from many perspectives where an explanation is surely called for.

 Quoting once again from the editorial referred to previously “The general consensus is that the CAA has become so politicized and impotent that it only provides a rubber stamp for unscrupulous big businesses with political connections. Will it try to prove its critics wrong by taking up the cudgels
 for the public?
 Is there a government? This is the question one asks oneself on seeing how
 helpless the public has become vis-à-vis powerful businesses who exploit
 them with impunity.
One of the reasons for the many serious lapses was that the then government was dysfunctional. True, the Yahapalana government became a metaphor for dysfunctionality and ineptitude. The present dispensation, whose leaders promised a strong government to protect the interests of the public, does not look any different in spite of having a two-thirds majority in  Parliament; confusion is reigning at the upper echelons of government.

Ministers are running around like headless chickens, and the public is at
 the mercy of profiteers who enjoy unbridled freedom to do as they please.
 Let the ruling politicians be told that they are digging their own political
 grave.”  end of the quote which points to the salient truth!  Sadly, an incredulous and perplexed world watches on as many Sri Lankan’s
 suffer today while the affluent and well-connected population
 particularly their very articulate leader rambling on about “what his good
 intentions are for the country” tantamount to little or nothing beyond lip
 service and inadmissible rhetoric, live out their lives in a manner
 reminiscent of Nero fiddling in a fast-burning Rome !!

විමල් පටබැඳිගේ (ශාස්ත‍්‍රවේදී, නීතිඥ, විශ‍්‍රාමික සොලිසිටර්*

සෙන්කඩගල (නුවර* ස්වාධීනව සිටි වික‍්‍රමබාහු රජුට පසු රජ වූ ජයවීර බණ්ඩාර (ව්‍ය.ව. 1511 -1551* කෝට්ටේ රාජ්‍යයේ සහ සීතාවක රාජ්‍යයේ තර්ජනවලින් ආරක්‍ෂාවීම සඳහා ආධාර ඉල්ලීම අනුව පුර්තුගීසි හමුදා කණ්ඩායමක් 1542 දී පළමු වරට තිරිකුණාමලයට පැමිණ ඇත. එහෙත් ඇති වූ අනපේක්‍ෂිත දබරයකින් ලැබූ පරාජය නිසා ගමන අසාර්ථක විය. පුර්තුගීසීන් ලංකාවේ නැගෙනහිර නැව්තොටු හා සම්බන්ධ වෙළඳ කටයුතු වලින් ඉතා දිගු කලක් බැහැර වී ඇත.
ව්‍ය.ව. 17 වෙනි සියවසේ මුල් කාලයේ සෙනරත් රජු සමග සමාදානයකට එළඹ පුර්තුගීසීහු තිරිකුණාමලේ සහ මඩකලපුවේ නැව්තොටු වෙළඳ කටයුතු සඳහා භාවිත කිරීම සඳහා අවසර ගෙන සටකපට ලෙස ඉතා රහසිගත ව බු.ව. 2166 (ව්‍ය.ව. 1623* දී තිරිකුණාමල බලකොටුව ගොඩනැගූහ. එහෙත් පුර්තුගීසීන් පළවාහැර ව්‍ය.ව. 1639 දී ආපසු අල්ලා ගත් තිරිකුණාමලය ව්‍ය.ව. 1766 ලන්දේසි ගිවිසුම තෙක් සිංහල රජු යටතේ වීය. ව්‍ය.ව. 1795 දී ඉංගිරිසීන් සතු විය. එය තිරිකුණාමලේ ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුව නමින් හඳුන්වනු ලබයි.

පුදබිමක් බිලි ගනියි
තිරිකුණාමලේ (ගෝකණ්ණ පටුනේ* වෙළඳ කටයුතු ආරම්භ කළ විගස කොන්ස්ටන්ටයින් ඩි සා ඩි මෙනෙෂෙස් එහි බලකොටුව ගොඩනගන ලද අවස්ථාවේ ඒ භූමියේ තිබූ පුදබිම (පැගෝඞ්* විනාශ කරන ලද බව පුර්තුගීසි පූජකයෙකු සහ ඉතිහාසඥයෙකු වූ ෆර්නාඩෝ ඩි ක්වේරෝෂ් එළිදරවු කොට ඇත.
පුර්තුගීසීන් විසින් විනාශ කරනු ලැබූ පුදබිම හින්දු කොවිලක් බවට නූතන දෙමළ උගතුන් සහ ඉතිහාස ලේඛකයන් කළ ප‍්‍රකාශය දේශීය සහ විදේශීය ඉතිහාසඥයන් පිළිගෙන ඇති අතර එය එලෙසින් ම අපට පාසල්වල, සරසවිවල උගන්වනු ලැබෙයි. අපි එලෙස ම හදාරමු. ව්‍ය.ව. 20 වෙනි සියවසේ දෙවෙනි භාගයේ ගොඩනගන ලද වරින්වර යම් යම් අංග එකතු කරමින් තවමත් ඉදිකරමින් පවතින ඊශ්වර/ශිව කෝවිලක් එහි ඇත. සිංහල, ද්‍රවිඩ/දෙමළ සහ බෞද්ධ, හින්දු වෙනසක් නැතිව කෝවිලට යති. වෛදික ආගමිකයන්ගේ ඊශ්වර දෙවියන් පසු කලෙක ශිව දේව නාමය ද ලබා ඇත.
ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ කෝවිල පුරාණ කාලයේ සිට එහි පවතින බව කියති. බොහෝ දෙනෙක් එය එසේ ය’යි පිළිගනිති. විශ්වාස කරති. දේව භක්තිය සහ ආගමික සහජීවනය නම් නව ‘කෙවිට’ නිසා එහි සැබෑ අතීතය ගැන විමසා බැලීමක් නැත. එහෙත් සත්‍යය සොයා යාමට සහ දැනීම ලබාගැනීමට තිත තැබිය යුතු නැත. එබැවින්, පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරනු ලැබූ පුදබිම කුමක් දැ’යි සත්‍ය ඓතිහාසික තොරතුරු සහ පුරාවිද්‍යා සාධක ඇසුරෙන් සොයා ගැනීම සහ හෝ එයට මග සකසා ගැනීම අවශ්‍යව ඇත.

කෝවිල ගොඩනැගීමේ කථාව
මේ ඊශ්වර/ශිව කෝවිල ගොඩනැගීම සහ එහි පැරණි බව සනාථ කිරීමට ඉතා වැදගත් සාධකයක් ලෙස ”කෝනේශර් කල්වෙට්ටු” නම් දෙමළ කාව්‍යය ඉදිරිපත් කරන කථාවක් දක්වා ඇත. මෙය 19 වෙනි සියවසේ අවසාන භාගයේ පමණ ලියන ලදැ’යි අදහස් කරනු ලබයි. එමෙන්ම සියලූ උගතුන් විසින් ලංකාවේ දෙමළ ඉතිහාසය සම්බන්ධ ඉතාමත් වැදගත් සහ ප‍්‍රධාන ම කෘතිය ලෙස සලකනු ලබන ”යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි” කාව්‍යය ද මේ ගැන සඳහන් කොට ඇත. මේ කාව්‍ය දෙක සඳහන් කරන පුවත් උපුටා දැක්වීම දැනුම අළුත් කරගැනීම සඳහා උපකාර වෙනු ඇත.

කෝනේසර් කල්වෙට්ටු
කෝනේසර් කල්වෙට්ටු සංස්කරණය කොට ප‍්‍රකාශයට පත් කරන ලද චන්මුකරට්ටින අයියාර් විසින් ඉදිරිපත් කරන ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ කෝවිල ගොඩනැගීම සම්බන්ධ පුවත ඉතා කෙටියෙන් මෙසේය:
”මනුනීතිචෝලන්ගේ පුත් වරරාමතේවන් සහ ඔහුගේ පුත් කුලක්කෝට්ටන් තිරිකුණාමලේට පැමිණ එහි දේවාලය ගොඩනැගීය. ඔහු මදුරාවෙන් ප‍්‍රධානියෙකු ගෙන්වා ගෙන වන්නිපන් තත්වයට උසස් කළේය. එමෙන්ම දේවාලයේ සියලූ ම ගණුදෙනු කට්ටුකුලම් පත්තුවේ වන්නිආර්නාර් විසින් පවත්වාගෙන යායුතු බවට නියෝග කළේය.” මේ අනුව මනුනීතිචෝලන්ගේ පුතා සහ ඔහුගේ මුණුපුරා කෝවිල ගොඩනගා ඇත.

යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි
ව්‍ය.ව. 1736 ලංකාවේ ලන්දේසි ආණ්ඩුකාරයාගේ ආරාධනයෙන් රචනා කළ බව සඳහන් කරන යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කාව්‍යය මේ සම්බන්ධව ඉදිරිපත් කරන පුවත ඉතාමත් කෙටියෙන් මෙසේය:
”කාවේරිපුම් පට්ටනමෙහි මනුනීති කන්දචෝලන් පුත් කුලක්කෝඞ්ඩු මහා රාජ තෙමේ පුණ්‍ය තීර්ථ වන්දනාව සඳහා … ති‍්‍රකෝණමලයෙහි කෝනේශ්වර කෝවිල කරා සැපත් විය. තඹලගම්හි කොනේශ්වර කෝවිල නම් ශිවාලය ජරා ජීර්ණ වෙමින් පවත්නා බව ති‍්‍රකෝණමලයෙහි දී අසන්නට ලැබී එහි ගොස් ශිවාලය සහ ඊට අයත් ගොඩනැගිලි පිළිසකර කරවීමෙහි නියැලිව විසී…” පිළිසකර කිරීම් නිම කොට විශාල භූමි ප‍්‍රදේශ හතක් වෙන් කොට එහි ඵලවැල්, කෙත්වතු අස්වද්දා කෝවිලට පුදා ඒවා පාලනයට ඉන්දියාවේ මුහුදු වෙරළාශි‍්‍රත ප‍්‍රදේශයෙන් ගෙන්වූ වන්නියාවරුන් යොදවා ආපසු තම රටට ගොස් දිව්‍ය ලෝකයට ගිය බව කාව්‍යය කියයි. (වන්නියාවරුන් ගැන වෙනම කථා කළ යුතු වෙයි.*

නොගැලපෙන කථා
කොනේසර් කල්වෙට්ටු දක්වන පුවත අනුව මනුනීතිචෝලන්ගේ පුතා වූ වරරාමතේවන් සහ මුණුපුරා වූ කුලක්කෝට්ටන් කෝවිල ගොඩනගා ඇත. යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කාව්‍යය අනුව කුලක්කෝඞ්ඩු(ට්ටු* මනුනීති චෝලන්ගේ මුණුපුරා නොව පුතා ය. එමෙන් ම කාවේරිපුම් පට්ටනමේ ‘මහා රාජා’ වූ ඔහු තිරිකුණාමලේ කෝවිලක් ගොඩනැගුවේ නැත. ඔහු එහි පැමිණියේ ”පුණ්‍ය තීර්ථ වන්දනාවේ” එක් ස්ථානයක් වූ නිසා ය. එහි දී අසන්නට ලැබුණු තොරතුරක් අනුව ඔහු තඹලගම ශිව කෝවිලක් පිළිසකර කිරීමක නිරත වී එහි පැවැත්මට කටයුතු යොදා ඇත.
ඓතිහාසික යුගයේ චෝල හෝ පාණ්ඩ්‍ය සහ චේර රජ පෙළපත්වල මනුනීතිචෝලන් නම් පාලකයෙකු සිටි බවට තොරතුරු නැත. කෙසේ වෙතත්, මේ කථා පුවත්වල දක්වන මනුනීතිචෝලන් සහ කුලක්කෝට්ටන්ගේ ඥාති සම්බන්ධය ගැන සහ තිරුකුණාමලේ කෝවිල ගොඩනැගීම පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු අතර පරස්පර බවක් පැහැදිලිව ම දැක්වෙතත් දෙමළ උගතුන් සහ ලේඛකයන් කෝවිල ගොඩනගනු ලැබූ තැනැත්තා කුලක්කෝට්ටන් බව නිශ්චිතව ප‍්‍රකාශ කොට ඇත. මේ කථා පුවත් දෙක ම ඔහු චෝලයෙකු බව කියයි. එමෙන්ම ඔහු මහා බලසම්පන්නයෙකු බව ද කියයි.
යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කාව්‍යය කුලක්කෝඞ්ඩු(ට්ටු* ‘මහා රාජ’ ශක වර්ෂ 358 දී පැමිණි බව කියයි. එනම් තිරිකුණාමලේට ඔහු පැමිණියේ ව්‍ය.ව. 436 දී ය. ඒ අනුව එකල කුලක්කෝට්ටන් සහ වරරාමතේවන් සහ ඊට පෙර හෝ ඒ කාලයේ ම මනුනීතිචෝලන් ජීවත් වූ බලවත් පාලකයන් බව සහ දකුණු ඉන්දියාවේ කොරමන්ඩල් ප‍්‍රදේශයේ කාවේරි පටුනේ චෝලයන් දේශපාලන බලවතුන් වී සිටි බව දක්වයි. පුරාවිද්‍යා හෝ ඓතිහාසික වාර්තා කිසිවක මොවුන් ගැන සඳහනක් නැත. වෙනත් රාජ්‍යයකට විශේෂයෙන් ම සමුදුරෙන් එතෙර රාජ්‍යයකට ගොස් තමන්ගේ හිතුමතය අනුව ඒ රාජ්‍යය තුළ දේශපාලන, පරිපාලන කටයුතුවල නිරත වීමට තරම් චෝලයන් ප‍්‍රබල ව සිටියේ දැ’යි එකල දකුණු ඉන්දියාවේ ඉතිහාසය නිසැක ව ම හෙළි කරනු ඇත.

එදා දඹදිව ද්‍රවිඩ භූමිය
ව්‍ය.ව.පූ. 3 වෙනි සියවස වෙන විට ද මහශිලා යුගයේ සංස්කෘතිය තුළ පැවති චෝල, පාණ්ඩ්‍ය සහ චේර භුමිය අශෝකගේ ”ධර්මවිජය” ව්‍යාපාරයෙන් සහ ලංකාවෙන් වැඩම කළ භික්‍ෂු, භික්‍ෂුණීන් සහ බෞද්ධ උපාසික උපාසිකාවන් මගින් නව සංස්කෘතික තලයකට පත් වූ බව පුරාවිද්‍යා සාධක අනුව විද්වතුන් පැහැදිලි කොට ඇත. එහි සීහල විහාරයක් පැවති බව සහ සීහලදීපෙන් ගිය කෙළෙඹියන් ගැන සඳහන් ප‍්‍රාකෘත සෙල්ලිපි ලැබී ඇත.
කර්ණාටක ජන්මවාසීන් වූ කලාබ‍්‍රයන් ව්‍ය.ව. 3 වෙනිි සියවසේ සිට 6 වෙනි සියවසේ අවසානය පමණ වෙන තෙක් ”ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ” පාලකයන් වී ඇත. ප‍්‍රාකෘත, පාලි සහ සංස්කෘත භාෂා භාවිත කරන ලද ඔවුන් බෞද්ධ සහ ජෛන ආගමිකයන් වූ බවට තොරතුරු කාසි ඇතුළු පුරාවස්තු, බෞද්ධ සහ ජෛන සාහිත්‍යය සහ පසුකාලීන හින්දු කෘති තුළින් හෙළි වෙයි. එකල කාවේරිපටුන ප‍්‍රදේශයේ බෞද්ධයන් සිටි බවට තොරෙතුරු ලැබී ඇත.
බුද්ධදත්ත හිමියන් ‘විනයවිනිච්චය’ රචනා කළේ මේ කාලයේ බව සලකනු ලබයි. එසේම ද්‍රවිඩ භාෂා සංස්කෘතකරණය වීම මෙකල සිට සිදු වී ඇති බව අදහස් කෙරෙයි. බෞද්ධ සහ ජෛන චින්තන සහිත සිලප්පදිකාරම්, මනිමේඛෙලෙ, තිරුක්කුරල් ද්‍රවිඩ කාව්‍ය මේ කාලයට අයත් ලෙස සලකනු ලබයි. එහෙත් ”ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ” කලාබ‍්‍රයන්ගේ පාලන කාලය පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු නැත. ඒ කාලය ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ ඉතිහාසයේ අඳුරු පරිච්ජ්දයක් ලෙස සැලකෙයි.
ආන්ද්‍ර ප‍්‍රදේශයේ බලවතුන් වූ, ප‍්‍රාකෘත සහ සංස්කෘත භාෂා භාවිත කළ පල්ලවයන් කලාබ‍්‍ර බලය අහෝසි කොට ව්‍ය.ව. 9 වෙනි සියවස දක්වා චෝල දේශය ද ඇතුළත් වූ ‘ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ’ උතුරු කොටසේ බලවතුන් වී සිටි අතර පාණ්ඩ්‍යයන් දකුණු කොටසේ් බලවතුන් වී ඇත. සංගම් කවීන්ගේ අද්භූත කථා තුළ සඳහන් චෝල පාලකයන් වූ මිථ්‍යා චරිත සහ ඓතිහාසික යුගයේ චෝල රජුන් අතර සම්බන්ධයක් දැක්වීමට නොහැකි අතර ව්‍ය.ව. 200 පමණ සිට 848 දක්වා කාලය චෝල ඉතිහාසයේ අරාජික කාලයක් ලෙස සලකනු ලබයි. (චෝලයන් ව්‍ය.ව. නවවෙනි සිය වසේ දෙවෙනි භාගය වෙන තෙක් පරාධීනව සිටි ජන වර්ගයකි.*

මනෝමය කුලක්කෝට්ටන්
මේ කාලය තුළ ද්‍රවිඩ භූමිය පැවතියේ කලාබ‍්‍ර, පල්ලව සහ පාණ්ඩ්‍ය බලය යටතේ ය. චෝලයන් ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ බලවතුන් බවට පත්වීම කලාබ‍්‍රයන්ට, පල්ලවයන්ට සහ පාණ්ඩ්‍යයන්ට පසුව ය. ව්‍ය.ව. 6 වෙනි සියවසේ සිට චෝලයන් පල්ලව සහ පාණ්ඩ්‍ය බලයට යටත් ව සිටි බව සහ ඔවුන්ගෙන් මිදීමට අරගල කරමින් සිටි බවට තොරතුරු ඇත. ‘‘චෝල’’ වචනය පවා දෙමළ වචනයක් නො වෙන බව මහාචාර්ය නීලකණ්ට ශාස්තී‍්‍ර දක්වන අතර චෝලයන් දෙමළ කථා කරන ජන වර්ගයට අයත් නොවූ බව අයියෙන්ගර් හෙළි කොට ඇත.
කෝනේසර් කල්වෙට්ටු සහ යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කියන ලෙස ශක වර්ෂ 358 (ව්‍ය.ව. 436* දී සමුදුරෙන් එතෙර රටක ශිව කෝවිලක් ගොඩනගා තම හිතුමතේට කෙත්වතු සංවර්ධනය කොට බෙදා දුන් ලෙස දක්වා ඇති චෝල කුලක්කෝට්ටන් ‘මහා රාජා’ පිළිබඳ පුවත හුදු මනෝමය නිර්මාණයක් බව විද්වතුන් පිළිගත් කරුණකි. එසේ වුව ද දෙමළ උගතුන් සහ ලේඛකයන් ඔහු ඓතිහාසික අයෙකු ලෙස දැක්වීමට උත්සාහ කොට ඇත.

චෝඩගංග සහ කුලක්කෝට්ටන්
කුලක්කෝට්ටන් නමින් සඳහන් කොට ඇත්තේ චෝඩගංග බවට පී. පී. වෛතියලිංගම් තේසිකාර් ඉදිරිපත් කළ අදහසක් අනුමත කරන ආචාර්ය එස්. පද්මනාතන් ද කුලක්කෝට්ටන් අන් අයෙකු නොව චෝඩගංග බව දක්වමින් එය ගොතන ලද මිථ්‍යා කථාවක චරිතයක් නොව කුලක්කෝට්ටන් ඓතිහාසික අයෙකු බව දැක්වීමට තිරිකුණාමලෙන් ලැබී ඇති චෝඩගංග නම සඳහන් ව ඇති සෙල්ලිපියක් සම්බන්ධ කොට ඇත. මේ සෙල්ලිපිය ශක වර්ෂ 1145 (ව්‍ය.ව. 1223* පිහිටුවන ලද එකකි.
ලිපිය ලියා ඇති කාලය සම්බන්ධයෙන් එකල තිරුකුණාමලේ (ගෝණගම්තොට=ගෝකණ්ණ තිත්ථ* කාලිංග මාඝ යටතේ පැවති බව සහ එහි ඔහුගේ හේවා කඳවුරක් තිබූ බව අමතක කළ යුතු නැත. දෙමළ භාෂාවෙන් නොව සංස්කෘත භාෂාවෙන් ලියා ඇති මේ සෙල්ලිපියේ සඳහන් චෝඩගංග ද්‍රවිඩයෙකු නොවේ. ඔහු නැගෙනහිර ගංග වංශයට අයත් කාලිංග කුමාරයෙකු බව විද්වතුන් පැහැදිලිව දක්වා ඇත. ඔහු මාඝගේ ඉල්ලීමට ඔහුගේ සහායට පැමිණ ඔහුගේ හවුල්කරු ලෙස සිටි ජයබාහු විය හැකි බව ආචාර්ය සී. ඩබ්ලියු. නිකලස් පැහැදිලි කොට ඇත. ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ තිබූ පුරාණ ගෝකණ්ණ විහාරයේ උ`ඵවස්සක කොටා තිබූ චෝඩගංගදේව නම සහ ශක ව. 1145 (ව්‍ය.ව. 1223* වර්ෂය සඳහන් සංස්කෘත සෙල්ලිපිය ”ලංකාව සතුරන් විසින් ජයගත නොහැකි” රටක් බව ද කියයි. දෙමළ උගතුන් සහ කෝනේශර් කල්වෙට්ටු සහ යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කියන ආකාරයේ කථාවක් එහි නැත.
එමෙන්ම කුලක්කෝට්ටන් සහ චෝඩගංග එක් අයෙකු බවට වූ නිගමනය අනුව ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ කොනේසර් කෝවිල ගැන කෝනේසර් කල්වෙට්ටු සහ යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කියන කථා පුවත් සම්පූර්ණයෙන් ම ප‍්‍රතික්‍ෂේප වෙයි. එසේම දහවෙනි සියවසේ පමණ මේ කෝවිල ගොඩ නගන ලද බවට නූතන දකුණු ඉන්දීය ලේඛකයන් දක්වන අදහස ද බිඳවැටේ. එපමණක් නොව ව්‍ය.ව. 1223 වර්ෂයට පෙර තිරිකුණාමලේ (ගොකණ්ණතිත්ථයේ* ඊශ්වර කෝවිලක් නොතිබුණු බව තහවුරු කරයි. කෙසේ වෙතත් ඒ සෙල්ලිපියේ චෝඩගංග එහි කෝවිලක් ගොඩනැගූ බව සඳහන් නොවේ.

මේ දෙමළ කාව්‍ය නිර්ව්‍යාජ ද?
සත්‍යය වශයෙන් මේ කාව්‍ය ඓතිහාසික අගයෙන් ඉතාමත් දුප්පත් ය. එසේ ම මේ කාව්‍ය වසර දෙසියයක්වත් පැරණි නැති බව සී. එස්. නවරත්නම් පිළිගෙන ඇති අතර ආචාර්ය කාර්තිගේසු ඉන්ද්‍රපාල ප‍්‍රකාශ කොට ඇත්තේ ඒවායේ දැක්වෙන කථා ඓතිහාසික පුවත් ලෙස පිළිගත නොහැකි මිථ්‍යා කථා බව ය.
එමෙන්ම ”බලපරාක‍්‍රමාන්විත ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨයන් විසින් පාද ප‍්‍රණාමය කරනු ලබන ප‍්‍රවර කීර්තිමත් මක්කාර් නාමෝපලක්‍ෂිත ලන්දේසි ආණ්ඩුකාර උතුමාණන් වහන්සේගේ ආරාධනයෙන්, යාපන ඉතිහාසය මෙසේ ද්‍රවිඩ භාෂාවෙන්” රචනා කළ බව යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි කාව්‍යයේ රචක මයිල්වාගනම් සඳහන් කොට ඇත. එවැනි ලන්දේසි ආණ්ඩුකාරයෙකු ලංකාවේ සිටි බව ඓතිහාසික වාර්තා හෙළි නොකරන නිසා ඒ කාව්‍යය නිර්ව්‍යාජ එකක් දැ’යි ප‍්‍රශ්ණයකි.

ක්වේරෝස්ගේ එළිදරව්ව
තිරිකුණාමල කොටුව ගොඩනැගීමට පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරන ලද පුදබිම (පැගෝඞ්* පිළිබඳව කෝනේසර් කල්වෙට්ටු සහ යාල්පාන වෛපව මාලෙයි දක්වන කථාවලට වඩා ක්වේරෝස් පියතුමා ඉදිරිපත් කරන සමකාලීන තොරතුරු ඓතිහාසික වශයෙන් වැදගත් ය. විනාශ කරන ලද පුදබිම ගැන ක්වේරෝස් පියතුමා සඳහන් කරන සෙල්ලිපියේ සඳහන් තොරතුරු ඉතිහාසය පිළිබඳව උනන්දුවක් දක්වන සහ හදාරන අයට වැදගත් ය.
”ලංකාවේ අධිරාජයා වූ මනික රාජ බාහු වීදිය-මල්-මණ්ඩ දෙවියන් වෙනුවෙන් මේ වෙහෙර …. වර්ෂයේ ඉදි කළේය. ෆ‍්‍රෑන්ක්ස් නම් වූ ජාතියක් පැමිණ එය විනාශ කරන්නේ ය. එය නැවතත් ගොඩනැගීමට මේ දිවයිනේ රජ කෙනෙකු ඇති වෙන්නේ නැත.” යනුවෙන් ඒ සෙල්ලිපියේ සඳහන් ව තිබූ බව ක්වේරෝස් දක්වා ඇත.(14* ඒ අනුව වෙහෙර ”වීදිය-මල්-මණ්ඩ දෙවියන්” වෙනුවෙනි. ඊශ්වර/ශිව වෙනුවෙන් නොවේ. ගොඩනගන ලද්දේ කුලක්කෝට්ටන් හෝ චෝඩගංග නම් වූ අයෙකු විසින් නොවේ. ”මනික රාජ බාහු” නමැති රජ කෙනෙකි. එමෙන් ම කුලක්කෝට්ටන් හෝ චෝඩගංග නම තිබූ අයෙක් ”ලංකාවේ අධිරාජයා” ලෙස කිසිම කලෙක සිටියේ නැත.

නැති දෙයක් ලේඛනගත කරයි
ක්වේරෝස් සඳහන් කරන සෙල්ලිපියේ ඊශ්වර/ශිව ගැන සම්බන්ධයක් නැත. එසේ වුව ද, පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරන ලද මේ පුදබිම ‘කෝනේෂ්වරම් කෝවිල’ බව සී.එස්. නවරත්නම් සඳහන් කරයි. එමෙන්ම ලංකා ඉතිහාසය හදාරන සියල්ලන් ම ගුරු පොත ලෙස පිළිගනු ලබන ”ලංකා ඉතිහාසය” කෘතිය සංග‍්‍රහ කිරීමට දායක වූ එස්. නටේසන් ද ”කොන්ස්ටන්ටයින් ද සා තිරිකුණාමලේ ශෛව කෝවිල වනසා දමා” යනුවෙන් ප‍්‍රකාශ කරයි. දෙස්, විදෙස් සහ සිංහල, ද්‍රවිඩ, උගත්, නූගත් සියලූ දෙනා එය එසේ ය’යි පිළිගෙන ඇත.
ක්වේරෝස් සඳහන් කරන සෙල්ලිපියේ ඊශ්වර හෝ ශිව කෝවිලක් ගැන හෝ ගොඩනගන ලද වර්ෂය හෝ සඳහන් නොවේ. සෙල්ලිපියේ සඳහන් පුදබිම පුර්තුගීසි පරිවර්තනයේ දක්වා ඇත්තේ ”වීදිය-මල්-මණ්ඩ දෙවියන් වෙනුවෙන්” ඉදිකොට තිබූ එකක් ලෙස ය. ”වීදිය-මල්-මණ්ඩ” නමින් ඊශ්වර/ශිව හඳුන්වනු ලැබූ බවට කිසි ම සාධකයක් නැත. එහෙත් පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරන ලද්දේ කෝනේෂ්වරම් කෝවිල බව සහ එය ගොඩනගනු ලැබුවේ ව්‍ය.ව.පූ. (කි‍්‍ර.පූ.* 1300 වසරට පෙර විය හැකි බව සහ වෙනත් තැනෙක එය ව්‍ය.ව.පූ (කි‍්‍ර.පූ.* 1580 දී පමණ විය හැකි බව කිසිදු පදනමක් නැතිව මේ උගතුන් ප‍්‍රකාශ කොට ඇත.
යජුර් වේදයෙන් පසු ඊශ්වර වැනි දෙවියන් සමාජගත කළ වෛදික ආර්යයන් ඔවුන් දක්වන කාලය වෙනවිට අඩුම වශයෙන් භාරතයේ වයඹදිග භූමිය පසු කොට ගංගා නිම්නයට සංක‍්‍රමණය වී නොසිටි බව අමතක කිරීම සුදුසු නැත. එමෙන්ම ඒ කාලයේ දකුණු ඉන්දියාවේ ද්‍රවිඩ/දෙමළ කථා කරන ජනයා සිටියේ නැත. කෙසේ වෙතත් වීදිය-මල්-මණ්ඩ නමින් හින්දු දෙවියෙක් හෝ ද්‍රවිඩ දෙවියෙක් නැත.
ඓතිහාසික යුගය ආරම්භයේ සිට ව්‍ය.ව. 10 වෙනි සියවස පමණ වෙන තෙක් ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ පැවති දේශපාලනික තත්වය අනුව ලංකාවට පැමිණ තමන්ගේ හිතුමතය පරිදි තිරුකුණාමලේ (ගොකණ්ණතිත්ථයේ* කෝවිලක් ගොඩනැගීමට හෝ පදවියේ කෝවිලක් පිළිසකර කිරීමට සහ නැගෙනහිර පළාතේ භූමිය බෙදා එක් එක් අයට පැවරීමට හැකි තරම් බලවත් චෝල පාලකයෙකු සිටි බව සිතීමට පවා නොහැකි මිථ්‍යා කථාවකි.

ගෝණගම්තොට හා බැඳුණු ඉතිහාසය
පුර්තුගීසීන් කොටුව ගොඩනැගුවේ එතැන තිබූ පුදබිමක් විනාශ කරමින් බවට ක්වේරෝස් පියතුමා කරන ප‍්‍රකාශය පිළිගත් කරුණකි. එමෙන්ම ඒ පුදබිම කුමක් දැ’යි දැන ගැනීමට එතෙක් පැවති පළාතේ ඓතිහාසික තොරතුරු සිහිපත් කිරීම අවශ්‍ය ය.
ඓතිහාසික යුගය ආරම්භයේ සිට ම ලංකාවේ ඊශාන දිග සහ නැගෙනහිර දිග ප‍්‍රදේශ ආර්ය ජනයා වාසය කළ, ශාක්‍ය සිංහල බෞද්ධ ජනාවාස පැවති භූමි ප‍්‍රදේශ වීය. ගිරහඬුසෑය, තිරියාය, මානාමතු, කුච්චවේලි, කුරුන්දාවසෝක, ගොකණ්ණ, වෙල්ගම්වෙහෙර, පදවිය, කොටසර, සේරුවිල, ලංකාපටුන විහාරය, කන්නියා ආදී බෞද්ධ පුදබිම් රාශියක් පිරුණු ප‍්‍රදේශයකි.
භද්දකච්චානා කුමරියගේ සහෝදරයෙකු වූ රාම කුමරු පිහිටුවාගත් ගම ගෝණගාම විය. පණ්ඩුකාභය රජ තම බිසව ස්වර්ණපාලී කුමරියගේ පියාට ප‍්‍රදේශයේ කටයුතු භාර කළේය. කාවන්තිස්ස රජු සමයේ සිට මහවැලිගෙඟන් දකුණු කොටස දිඝාමඬුල්ල යටතේ සහ උතුරු කොටස රජරට යටතේ පැවතුණි. ගැමුණු රජු යටතේ දිවයින එක්සේසත් රාජ්‍යයක් වූ තැන් සිට ඉතිහාසය පුරා රජරට ‘පාචීන පස්ස’ පාලන කොට්ඨාශයට ඇතුළත් විය. ගෝකණ්ණතිත්ථ ප‍්‍රදේශය සංස්කෘතික, ආගමික සහ විදේශ සම්බන්ධතා සඳහා වැදගත් නැව්තොටුවලින් යුත් ප‍්‍රදේශයක් විය.
නැව්තොට හේතුවෙන් ගෝණගම්පටුන වූ එහි පිහිටි කන්ද ගෝණකන්ද විය. පුදබිම නිසා ශී‍්‍ර ගෝණකන්ද නමින් හඳුන්වනු ලැබීම ස්වාභාවික ය. යුරෝපීය ආක‍්‍රමණිකයන්ගේ පැමිණීමෙන් පසු දෙමළකරණයෙන් තිරිකෝණමලෙයි වී ඇත. (දෙමළ භාෂාවේ ‘ග’ අක්‍ෂර රූපයක් නැත. ඒ සඳහා ‘ක’ අක්‍ෂරය භාවිත කරනු ලබයි.*
ව්‍ය.ව. 1029 සිට 1070 දක්වා පැවති අඛණ්ඩ සිංහල හමුදා ප‍්‍රහාරවලින් හෙම්බත්ව වරින් වර අතිරේක හමුදා පවා ලබා ගනිමින් චෝල ආක‍්‍රමණිකයන් බලය රැුකගත් කාලයේ හෝ තිරිකුණාමලේ (ගොකණ්ණතිත්ථ* ඊශ්වර/ශිව කෝවිලක් ගොඩනැගූ බවට හෝ පැවති බවට තොරතුරු නැත. පොළොන්නරුවේ ශිව කෝවිල් දෙක බෞද්ධ විහාර විනාශ කොට ගොඩනගන ලද බව පුරාවිද්‍යා සාධක සනාථ කරයි.
මුස්ලිම් සංහාරවලින් දිවි රැුකගැනීමට උතුරු ඉන්දියාවේ සිට පැමිණි ලෙස සැලකිය හැකි බමුණු පූජකයන් සඳහා ව්‍ය.ව. 1097 දී පමණ පළමුවෙනි විජයබාහු රජතුමා (ව්‍ය.ව. 1055-1111* විසින් ගංතලාහි (කන්තලේ* ”විජයරාජ චතුර්වේදී මංගලම්” බමුණු ගමක් පිහිටුවා(20* ”විජයරාජ ඊශ්වරම්” නමින් ශිව කෝවිලක් ද කරවනු ලැබීය. ඉන් වසර සියයකින් පමණ පසු මේ බමුණු ගම සහ කෝවිල පිළිබඳව තොරතුරු නැත. දෙවෙනි ගජබාහු රජු (ව්‍ය.ව. 1132-1153* ආරක්‍ෂාව සඳහා කලක් කොටසර ප‍්‍රදේශයේ සිටි බවට සහ තම ජීවිතයේ අවසන් කාලයේ පදවිය ප‍්‍රදේශයේ සිට රාජ්‍යය විචාල බවට ඇති වාර්තා බැහැර කළ නොහැකි ය.
ව්‍ය.ව. 1017 සිට 1070 කාලය හැර ආරම්භයේ සිට ම ව්‍ය.ව. 1215 වෙන තෙක් අනුරාධපුර සහ පොළොන්නරු රාජ්‍ය යුග තුළ වසර 1700ක පමණ කාලයක් මේ පළාත සිංහල රාජ්‍ය පාලනය යටතේ පැවතුණි. ව්‍ය.ව. 1215 දී රජරට විනාශ කොට කාලිංග මාඝ බෞද්ධයන් සහ භික්‍ෂූන් පළවාහැර සිංහල බෞද්ධ ගම්වල සහ විහාරාරාමවල කඳවුරු තනා තමන්ගේ කුලී හේවායන්ට පදිංචිය සැලසූ නමුදු පරාජයත් සමග සියල්ල අත්හැර දැමීමට සිදු වූ බවට සහ ව්‍ය.ව. 1262 දී ජාවක චන්ද්‍රභානු සිංහල රාජ්‍යය පැහැර ගැනීමේ අසාර්ථක සටන සඳහා කුරුන්දි, මානාවතු, ගෝකණ්ණ (තිරිකුණාමලේ*, පදවිය ආදි ප‍්‍රදේශවල සිංහල බෞද්ධ ජනයාගේ සහාය ලබාගත් බවට ඇති ඓතිහාසික වාර්තා අමතක කළ යුතු නැත.

ද්‍රවිඩ වෙළෙන්දන්ගේ පූජා
තිරියාය, වෙල්ගම්වෙහෙර ආදී බෞද්ධ පුදබිම්වලට සහ පොළොන්නරුව, පදවිය ප‍්‍රදේශවල ශිව සහ විෂ්ණු කෝවිල් කීපයකට කරන ලද පූජා පිළිබඳව සඳහන් දෙමළ සෙල්ලිපි ලැබී ඇත. අනුරාධපුර යුගයේ අවසාන කාලයට අයත් ලෙස සැලකෙන මේ සෙල්ලිපි ප‍්‍රධාන වශයෙන් තෙල්, පහන්, ගිතෙල් ආදී එදිනෙදා අවශ්‍ය පූජා ද්‍රව්‍ය පූජා කොට ඇති බව සහ මේ දායකයන් ද්‍රවිඩ භූමියේ තිරුප්පුවනම්, තිරුවයියාරු, චිදම්බරම් ආදි නගරවලින් පැමිණි තෙල් වෙළෙන්දන්, බුලත් වෙළෙන්දන්, කෙසෙල් වෙළෙන්දන් වූ බව හෙළි කරයි. සිංහල බෞද්ධයන් පූජා කළේ පුදබිම්වල ස්ථාවර පැවැත්ම සහ නඩත්තුව සඳහා අවශ්‍ය කෙත්වතු, වැව් බදු, ඉඩම් බදු, දිය බදු, බැංකු තැන්පතුවල පොලිය ආදිය යි. නැගෙනහිර පළාතේ සිංහල බෞද්ධ ජනාවාස මිස ස්ථිර අසිංහල ගම්බිම් නොවූ බව සෙල්ලිපි හෙළි කරන වැදගත් ඓතිහාසික කරුණකි.
වෙළඳ කටයුතු සඳහා සෙනරත් රජුගේ අවසරය ලබාගත් පුර්තුගීසීන් වංචනික ලෙස ව්‍ය.ව. 1623 දී තිරිකුණාමලේ කොටුව ගොඩනගා එහි බලවතුන් ව සිටි වසර 16ක කාලය (1623-1639* හැර, ව්‍ය.ව. 13 වෙනි සියවසේ දෙවෙනි භාගයේ සිට ව්‍ය.ව. 18 වෙනි සියවසේ අවසන් දසක කීපය (1766* වෙන තෙක් ඊශාන දිග සහ නැගෙනහිර දිග පළාත් දඹදෙණි, ගම්පළ, කෝට්ටේ, සීතාවක සහ සෙන්කඩගල රාජ්‍ය පාලනය යටතේ පැවතුණි. (කෝට්ටේ රාජ්‍ය යුගයට පෙර විශේෂයෙන් ම ගම්පළ යුගය තුළ බටහිර දිග නැව්තොටු සහ සාගර කලාපය මුස්ලිම් සහ හින්දු මුහුදු කොල්ලකරුවන්ගේ ගොදුරු බිම් බවට පත් ව තිබූ බව ඉබ්න් බතූතා හෙළි කරයි.*
තිරිකුණාමලේ දී සෙන්කඩගල (නුවර* රජුගේ අත්අඩංගුවට පත් ව ව්‍ය.ව. 1660 සිට වසර විස්සක කාලයක් සිංහල රාජ්‍යයේ ‘එළිමහන් සිරකරුවෙකු’ ලෙස සිටි රොබට් නොක්ස් දිවයිනේ නියම මාර්තෘභූමි වාසීන් සිංහලයන් පමණක් බව පවසයි. එමෙන් ම මලබාර්/ද්‍රවිඩ ජනයා සිංහල රජුට බදු ගෙවමින් පදිංචි ව සිටි අය බව සහ මුස්ලිම් ජනයා නැව්තොටුවලට බඩු ගෙනයාමෙන් (වෙළඳ අතරමැදියන් ලෙස* ජීවත් වූ ඉඩම් හිමිකම් නැති ආගන්තුකයන් (ස්ටේ‍්‍රන්ජ(ර්ස් වූ බව සහ නැව්තොටු අවට ප‍්‍රදේශවල පදිංචි මලබාර් සහ මුස්ලිම් ජනයා ලන්දේසීන්ට රේන්ද ගාස්තු සහ කප්පම් ගෙවූ බව කියයි.

”පැගෝඞ්”?
ඉන්දියාවේ සහ ලංකාවේ ආගම් සහ ආගමික ස්ථාන පිළිබඳ වසර සියයකට වැඩි කාලයක දැනීම් සහ අත්දැකීම් තිබූ පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරන ලද පුදබිම ගැන සඳහන් කිරීමට චර්ච් හෝ කෝවිල් වචනය නොව ”පැගෝඞ්” වචනය භාවිත කොට ඇත. පුර්තුගීසි ‘පැගෝඞ්’ යන වචනයට ”සාමාන්‍යයෙන් වැඳුම් පිදුම් කිරීම පිණිස පූජනීය ධාතු නිදන් කොට මහල් සහිතව ඉදිකළ පිරමීඩාකාර ගොඩනැගිල්ල” යනුවෙන් අරුත් දක්වා ඇත. බෞද්ධ විහාරාරාම ගැන සඳහන් කිරීමේ දී රොබට් නොක්ස් ද ‘පැගෝඩා’ වචනය භාවිත කොට ඇත. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් භක්තිය පළ කරමින්, ඇතැම් විට සතුන් බිලි දෙමින් දෙවියන් යැදීම සඳහා වූ හින්දු කෝවිල් ගොඩනැගීමේ දී ”පූජනීය ධාතු” නිදන් කිරීමක් නැත.

පැරණි සිංහල සෙල්ලිපිය
රජුගේ නම හෝ වර්ෂය පැහැදිලි ව වාර්තාවේ සඳහන් වී නම් පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරන ලද පුදබිම කුමක් ද? එය ඉදිකළේ කවුදැ’යි හඳුනා ගැනීමට යම් හැකියාවක් ඇත. කෙසේ වෙතත් සෙල්ලිපියේ රජුගේ නම ”බාහු” කොටසක් සහිත වූ නිසා ඔහු සිංහල රජෙකු බව අනුමාන කිරීමට හැකි ය. ව්‍ය.ව. 1623 පමණ කාලයේ ලැබී ඇති මේ සෙල්ලිපිය පිළිබඳව ඩි ක්වේරෝස් පියතුමා කරන පැහැදිලි කිරීම මේ අනුමානය ශක්තිමත් කරයි. එසේම එය බැහැර නොකළ යුතු ඉතා වැදගත් ඓතිහාසික කරුණකි.
”මේ විහාරය (පැගෝඞ්* විනාශ කරන අවස්ථාවේ අකුරු කොටන ලද ගලක් සොයාගනු ලැබී ය. සිංහලයන්ගේ පැරණි අක්‍ෂර පිළිබඳ ඉහළ ම උගතුන් විසින් පරිවර්තනය කරන ලදුව, ලංකාවේ ඕවිදොර් විසින් සත්‍ය බවට සහතික කරන ලද එය අති උත්තම රජු වෙත යවන ලදී.” යනුවෙන් ලිපිය ගැන හඳුන්වන ක්වේරෝස් පියතුමා ලිපිය ”සිංහලයන්ගේ පැරණි අක්‍ෂර” භාවිත කොට ලියා තිබූ බව සහ එය ”පැරණි සිංහල අක්‍ෂර පිළිබඳ ඉහළ ම උගතුන් විසින්” කියවන ලද බව පැහැදිලිව ම සඳහන් කරයි. එසේම භාවිත කොට තිබූ අක්‍ෂර ව්‍ය.ව. 16 වෙනි සියවස ආසන්න කාලයේ භාවිත වූ සිංහල අකුරු නොව පුරාණ සිංහල අකුරු බව ද හෙළි කරයි.

සෙල්ලිපිය අතුරුදන්වීම
මේ සෙල්ලිපිය මෙතෙක් සොයා ගැනීමට හැකි වී නැත. ඉතිහාසඥයන්ගේ විශ්වාසය ලිපිය සහිත ගල් කුට්ටිය ද කොටු බැම්ම තැනීමට යොදා ගන්නට ඇති බව ය. කොටුව තැනීමට සුදුසු තැනක් සෙවූ පුර්තුගීසීන් ”විශේෂයෙන් ම ඉදිකිරීම සම්පූර්ණ කිරීමට විහාරයේ ගල් ඉතාමත් ප‍්‍රයෝජනවත් විය හැකි නිසා හරියට ම තිරිකුණාමලේ විහාරය පිටුපස කුඩා බිම් තීරුවේ බලකොටුව ගොඩනැගීමට අවසානයේ තීරණය කොට 1622 වැඩ අරඹා (එකල ඔවුන් සමග සාමයෙන් සිටි* නුවර රජුට දැන ගැනීමට ඉඩ නොලැබෙන සේ ඉදිකිරීම වේගවත් කළ” බව ලංකාවේ අගමික ප‍්‍රචාරයේ නිරතව සිටි පිලිප්පුස් බෝල්දිඅස් පියතුමා කරන සඳහන ඒ විශ්වාසය තහවුරු කරයි.

ඓතිහාසික සහ පුරාවිද්‍යා සාධක
වසර දසක කීපයකට පෙර ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුව තුළ කරන ලද පුරාවිද්‍යා කැණීම් මගින් එහි තිබූ පුරාණ බුදුමැදුරක කොටස්, පධානඝරයක නටබුන්, බුදුපිළිම සහ පුරාණ බෞද්ධ විහාරාරාමවල ඉදිකරනු ලබන විවිධ අංග පැවති බව සනාථ කරන පුරාවිද්‍යා සාධක රැුසක් සොයාගැනීමට හැකි විය. මේ පුරාවිද්‍යා අවශේෂ (ආටිෆැක්ට්ස්* භික්‍ෂූන් වාසය කළ අංග සම්පූර්ණ පුරාණ බෞද්ධ ආරාමයක් එහි පැවති බව එළිදරවු කරයි. ඒ පුරාවස්තු තිරිකුණාමල කෞතුකාගාරයේ තැන්පත් කරනු ලැබ ඇත.
පස්වෙනි අග්බෝ රජු (ව්‍ය.ව. 718-724* ගෝකණ්ණ විහාරයේ පධානඝරයක් ඉදිකරනු ලැබූ බව මහාවංශය සඳහන් කරයි. පුරාවිද්‍යාඥයන් සොයාගනු ලැබූ පධානඝරයේ නටබුන් නිසැකයෙන් ම ඒ පධානඝරයේ නටබුන් විය හැකි බව අදහස් කෙරෙයි. එමෙන් ම තුන් පැත්තකින් මුහුදින් වටවී ඇති මේ භූමිය තුළ, භාවනා කරන භික්‍ෂූන් සඳහා අවශ්‍ය සියලූ අංගවලින් යුත් පුදබිමක් ලෙස ගෝකණ්ණ විහාරය පැවති බව පෙනෙයි. බොහෝ විට මේ විහාරයට අවශ්‍ය අංගයක් වූ පධානඝරය පස්වෙනි අග්බෝ රජු විසින් ගොඩනගන්නට ඇත. ව්‍ය.ව. අටවෙනි සියවසෙන් පසුව ද පැවති මේ විහාරය ඉන් බොහෝ කලකට පෙර ගොඩනගන ලද පුදබිමක් බවත් පෙන්නුම් කරයි.
වෙහෙර විහාර රාශියක් කර වූ මහසෙන් රජු (ව්‍ය.ව. 275-302* ගෝණගම්පටුනේ ද විහාරයක් කරවූ බව මහාවංශය සඳහන් කරයි. දන්ත ධාතුව රැුගෙන දන්ත කුමරු සහ හේමමාලි කුමරිය පිරිවර සමග පැමිණියේ ගෝණගම්තොට ආශි‍්‍රතව පිහිටි පුරාණ ලංකාපටුන නැව්තොටිනි.

කෝවිලක් නොවේ
තිරිකුණාමලේ කොටුව ගොඩනගන අවස්ථාවේ පුර්තුගීසීන් විනාශ කරන ලද්දේ ඊශ්වර/ශිව කෝවිලක් හෝ වෙනත් හින්දු දෙවියෙකු වෙනුවෙන් කළ කෝවිලක් නොව බෞද්ධ විහාරස්ථානයක් බව ඩි ක්වේරෝස් සහ පිලිප්පුස් බෝල්දිඅස් පියතුමන්ලා ඉදිරිපත් කරන තොරතුරු සහ ඓතිහාසික සහ පුරාවිද්‍යා සාධක සනාථ කරයි. ඒ විහාරය, නිසැක ව ම, මහසෙන් රජු විසින් ගෝණගම්පටුනේ (ගෝකණ්ණතිත්ථ* ගොඩන`ගන ලද බෞද්ධ සිද්ධස්ථානය විය හැකි ය. පුර්තුගීසීන් ව්‍ය.ව. 1623 විනාශ කරන තෙක් වසර එක්දහස් තුන්සිය පනහක (1350* පමණ කාලයක් පුරා පැවති ගෝකණ්ණ විහාරය සහ ඒ භූමිය පවා දැන් බෞද්ධයන්ට හිමි නැත.
යුරෝපීය ආක‍්‍රමණවලින් පසු විශේෂයෙන් ම ඉංගිරිසීන්ගේ කාලයේ සිට නැගෙනහිර පළාතේ ද ජන සංයුතිය සහ සංස්කෘතිය ඉතා විශාල ලෙස වෙනස් විය. දෙමළ, හින්දු, කි‍්‍රස්තියානි සහ මුස්ලිම්කරණය ඉතා දැඩි ය. නතර වී නැත.

බොදු පුදබිම් මත කෝවිල් සහ පල්ලි
ව්‍ය.ව. 1795 ඉංගිරිසීන් අල්ලාගත් කාලයේ සිට වසර එකසිය පනහකට වැඩි කාලයක් පුරා ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුව ඉංගිරිසීන්ගේ හමුදා මූලස්ථානයක් ලෙස පැවතුණි. හමුදා නිවහන් ද ඒ තුළ වීය. බණ්ඩාරනායක ආණ්ඩුව විසින් 1957 දී කටුනායක සහ තිරිකුණාමල හමුදා කඳවුරු භූමි අයිතිය යළි ලබා ගැනීම තෙක් ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුව පැවතියේ බි‍්‍රතාන්‍ය රාජ්‍යයේ කොටසක් ලෙස ය. ඉංගිරිසින්ගේ අවසරයකින් තොරව කිසිවෙකුට ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටු දොරටුවෙන් ඇතුල්විමට පවා නොහැකි විය.
ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ තිබෙන ශිව කෝවිල ගොඩනගා ඇත්තේ 1956 ට පසුව ය. කෝවිල ගොඩනැගීමට බොහෝ කලකට පෙර සිට ඒ භූමියේ පුරාණ බෝධියක් විය. දිවයිනේ වෙහෙර විහාර විශාල ගණනක් විනාශ කළ පුර්තුගීසීන් පවා විනාශ නොකළ ඒ බෝධිය ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුව තුළ ව්‍ය.ව. 1956 වෙන විට ද මිනිස් උවදුරු රහිතව රැුකී පැවතුණි.(34* වරින් වර වර්ගවාදීන් විසින් අතු ඉති කපමින් ටිකින් ටික විනාශ කරමින් තිබුණු බෝධිය 1964 වසරෙන් පසු දක්නට නැත. වර්ගවාදී බෙදුම්වාදීන්ට බිලි වී ඇත.
එමෙන් ම දේවානම්පිය තිස්ස රජු කල රෝපණය කරන ලද ශ‍්‍රී මහාබෝධියේ දෙතිස්ඵලරුහ බෝධිය පිහිටි, කාවන්තිස්ස රජු බෝධිඝරයක් ඉදිකරනු ලැබූ, කිලිවෙඞ්ඩියේ ‘ශී‍්‍ර වර්ධන බෝධිවිහාර’ භූමියේ කෝවිලක් තනා, එහි වූ ශී‍්‍ර මහා බෝධියේ ශාඛාවක් වූ බෝගස ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ බෝධියට කළ ආකාරයෙන් ම විනාශ කොට ව්‍ය.ව. 1977 පමණ බෝ මුල ද උදුරාදමා තිබුණු තැන පවා හඳුනා ගැනීමට නොහැකි වෙන සේ සියලූ නටබුන් විනාශ කොට ඇත.

මානව ශිෂ්ටාචාරයට එරෙහිව ”වාර්ගික හිමිකම්”
උතුරු පළාතේ සහ නැගෙනහිර පළාතේ පුරාණ බෞද්ධ වෙහෙර විහාර මත ඒවායේ ගොඩනැගිලි ද්‍රව්‍ය ද භාවිත කරමින් හින්දු කෝවිල් ගොඩනගන ලද බවට සහ බුදු පිළිම ශීර්ෂ පවා ශිවලිංග සහ පුල්ලෙයාර් ලෙස භාවිත කරන ලද බවට ආචාර්ය පෝල් ඊ පීරිස්, ජේ.පී. ලූවිස්, ආර්.ඩබ්ලිව්. අයිවර්ස්, එස්. ඕ. කනගරත්නම් මුදලි ආදී ඉංගිරිසි රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරීන් ඉදිරිපත් කොට ඇති තොරතුරු ෆ්‍රෙඞ්රික් කොටුවේ කෝනේසර් කෝවිල සම්බන්ධයෙන් ද බැහැර කළ නොහැකි ය. 16 වෙනි සියවසේ සිට බොදු පුදබිම් මත හින්දු කෝවිල් සහ කි‍්‍රස්තියානි/කතෝලික සහ මුස්ලිම් පල්ලි රාශියක් ඉදිකොට ඇති බව සහ ඉදිකරන බව රහසක් නොවේ.
පුරාවිද්‍යා දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව තිරිකුණාමල දිස්ති‍්‍රක්කය තුළ වූ හඳුනාගත් පුරාණ බෞද්ධ පුදබිම් 150 ක් පමණ සිතියම්වල ඇතුළත් කොට ඇත. එමෙන්ම පුරාවිද්‍යා ගවේෂකයන් හඳුනාගත් ස්ථාන රැුසකි. වාර්ගික බෙදුම්වාදය සහ ත‍්‍රස්තවාදය නිසා විසිවෙනි සියවසේ 70 දසකයෙන් පසු මේ කලාපයේ පුරාවිද්‍යා පරීක්‍ෂණ, කැණීම් අඩාල විය. වසර දසක තුනක පමණ කාලයක් පුරාවිද්‍යාවට හා ගවේෂකයන්ට ‘තහනම්’ කලාපයක් විය. වර්තමානයේ පවා පුරාවිද්‍යා සමීක්‍ෂණ සහ කැණීම්වලට එරෙහිව සමහර වර්ගවාදී දේශීය පමණක් නොව විදේශීය පුද්ගලයන්, සංවිධාන සහ ආයතන මානව ශිෂ්ටාචාරයට එරෙහිව ‘වාර්ගික හිමිකම්’ අවිය ඔසවමින් ඇත.

MD Pathik Hasan

‘Bangladesh Finalizes Agreement to Build Buddhist Monastery in Lumbini, Nepal’ was the headline of Hong Kong based Global Buddhist Door’s news headline on October 11, 2021.

Can anyone imagine that A Muslim country is going to build a Buddhist monastery in a Nepal (religiously Hinduism based) country? Recently it established a clear-cut example amongst all countries in the world that Bangladesh is the role model of communal harmony in the world. The Bangladesh government has interest and intention to hold Bangladesh as a non-communal Bangladesh. But some barbaric culprits and stupid criminals are trying to damage the national prestige of Bangladesh in international arena by committing a heinous misdeed.

It is Bangladesh which can be considered as a champion and role model of Communal harmony in the whole world. People have been living here with lasting intercommunal peace and confidence. Bangladesh’s Inter communal harmony is well known to and praised by the world.

The people of Bangladesh believe in the policy Religion is everyone’s festival; everyone has equal respect for all religions.” Now a question arises. But why? Because uncivilized, barbaric perpetrators and propagandists don’t want it to be implemented. People who have Anti-Bangladeshi sentiment in their mindset always seek the time, place. They waited for the golden time for committing this and have tried to take advantage of this opportunity. Recent events surrounding Durga Puja celebration in Bangladesh proved it again.

But what’s going on in Bangladesh now? Some miscreants spread the rumors through using social media to destabilize the peace and stability of communal harmony in Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh have been enjoying the God-given blessings in case of inter-communal ties. But miscreants who don’t want the development of the country might be behind this.

Bangladesh as a secular country always tries to ensure the rights of all ethnic and religious groups. Bengali culture is synonymous with inter-communal harmonies. It is one of the countries in the world where Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, various ethnic tribes are living together with eternal peace.

But recent incidents regarding vandalism of Durga Idols in Bangladesh created tensions. It was an incident. The people who allegedly committed the crime must be brought under jurisdiction. No one has the right to bother or disturb anyone.

BD PM Sheikh Hasina led government believes in inter-communal harmony. She always tries her level best to join any religious and cultural programme. Anyone can understand that she is committed to ensure the rights of all groups. Regime under Sheikh Hasina is committed to ensure that.

Bangladesh is committed to protect the rights of all groups because the inception and journey of Bangladesh was started through the participation from all walks and quarters in the society in the great 1971 liberation war. Country’s constitution has obliged Bangladesh to do it. Bangladesh knows it and practices it. No one can deny that. We are Bengali people. The Bengali nation consists of multiple religions. Bengali people hold the spirit of the great 1971 liberation war. 1971 liberation war sentiment is more related to inter-communal harmonies.

Bangladesh is a responsible country in the world. It is known to shelter the human beings (Rohingyas from Myanmar) and take back its own people to its own lard (Chakma people in 1994). Bangladesh wants to ensure perpetual regional peace in the region (in the line of 1997 (Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord)

However, in Comilla, those who have insulted the Qur’an, attacked and vandalized the puja mandapa don’t symbolize the mindset of the whole Bangladeshi people. Basically, that was mockery, misconception, terrorism in the name of serving own religion. It is true that each and every religion in the world teaches us tolerance towards others, nonviolence and to be respectful to others. Every and each human being is safe under the shelter of the umbrella of God. Recent Comilla, Chandpur, Chittagong, Rangpur incidents in Bangladesh are not the symbol of Bangladesh. Bangladesh has more districts and regions. But the incidents in the above-mentioned places are pathetic.

But perpetrators must be brought obliviously under exemplary punishment. When the Bangladesh government is paving the way for ensuring inter-communal harmony, this could harm the image of Bangladesh as a role model of inter-communal harmony worldwide. I am sure that the Bangladesh government will do that because it is the national policy of the Bangladesh government.

People should be seen as human beings, not religious identities. Bangladesh is a country of communal harmony. Those who want to destroy this harmony must be under tribunal. BD Prime Minister has already assured this. Her prompt reaction was seen during her meeting Hindu community.

It is Bangladesh in where Mangal Shobhajatra or Mangal Jatra at dawn on the first day of the Bengali New Year in Bangladesh, Various religious festivals such as Eid of Muslim community, Pujas of Hindu community, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day of Christian community, Buddha Purnima are taken place simultaneously. Muslim festivals of Eid ul-Fitr, Eid ul-Azha, Milad un Nabi, Muharram, Chand raat, Shab-e-Baraat, Bishwa Ijtema; Hindu festivals of Durga Puja and Janmashtami; Buddhist festival of Buddha Purnima; Christian festival of Christmas and secular festivals like Pohela Boishakh, Nabanna, Language Movement Day, Independence Day, Rabindra Jayanti, Nazrul Jayanti witness widespread celebrations and usually are national holidays in Bangladesh. Bengalis and Non-Bengalis in Chittagong Hill Tracts region celebrate together the tribal festivals such as Biju, Sangrai, Baisabi etc. Basically, there is no religious, ethnic boundary in Bangladesh. Everyone is for everyone. People from all religions and ethnicities are united in Bangladesh. The rcent incident is just a separate incident in Bangladesh. Please, don’t blame Bangladesh for those separate incidents. Bangladesh is a country of all religious groups.

The article was first published in India’s Sentinel Assam.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

The government of Sri Lanka     defeated the LTTE and declared victory on 19. May 2009.  The military victory in the final war was total, said analysts. However, Sri Lanka did not follow through after the victory. The government did not declare the Eelam war as a civil war and it did not take steps to bring the north and east firmly into the mainstream. Instead it backtracked.

Mahinda Rajapaksa,   President of Sri Lanka made three mistakes, one after the other, soon after winning the war. Firstly he allowed Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General   to come into Sri Lanka to inspect the Eelam victory. Ban Ki Moon had no business coming here and inspecting the Eelam war. He did not have the authority to do so. The UN Secretary-General cannot interfere in internal matters of member states.

The UN Charter describes the Secretary-General as chief administrative officer of the Organization, who shall act in that capacity and perform such other functions as are entrusted to them by the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and other United Nations organs. The Charter also empowers the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.

That is not all.  Article 100 of the UN Charter    says that in the performance of their duties the Secretary-General shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the Organization.

Ban Ki-moon, ignored all this and came to Sri Lanka to inspect the Eelam victory. He had come, it appears, at the invitation of the President. He arrived in Sri Lanka on 23 May: Critics said he came for the sole purpose of holding Sri Lanka accountable for the military strategies used during the final phase of the armed conflict,  to kick start the ‘war crimes’ charge.  

He held talks with the President, Foreign Minister as well as other senior leaders of Sri Lanka.  He also consulted ‘other relevant stakeholders’, members of international humanitarian agencies and civil society.  He visited the internally displaced persons (IDP) sites at Vavuniya and flew over the site of the final conflict at Mullaitivu.

A joint statement was issued by the Government of Sri Lanka and the United Nations at the conclusion of the visit. This is a very peculiar joint statement. It did not affirm the unity of Sri Lanka and the end of a secessionist  action. Instead, it supported Tamil separatism and even used Tamil separatist jargon.

The statement said that Sri Lanka had entered a new post-conflict beginning. This ‘new situation’ should be used for the long-term development of the north. The government must ensure relief, rehabilitation, resettlement and reconciliation in the north.

Also the government must now start addressing the aspirations and grievances of all communities and working towards a lasting political solution. The government must begin a broader dialogue with all parties, including the Tamil parties in these ‘new circumstances ‘. There must be a national solution acceptable to all sections of people, concluded the statement.

The second mistake made by   President Mahinda Rajapaksa , was to set up a  commission to inquire into the  Eelam victory. This implied that the government was at fault in fighting Eelam. Mahinda Rajapaksa   set up in May 2010,  a commission called  Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation.  

The terms of inquiry  of this LLRC  were also very  peculiar.  They were slanted towards  Tamil separatism. They  actually   recognized the illegal Ceasefire Agreement, which  had created an unofficial Eelam . The Commission was asked to see what went wrong after that. The Commission was also asked to see how  a repeat performance of war could be avoided.

The terms of reference further   indicated that the government was prepared to make restitution to those affected by the war. Reconciliation was also included.  The terms of reference  are given below.

The Commission was asked   “To inquire and report on the following matters that may have taken place during the period between 21 February 2002 and 19 May 2009, namely:

• The facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the ceasefire agreement operationalized on 21 February 2002 and the sequence of events that followed thereafter up to the 19th of May, 2009.
• The lessons we would learn from those events and their attendant concern, in order to ensure that there will be no recurrence;
• The methodology whereby restitution to any person affected by those events or their dependants or their heirs, can be affected;
• The institutional administrative and legislative measured which need to be taken in order or prevent any recurrence of such concerns in the future, and to promote further national unity and the reconciliation among all communities,

The LLRC rose to the occasion and  said that Tamils had to be provided with a political solution. The LLRC recommended,  power sharing at center, devolution  and Reconciliation. In the north it recommended demilitarization and  vacation of all private and public land occupied by the security forces.

The LLRC said, “The process of reconciliation requires a full acknowledgement of the tragedy of the conflict and a collective act of contrition by the political leaders and civil society, of both Sinhala and Tamil communities. The conflict could have been avoided had the southern political leaders of the two main political parties acted in the national interest and  offered an acceptable solution to the Tamil people  Tamil Separatist Movement welcomed the LLRC report.

Mahinda Rajapaksa’s third mistake was that instead of taking  strong action in the north, the government bent over backwards to appease the Tamils  there. President Mahinda Rajapaksa went to Kilinochchi, spoke in Tamil and told the people there that his government will rebuild all that was destroyed, and will strive to provide everything they need. (Daily News 17.6.13 p 1) The government  , it appears, took the position that  the government  was to blame for all the damage.

There will be a special census on human and property damage cause by terrorism through the past three decades,  President  said.  This survey will cover the scale and circumstance of death and injury to civilians and also to property during the period 1982-2009, that means the  full period of conflict.

The media reported in 2013 that the government had set aside the colossal sum of USD 1350 million for infrastructure development in Northern Province, for  railways, electricity, highways, bridges, water supply and sanitation.    85% of the foreign   loans are  to be spent on developing the north.

The main emphasis was on roads and bridges. The government has spent 10 billion on development of infrastructure in north to replace the damage done by the LTTE, reported the media in 2013.  In Vavuniya all disconnected, damaged and dilapidated highways and roads including rural roads have been renovated and rehabilitated.

11 large bridges were completed. The  A9 highway, Batticaloa-Trincomalee highway, Vavuniya  Horowopotana, Mannar and Medawachchiya were improved. A bridge connecting  Sangupiddy in Kilinochchi District to Karaitivu in Jaffna District was built. Before this bridge the only land route to Jaffna was  on A9 via Elephant Pass causeway. The bridge is part of the A32 Jaffna-Mannar highway.

Kilinochchi was developed.   The media announced in 2013 that over 8 million has been allocated to Kilinochchi. This allocation was described as a ‘staggering allocation, unprecedented at district level.’

The government said that 26,730 new houses were planned  for Kilinochchi. The government will provide 18,699 of them.  Also, the government would repair 4119 of the 6349 houses that need to be repaired.  The balance will be done later. Nearly 15,000 wells were cleaned or renovated.

A substantial sum of money was spent on restoring the health services that had been paralyzed. Major hospitals were renovated and provided with additional facilities.  Tellippalai base hospital was renovated to the cost of Rs 10 million. Kilinochchi roads were improved.

Thanks to this weak, apologistic approach of the government,  the Tamil Separatist Movement  revived and  started  the story that the Tamil population in north was an innocent group battered  by the government for no reason. They started to speak of the northern population as ‘victims.’  These ‘victims’ were not victims at all, they were complicit. They had helped the war, they supported the LTTE .

The work done in the north by the government  was heavily criticized. Some of it was not welcome at all. The new  roads and bridges broke the isolation of the north. It was now easier and quicker  to enter the north.

 Center for Policy Alternatives, headed by Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, criticized the 2013 census on human and property damages  due to the Eelam war. They said that the census caused a lot of distress ‘to northern victims of the conflict’.   

The CPA  said that this census was not correctly done. The methodology was deficient.  How could they record the entire families that died or went missing, who is to speak for them, there is no guarantee of completeness. It was a census which relied heavily on collective and subjective memory, from traumatized persons. Also the time period was too small.

The intimidation faced in the north today , the militarization,  the harassment and violence faced by families of ex-combatants could have prevented them from giving accurate information. One option given in the Census  is death by the military. They will not want to admit this. Households fear reprisals by the military if they say that the killing were due to the military.  So they say ‘don’t know’, continued CPA.

Also air strikes are not included in the questionnaire. The respondents should have been asked to state whether the deaths were by army, navy or air force. Air strikes are one of the ways in which the public was killed. The  government is trying to cover this up. There was an air strike on  9.7.1995 where 65 people were killed and 150 wounded  while taking refuge in St Peters church, Navaly, Jaffna, said CPA. ( Continued)

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Colombo, October 20 (Xinhua): China’s guidelines on international investment and its internal emphasis on green development are among things that Sri Lanka can learn from, a Sri Lankan business leader and conservation advocate said.

Dilhan Fernando, CEO of the Dilmah Tea and director of Dilmah Conservation, told Xinhua that COP negotiations have historically been slow-moving and have failed to deliver the collaboration necessary for action.

In contrast, the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Kunming has brought countries together on this issue, which would make a difference.

The bold and formal Kunming declaration is one that we must commend China for,” Fernando added.

READ: Sri Lanka raises strong objections with India over fishermen row

Collaboration between Sri Lanka and China could help Sri Lankans understand the importance of green economy, he said, pointing out that China’s critical thinking on biodiversity conservation had entered its national policy framework in a significant way.

Sometimes people need a bit of prompting because this is a huge issue and an existential crisis,” Fernando said.

Opportunity in this century is aligned much more with green economy. Ultimately, if you look at biodiversity, it’s not about conserving nature, it’s about conserving resources for sustainable development,” he explained.

Fernando recalled that the world chose to ignore the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a 2006 report commissioned by Britain.

But the Kunming declaration would be a different kettle of fish because, at the Kunming meeting, an agreement was reached among the members of the International Panel on Climate Change with clear, specific and measurable objectives.”

Fernando further said that the implementation of climate objectives can’t be done by governments alone and that businesses and individuals would also have to change their behavior.

උපුටා ගැන්ම ලංකා සී නිව්ස්

වත්මන් ආණ්ඩුව බලයට ගෙන ඒම සඳහා තමන් වහන්සේලා මැදිහත්වීම වූයේ උතුම් රටක් හැදීමට බලාපොරොත්තුවෙන් බව නාරාහෙන්පිට අභයාරාමාධිපති පූජ්‍ය මුරුත්තෙට්ටුවේ ආනන්ද හිමියෝ පවසති.

නමුත් කාගේ හෝ අවාසනාවකට අද රට අභාග්‍ය සම්පන්න තත්වයකට ඇද ඇද වැටී ඇති බව ද උන්වහන්සේ පැවසූහ.

මේ යන ගමන මේ ආකාරයෙන්ම ගියහොත් රාජපක්ෂ පරම්පරාවේ දේශපාලන අවසානය සිදුවන තම නිගමනය බවද උන්වහන්සේ තවදුරටත් එහිදී කියා සිටියහ.

තවදුරටත් අනාගතයේ හෝ රාජපක්ෂලා මෙරට බලය දැරිය යුතු බව හිතන්නේ නම් අගමැති මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාව වහාම රට බේරා ගැනීම සඳහා මැදිහත් විය යුතු බවද උන්වහන්සේ පැවසූහ.

ඒ නිසා තවමත් ප්‍රමාද නැති බවත් වහාම රට බාර ගන්නැයි මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටින බවත් ඒ සඳහා වත්මන් ජනාධිපතිතුමන් ද අකමැත්තක් නොදක්වනු අැති බව තමන් වහන්සේ විශ්වාස කරන බවත් උන්වහන්සේ කියා සිටියහ.

ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතාට රට පාලනය කරන්න බැරි බව ඔප්පු වී අවසන් බවත් තමනට අත්සැකීමක් නැති බව එතුමාම සඳහන් කර ඇති බවත් එහිමියන් තව දුරටත් කියා සිටියහ.

සිය විහාරස්ථානයේදී පැවැති මාධ්‍ය හමුවක දී ආනන්ද හිමියන් මෙම අදහස් පල කරන ලදී.

By Katharina Pistor Courtesy Ceylon Today

The ‘Pandora Papers,’ a new investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has fuelled outrage around the world. Politicians, businesspeople, sports stars, and cultural icons have been caught in the act of hiding their wealth and lying about it.

But how likely is a reckoning for the lawyers and accountants who helped them? There is nothing new about the practices the ICIJ’s investigation uncovered. True, the sheer scale, sophistication, and legal fire power deployed to allow today’s ultra-rich and powerful to game the law may be newsworthy. 

But the only truly shocking revelation is that it took more than 600 journalists from around the world to expose these practices, often risking their own safety and professional futures. The difficulty of that task attests to how well lawyers, legislatures, and courts have tilted the law in favour of elites. To hide their wealth, today’s rich and powerful have availed themselves of centuries-old legal coding strategies.

In 1535, King Henry VIII of England cracked down on a legal device known as the use,” because it threatened to undermine existing (feudal) property relations and served as a tax-avoidance vehicle. 

But thanks to clever legal arbitrage, it was soon replaced by an even more powerful device: the trust.” Legally encoded by solicitors and recognised by courts of equity, the trust remains one of the most ingenious legal tools ever invented for the creation and preservation of private wealth. In the old days, it allowed the wealthy to circumvent inheritance rules. Today, it is the go-to vehicle for tax avoidance and for structuring financial assets, including asset-backed securities and their derivatives.

Functionally, a trust alters the rights and obligations to an asset without observing the formal rules of property law; it thus creates a shadow property right. Establishing a trust requires an asset – such as land, shares, or bonds – and three personas: an owner (settler), a manager (trustee), and a beneficiary. The owner transfers legal title (though not necessarily actual possession) over the asset to the trustee, who promises to manage it on behalf of the beneficiary in accordance with the owner’s instructions. Nobody else needs to know about this arrangement, because there is no requirement to register the title or disclose the identities of the parties. This lack of transparency makes the trust the perfect vehicle for playing hide and seek with creditors and tax authorities. And because legal title and economic benefits are split among the three personas, nobody willingly assumes the obligations that come with ownership. 

A favoured legal device 

The trust became a favoured legal device for global elites not through some invisible hand of the market, but rather by purposeful legal design. Attorneys pushed existing legal boundaries, courts recognised and enforced their innovations, and then lawmakers (many of them presumably beholden to wealthy donors) codified those practices into statutory legislation. As previous restrictions were stripped away, trust law expanded its remit. These legal changes ensured that an ever-greater array of assets could be held in trust, and that the role of the trustee could be delegated to legal persons rather than honourable individuals like Judges. Moreover, fiduciary duties were curtailed, the trustees’ liability was limited, and the lifespan of the trust became increasingly elastic. Together, these legal adaptations made the trust fit for global finance. Countries that lacked this device were encouraged to emulate it. An international treaty, the 1985 Hague Convention on Trusts, was adopted with this goal in mind. In countries where lawmakers have resisted the pressure to sanction trusts, Attorneys have fashioned equivalent devices from the laws governing foundations, associations, or corporations – betting (often correctly) that Courts would vindicate their innovations. While some jurisdictions have gone out of their way to be legally hospitable to private wealth creation, others have tried to crack down on tax and legal arbitrage. But legal restrictions work only if the legislature controls which law is practiced within its jurisdiction. In the age of globalization, most legislatures have been effectively stripped of such control, because law has become portable. If one country does not have the ‘right’ law, another one might. As long as the place of business recognizes and enforces foreign law, the legal and accounting paperwork can be channeled to the friendliest foreign jurisdiction, and the deed is done. National legal systems thus have become items on an international menu of options from which asset holders choose the laws by which they wish to be governed. They don’t need a passport or a visa; all they need is a legal shell. Assuming a new legal identity in this way, the privileged few can decide how much to pay in taxes, and which regulations to endure. And if legal obstacles cannot be overcome quite that easily, lawyers from leading global law firms will draft legislation to make a country compliant with the ‘best practices’ of global finance. Here, tax and trust havens such as South Dakota and the British Virgin Islands offer the gold standard. The costs of these practices are borne by the least mobile and the insufficiently wealthy. But turning law into a gold mine for the rich and powerful causes harm well beyond the immediate inequities it generates. By potentially undermining the legitimacy of the law, it threatens the very foundation of democratic governance. The more that wealthy elites and their lawyers insist that everything they do is legal, the less the public will trust the law. Today’s global elites might be able to continue to conjure private wealth from law. But no resource can be mined forever. Once lost, trust in the law will be difficult to regain. The wealthy will have lost their most valuable asset of all. 

Katharina Pistor, Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School, is the author of ‘The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequalit’. 

By Dr Parakrama Waidyanatha Courtesy The Island

In his novel published in 1891, tiled The Light that Failed”, Rudyard Kipling wrote the phrase, ‘biting the bullet’ to express the thought that fortitude can be gained by ‘biting a bullet’! As things are, should the President and government continue ‘biting the bullet’ or compromise in sincerity as discretion is the better part of valour.

The farmers have a genuine grievance in that there is no fertiliser, organic or inorganic! And organic fertiliser is not something that can be produced overnight. They are adamantly up in arms, and it would appear most likely that paddy and other arable crop cultivations will incur huge production losses. Farmers in the Mahaweli and other irrigated lands have taken up the unyielding stand that unless fertilisers are available, they will not cultivate this Maha season. Crop losses without fertiliser and other inputs can be as high as 40-50%, if not more, leading to a highly calamitous national situation. The same applies to plantation and other crops. Expert calculations reveal that tea yields too could decline by 50%!

More importantly, there are no readily available organic materials, vegetable, animal or other to meet the nutrient demand of the three million hectares of crops! Most plant–based organic matter has only about 1% nitrogen, if not less. Assuming, however, that together with animal dung and other organic matter sources the figure is increased to 1.5% and on average a hectare of cropland requires 100kg N per year, the total annual organic fertiliser demand should be at least 200 million tons if not more to provide the nitrogen requirement.

The average N demand for tea is at least 200kg/ha/yr, and some vegetables and other crops too, require more N than 100kg/ha/yr. The issue then is, how such a huge demand of organic fertiliser is to be met locally.

The recent fiasco with the attempt to import a seaweed- based organic fertiliser from a Chinese enterprise, Seawin Biotechnologies, is well known. Samples tested locally were reported to be contaminated with a harmful bacterium, Erwinia and the importation was stopped. Incidentally, the local Chinese Embassy had the audacity to contest the report of our quarantine authority, that the culture of the microbe could not have been done in the three-or four-day period as reported, but a senior professor of microbiology of the Peradeniya University and other specialists in the field have debunked the Embassy claim!

The supplier claims that fertiliser is heated to a temperature of 600 degrees centigrade to kill microbes. If so, how was the live pathogen detected. At this temperature not only microbes but also nitrogenous compounds should break down! Then how is the nitrogen replenished?

According to the company’s brochure on ‘seaweed granular compound fertiliser’ there are seven fertiliser formulations available for sale comprising nitrogen (N ) phosphorus (P2O5) and potassium (K2O), and nitrogen is replenished as ammonia, urea or nitrate! (Please see Table)

So, evidently, it is a granular fertiliser mixture of chemical and organic materials. The supplier does not claim that the product is organic, and it cannot as other than the ‘organic matter’ and the’ seaweed extract’ the rest are inorganic chemicals! So, clearly, having heated to the high temperature and losing the nitrogenous compounds, inorganic nitrogenous chemicals have to be added to achieve the required nutrient composition. So, the product is no longer fully ‘organic’. Then, who is deceiving whom?

Moreover, these seaweeds are believed to be essentially harvested from the Yellow Sea off the coast of Quindío City, an area highly polluted with metropolitan waste and excessively contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. The status of these heavy metals are, however, not cited in the fertiliser composition table in the brochure. Further, although the supplier has apparently promised a 10% nitrogen content in the formulation, it is impossible to get such a high value from seaweeds! On the whole, then there are grey areas in the fertilizer deal.

The President and the government are apparently now gradually yielding to the countrywide fertiliser demand pressures of the farmers as evident from a recent news item that chemical fertiliser for corn will be imported. Then what about tea and other crops?

As per the ‘grapevine’ there is evidence that some nano (chemical) fertilisers are also to be imported and the Tea Research Institute has been asked to work out how much ammonium sulphate as the nitrogen fertiliser source is needed for the country’s tea apparently because some stocks of the latter being available. Ammonium sulphate has only 21% nitrogen whereas that of urea is 48%. Because of production interferences due to COVID the urea prices have shot up by 35 -43%, from April to September 2021, and the same should be true for other straight fertilisers.

Ammonium sulphate price globally is now reported to be about USD200/ metric ton whereas that of urea is about 450 USD. So, in terms of N contents in the fertilisers, the cost should be comparable except for the haulage. However, over application of ammonium sulphate can be detrimental in that the added sulphur in the soil is reported to inhibit phosphorus uptake by crops affecting growth and yield! Urea is the better option as the nitrogenous fertiliser when large quantities of it are needed.

In conclusion, it is the ignorance and obstinacy of the authorities that has pushed the country into this calamity. Minister after minister are obsessed with the wasa visa” myth as evident from their utterances both in Parliament and outside! It is the general belief, without evidence that, agrochemicals are the cause of many non-communicable diseases.

No politician speaks about ambient air pollution, the leading environmental health risk factor locally and globally. Records reveal that nearly 3.5 million premature, non-communicable deaths, for example, in 2017, were from stroke, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, lower respiratory infections, and diabetes.

The President should, as a matter of priority, obtain a report from the health authorities on this matter of agrochemicals and health. This false belief was aggravated as a result of the initial suspicion that the chronic kidney disease (CKD) of the Rajarata was caused by agrochemicals but none of the research supported this contention. Research evidence gathered over several years, especially during the period 2010 and 2018 by no less than five groups of researchers established that the most likely aetiolating agent is hard water and fluoride in the some dug wells especially on high ground, as those who drank such water were essentially the ones that contaminated the disease.

Those who consumed water from the streams, reservoirs or dug wells in the plains did not contact the disease! Some of the research conducted by the current coordinator of CKD activities in the Health Ministry too supported this contention!

However, it is sad that the health authorities have failed to brief the President, the Health Minister and the government in general on this vital matter! Had this happened the President would, not have rushed into this decision of ‘going organic’ virtually overnight!

Courtesy The Island

An appreciation: Dr. Mrs. Cynthia Jayasuriya

The late Dr. Mrs. Cynthia Jayasuriya, top ENT surgeon would be remembered for promoting manioc, considered the poor man’s food, as a miracle nourishment that could hold the ultimate secret to curing cancer. Having undergone treatment for a long time, Cynthia declared she suffered from cancer and commenced a study of Western food practices before endorsing manioc. In public lectures and addressing gatherings, via Skype, Cynthia had no qualms in saying that she ate manioc three times a day and that manioc was the reason for her improvement.

 The media quoted her as having said: So I ate the manioc minimum of 10 grams three times a day. After having consumed it for one month, I underwent a cystoscopy (examination of the bladder) at the General Hospital by the same surgeon who treated me. He was surprised that my bladder was absolutely clean and normal. There was no place to take any biopsy”, were the surgeon’s very words to me.”

Cynthia strongly believed that comprehensive studies should be done on how manioc can be used in the treatment of cancer patients.

It is with immense gratitude I’m penning this appreciation of the much-adored Cynthia akki who passed away on April 12, 2020, a week prior to her 84th birthday. Cynthia belonged to an affluent Catholic family in Negombo. Her parents were Gladstone and Beeta de Livera. Gladstone’s elder brother, Michael de Livera, donated his spacious residence with more than five acres of land to then Cardinal Thomas Cooray to set up a home for the aged. Michael made the donation in memory of his parents. The Church established St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged for those who struggled to make ends meet.

Cynthia had one sister and six brothers younger to her. She had her early education at Ave Maria Convent, Negombo, before entering the Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya where she secured the required results to enter Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. Her dream was to become an E.N.T. surgeon. Having had her postgraduate studies in the U.K, she returned to the country where she served in many hospitals. Subsequently, she served in the private sector hospitals, too. She was well known for her diagnostic and surgical skills and was much sought after being very kind and generous.

She had no qualms in providing her services free of charge to those unable to make payments. She married Wilfrid Jayasuriya from Kalutara. He was a government servant cum teacher and one-time Commissioner of the R.M.V. Jayasuriya taught at the American National College, an extension of a consortium of American, Australian and British Universities. Jayasuriya was the holder of a Doctorate for English Language, also winner of the Art Council Award for Best Novel 1996 (Libyan episode). Jayasuriya also authored ‘Time Traveller’, ‘Sri Lanka’s modern English literature: a case study in literary theory’, ‘Christine’s Story’ and ‘The British Diaries’

 They had four children, two sons and two daughters, Saliya, Palika, Charitha and Menik. Except her son Saliya, other children live in the US. Saliya resides in Colombo and, like his mother, is so affectionate whenever time permits he visits me and my husband, Claude at our home at Katuwapitiya, Negombo. As the writer is married to one of Cynthia’s brothers, she had the opportunity to know closely how much Cynthia loved her parents, brothers, only sister, and their siblings. We are forever grateful for her adorable ways, always the Good Samaritan to help. Whenever we were sick or in trouble she was our saviour.

Whilst I go down memory lane, I recollect, a long time back, when my husband had an operation. We were asked to go to her residence at Borella, where we were looked after well. She was a fabulous pianist. The memory of Cynthia playing the piano while singing softly is still afresh on the writer’s mind. Cynthia used to make butter having milked the cow. Another loving memory is Cynthia leaving her home for Sunday mass driving her Benz. Lastly she was a fond and adorable grandmother of Lauren, Michael, Jessica, Amy, Sophia and Juliette. May the Almighty Lord look after her. Let the perpetual light shine upon her.

Yours lovingly,

Nalini de Livera.

By Kelum Bandara Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Secretary to the Agriculture Ministry Prof. Udith Jayasinghe takes questions from Daily Mirror about the current crisis of the agriculture sector and the dispute over detection of harmful bacteria in fertilizer samples imported from a Chinese company. He is an expert in the agriculture sector. He is the former Vice Chancellor of Wayamba University. 
Excerpts: 

• Samples we received from China on two occasions found to be contaminated with bacteria. 
• We are having our evidence. We are going to prove it
•  We had to work with a misinformed policy
•  Our country’s plant and animal protection system is efficient.
•  They don’t engage in any malpractice

QThere is a crisis in the agriculture sector with farmers agitating over the lack of fertilizer. How are you going to address it?   

In the short term, it is an issue because people-farmers and other entrepreneurs – have been used to apply chemical fertilizer. Over the last three or four decades, what happened was the delivery of fertilizer to their doorsteps. They apply such fertilizer in quantities determined at their whims to their fields. Even fertilizer subsidies were given. They did not even pay the real cost, it means. We cannot blame farmers for their agitations. They have been used to do so. It is not recommendation or quality that matter to them. Once you have cultivated plants, it needs NPK. Plant does not know anything. It has no sense. It needs nutrition only. Nutrition is named in this country as fertilizer. Fertilizer is named as Urea, TSP and MOP. When there is fertilizer for paddy farmers, it is Urea. If you talk to an upcountry farmer who is cultivating onion or potatoes, fertilizer substances which look like pellets are identified by their colour. They call them ‘Dam Keta, Nil Keta ‘in local jargons. When these innocent farmers cultivate, they want output from it. For that, they need to have plant nutrients. When they don’t get it in the way they are used to, they get agitated. At the same time, we have to resolve this issue. We need agriculture at the end of day. 

Maybe, the beauty of organic agriculture was overestimated.  As a result, the previous mode of agriculture was harped on. I, as an agriculturist with experience over three decades, believe wrong advice has been given in this manner. 

QYou cited practical concerns involved here. But, the government started the introduction of organic farming three or four months ahead of Maha season. Why did you do it?

  When we prepared President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s policy document ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’, we clearly stated that we wanted to go through a system in which environmentally friendly  plant nutrients should be used. That is in place of poisonous, low quality and artificial fertilizer. It means we need transformation from a culture of using  poisonous fertilizer to a culture of using environmental friendly, non-poisonous, natural,  good quality and high generation fertilizer. These are naturally organic. We are promoting organic agriculture. Agriculture and fertilizer are two things. Organic agriculture was proposed in the manifesto. I was also involved in drafting it. It is a process to be achieved over a decade. Cancellation of the use of chemical fertilizer was announced in a gazette notification. I think it is based on wrong advice. I am not responsible for that. The President is not responsible for it. When we advise decision makers at the highest political level, it should happen in the proper manner. I believe this should not have happened. Now, we are in the process of revising it. We don’t lay the blame on the government because the President or the subject minister did not do it purposely. Maybe, the beauty of organic agriculture was overestimated. As a result, the previous mode of agriculture was harped on. I, as an agriculturist with experience over three decades, believe wrong advice has been given in this manner. It could not have been the cancellation of chemical fertilizer. It should have been allowing the import of eco-friendly plant nutrients. If the gazette notification had been worded that way, there would have been a nice situation in the country today. Then, we could have worked on it nicely. We had to work with a misinformed policy. We are now trying to correct it with the blessings of the political system and the administrative system. 

  
QHow are you going to revise this decision now?

Even in the discussion we had with the President, the ministers, the researchers and the administrators, we have very clearly indicated that we have planned to overcome this issue. We can replace those unwanted, poisonous fertilizer with standardized bio-fertilizer. Urea is also not a poisonous material. It is used in many other industries. When we use anything overly, it can be harmful. We are now going to come up with standards, application procedure and training sessions for farmers. It is a holistic framework. We need some time for it. The Maha season has started now. We need food security.  We need a compromise on our policy. If there is a mistake done, it is my duty to correct it. We want to go by government policies. At the same time, we want to protect our agriculture. 

If there is any bacteria present in whatever percentage, it is an issue. The company is saying its product is totally safe and sterilized. We have given a signal not to bring such substance here.

QHow challenging is it to overcome the problem currently existing?

It is a challenge. I have been here for just four months. At the beginning, I was also confused. I want to face the challenge with my friends. I know those in the system. Many of them are my teachers. Others are my friends, their friends etc. I have the support of these people. With that, I get a lot of advice and criticism. With respect to the government’s policy, we want to go for organically oriented, plant nutrients. When this comes to the next stage, you will be getting very high quality, third generation fertilizer well accepted in other countries. These are very innovative products. They are coming to Sri Lanka because our production of organic fertilizer is not enough to cover the entire paddy and other sectors. It is only 30 percent we have developed. We have to import the remainder. We are going to import from India. We have tested all these products. They are very good. We are in the process of bringing them here. I am sure farmers will be happy when they see it. Farmers are farmers. Businessmen are businessmen. Consumers are consumers. We will provide fertilizer. At the same time, we will implement our policies. The product we bring here is a Nano-technology based product. It is heavily used in India. Even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is promoting it. 

We don’t want to import every time. We want to manufacture such products here. Next year, we hope we will be able to develop our own products. 

QAlready, some farmers have abandoned their cultivations such as maize. What will you be doing if there is a crop reduction as a result?

That is the thing we are really worried.  Before moving to the field, farmers have their estimations. Without seeing fertilizer and other inputs, they are a little reluctant to come to the fields and work them. Within the next ten days, it will be alright. There will be positive mindsets among farmers. It is true we are administrators. All administrators are Sri Lankans. They don’t want to destroy the agriculture system at any cost. The President correctly said that food security would be ensured. We will do everything possible to provide them what is needed. We will be able to take care of our food security. Some reduction of maize cultivation has happened.  This is the maize season. When there is no fertilizer, that is an issue. In two weeks’ time, I am certain the problem can be addressed. The Minister has also instructed to release fertilizer stocks available.   

I accepted this post at a time when nobody wanted to take over. I was   the Vice Chancellor. I had all the privileges. I could have stayed happily. I wanted to assume work here and deliver. I was sure that I could do.

QMaize is something we use to manufacture animal feed. When there is a shortage of animal feed, it will affect animal products, particularly poultry products. How are you going to address it?

We had a top level discussion in this regard with the Finance Minister and all agriculture administrators and the two ministers. If there is a shortage of maize, it will affect the manufacture of animal products. If there is any issue with maize production, it will be supplemented. We don’t want our livestock industry to be affected. I believe people will start cultivations soon. The pandemic also affected the implementation of our plans. We were in a disadvantageous position in arranging logistics. Now the system is working with the vaccination drive. We want to go a little faster. Maize cultivation will come into shape. We planned for 100,000 hectares to be cultivated with maize. I think 80,000 have been cultivated. The rest of the landmass will be cultivated with fertilizer arriving. 

QYou said organic fertilizer was imported from India. Do we have enough facilities for laboratory testing to detect harmful bacteria?

It is a very good question. Our plant quarantine laboratories are not testing these for the first time. We have a very good history for plant protection. Those who are in the profession have never been held responsible for bringing unwanted pathogens into the country. They are doing their job. I am really thankful for them. If any pathogen arrives, it will be a disaster. They have facilities to do so. That is not to say that the facilities are 100 percent compatible with those in other countries. We want to have more equipment, modern equipment. We have received funds. I am sure these facilities will be ok. But, they are doing a good job. With the existing facilities, they can get very accurate reports. Our country’s plant and animal protection system is efficient. They don’t engage in any malpractice.   

There will be positive mindsets among farmers. It is true we are administrators. All administrators are Sri Lankans. They don’t want to destroy the agriculture system at any cost. The President correctly said that food security would be ensured.

 
QThere is a crisis triggered over the rejection of samples of organic nitrogen extracts imported from China. The Chinese embassy says it takes at least 67 days for a test report to be completed on harmful bacteria contained in such matters. But, Sri Lankan plan quarantine services have done it in three days. The company disputed it. How are you going to address it?

To my level best, with the information I have, this is a technical issue dealt with by the plant protection experts and the team of the Department of Director General of Agriculture. We have separate additional secretaries dealing with it. They are very correctly dealing with it and reporting to me. Samples we received first were found to be with such bacteria. There was suspicion why it happened.  We even did not believe that could happen. We have followed very clear-cut, transparent, procurement procedures. We have followed all the standards. Then, we brought the second sample. It was tested in three different places. We detected the same. If there is any bacteria present in whatever percentage, it is an issue. The company is saying its product is totally safe and sterilized. Our people have clearly shown the results of what they have done. Whether it is three days or four days, they are defending it. Maybe it takes six days to give a full report. We have given a signal not to bring such substance here. 
As a leading company, it has been reported to the embassy. It is not going  to create a big issue. We are having our evidence. We are going to prove it. It is not a government to government issue. It is not a company to company issue. The company gets facilitation it needs. We also respond. China is a country that helps us in many different ways. 

The process is still not closed though the shipment has been stopped for the time being. This is an international procurement. I am certain there won’t be any financial claim from us. We wish the company will realize it. 

With respect to the government’s policy, we want to go for organically oriented, plant nutrients. When this comes to the next stage, you will be getting very high quality, third generation fertilizer well accepted in other countries. These are very innovative products.

QAre you in touch with the Chinese company in this regard?

Of course, I am not in touch. We have a separate secretary for it.  

QThe government imposed import restrictions on food crops that can be cultivated locally. But, the local yield is still not sufficient after two years. The prices of these items have gone through the roof. When are you going to achieve self-sufficiency?

 When you look at 2019 figures, the situation was ok. With the Covid situation, field visits, coordination and seed distribution were hampered. We have six big mega projects. We could not run them. The Ministry also faced some problems. At regional level, some officials could not work. All these led to some delay. We are catching it up now. Over the last three months, we have put them into work. Project management is one of my subjects. It is my area of expertise. I was involved in such project implementation and management for the last 20 years. This is a good chance for me at the ministry do my part. I accepted this post at a time when nobody wanted to take over. I was   the Vice Chancellor. I had all the privileges. I could have stayed happily. I wanted to assume work here and deliver. I was sure that I could do. Agriculture is not fertilizer only. It is one out of hundreds of other things. I am sure I will be able to deliver with my team and other stakeholders.  

QAre you confident that Sri Lanka can achieve self-sufficiency? 

I believe so. If the inputs are given, it can be done. We did not have a national policy on agriculture  for the last several decades.  I was personally involved in developing it. I have submitted it to the Cabinet.  

See video on www.dailymirror.lk

https://video.wijeyadigital.lk/37bcc122-7da5-4344-871b-4b99ebfdf2d6

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Cuba has offered to help Sri Lanka with technology to manufacture medicinal items from drumsticks or Murunga (scientific name; Moringa oleifera), a statement from the Education Ministry said.

Cuban ambassador Andress Marcelo Gonzalez Garrido said this when he called on Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardane. According to the statement, the ambassador said Cuba was manufacturing medicinal capsules and powder from properties of Murunga trees. He said such technology could be offered to Sri Lanka where Murunga is abundantly grown.

The ambassador said it would be beneficial for both the countries to promote exchanges between the universities of the two countries. The Minister sought assistance from Cuba to promote the teaching of Spanish language in Sri Lanka.

Lankaweb Editor’s note

Drumsticks or Murunga (scientific name; Moringa oleifera) is a not native tree in Cuba. Even though you can see Drumsticks trees full of fruits all over Cuba now, according to the locals the first saplings were brought from India when former President Fidel Castro visited India.

උපුටාගැණීම අදදෙරණ

නැනෝ නයිට්‍රජන් දියර පොහොර භාවිත කිරීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් තවමත් ඉන්දියාවේ ගොවීන්ට පවා අත්දැකීම් අඩු බව ශ්‍රී ජයවර්ධපුර විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ රසායන විද්‍යා පිළිබඳ මහාචාර්ය එස්. ඩී. එම්. චින්තක මහතා පවසයි.

ඒ අනුව ඔහු පෙන්වා දෙන්නේ, මෙම පොහොර මෙරට භාවිත කිරීමට පෙර ක්ෂේත්‍ර පර්යේෂණ සිදුකළ යුතු බවය. 

“නයිට්‍රජන්වලට අපි මුලින් පාවිච්චි කළේ යූරියා. යූරියා දැන් ලංකාවට ගෙනඒම තහනම් නිසා නැනෝ යූරියා පොහොරක් ආනයනය කරලා තියෙනවා. මේ පොහොර සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම රසායනික පොහොරක්. මේක ඉන්දියාවේ පර්යේෂණ මට්ටමින් සිදුකරලා, ක්ෂේත පරීක්ෂණත් සිදුකරලා ගොවියන් සඳහා නිකුත් කරලා තියෙන්නේ දැනට මාස 2කට ඉස්සෙල්ලා. තාම මේක ඉන්දියාවෙවත් ගොවීන් අතර භාවිත කරලා ගොවීන්ගේ අත්දැකීම් කිසිවක් නැති පොහොරක්. මේක ලංකාවේ එකපාරටම දානවාට වඩා ලංකාවේ ක්ෂේත්‍ර පර්යේෂණ කරලා ඒ හරහා ලැබෙන ප්‍රතිඵල විශ්ලේෂණය කරලා තමයි ලංකාවට හඳුන්වාදිය යුත්තේ කියලා මම නම් විශ්වාස කරන්නේ.”

පේරාදෙණිය විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ කෘෂි විද්‍යා පිඨයේ පාංශු සරුබව සහ පෝෂක කළමනාකරණය පිළිබඳ මහාචාර්ය සමන් ධර්මකීර්ති මහතා සඳහන් කළේ,

“මේ පොහොර සම්බන්ධයෙන් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ පර්යේෂණ මා දැනුවත්ව නෑ. නමුත් ඉන්දියාවේ පවා කරලා තියෙන පර්යේෂණවලින් පෙන්වන්නේ සාමාන්‍ය නයිට්‍රජන් පොහොර යූරියා විදිහට යොදලා වර්ධන අවස්ථාවල මේ නැනෝ පොහොර වාර දෙකක් යෙදීම තමයි. මේ නැනෝ යූරියා දියර පොහොර 4%යි නයිට්‍රජන් තියෙන්නේ. බීජ හදන්න කිලෝග්‍රෑම් 50ක් ශාකයට අවශ්‍ය කරනවා. ඒ සඳහා අපි ලබා දෙන්නේ ග්‍රෑම් 100ක් වැනි කුඩා ප්‍රමාණයක් මේ දියර පොහොර හරහා. මේ දියර පොහොර පැය කිහිපයකට වරක්වත් ගැහුවොත් තමයි ශාකයට අවශ්‍යකරන නයිට්‍රජන් ප්‍රමාණය ලබාදෙන්න පුළුවන් වෙන්නේ. ඒ නිසා මේක කිසිසේත්ම ප්‍රායෝගික ක්‍රියාවලියක් නොවන බව තමයි මගේ විශ්වාසය.”

කෙසේවෙතත් කෘෂිකර්ම අධ්‍යක්ෂ ජනරාල් ආචාර්ය අජන්ත ද සිල්වා මහතා සඳහන් කළේ, 

“මේ ප්‍රභවය ශාකයේ පත්‍රවලට දියරයක් ලෙස ලබාදුන් පසු ඒක ශාකය අභ්‍යන්තරයට ගමන් කරනවා. ඒ සඳහා කෘෂිකර්ම දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව කාලයන් හදලා තියෙනවා, මේ පොහොර කොහොමද භාවිත කරන්නේ කියලා. ගොවීන්ට කිසිම බයක් නැතුව මේ පොහොර පාවිච්චි කරන්න පුළුවන්.”

මහ කන්නය සඳහා අවශ්‍ය දියර පොහොර ගෙන්වීමේ පළමු අදියර ලෙස ඇණවුම් කළ නැනෝ නයිට්‍රජන් දියර පොහොර ලීටර් ලක්ෂයක තොගයක් ඊයේ (19) ඉන්දියාවේ සිට මෙරටට ගුවන් මගින් ගෙන එනු ලැබීය.

නයිට්‍රො රජා ලෙසින් නම් කර ඇති එම දියර පොහොර තොගය මේ වනවිටත් ගොවි ජනතාව වෙත බෙදාහැරීම ආරම්භ කර තිබේ.
 

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has directed relevant authorities to continue ongoing interprovincial travel restrictions until 4.00 a.m. on October 31 (Sunday), says the Commander of Sri Lanka Army, General Shavendra Silva.

Sri Lanka lifted the island-wide quarantine curfew, which was in effect for over a month in a bid to curb the pandemic situation, on October 01 as the country started seeing a considerable drop in the number of daily COVID-19 cases and deaths reported.

The interprovincial travel restrictions however remained in effect despite the relaxation of the quarantine curfew.

A week later, the constraints imposed on crossing provincial borders were further extended until October 21. However, it was again decided that the restrictions would remain in place until the end of the month.

Courtesy Hiru News

The Fertilizer Secretariat states that samples of environmentally friendly nano nitrogen liquid fertilizer imported from India have been sent for testing.

Fertilizer Secretariat Deputy Director Kasun Mahathanthila told the Hiru News team that once the quality of the fertilizer samples are confirmed by the test reports, steps will be taken to provide them to farmers through Agrarian Service Centers.

Accordingly, the relevant stock of liquid fertilizer in the Central Warehousing Complex of the Wattala – Hunupitiya Colombo Commercial Fertilizer Company is currently being released to its regional warehouses, he said.

The first consignment of nano nitrogen liquid fertilizer from the Indian state of Gujarat was brought to Sri Lanka this morning.

Farmers in various parts of the country are still protesting, saying that they are unable to cultivate due to the lack of fertilizers and agrochemicals. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa had also attended a farmers’ protest in Dompe, Gampaha.

Meanwhile, Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture Prof. Udith Jayasinghe stated that the gazette notification containing the clause pertaining to the suspension of the import of chemical fertilizers was prepared on wrong instructions.

He told the Hiru News team that the majority in the agriculture sector regretted the failure to provide proper information in preparing the relevant gazette notification.

Meanwhile, an adjournment debate is scheduled to be held in Parliament tomorrow on issues related to fertilizer.

Courtesy Adaderana

Courtesy Adaderana

Reportedly, more than 26,000 virus-infected patients are undergoing treatment at the moment at hospitals, treatment centres, and undergoing home-based care. 

The total number of coronavirus recoveries reached 493,674 after 360 more patients in total were discharged from medical care earlier today.

In the meantime, the total number of people, who died of COVID-19 infection in Sri Lanka, moved up as 18 more fatalities were confirmed by the Director-General of Health Services on Tuesday (October 19).

The new development has pushed the official death toll from the virus outbreak in the country to 13,543.

The latest victims include 11 males and 07 females, the Department of Government Information said.

Three of the victims, two males and a female, are aged between 30-59 years and the remaining 15 victims are aged 60 years and above.

Courtesy Adaderana

The daily count of COVID-positive cases confirmed in Sri Lanka moved to 539 today (October 20), says the Epidemiology Unit.

This brings the total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus reported in the country to 533,305.

As many as 493,674 recoveries and 13,543 deaths have been confirmed in Sri Lanka since the outbreak of the pandemic.

More than 26,088 active cases in total are currently under medical care, official figures showed.

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන් දකුණ හා මධ්‍යම පළාත් හිටපු ආණ්ඩුකාර

ඇමති කැමති කොම්පැනියෙන්, ටෙන්ඩර් නැතුව රු. බිලියන 9 ක නැනෝ නයිට්‍රජන් මිල දී ලීටර් මිලියන 2.1 ක් මිල දී ගැනීමට ‘කාබනික වගාව‘ නොව ගොවියාගේ බෙල්ල මිරිකලා රටේ කෘෂිකර්මයේ ආදායම සාක්කුවට දමා ගැනීමක් යැයි  යැයි හිටපු ආණ්ඩුකාර රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන් පවසයි.

කෘෂි රසායන – රසායන පොහොර මිලදී ගැනීමට ඩොලර් නැති නිසා ඇරඹූ ඊනියා ‘කාබනික වගා නාට්‍යය‘ ගොවියා කාබාසිනියා කර, ගොවිතැන විනාශ කර  තිබෙනවා. දැවැන්ත අර්බුදයක් නිර්මාණය කරලා, රටපුරා පෙළපාලි, පිකටින්, පඹයෝ පුච්චන තැනකට වැටුණා.  අර්බුදයක් ඇති කරලා මල්ල පුරවා ගැනීමේ න්‍යාය අද ලංකාවේ දේශපාලන ව්‍යාවහාරය යැයි හිටපු ආණ්ඩුකාර තෙන්නකෝන් පවසයි.

රු. බිලියන 9 ක භාණ්ඩ මිලදී ගැනීමේ දී ප්‍රසම්පාදන ක්‍රියාවලියක් අනුගමනය කළ යුතුයි.  ඒ සඳහා නිර්ණායක ගණනාවක් තිබෙනවා.  අද රසායනාගාර පරීක්ෂණ නැතිව, කාබනික ලේබල් ඇතුව හෝ නැතිව රටට පොහොර ගේනවා.  මේක යට තියෙන්නේ දැවන්ත ගජමිතුරු ව්‍යාපාරයක්.

අද පොහොර ගෙන්වන්න ටෙන්ඩර් නෑ. මිල ගණන් නෑ. තරඟකරුවෝ නෑ.  ලංකාවේ මහ කන්නයේ අක්කර ලක්ෂ 8 ක වී වගාවටත්, වෙනත් වගාවන්ටත් අවශ්‍ය යැයි කියන පොහොර එක සමාගමකින් විවෘත මිල ගණන් නැතිව ගෙන්වා තියෙනවා. මේ දක්වා සමාගම් 6 ක් ගෙන්නපු රටේ අවශ්‍යතාවය ඇමති – ලේකම් කැමති තනි සමාගමකට දීලා තියෙනවා. ගනුදෙනුවේ වටිනාකම රු. බිලියන 9 යි.  තවත් බිලියන 3 ක මිලදී ගැනීම් සඳහා සුදානම් වෙනවා.

අර්බුදයක් ඇති කරලා, රටක් හූරාගෙන කෑමේ ව්‍යාපෘතියට හොඳම උදාහරණයක් තමයි ගොවියාට කාබනික පෙන්නලා වැඩි මිලට බන්ඩි පොහොර ගෙන්වීම. සීනි ජාවාරම, පොල්තෙල් ජාවාරම වගේම මගඩියක්. 

මහ කන්නය පටන්ගන්න වල් නාශක නැති කම නිසා නැගෙනහිර, මහවැලි කලාපවල, මහියංගනය කුඹුරු අතහැර දමලා. උඩරට එළවළු වගාව, මල් වගාම සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම නැවතිලා. හරිතාගාර වහලා දානවා.  වල් නාශක ඕනි කාලයට ආණ්ඩුව බන්ඩි පොහොර ගෙනල්ලා ඒවා ගබඩා ගරගෙන ඉන්නවා.  එම්.ඕ.පී. පොහොර අවශ්‍ය කිසිම වගාවකට ඒවා නිකුත් කරන්නේ නෑ.  කාබනික ලේබලේ ගහලා ආණ්ඩුවේ භාණ්ඩාගාරය හිස් කරලා තියෙනවා.

උඩරට ගොවියෝ දිලීර නාශක – කෘමි නාශක ඉල්ලනවා.  ආණ්ඩුව දෙන්නේ නෑ.

වියළි කලාපයට වල් නාශක – කෘමි නාශක ඉල්ලනවා. ආණ්ඩුව දෙන්නේ නෑ.

රටම පොහොර ඉල්ලනවා – පොහොර නැතිව දියර පොහොර ගෙනල්ල මඩිය තර කර ගන්නවා.

හෙට අනිද්දාට, තනි සමාගමකට කෘෂි රසායන ඒකාධිකාරය දෙන්න අවශ්‍ය පරිසරය ගොඩ නගාගෙන යනවා.  ටෙන්ඩර් නැතිව ඇමති කැමති සමාගමකට කෘෂි රසායන ඒකාධිකාරය දෙන්න හදනවා.  බෙහෙත් බෝතලයක් ගන්න කිරි පිටි, ගෑස්, සීනි ගන්න වගේම පොලීමේ ඉන්න වෙල යුගයක් හැදෙනවා.  ගොවියත් විනාශයි. රටත් විනාශයි. හැබැයි ගජ මිතුරෝ විතරක් ගොඩ යනවා. යැයි ද හිටපු ආණ්ඩුකාර තෙන්නකෝන් පවසයි.

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන් දකුණ හා මධ්‍යම පළාත් හිටපු ආණ්ඩුකාර

By Rediff News Bureau

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was supposed to be on the first flight to land at Kushinagar airport on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 — at least so the buzz went — for an India-Sri Lanka summit, but when the special Sri Lankan Air flight arrived at Uttar Pradesh’s brand new (fourth) international airport, out stepped a Rajapaksa.

Only it was not Gota or his elder brother Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa, but the Sri Lankan prime minister’s eldest son Namal Rajapaksa.

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Buddha tourism gets a boost with Kushinagar airport‘India cannot take Gotabaya for granted’

Namal, 35, is Sri Lanka’s youth and sports minister — Anurag Thakur would be his Indian ministerial equivalent, not the mighty prime minister of India (does that explain the rather displeased look Modi wears in the photographs below?) — but he is said to be his father’s likely successor before eventually ascending to the presidency which his uncle holds currently.

Last year, Galle MP Manusha Nanayakkara told the Sri Lankan parliament that Rajapaksa family run ministries had 29 percent of all statutory bodies in the country under their grip.

The Island newspaper quoted Nanayakkara as saying: ‘The President and Prime Minister are from the same family. There are two cabinet ministers from that family — Chamal and Namal Rajapaksa.
Sahsindra Rajapaksa is a state minister.
Chairman of the District Development Council is Nipuna Ranawaka.
The Prime Minister has three Cabinet portfolios – Buddha Sasana, Finance and Housing and Urban Development.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has 23 institutions.
The Prime Minister has 49 under the Finance Ministry, 11 under the Buddha Sasana and six under the Urban Development ministry. He has 66 institutions under him.
Namal Rajapaksa has seven. Sashindra has six.
In addition seven other institutions including BOI, Telecom, Telecommunications and Regulations are under the COVID -19 task force under Basil Rajapaksa.
There is one Shipping industry state minister who does not have a single institution under him because he is not a member of the Rajapaksa family.’:)))

Since some political observers believe that Modi will be prime minister through this decade, the next time Namal comes to this country, he could well wear the title of prime minister or president!

Please click on the images for a better look at the NaMo-Namal encounter.

IMAGE: Namal gifts NaMo a Sinhala version of the Bhagavad Gita. All Photographs: Press Information Bureau

IMAGE: Namal arrived with a flight full of Buddhist monks, some of who met Modi in Kushinagar.

IMAGE: Ever seen Modi look so glum when meeting a foreign visitor? Namal’s dad, like Modi, is a huge grin-hugging politician.

Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff.com

Chandre dharma-wardana

In spite of all this information and good advise from all the leading scientists of Sri Lanka (see recent articles in the Island by Dr. M. Dhanapala, Prof. Costa, Dr. Waidyanatha, Prof. Marmbe and many others), we have Ranjith Soysa writing the following:

“The President’s holistic decision on the banning of chemical fertiliser is, indeed, a step in the right direction, which will bring expected results in the improvement in soil and water quality and the general health of the masses.

What are the expected results? Where have such results been demonstrated”.

1. This is sadly, the continued failure to understand that composting and producing “Organic Fertilizer” will lead to the production of noxious green house gases like methane and CO2 in large quantities that will further add to the runaway global warming that is already occurring.

Mr Ranjith Soysa living in the precincts of the great barrier reef may know that a tiny increase in ocean temperature will wipe out the corals and most of the fish.

Also, the effluent and rain run off  that results when 100 tonnes/acre of organic fertilizer is added to get the same effect as 20 kg/acre of mineral fertilizer is enormous and leads to removal of oxygen from the aquatic ecosystem (rivers and streams) and its asphyxiation.

Legislation has been introduced in, e.g., Massachusetts to severely control organic farms because of this, even though organic farming is less than 2% of normal farming in US states.

Unfortunately, Venerable Ratana’s newest acolyte, namely President Gotabhaya has rushed into all this with the enthusiasm of a neophyte who wants be “the first in the world to convert the country to 100% organic”.

This is achievable, but at the cost of creating famine and causing rural riots that he may have to put down with his beloved military.

That the population has to be cut down by at least half  was well known in the research literature. When Dr. Adrian Mueller of the Swiss institute for organic agriculture discussed going 100% organic in a research article in Nature in 2018, he admitted that it will require a halving the population who will all have to be forced into being vegetarian, as pointed out very clearly when I wrote a reply to him.

http://dh-web.org/place.names/posts/CD-Mueller-OrganicL.pdf

The claim that inorganic fertilizer will improve the general health of the masses is the sort of nonsense that is good for Dr. Padeniya and Ven. Ratana.

Ranjit Soyza also says: However, such a crucial decision was not followed professionally to ascertain the availability of other nutrients, and enough supply of compost fertilizer to apply in the following growing season. The unscientific method of managing the subject gave opportunities to many to engage in public agitation against this holistic decision”

So Ranjith Soysa thinks that organic fertilizers are the way to go, but that its introduction has been mismanaged.

This is another popular myth.

Even if organic fertilizer production and the approach to organic farming had been properly managed, it will STILL LEAVE THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE STARVING.

I know that Mr. Ranjith  Soysa who has done good work in the fight against terrorism in Sri Lanka, and worked hard for the good of Sri Lanka, does not genuinely wish to support the creation of a man-made famine in Sri Lanka.

But I believe he (and indeed many others) had been strongly misled by the likes of Dr. Nalin de Silva and other ideologues in these matters.

We should remember that Gunadasa Amarasekera too was mislead to such an extent that he wrote a glowing preface to Channa Jayasumana’s  utterly unscientific and scandalous book “Waku Gadu Hatana“.

RANJITH SOYSA

We were  pleased to read the recent speech delivered at 72^nd anniversary of Gajaba Regiment by the President Gotabaya Rajapakasa in which he admitted about the voter disillusionment of his government. We are aware of the fact that the government had to contend with the unprecedented issues on account of the covid epidemic and had to give priority in seeking solutions to the challenges by imposing restrictions to the economic and social activities while channelling limited resources to medical supplies and social service facilities,

If the President is prepared to review and turn a new page for the improvement of the country one should expect the President to rehash the decision-making procedure of the Government. The voters are of the view that some of the crucial steps adopted were either introduced or implemented in some instances without recognizing the impact on the country’s sovereignty and the security.

As an initial step the President should consider appointing a National Planning Committee with the nationalist minded experts to work on a program to tackle key economic issues and management of nationally important strategic centres for next 4 years. Without proceeding ahead haphazardly and creating crisis situations once such decisions are adopted, if the government can adhere to a plan with a nationalist vision, it will be acceptable to the voters who elected the President. Such a plan should also investigate the country’s priorities, future stability, resources, the national security. The implementation should be transparent and should be accountable.

Let us examine some of the issues which were tackled without a proper plan which resulted in causing frustration and disappointment among the voters and the public. The method of overseeing the pricing and supply of commodities such as sugar, rice, garlic, gas cylinders etc was atrocious which brought untold hardships to the consumer as well as to  the producers. The complete mismanagement must be admitted by the government and a more rational formula will have to be adopted if the plan is to take the country systematically forward. It is necessary to exercise detailed examination of the supply chain, the storage facilities, and the Government outlets to get rid of the unconscionable profiteers awaiting to fleece the consumers and marginalize the public organizations which are established to protect the consumers. Once a rational decision is taken the government should pursue the implementation with determination rather than surrender to the dictates of the unscrupulous middlemen who hold onto the stocks  causing loss of confidence of the public.

A crucial area which needs urgent review is how to regulate luxury and semi luxury imports which consumes a considerable amount of foreign exchange earned by export of goods and services including the foreign remittances of  Sri Lankan workers, At least as a short term measure the free trade introduced by JRJ  about 40 years ago should be re-examined and suitable qualitative controls should be introduced to curb the outflow of foreign exchange for non-essential goods.

The President’s holistic decision on the banning of chemical fertilizer is indeed a step in the right direction which will bring expected results in the improvement in soil and water quality and the general health of the masses. However, such a crucial decision was not followed professionally to ascertain the availability of other nutrients and enough supply of compost fertilizer to apply in the following growing season. The unscientific method of managing the subject gave opportunities to many to engage in public agitation against this holistic decision.

It was an indeed ironical to hear the slogans mouthed by ‘farmers’ of 2021 demanding chemical fertilizer whereas their fathers were demonstrating in 1970S decrying the government’s and the officials’ dictates to replace bio fertilizers with chemical fertilizer to ‘usher in the green revolution ‘.It is the wish of the majority of the population to get rid of the vicious cycle of poisoning resulting in the use of chemical fertilizer and we would request the government to take the required steps in the right direction to implement the laudable decision effectively and efficiently.

 We need a clear and dedicated policy in relation to our international relations. We must always be nonaligned in our dealings with the big powers who are engaged in a global power game.

We should know the friendly nations who stood by Sri Lanka when it waged war with Tamil Tiger terrorists and subsequently at UNHCR, and about the other countries  who attempt to crucify Sri Lanka for defeating the world’s most brutal terrorist organization. Their attempts to continue persecuting Sri Lanka will naturally weaken Sri Lankan state and all times Sri Lanka should express her rejection of such vicious attempts and should bring these facts at bi-lateral discussions and multi-lateral conferences.

India, our neighbour is leaving no stone unturned until we have PCs and with all powers. Most of the Sri Lankans do not want PCs, an additional tier of administration at a cost of colossal expenditure and with practically no benefits. At a time when Sri Lankans are required to tighten their belts and manage expenditure, the Government must convey to India that all issues can be managed under the present unitary system of Government. Sri Lanka should be noticeably clear on this issue to enable Sri Lanka -India international relationship to prosper. Sri Lanka should also continue bi-lateral discussions with India regarding to oil tanks in Trinco as to how these can be used for the economic development of the country assuring that Sri Lanka will not allow any other country to have any control over the strategically important Trincomalee harbour. Recently an Indian writer, has stated that India does not bother to understand her neighbouring countries and decides on inter-state policies without considering the expectations of her neighbours. Imposing PCs on Sri Lanka and insistence on the implementation of the failed proposal too emanated from the Indian centralized foreign policy machinery which in this instance  primarily addressed the aspirations of the Tamil Nadu agitators who were expressing their support for the separatists in Sri Lanka. India’s strategy was to kill two birds with one stone and executed its policy of proposing PCs to weaken the central government of Sri Lanka while appeasing the extremists in Tamil Nadu to divert their attention from their own struggle for a separatist racist state in India. Sri Lanka should be firm in rejecting the Indian formula to destabilize the country and continue to address the common issues faced by ordinary people in Sri Lanka including the minorities living in the periphery.

The mandate given by the public clearly stated that the proportional system of representation should be changed and all future elections should be held according to the number electorates and the members should represent the electorates based on the percentage of  votes gained by the candidates. All who investigated into the system introduced by JRJ  were of the view that system breeds corruption and bribery while precluding the visible representation of an electorate.

The President recently invited the expatriate Tamil groups presumably as an effort to improve reconciliation of Sinhala and Tamil views and expectations. Such discussions should be based on specific conditions that the participants do not support separatism in Sri Lanka and they accept the unitary Sri Lanka. Otherwise, such discussions will only provide opportunites to reopen the subject of traditional homelands for minority communities in Sri Lanka pushing the country back to unenviable 1990 s ,

RANJITH SOYSA

උපුටා ගැන්ම ලංකා සී නිව්ස්

අනුරාධපුර පදවිය ප්‍රදේශයේ පැවති විරෝධතාවයකදී ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේ ආකාරයට සැකසූ අනුරුවකට පහර දීමට කටයුතු කළහ.

වගාවට අවශ්‍ය රසායනික පොහොර ඉල්ලමින් මෙම විරෝධතාවය අනුරාධපුර පදවිය ප්‍රදේශයේ පිරිස් විසින් සංවිධානය කර තිබිණි.

අම්පාර නාමල්ගම ප‍්‍රදේශයේ පැවති විරෝධතාවයකදී ජනාධිපතිවරයා ආකාරයෙන් සරසන ලද පුද්ගලයෙකුට බිම දමාගෙන පහර දෙනු ලැබිය.

Courtesy France24

Colombo (AFP)

Sri Lanka on Tuesday backed down from ambitious plans to become the world’s first completely organic farming nation, reversing a ban on imports of chemical fertiliser.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had imposed a total ban on agrochemicals in May, saying he wanted to make Sri Lankan farming 100 percent organic.

Plantations Minister Ramesh Pathirana said Tuesday that the change of course was to help growers of Ceylon tea, exports of which are worth $1.3 billion annually for the island nation.

by Melani Manel Perera Courtesy AsiaNews.it

The 2021 Global Hunger Index ranks Sri Lanka as a country with a moderate” risk of hunger. One of the problems is farmland management. Anthony Jesudasan notes that 37,000 hectares have not yet to be distributed among young Tamils.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – Sri Lanka continues to hold one of the lowest positions in 2021 Global Hunger Index, which covers 116 countries.

The level of hunger and food insecurity in the Asian country is defined as “moderate” at present. This is an improvement over reports from previous years when the situation was considered alarming”. 

Yet, despite improved hunger indicators, stunting in children under five has increased over the past year due to malnutrition.

Hunger is an old problem in Sri Lanka, which is closely linked to government land management and agri-food administration, this according to many observers.

The leaders of the country have divided up farmland and sold it to the world (other countries or businesses) for a commission,” said Aruna Seelarathana, a farmer from Anuradhapura district, speaking to AsiaNews.

Thousands of acres of land across Sri Lanka have now been taken over by the country’s political leaders. If people were allowed to farm that land, Sri Lanka would not have to deal with the problem of hunger today.”

K. Ariyapala, another local farmer, holds the same view. In addition to the lack of farmland, he laments that there is no way of getting fertilisers, agrochemicals, seeds and water in a timely manner.”

In his view, when the material required for farming is not available in time, farming is useless. Not having the required background to do our job means that not only farmers have to starve but that the whole country has to starve.”.

According to Anthony Jesudasan, who chairs the Voice of Plantation People organisation, the lack of land affects disproportionately the Tamil minority.

In order to strengthen the food production process, a survey was conducted in the hill region in 2013, which identified 57,000 hectares of virgin land that could be farmed; 37,000 destined for young Tamils. To date, nothing has been done,” he told AsiaNews.

Emphasising Sri Lankans’ right to land, Jesudasan noted that there is no future without food sovereignty and that the right to food should be recognised by governments without discrimination.

Political leaders should put in place measures that facilitate the process of food production and give land to everyone in Sri Lanka.”

In such a situation, We need to look to the future with confidence in the hope that the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved by 2030 and bear fruit now in terms of food security and sustainable agriculture”.

The Economic Times

The beleaguered Sri Lankan economy faces substantial credit risk, with default ‘a real possibility’, Singapore-based Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday. The ratings agency also revised Sri Lanka’s growth forecast for 2021 to 3.3 % from 3.8 %, due to the surge in coronavirus cases in July-August.

“Sri Lanka’s public and external finances remain fragile, as reflected in our ‘CCC’ rating in place since November 2020 and affirmed in June 2021. A rating at this level indicates substantial credit risk, with default ‘a real possibility,’ ” Fitch said.

The island nation’s external liquidity position remains stressed, with USD 26 billion in sovereign foreign-currency obligations coming due between now and 2026.

Going forward, Fitch projects the country’s foreign-exchange reserves to plummet to USD 2.5 billion by 2023, down from the USD 3.5 billion in August 2021, following a grant received through the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights to the tune of USD 780 million.

Through the rest of 2021, the majority of foreign-currency debt repayments consist of project and syndicated loans.

Sovereign bond repayments of USD500 million and USD1 billion due in January and Jul ..

Sovereign bond repayments of USD500 million and USD1 billion due in January and July 2022, respectively.

Referring to the six-monthly road map published in October by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Fitch says although authorities have outlined plans to secure funds through bilateral, multilateral and other syndicated loans, the financing plans contained limited details, including the sources and time-lines of financing arrangements.

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