Sri Lanka is
full of crows. A writer’s friend joked him that in Colombo there are more crows
than people!
Crows live in groups; they
work together. They thrive on trash; basically any kind of food
waste.
Some think
crows are good as they clean up the environment. This is a misconception.
The biggest
problem with crows is that they are large scale waste carriers. A person who
maintains an immaculate lawn would find spoilt food, rotten meat, dead rats etc
dropped on it – by crows.
Crows form
large roosts mostly on tall trees. Crows are known as ‘pooping machines’. It is
somewhat fearsome to walk under Colombo’s big trees, lamp posts etc as it is
quite possible that a crow would poop. There is hardly anyone who has not been treated
with this offensive discharge. Whether they do it intentionally or not, only
experts could say. Crows shoot their droppings upon vehicles uttering
discomfort to vehicle owners.
Crows are omnivorous
and eating plant material lead them to discharge greater fecal output. This is
why one notices so much of crow droppings on Colombo’s sidewalks/pedestrian
ways.
In early
mornings the Galle Face Green is full of crows. It is difficult to stroll as
their numbers are too many. The crows fly in to eat the leftover greasy/oily
junk food thrown in the bins and scattered across the Green.
One could
see crows gradually taking over the domain in Vihara Mahadevi Park which is
home to so many other bird species. When they encroach as a group, other good
bird varieties gradually become displaced. Crows are strong, they compete well and
chase away the tender bird species.
The Problem
at Vihara Maha Devi Park is that there are street/junk food outlets there, in
the Children’s section. Like in Galle Face Green, crows are attracted therein to
the waste. As the Park is a permanent
source of food, they are now permanent there. They live on trees closer to the
food. At Vihara Maha Devi Park around the live food area, Rats (Mice) too have
popped up in large numbers.
It is
difficult to walk around the Beira Lake due to too many crows such as on Walkways
around the Seemamalakaya.
Crows have encroached
inside the Fort Railway Station. The
Station is well known for its Pigeons who live in nests formed under the
roof. It seems their day of exclusive
occupation is numbered as crows too have got in.
Large, highly concentrated
populations of crows can easily spread various diseases to humans directly/indirectly
(eg. TB, Encephalitis, Meningitis). Being waste carriers,
crows may be able to indirectly spread the Corono Virus (eg. carrying used masks,
swabs etc).
As their numbers are ever increasing, we need a crow
control program, especially in Colombo.
Many
countries do this (Crow Control) by way of unmerciful killings. They use many
tactics such as shooting, poisoning and gassing. We cannot do these in Sri
Lanka. We are a Buddhist country.
We must adopt humane methods. In home environments, crows
can be controlled by freighting; eg, lighting firecrackers, displaying crow
feather, hanging something shiny across the yard (like aluminum plates), using
bird (crow) traps etc. But, as the
problem is very big, we need a large scale, long term solution/operation.
One of the best methods is genetic
engineering. Australia
and New Zealand are world leaders in using gene drives to control species
populations. If Australian CSIRO is contacted (through the High Commission
here), I am sure they would assist.
We
have well controlled the stray dog population in Colombo, through intent sterilization.
We should be thankful to the hardworking staff of the Colombo Municipal Council
for this. They roam Colombo streets on mornings in search of stray dogs, then subject
them to humane sterilization. It is a very difficult job, but they do it very well.
Thanks to them, Colombo’s stray dog numbers are controlled. In Puerto Rico they
use a pill, Neutersol, as a method of non surgical stray dog sterilization. In
regards to crows, we need to adopt similar methods. We cannot let the problem
go unchecked; it is serious.
The other day I was having a nice snooze in my reclining chair, my mind wandering around in a no man’s land, now and then crossing over to my childhood-past, which lay on one side and then to the other, my adulthood-present. It was a balmy afternoon, and I found it hard not to fall asleep. Finally, I did and then I dreamed.
I was kneeling down with a couple of my childhood friends around me all looking down intently at the little funnel-shaped pit on the sand, my right index finger going around the rim of it in circles, while I kept on chanting ‘bin kundo, bin kundo….’ I can’t remember the rest of the rhyme. And suddenly there it was. It popped out from the basement of its sandy castle, hung around there for a minute or so and seemingly disappointed that it was not something, which would fit into its menu hurriedly dived back into the sand.
Eventually, I came back to the present regrettably leaving my childhood past and this thought suddenly jumped into my mind the only god knows from where: a striking behavioural similarity between that doodlebug and our present-day politician, particularly the ones, some of whom are now out and about more or less, criticizing, demanding and becoming more and more verbose and vociferous.
Up until now almost all of them were in hiding except the
President and a very few. They knew that the ‘Corona’ sees nothing except ‘ha
ha here is one from that species called human, let me be your guest please’.
And they heeded the advice of the health officials to the letter, which was
exemplary, though not exactly synonymous with their general behaviour and
conduct. But they knew very well that the Corona is made of different and
sterner stuff unlike the public. So many of them did not want to take any
chances and stayed put behind the closed doors.
And suddenly they felt the tremors like my childhood acquaintance,
but of another kind: the election tremors. Sometimes greed can be so
overwhelming that it can make one forget all around him, the mind focussed only
on how to get there and grab. So now we can see some of them are already
popping out, sliding into the right mood, talking to the media pointing at this
and that in their customary eloquence and tone with probes, promises and
proposals.
Like my tiny childhood acquaintance, they are also predators,
though of a different make and mould. And instead of ants, they prey on the
gullible public, who keep falling into their pits every five years or so to be
mercilessly devoured by them lying in wait behind a wall of promises as loose
as the sand of my doodlebugs’ castle.
We saw some endearing examples of true patriotism coming from few
foreign leaders, who decided to cut down their own salaries. Then some of
our own doodlebug-politicians probably taking their cue from those foreign
leaders were also asking for a cut-down too, but alas, of an altogether
different kind. They were requesting to consider cutting down the minimum
number of years required for them to be eligible for a lifelong pension. We all know
that these predators are master fishermen too
(my sincere apologies to the real ones), who are well versed in the art of
fishing in troubled waters.
Then going by the fact that the election will have to be held
sooner or later, the requested cut-down would surely be welcome and supported
by the rest of their kind too irrespective of what colour they wear.
Now it looks like the election-tremors are getting weaker though
temporarily for sure, losing the fight to Corona-tremors, which might prompt
many of those doodlebug-politicians to dive back into their dens. But I am sure
it won’t be too long before they will feel those election-tremors again. Then
they will be ready and eagerly waiting for you down there in their pits to
devour you. Don’t fall for the dazzling lights of several colours (you can
guess what they are) decorating the tops of their pits beckoning you to ‘please
come and have a closer look’. Don’t go near them and be their prey. Let them
starve till cows come home. Many of them have been on a feeding-frenzy, far too
long.
Failures of government agencies including local short-sighted politicians also local authorities had led to uncontrolled human settlements in the form of Ghettos and slums and Watta” within state-owned lands, road reservations, canal reservations, railway reservations.
After 1977 since the change regime from a quasi socialistic government to a more open economy, the urban population started expanding and people started forcibly settling along in lands that are owned by state agencies.
Authorities kept quite when Colombo, some parts of Gampaha, some areas of Kalutara, and Beruwala started rapidly growing with closely built clusters of shanties.
In 1975 onwards various high rise flats were built, going away from the concept of various settlement such as Jayawardene Pura Rukmal Gama Mattegoda which are settled with families widely spread out to a certain extent
There was a canal resettlement program in Colombo in 1990
where such slums were resettled in a somewhat wider area
Examples are Havelock Road near Lumbini school Narahenpita near RMV , Panchikawatte Kadirana in Colombo 15, etc .
Now we have a leadership which can emulate Singapore and take action to remove these encroached settlements, if necessary by force for this function, a task force is not sufficient but a Task Master with determination and endurance Should be appointed
State agencies should have strict control on protecting their lands from further encroachment
Physical distancing on the road or in shops and offices may
not be sufficient unless we have such plan to establish habitats with enough
space in between for the people to live in
I hope the government will take this seriously once corona spread is controlled.
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
CEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard
Colombo
Sri Lanka
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said that he has given thought to change the current practice of useless and expensive election campaigns, the President’s Media Division said.
The President has expressed these views when be met with the Maha Nayake of Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dhrama Maha Sanga Sabha, Most Ven.
Dr. Iththapana Dhammalankara Thera and His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith at the Presidential Secretariat today.
At the meeting, His Eminence Cardinal Ranjth has observed that the time has come to deviate from election propaganda that is wasteful and spiteful and adopt a new political culture.
Meanwhile, Ven. Dhammalankara Thera has pointed out that some tanks and irrigation schemes have been neglected in areas where agricultural crops are cultivated.
The President’s Media Division said President Rajapaksa has responded saying that funds will be allocated to renovate these tanks and irrigation canals from the next Budget.
Secretary to the President Dr P. B. Jayasundera and Principal Advisor to the President Lalith Weeratunga were also present at the discussion.
Eight more positive cases of COVID-19 have been identified in Sri Lanka while the tally reached 619.
Earlier today, 23 coronavirus patients were detected in the country. Five of them were revealed to be naval personnel and the other three were from the quarantine centre in Punanai.
A total of 31 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed within the day.
Meanwhile, 8 persons who had tested positive for the virus had recovered from the virus today (28), raising the coronavirus recoveries total to 134.
Sri Lanka saw the highest daily surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases on Monday (27) with 65 new infections. The tally went up from 523 to 588 just within 24 hours.
According to the Epidemiology Unit’s tally, 478 active cases of coronavirus are currently under medical care at selected hospitals.
Seven coronavirus patients in the country have succumbed to the disease.
NHS bosses are so concerned that they have written to doctors asking them to urgently refer any children who appear to have it to hospital. Photograph: Dave Stevenson/Rex/Shutterstock
More than a dozen children have fallen ill with a new and potentially fatal combination of symptoms apparently linked to Covid-19, including a sore stomach and heart problems.
The children affected appear to have been struck by a form of toxic shock syndrome. All have been left so seriously unwell that they have had to be treated in intensive care.
At least one has received extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, which is used when someone’s life is at risk because they can no longer breathe for themselves.
NHS bosses are so concerned that they have written to doctors alerting them to the emergence of these cases and asked them to urgently refer any children with similar symptoms to hospital.
Most of the children affected have Kawasaki disease, a rare vascular condition that is the main cause of acquired heart disease in under-18s in the UK. There are estimated to be 4.5 cases for every 100,000 children under the age of 18 in the UK. These cases happen when someone with Kawasaki disease gets Covid-19 and that produces complications,” said one NHS source.
In a letter to GPs in north London, reported by the Health Service Journal , NHS bosses said: It has been reported that over the last three weeks there has been an apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions of the UK.
The cases have in common overlapping feature of toxic shock syndrome and atypical Kawasaki disease with blood parameters consistent with severe Covid-19 in children.
There is a growing concern that a Sars-CoV-2-related inflammatory syndrome is emerging in children in the UK, or that there may be another, as yet unidentified, infectious pathogen associated with these cases.”
If you have been affected or have any information, we’d like to hear from you. You can get in touch by filling in the form below, anonymously if you wish or contact us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding the contact +44(0)7867825056. Only the Guardian can see your contributions and one of our journalists may contact you to discuss further. Tell us
A version of the warning has been sent by the Paediatric Intensive Care Society to all specialist doctors working in paediatric intensive care units in UK hospitals.Advertisement
The NHS letter adds that while some of the children did have Covid-19, others had tested negative for it. That could suggest that that group did not have it, or had had it, or that their tests were faulty.
Describing the illness, the letter added: Abdominal pain and gastrointestinal symptoms have been a common feature, as has cardiac inflammation. This has been observed in children with confirmed PCR positive Sars-CoV-2 infection as well as children who are PCR negative. Serological evidence of possible preceding Sars-CoV-2 infection have also been observed.”
Sars-CoV-2 is the official name of the virus that causes the disease Covid-19.
Doctors have been told to please refer children presenting with these symptoms as a matter of urgency”.
One intensive care doctor said: There’s been an utterly unexpected uptick in severely sick children with a late inflammatory response that we think is related to Covid-19. It’s most unusual.”
It is not known if any of the children have died.
This is not something people should be panicking about,” said Dr Liz Whittaker, a consultant at St Mary’s hospital in London and a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s allergy, immunology and infectious diseases committee.
Asked at the Downing Street daily press briefing about the reports, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said they had left him very worried”, while the government’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, said: This is a very rare situation but I think it is entirely plausible that this is caused by this virus, at least in some cases.”
The condition came to light when doctors saw a number of unusual cases of children admitted to intensive care with a mix of symptoms from toxic shock and Kawasaki syndrome. The children had persistent fevers and severe abdominal pain and some had skin rashes. What concerned doctors most were blood tests that revealed severe inflammation, similar to that seen in adult patients with severe Covid-19 infections.
Of the children admitted to intensive care, a number needed treatment for heart inflammation. Our worry is that paediatricians who see children with fever and abdominal pain will do blood tests to look for problems such as appendicitis, but might not do bloods that look for inflammatory issues,” Whittaker said.
Doctors suspect that the illness may be a post-infection inflammatory response” where the immune system goes into overdrive. While some children have tested negative for coronavirus, they may have cleared the virus before the inflammation took hold, or the tests may simply have missed the infection.
Prof Russell Viner, the president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, sought to reassure parents that children are generally unlikely to become very unwell due to Covid-19.
We already know that a very small number of children can become severely ill with Covid-19 but this is very rare. Evidence from throughout the world shows us that children appear to be the part of the population least affected by this infection.
New diseases may present in ways that surprise us, and clinicians need to be made aware of any emerging evidence of particular symptoms or of underlying conditions which could make a patient more vulnerable to the virus. However, our advice remains the same: parents should be reassured that children are unlikely to be seriously ill with Covid-19, but if they are concerned about their children’s health for any reason they should seek help from a health professional.”
The RCPCH’s guidance for parents on symptoms and seeking advice is available here.
Due to the imposition of curfew, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year 2020 had to be celebrated in solitary comfort of their homes.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also remained in his residence in Mirihana during this period. At the dawn of the New Year, Rajapaksa contacted his siblings, the Minister of Mahaweli, Agriculture, Irrigation and Rural Development, Chamal Rajapaksa and the Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa and extended his New year wishes.
The President also received calls from the public while he constantly was in contact with officials for the discussion on measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and the measures taken for the country to return to normalcy.
On 15 April he arrived at the Presidential Secretariat and called on the Presidential Task Force, appointed to combat COVID-19, to inquire into the updates of the measures taken.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa also celebrated the New Year with his family at the Carlton House in Tangalle. Although generally a huge crowd gathers at the Carlton House during New Year season, this year was an exception.
Certain New Year traditions have been consistently followed at the Carlton House every year and this year it took place in the presence of his whole family.
On 14 April, Minister of Passenger Transport Management, Power and Energy, Mahinda Aamaraweera arrived at the Carlton House to wish Premier while the former Governor of the Central Bank, Ajith Nivard Cabraal and Rajapaksa’s parliamentary affairs secretary, Kumarasiri Hettige travelled from Colombo to Tangalle to wish him.
On 15 April, Premier visited his elder brother Chamal Rajapaksa’s residence and spent a few days at the Carlton Estate in Weeraketiya while constantly making contact for updates on measures implemented to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
The President, head of the Presidential Task Force, Basil Rajapaksa, the Minister of Health, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Director General of Health Services, Anil Jasinghe and the current Commander of Army, Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva were constantly in contact during the New Year period.
Prasanna blames JVP
The National Organizer of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the former Minister of Economic Development, Basil Rajapaksa appears to be held up in a busy schedule although he is not a Cabinet Minister or even a deputy minister.
While the SLPP has long been preparing for the upcoming General Elections, Rajapaksa, right after having handed over nominations, has been vested with a huge additional responsibility.
He has been appointed as the head of the Presidential Task Force formed by the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in order to take necessary steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, including the curfews that have been imposed and other precautionary measures adopted by the government.
Basil has had experience in such involvement. Discussions in furtherance for measures that have to be adopted for the country to return to normalcy have thus taken place at Temple Trees under his leadership.
A similar discussion was also held on 15 April chaired by Rajapaksa. This discussion was more far-fetched as in addition to steps that have to be implemented for the country to return to normalcy, measures pertaining to that of Sri Lankans currently overseas were also discussed.
The discussion focused on the return of Sri Lankan citizens overseas who want to return to their homeland during the pandemic as there is a considerable number of such individuals. Minister of Foreign Relations, Dinesh Gunawardena and the Minister of Industrial Exports and Investment Promotion, Prasanna Ranatunga were also present at this discussion.
Basil stated that these individuals have to be brought back to Sri Lanka upon the instructions of health officials while the spread of COVID-19 will also be controlled.
Meanwhile Gunawardena noted that information on these individuals have been obtained from Embassies and High Commissions and the process of ensuring their return is being carried out methodically.
Ranatunga added that the SriLankan Airlines will begin preparations for their return upon the approval of the State while emphasizing that the instructions of the State and health officials in this regard is mandatory.
Upon approval, they will be tested at the airport following which the report could be obtained within six hours until which they will remain in the airport. They will then be subject to a 14 day quarantine period.
During the previous Cabinet meeting, matters pertaining to Sri Lankans stranded in International airports was also discussed.
Ranatunga said issue of over 33 Sri Lankans having been stranded in foreign airports and measures that have to be adopted for their return were discussed in this Cabinet meeting adding that two Sri Lankans who arrived from the London Heathrow Airport have also been subject to quarantine.
He also stated that JVP’s, Wasantha Samarasinghe had alleged that Sri LankanAirlines is operating as usual while not taking measures for the return of Sri Lankan citizens overseas.
”This is a complete hoax as this entity has carried out their social responsibility by ensuring the safe return of Sri Lankans from Wuhan China and will continue this by bringing back all other Sri Lankans overseas when time permits,” he said while blaming JVP for consistently making false accusations and not carrying out clean politics. Rajapaksa then instructed officials to take steps and formulate mechanisms for the quick return of all those who are employed overseas, involved in business and students studying in foreign universities.
It’s all about elections
The Party led by South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-In, has scored an emphatic victory in the parliamentary poll held early this week. More than 17 million had cast their vote despite some 30 persons being tested positive for the coronavirus every day.
Though political pundits had expressed doubts about people being eager to vote, due to the rapid spread of the killer virus, the voter turnout had been 66.2 percent, dispelling those predictions.
Despite the presence of some 3,100 COVID-19 infected people throughout the nation, the South Korean Government had taken measures to conduct the election at eight quarantine centres, too.
Also, unlike previous polls there, an additional five million voters had cast their vote at the poll. The Democratic Party led by President Moon Jae-In had won 180 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly.
Political pundits have pointed out that what had enabled the ruling party to post an emphatic win had been its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the prevention of the spread of the deadly virus throughout the country.
Political analysts have noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had proved to be a blessing in disguise for President Moon Jae-In and his party as they won comfortably.
However, at the onset of the disease, the handling of the pandemic by President Jae-In had come in for severe criticism.
An internet petition containing over 1 million signatures had been posted over the South Korean President’s decision taken not to prohibit travel between Seoul and Beijing.
But, despite such criticisms the handling of the spread of the pandemic by the South Korean Government sans any lockdown had come in for much praise from around the world.
Meanwhile, the South Korean Government had also made facilities available to some 44 million qualified voters to cast their vote at the election.
The talk in the town is that even Sri Lanka too, in the past, had conducted elections at the height of JVP insurgency, where people were massacred when involved in the democratic process and also when Prabhakaran obstructed the Tamils in the North and East from voting in 2005.
If both, the Director General of Health Services Dr. Anil Jasingha and the head of the presidential taskforce, to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, were to grant approval, the stalled General Election (GE) could be held during the last week of May, sources attached to the Election Commission (EC) say.
The Election Commission headed by Mahinda Deshapriya is already planning to hold a crucial discussion regarding the present situation in the country as well as the measures that could be taken to conduct the postponed General Election which was originally slated to be held on 25 April.
These sources noted that Dr. Jasingha, who is the sole authority empowered to enforce the COVID-19 Quarantine Act in the country, as well as several other health officers have been invited for a discussion with Election Commission officials on 20 April.
Among others who have been invited for this discussion have been the Army Commander, Acting IGP Chandana Wickremaratna, DIG Priyantha Weerasuriya and PMG Ranjith Ariyaratna.
Meanwhile, Election Commission sources stated that all necessary measures to conduct the 2020 General Election has been undertaken by the Commission and they are also planning to publicize the preference numbers of all candidates through the publication of a gazette notification shortly.
A senior officer from the Commission added that if the General Election is to be held during the final week of May, the Election Commission would need a period of five weeks commencing from 20 April.
In the meantime political analysts have said that akin to South Korea staging its own General Election despite the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic there, Sri Lanka too would be able to take a lead from that book and hold its own General Election both successfully and effectively.
However, legal circles have pointed out that based on the gazette notification issued by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa the General Election would have to be held before 2 June this year.
Former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on Friday (17) requested the Government and the Opposition to work together with the Election Commission (EC) to avoid a possible Constitutional crisis if the Parliamentary Election could not be held on time.
In a statement, Jayasuriya said that if a Constitutional crisis erupted at this particular time, there would be a risk of delegitimising and destabilising the country, which could gravely impact Sri Lanka’s prospects of obtaining economic relief.
“Sri Lanka is the only democracy to face the COVID-19 crisis without a Legislature to pass laws and financial appropriations to combat the pandemic and its economic consequences. It is my opinion that the Government and Opposition must engage with the EC and with each other urgently and in good faith. If there are any precautions or new laws that the Commission determines would allow it to safely hold the Election on time, these must be explored immediately,” he said.
Jayasuriya said he had recently been contacted by religious and political leaders, former Parliamentarians, academics, civil society and trade union representatives and members of the public seeking clarification on the impasse between the EC and the Executive on the Parliamentary Election.
“Sri Lanka is faced with an unprecedented health and economic crisis. As the prospect of a Constitutional crisis further compounding the plight of our country is a matter of grave national concern, I am setting out my position publicly rather than replying to each query individually,” he said, issuing the statement.
He noted that it was the position of the EC that the prevailing situation and logistical constraints prevented the Parliamentary Election from being held in time for the new Parliament to be summoned to meet by 2 June while the Government was of the view that there wasn’t necessarily any impediment to holding the Parliamentary Election on or before 28 May.
“In the interest of the nation, I appeal to the Government, the Opposition, and other stakeholders to set aside their political differences and to take urgent and meaningful steps to avoid an unnecessary third crisis for our country,” Jayasuriya said.
Meanwhile, all active election observation missions urged all relevant authorities to resolve their issues regarding a new election date, with the mutual understanding of not creating a Constitutional crisis against the backdrop of COVID-19.
Issuing a joint statement, they pointed out that: i) It is undesirable to head into an election with the EC and the Executive at odds with each other, ii) An environment of relief provision to those affected by the crisis is not ideal for an election campaign, as it can be exploited by candidates for their own political gain, as can already be seen; and iii) The National Operation Centre for the Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak and health authorities must confirm that the new election date will not put voters and election officials at risk.
The tug-o- war, as to who should take initiative to declare the next date for General Election is continuing, issuing a statement on the matter, Prime Minister Rajapaksa has elaborated on holding elections amid COVID-19. Full Statement:
The Coronavirus pandemic hit countries like the USA, India and Bangladesh in a situation where their economies had been experiencing strong growth for years. In contrast, Sri Lanka has had to face this crisis in a state of economic ruin. During the five years of yahapalana misrule from 2015 to 2019, our debt burden increased by 71%, the Rupee lost one third of its value and economic growth had plummeted to 2.7%.
Furthermore, though we had won the presidency in November 2019 and formed a government, we did not have a majority in Parliament and were not able to get a vote on account passed even to pay off the previous government’s debts to suppliers of fertilizer and medicine.
The financial powers vested in the President, under Article 150 (3) of the Constitution, is the only saving grace in this situation. It was with all these debilitating disadvantages that we had to face the Coronavirus pandemic. After the first Coronavirus patient was discovered on 11 March, we introduced a raft of measures to control the disease including early detection, isolation and treatment of patients, quarantine for those exposed to risk, the tracing of patients’ contacts and social distancing measures. An operation like this has not been seen in our lifetimes. Curfews lasting for weeks on end had to be imposed to prevent the spread of the disease.
People unable to go out of their homes had to be supplied with essentials like foodstuffs, medicines, and even cash throughout the country. Aid had to be provided to low income earners. The produce of paddy and vegetable farmers and fishermen had to be bought to keep the production process going. The fact that all these tasks were dealt with simultaneously at short notice is nothing less than a managerial miracle. Today, the whole world acknowledges Sri Lanka’s success in containing the coronavirus pandemic.
The President’s leadership in this regard has to be commended. Our government doctors, nurses, and health service workers have come to the attention of the entire world. The skill and dedication of the intelligence services in tracing the contacts of patients, the efficiency of the armed forces in implementing quarantine and lockdown measures has prevented the spread of the disease.
The Police, and government officials at all levels have all contributed to the success of the anti-Coronavirus campaign. Today, our country is one of the safest places to be in the whole world. We have achieved this despite an economy that had been driven into the ground, and an unpatriotic and opportunistic opposition bent on undermining our government at every turn.
The opposition leader tried to sabotage the anti-coronavirus campaign at the very outset by personally encouraging protests against the quarantine process. Then they tried to undermine government services including the health service with the argument that the President had no power to allocate funds for government services after the dissolution of Parliament. Now they say that the Gazette dissolving Parliament should be rescinded the as the new parliament has to meet before the 2nd of June, and the parliamentary election cannot be held before that.
The yahapalana government delayed local government elections by nearly three years. Their attempt to postpone that election indefinitely by moving courts failed only because the Elections Commission declared they would hold elections to the institutions that were not involved in litigation.
With just days to go for the dissolution of the provincial councils in 2017, the yahapalana government changed the provincial councils elections system to prevent elections from taking place. When the Attorney General held that a two thirds majority in Parliament was required to pass that amendment, they bartered policy for votes in the corridors of Parliament to obtain the required majority.
As a result of that unprincipled political horse trading, the local government elections law which was passed on 25 August 2017 has 40% proportional representation whereas the provincial council elections law passed four weeks later has 50% proportional representation! Sri Lanka is also the only democratic country in the world where political parties petitioned the Supreme Court to get the declaration of a parliamentary election annulled. The present scramble to have the parliamentary elections put off is a continuation of that deplorable past.
Things have to come back to normal sooner or later. In eleven of the 25 administrative districts, there have been no coronavirus patients at all. In another seven districts, there have been only one or two patients, and five to seven patients in two more districts. Only five districts have a high incidence of coronavirus patients.
On 2 March the President dissolved Parliament and fixed 25 April for the poll and 14 May for the first meeting of the new Parliament. Ten days later, when the first Coronavirus patient was found, the President did not have the power to postpone the poll. Under Section 24(3) of the Parliamentary Elections Act No: 1 of 1981, when the poll cannot be held on the day fixed by the President, the Elections Commission is mandatorily required to fix another day for the poll.
They have no power to postpone the poll without fixing another date. Such mandatory legal requirements cannot be ignored on the basis of speculation as to what may or may not happen weeks and months into the future. The Elections Commission should first fulfill its duties under Section 24(3) and thereafter take up for discussion any outstanding issues.
Sajith begins online campaign
The members of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya have continued to communicate with the public almost every day through online platforms amid the curfew regarding the current situation of the country and through this method Former opposition Leader and SJB Party Leader Sajith Premadasa has taken the initiative to educate people on the faults evident within the relief mechanism established by the Government.
Due to this reason, the members of the SJB decided to meet President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and share with him their opinions on how the country should function under the present circumstances. Apart from this, Premadasa has also taken steps to advice his party members to help provide relief to people in any way they can sans political bias.
However the members of the SJB replied to Premadasa claiming that it is not the SJB who are favoring the people based on their political bias but rather the Government and added that the Government only provides relief to a selected group of people from which the majority is biased towards them. The members of the SJB further claimed that it is only Premadasa who truly helps people in need without having his own political agenda and further added that during the Presidential campaign there were individuals who voted for the opposing political parties while living in houses that were provided to them by Premadasa.
Premadasa then noted that political leaders should lend help to people in need without taking politics into consideration and added that he is not used to working with the hope of winning an election but rather he wants to help the people in need regardless of the time and place. Premadasa then questioned as to why the Government has failed to provide equal relief to everyone when they have successfully lead the health and defense sectors to control the spreading of COVID-19 and opined that the Government should not involve politics when helping the public.
During discussions held by Premadasa through the media, he also took the initiative to communicate to the people regarding a few important topics such as the reopening of the tourism and apparel industries. Premadasa also opined, via a message posted on twitter on 16 April, that Sri Lanka should be made into a medicine producing center and added that if the relevant authorities focus on developing modern machinery that is capable of producing medicines then the country can use its existing resources to manufacture medicines.
Meanwhile during a discussion held between party leaders Premadasa as the former Opposition Leader was given permission to use the Opposition Leader’s Office on a rent basis for the next few days due to not having a proper office to conduct his duties as the former leader of the opposition.
We hear many a good story about how Hela
Vedakama can restore immunization in the human body from Hela Suwaya school of
medicine. The time tested methods are available to our citizens in these times
of fear to protect them from a virus for which there is hardly any treatment
except vaccinations under the Western system. While a pot of medicinal smoke
provides protection at a very inexpensive cost, the broth -kenda- made out of
selected native rice varieties and medicinal herbs can supply the nutrition not
only to withstand virus attacks but also as source of wholesome food. After
listening to a very useful interview conducted by doctors who are attempting to
popularize Hela Suwaya , I learnt that they have very effective treatment for
non- infectious diseases such the Diabetes in Sri Lanka which will be a major
threat to the Sri Lankans in the near future, kidney problems and even for
Dengu
With the globalized systems facing the
challenges of Corivid 19, the government and the people should NOW consider
Hela Suwaya seriously as an effective way of restoring the health of the
people.
There is another factor concerning Hela
Suwaya which should receive the
attention of the economic planners who are probably now busy developing
economic models to get us away from the dependence on apparel exports and
export earnings remitted by the ex-patriate workers. Hela Suwaya treatment can
be developed into a feasible pharmaceutical home industry in manufacturing
herbal based medicine and types of food which can also assist in reducing our
cost of living and importing of foreign made medical supplies. Further, Hela
Suwaya has begun to promote agriculture based on organic fertilizer which too
can be developed into a feasible industry and can help in the supply of
wholesome food rather than consuming chemically treated types. While helping to
reduce the cost of agriculture inputs especially the imported fertilizer , the
alternate offered by Hela Suwaya can be a very effective impetus to real
economic growth.
It is up to the policy makers to make use
of Hela Suwaya for the nation’s health needs and to use the whole package as a
God sent economic opportunity.
By selecting the 20th
June 2020 as the date on which Parliamentary election could be held the
Election Commission has pushed the country, constitutionally, in to a no- man’s
land. The commission seemed certain that
the country would not be normal by end of next month, the month in which the
election should be held with no constitutional issue. But then it seemed certain that things will
be normal by June, the month after. The
commission appears comfortable in forecasting what will happen in two months
but not what will happen next month. Thus, we have a constitutional crisis on top
of the Covid 19 crisis, courtesy the election commission. In the end the Election commission seemed to
have made its point, ‘Well, this is why we requested the President to seek
Supreme Court opinion!’
The Commissioner maintains that he
prevailed over the pressure received to hold election as well as the pressure received
to delay it. Well, the Commissioners job is not to give in to this political
camp or that but to hold free and fair elections when they are due. However, the reason for this procrastination
appears to be that it is not possible to have an election campaign to the
heart’s content of the candidates contesting in the prevailing pandemic
atmosphere. Here again the commissioners primary concern is the democratic
rights of the people over and above those of the candidates. Alright, the
people have the right to get to know the candidates but this may not necessarily
be done in the way that we have been used to all this while.
The election campaigning ways that
continued throughout in this country was first introduced in 1947 when the
literacy level of the people was only 6% of the population. It is said that the
symbols were first introduced and displayed prominently because the majority
could not read. Today the literacy level is
90 + % and that may require a differ campaigning strategy. In 1947
public support was portrayed through community leaders, with limited political
acumen, and intoxicant was the main
method of obtaining this support, but today even though some social riffraff
would look for ‘free drinks’ during the time of an election campaign, their
support may not have a positive effect.
On the other hand today the level of communication has reached new
heights with television, internet and social media. Thus, there are better and more effective
ways of getting at a more educated polity and hence the strategies have to
follow suit. In any case we have to come
out of this culture of offering a bottle of liquor and a meal to attend a
political meeting with a free bus ride and also of holding meetings that phew
venom with no substance. Therefore let this dark cloud of Covid 19 have a
silver lining as well.
There however is another political aspect
to this procastination in holding elections and that is, some politicians expect
that the pressure of delay in elections will render the country without a
Parliament for more than three months prompting the President to reconvene the
dissolved Parliament. The fact that the Parliament was dissolved 6 months early
on Presidential proclamation has spawned a score to be settled among these outgoing parliamentarians; the
last straw of hanging in power.
Those who subscribe to this school of
thought should realize that the world and the society will never be the same in
post covid 19; at least for some time. The WHO has expressed optimism that a
cure may be found towards September but that will take some more time to reach formal
commercial levels of production. In such a light is Sri Lanka going to postpone
elections indefinitely until this pandemic is brought under total control?
The life of the Parliament, by lapse of
time or by proclamation, is constitutionally over and hence there isn’t a
chance of reviving it. The country has to go forward and not backwards and
hence the need of the hour is to elect the new Parliament rather than to resort
to political gimmicks to recall a dead body to life. The last Parliament,
though legally cremated on the 2nd march 2020 was dead in its moral
and ethical right to continue to be the legislator in February 2018 when the
people expressed an overwhelming lack of support for same at the Pradeshiya
Sabha elections. That was the day the voters of this country gave a resounding
defeat to the incumbent and brought a relatively unknown set of people with a
completely new political party; something that has never happened in the
political history of this country. The
majority overwhelmingly voted Podu Jana Peramuna, neither because they were
well educated on their policies nor on how they would govern once in power, but
because they were so disillusioned with the policies of the Government that was
in power.
Ironically, that was the only chance the
people received to concur with the policies of the government that was elected
in January 2015, promising to restore democracy! It is
indeed unfortunate that the Judiciary of the country looked only in to the
legal aspect of the life of the Parliament, when it restored it in power in November
2018, glossing over the moral and ethical aspects of the same. And now with a
new President in power, the old Parliament has no justification to exist except
to sabotage the program of work of the new President that the majority approved.
The philosophers who gave thought to
democracy ( demos– common people, kratos– strength) back in 507 BC in Athens, strictly thought in terms
of a government by the will of the majority on a day to day basis. However this
became too cumbersome an affair in practice and hence it was later decided that
the people should elect representatives for a stipulated period to govern the
country for them and ‘ in keeping with their aspirations’. In this, it was not
the period for which representative was elected that mattered, but whether that
representative truly represented the wishes of the majority at all times. Thus,
it was not acceptable (and was not democratic) for the elected representative to
act as he/ she pleased during the time stipulated, ignoring the wishes of the
majority. Therefore, did the previous legislator had a democratic right to
continue as the legislator after it received such a resounding lack of support
from the majority of this country, merely because it received a mandate for 5
years in 2015?
Thus, since the elected President has said
that he is not in favor of convening the old parliament under any circumstance,
if the Supreme Court orders to reconvene the dissolved Parliament in response
to the petition filed by M A Sumanthiran, that order will be made in defiance
of the 69 million majority who voted to elect the new President.
No man is good enough to govern
another man, except with that other’s consent–
Abraham Lincoln.
NEW DELHI/DHAKA (Reuters) – More than 500 garment factories in Bangladesh that supply to global brands reopened on Monday after a month-long shutdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, while India considered ways to scale back its vast lockdown to reduce economic pain.A medical worker sits inside a mobile test van for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) after she collected swabs from people to test, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, April 27, 2020. REUTERS/Amit Dave
Some of the world’s biggest clothing firms including Gap Inc, Zara-owner Inditex and H&M source their supplies from Bangladesh, which allowed garment manufacturers in the capital Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong to resume work from the start of this week.
We are making sure the workers wear masks, wash hands at the entrance, undergo temperature checks, and maintain physical distancing,” said Mohammad Hatem, vice president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Bangladesh is home to around 4,000 garment factories employing 4.1 million workers, and industry groups for the sector had warned that the shutdown that began on March 26 could cause the country to lose $6 billion in export revenue this financial year.
Competitors such as Vietnam, China and Cambodia have already resumed operations, Hatem said.
Bangladesh reported nearly 500 new cases of the coronavirus on Monday to take the total to 5,913 of whom 152 have died.
While the country has allowed garment and other factories to reopen, much of the rest of the economy is still shut down and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told government officials on Monday that schools and colleges may have to remain closed until September if the situation did not improve.
We will reopen educational institutions when the situation improves,” she said.
INDIA SAYS VIRUS FAR FROM OVER
In India, where a strict shutdown for its 1.3 billion people is due to end on May 3, Prime Minister Narendra held talks with the chief ministers of the country’s 28 states to decide on what restrictions should be kept in place.
Modi said the risk from the virus was far from over, although India had been able to save thousands of lives because of its extended lockdown, a government statement quoted him as saying.
India has reported 28,379 confirmed infections of the coronavirus, according to government data on Monday, the highest number in Asia after China. So far 886 people have died, nowhere near the levels the United States, Italy and Spain have suffered.
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Health experts say India is testing far less per capita than many countries and the virus is lurking undetected. Still, a surge in hospitalisations has not happened across the country, strengthening the case for lifting some curbs.
(The) Prime Minister said that we have to give importance to the economy as well as continue the fight against COVID -19,” the government statement said.
India’s economy, which was already growing at its slowest pace in years before the pandemic struck, could contract in the fiscal year that began in April, private economists say, making jobs even more scarce for its young population.
One way out of the 40-day lockdown would be to allow the least-affected parts of the country to return to activity while keeping a tight lid on hot zones which include major cities Mumbai and Delhi, officials said.
Neighbouring Pakistan also sought to reduce the economic pain, saying it will pay the electricity bills for 3.5 million small businesses for the next three months as part of a 50.69 billion rupees ($316.56 million) package.
The government has extended a nationwide lockdown until May 9. However, it is switching to a smart lockdown” with targeted tracking and tracing of cases while allowing some industrial and commercial activities to resume under safety guidelines.
The outbreak continued to spread through the Indian Ocean island nations of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.Slideshow (9 Images)
Sri Lanka reported 45 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, all of them navy personnel, after it surfaced in a base near the capital Colombo earlier this month. A quarter of the country’s 567 cases are from the navy, according to government figures.
The Maldives also reported a spike in cases, mostly among migrant workers living in packed dormitories in the capital Male. The country has 200 confirmed cases, the government said, a large number of them Bangladeshi migrant workers.
Here are official government figures on the spread of the coronavirus in South Asia:
* India has reported 28,379 cases, including 886 deaths
* Pakistan has reported 13,328 cases, including 281 deaths
* Afghanistan has reported 1,703 cases, including 57 deaths
* Sri Lanka has reported 567 cases, including seven deaths
* Bangladesh has reported 5,416 cases, including 145 deaths
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has commenced a probe to trace the persons who allegedly attempted to create social disturbance, and unrest by using a letter by the Ministry of Health seeking 1,000 body bags from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to replenish its standard stock.
The letter, dated April 24, 2020, and addressed to ICRC Forensic Coordinator, Angelica Guzman, signed by Additional Secretary (Medical Services) at the Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services, Dr. Sunil de Alwis, was circulated via social media platforms on Sunday, with added captions that the Sri Lankan health authorities were getting ready to dispose bodies, during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Investigators are trying to ascertain whether some trade union members were involved in circulating the letter, with the malicious intention of creating social unrest.
Additional Secretary Dr. Alwis, contacted for comment, said the bags were required to dispose the bodies of people who may die of unidentified causes.
He said that the Ministry had 300 such bags, in Colombo, and they all had been sent to the peripheries. They would be used to dispose the bodies of anyone died of unidentified causes, he said. The bags had no direct connection with coronavirus deaths, he stressed. There had been only seven deaths, so far, from coronavirus, and the bodies of those victims had been cremated, the doctor said.
The issue of sending all 300 body bags to peripheral health centres and the need to replenish the ministry stocks, to maintain inventory, had been raised at a recent meeting where the ICRC representatives were present. The ICRC had said it had the body bags which matched the hygienic standards and could release them to the ministry, free of charge, if it made an official request. It was in response to that the letter had been issued, according to the Additional Secretary.
Dr. Alwis confirmed that he had signed the letter and was not sure how it had leaked. He said he had complained to the Police, on Sunday, and an investigation had been launched to identify those who had leaked a confidential document to the social media.
He also said that a misinterpretation of the letter had resulted in fear being spread among the public.
Dr. De Alwis said that under normal circumstances there occurred about 100 deaths a months in Sri Lanka.
He said that in a pandemic situation the bodies of people, even if they died of other causes, should be disposed in body bags.
As there was a shortage of non-transparent, quality body bags, in Sri Lanka, a request for them had been made to the ICRC.
Director-General of Health Services, Dr. Anil Jasinghe, in a statement yesterday, says that the Health Ministry had requested 1,000 bodybags from the ICRC to maintain its standard inventory and not because it anticipated a high death toll as a result of the present COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Jasinghe says that as a result of Sri Lanka’s successful programme to combat COVID-19, the country would not experience a high death toll and adds that measures are in place to prevent the spread of the virus from the clusters which have been detected and isolated.
The Ministry of Health always maintains its inventory at a certain level, including medicines, medical equipment, and body bags. It is a mandatory technical requirement, the DGHS stresses.
The statement says the Ministry of Health was given an opportunity to replenish its supplies with the help of the Coordinating Committee of the International Committee of the Red Cross and, therefore, it was made use of.
Dr. Anil Jasinghe has said it had been a practice for many decades to put the bodies of disaster victims in body bags.
He has said the bodies of the victims of the 2019 April attacks were also put in body bags, and it was an internationally accepted practice.
Therefore, the Director-General of Health Services has said the public need not have any unnecessary fears about the issue.
With four new patients testing positive for the novel coronavirus, the tally of COVID-19 patients identified today (27) has risen to 65.
This is the highest number of cases reported in Sri Lanka within a day. On April 26, the country reported 63 infections within 24 hours.
Accordingly, the number of coronavirus cases reported from Sri Lanka has now reached 588 cases.
The total number of recoveries reported in Sri Lanka is 126 while 455 patients are currently under medical care.
There have been 07 fatalities due to COVID-19 in Sri Lanka.
Coronavirus cases tally in Sri Lanka at 584
Three more persons have tested positive with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, the Ministry of Health confirmed.
The new case brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Sri Lanka to 584.
Fifty-nine new cases have been identified so far today (27).
The total number of recoveries reported in Sri Lanka is 126 while 451 patients are currently under medical care.
There have been 07 fatalities due to COVID-19 in Sri Lanka
Total jumps to 581 with 10 new COVID-19 cases
Ten more persons have confirmed to have contracted the virus raising the total number of cases in the country to 581.
With the addition of new cases, 58 new cases have been reported as of 6.45 pm today (27).
The total number of recoveries reported in Sri Lanka is 126 while 448 patients are currently under medical care.
There have been 07 fatalities due to COVID-19 in Sri Lanka.
COVID-19: Four more cases bring total to 571
Four fresh cases of COVID-19 have been detected a short while ago adding to the total number of coronavirus cases in the country, says Ministry of Health.
With the addition of new cases, 48 new cases have been reported as of 6.45 pm today (27).
Accordingly, the tally of coronavirus cases in Sri Lanka has gone up to 571 cases.
The total number of recoveries is 126 while 438 patients are currently under medical care.
There have been 07 fatalities due to COVID-19 in Sri Lanka.
180 Navy personnel infected with COVID-19
Among the COVID-19 infected patients identified from Sri Lanka, 180 are Navy personnel, says Commander of the Army Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva.
Among them 112 have been identified from the Welisara Navy Base, said Silva.
The other 68 officers had been reported while on leave in different areas, he added.
Forty-four new cases were reported so far today (27) and all of them are navy personnel, the Director-General of Health Services Dr. Anil Jasinghe confirmed.
Accordingly, the tally of coronavirus cases reported in the country has gone up to 567 cases.
The total number of recoveries is 126 while 434 patients are currently under medical care.
There have been 07 fatalities due to COCID-19 in Sri Lanka.
Covid-19 cases in Sri Lanka climbs to 567
Ten more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 raising the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 567, the Ministry of Health said.
Accordingly 44 new cases have been reported so far today while all of them are navy personnel, the Director General of Health Services Dr. Anil Jasinghe confirmed.
So far 180 navy personnel have tested positive for COVID-19. 112 of them are from the Welisara navy camp while the 68 are navy personnel who were on leave.
This brings the tally of coronavirus cases reported in the country to 567.
The total number of recoveries is 126 while 434 patients are currently under medical care.
There have been 07 fatalities due to COCID-19 in Sri Lanka.
A special Presidential Task Force has been established to ensure the health safety within camps of the tri-forces.
The Task Force will be headed by Governor of Western Province Marshal of the Air Force Roshan Gunatilake.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa held a discussion with retired Heads of Security and medical experts at the Presidential Secretariat this morning (27) to identify measures needed to safeguard health at military camps.
Accordingly, the Task Force will undertake preparing, implementing, and monitoring an effective mechanism to ensure complete health security within camps under the guidance of Secretary Defence and Commanders of Tri-Forces.
It is equally important to protect the security forces personnel as well as the citizens. Special attention should be paid to groups who act closely with the infected. Those who are infected should be directed to hospitals while people they had an association with should be sent for quarantine. The prime objective is to prevent the community transmission of the virus”, President Rajapaksa said.
Further, a panel of experts was also instructed to produce a report by observing camps of the tri-forces.
Priority should be given to the health security of the security officers who are engaged in quarantine activities, said President Rajapaksa.
The President also advised obtaining the assistance of medical experts as and when necessary, to promote health facilities within camps.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa emphasized the necessity of identifying any shortcomings if any in the process of successfully containing the virus so far.
Secretary to the President P. B. Jayasundera, Principal Advisor to the President Lalith Weeratunga, former Commander of the Air Force, Governor of the Western Province Marshal of the Air Force Roshan Gunatileke, former Commander of Sri Lanka Navy Admiral (Retired) Jayantha Perera, Director General of the Department of Civil Defence Rear Admiral (Retired) Ananda Peiris, Major General Sunedha Perera, Medical Consultant Bandula Wijesiriwardene, Medial Specialist Vajira Senarathne were present in the discussion.
Covid-19 has jolted 21st century citizens who thought they were above all and could do anything and all with technology and money. COVID-19 has forced humans to better appreciate nature and the limits humans can push nature via consumption. One disease has provided wisdom to many in such a short time. It is inspiring transformation of the 21st century thinkers to value materials produce locally, appreciate the labor of neighbors, value the small things hitherto considered unimportant & taken for granted. People are re-weighing their priorities. Lockdowns and curfews have drastically improved air pollution levels, wild animals are boldly appearing in major towns and cities, birds are singing, nature is enjoying a break without intrusions of humans. All the climate change really needed was for humans to just stay indoors and not tamper with nature! No template, no global conference, no high profile speeches was needed for Mother Nature to recover.
Nature
is superior to any technology
No
submarine – No guns and no artillery can wipe out covid-19 and that realization
must have unnerved quite a few in the weapons industry.
The
most sophisticated of nations who had hitherto boasted its superiority placing
itself on a higher platform and patronizing all others are today overwhelmed to
handle the health catastrophe that weak and poorer nations are handling with
common sense and practical hands-on approach.
The insatiable demand for resources
have resulted in 70% loss to forests. 60 billion tonnes of renewable and
non-renewable resources are being extracted globally every year. The use of
fertilisers, which threaten to poison entire ecosystems and wreck soil’s carbon-absorption
rates, has doubled in the last 13 years.
Three-quarters of the world’s land area has
been significantly altered by people, the report found, and 85 percent of the
world’s wetlands have vanished since the 18th century.
Humans
are only guests – animals are also part of Nature
Humans
have also forgotten that they have to share nature with the other inhabitants.
No constitution has given humans superior status or right to abuse and destroy
what was given free to man on the condition that it must continue to be
preserved for future generations too.
Animals on factory
farms grow unnaturally fast because they’re selectively
bred and given drugs that cause them to get bigger.
72 billion land animals
and over 1.2 trillion aquatic animals
are killed for food around the world every year.
The world’s 7.6
billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things. Humans have caused
the loss of 83% of all wild mammals & half of plants. Plant represent 82%
of all living matter – 7,500 times more
than humans, bacteria represents 13% &
Creatures (insects, fungi, fish, animals) are just 5% of which humans are 0.01%
(Weizmann Institute of Science).
Farmed poultry
today makes up 70% of all birds on the planet, with just 30% being wild. 60% of
all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and
just 4% are wild animals. Of all the mammals on Earth, 96% are livestock and humans, only 4% are
wild mammals. About half the Earth’s animals are thought to have been lost in
the last 50 years.
The decline of wild bees and other insects
that help pollinate fruits and vegetables is putting up to $577 billion in
annual crop production at risk.
In Indonesia, the replacement of rain forest with palm oil plantations has ravaged the habitat of critically endangered orangutans and Sumatran tigers. In Mozambique, ivory poachers helped kill off nearly 7,000 elephants between 2009 and 2011 alone.
When everything has a price tagged to it – where is the price for humanity?
“We need to change the way we think about what a good life
is, we need to change the social narrative that puts an emphasis on a good life
depending on a high consumption and quick disposal,”
said Sandra Diaz, one of the report’s co-chairs of IPBES
Animals are taken away from their natural habitat, separated from their families, confined to cages and made to engage in unnatural behavior for human amusement in zoos, circuses often beating animals during training. Some animals are injected with cocaine and illegal drugs. Animals are even trained to fight and even kill each other – dog fighting, cockfighting etc. Other forms of deplorable sport is the bull-fighting where after the sport is over the bull is killed and eaten.
Animals as experiments & for
products
Every year worldwide, 115
million animals are used in experiments.
The majority of antibiotics
worldwide are fed to farm animals.
COVID-19 was thought to have come
from a live animal market where animals are often sold as food in Wuhan, China
in December 2019. SARS, MERS, BIRD FLU, SWINEFLU, EBOLA and H1N1 were also
caused from animals to humans.
COVID-19 has certainly made people
re-think their eating habits.
As a result of lockdowns and curfews with humans now virtually caged in their homes, we are seeing a reversal in roles with animals coming out and enjoying their new found freedoms
Going
forward what governments and national policy makers and even the so-called
economic experts and business gurus must admit is that their neoliberal
capitalism and industrial development programs and livelihood initiatives have
no complimented nature. A new thinking, a new mindset and complete restructuring
of ways and systems is now needed.
With the
lockdowns and curfews the people have come to realize that they cannot rely or
depend on import of food & beverages. Crops must be grown in one’s own
country to sustain in times of emergency. To do that, countries must protect
their soil and ecosystems. The transition in thinking and adoption of policies
and even to expect outcomes, will take some time but the people know that it is
a far better risk than what they have had to now face. With the high-profile
entities failing to delivery, many homes have had to take comfort in the small
vendors bringing affordable vegetables to their doorstep. It’s a new and
lucrative business for a new segment of entrepreneurs.
The
pandemics that nature has delivered have to be taken as a form of karmic
punishment to remind humans of their place on this earth not as master but only
as a guest alongside other animals. In harming animals, we have been shocked
into realizing that we can too, be harmed in return.
Humans
must now learn to live in harmony with the rest of the inhabitants instead of
trying to be its master.
In the UK, people from BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) backgrounds are disproportionately affected by Coronavirus. For instance, the first 10 doctors named as having died from Covid-19 in the UK were all from BAME communities. Nobody can give a good enough reason for this yet and the UK government has already launched an investigation/inquiry to find out why.
Attached below are two newspaper articles on the subject, one
from Guardian (left wing) and another from Telegraph (right wing) for your
info.
Is there a similar trend/ finding in Canada, US and Why are
people from BAME groups dying disproportionately of Covid-19?
Last month the Institute of Health Equity-produced a
report reviewing Marmot’s Fair Society, Healthy Lives.
The report highlighted two key findings; a growth in the health gap between
wealthy and deprived areas and an increase in the number of people who will
spend more of their lives in poor health.
The review also found that the health of a population was not entirely based on the strength, resilience, or functionality of the healthcare system but rather on the conditions in which people are born, grow, work and eventually age. Marmot coined this as the social determinants of health and the implications of this are evident more than ever when you look at the case prevalence, mortality rate and hospitalisation statistics by demographic in relation to Covid-19.
A recent report by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre has found that the patients from black and ethnic minority backgrounds have shown more severe complications of the disease. The study looked at 2,249 patients in the critical care units participating in the Case Mix Programme. Individuals who identified as non-white makeup around 13 percent of the UK population but accounted for a third of the patients that were admitted to critical care.
One explanation for why people from black and minority ethnic
(BAME) backgrounds are dying in disproportionately high numbers is demography.
The virus hit London first and hit it hardest. But even when you take these
regional differences into account there is a mismatch. In particular, if you
take into account that ethnic minorities are generally younger – particularly
important for Covid-19 where 90% of deaths are in people over 60 – the ethnic
differences become even more stark.
Co-morbidities could certainly play a role. The black
population, where the discrepancy appears to be greatest, is particularly
afflicted with hypertension. Diabetes is three-fold higher in this ethnic
group. Both of those conditions will increase your risk of death once you’ve
got Covid. The added problem is that these conditions occur at a younger age in
people of black descent. However, in mitigation against that, certainly older
people of black African descent don’t smoke as much, so have less respiratory
disease, have lower rates of cancers and coronary disease.
With Asian populations, the story is a bit different, but again
there is a four-fold excess in diabetes and blood pressure rises higher with
age in South Asians compared to Europeans.
Genetics sounds like an easy get-out clause, but it isn’t.
Ethnicity is a complex socio- cultural construct, it’s not a biology construct.
There’s no gene for being Asian. There’s no gene for being black. People of
ethnic group membership can change over time and with age, it’s not an
immutable thing and it very poorly maps on to any biology you can think of.
People have looked to see if there’s a genetic explanation for these ethnic
differences in chronic disease and have been unable to find one, despite having
looked quite hard in large numbers. So there’s no evidence that genes explain
the excess risk of Covid susceptibility. It’s important to put a nail in that
one because it feels as if we can abdicate any responsibility for sorting this
out and this
Ethnic minorities are over-represented in high-risk occupations,
including health workers, in the transport sector and essential shop work.
Clearly, there’s a huge amount of heterogeneity, but overall ethnic minorities
are more likely to live in deprived, dense, over-crowded urban areas and are
more likely to be disadvantaged. In some cases, household composition could
play a role, particularly in Asian households where you have multi-generational
households living together.
So both through occupation and residential reasons,
they’re less able to socially isolate effectively and much more likely to be
exposed to high doses of the virus. There’s some suggestion that the greater
the dose you’re exposed to the more likely the disease is to prove fatal.
That’s perhaps one reason why even quite young healthcare workers are
succumbing to the disease.
The evidence on ethnic differences in healthcare-seeking behavior is quite messy, and we need to remember that these are quite heterogeneous groups. For instance, people of black ancestry have been found to be less likely to consult for chronic diseases like diabetes, but that doesn’t mean to say that if it’s an acute condition they won’t come forward. One study of people accessing antiviral flu treatments in the flu pandemic of 2009 found that ethnic minorities were less likely to ask and less likely to collect these. But whether this was due to reluctance, differences in access to healthcare, the way the message was put across or racism – it is difficult to pick apart because the healthcare-seeking process is so complicated.
Ultimately, this is about health inequalities, about deprivation
and affluence and how important socio-economic status is in determining health
outcomes. This isn’t just an ethnicity story, it affects all of us. Britain has
a long history of health inequalities. It’s critically important to understand
and I’m relieved that the government is taking this seriously.
Prof Chaturvedi is director of the MRC Unit for Lifelong
health
Why are so many black and ethnic minority people dying from
coronavirus?
A review into why people from ethnic minorities are
disturbingly” and disproportionately affected by coronavirus has been launched
by the Government.In UK
The inquiry comes after weeks of pressure on ministers to launch
an investigation into the issue. 50 BAME front-line health staff have now died
of coronavirus.
Downing Street confirmed the NHS and Public Health England will
lead the review of evidence concerning the impact on people black, Asian and
minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
How many BAME people have died?
Despite only accounting for 13 per cent of the population in
England and Wales, 44 per cent of all NHS doctors and 24 per cent of nurses are
from a BAME background. Of the 82 front-line health and social care workers in
England and Wales that have died because of Covid-19, 61 per cent of them were
black or from an ethnic minority.
Among them was Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, a 53-year-old consultant
who warned the Prime Minister about the need for more personal protective
equipment (PPE) to support NHS staff during the pandemic.
In a Facebook post last month, he warned Boris Johnson to
ensure urgently personal protective equipment for each and every NHS worker”.
Mr Chowdhury, who worked as a consultant urologist at Homerton
Hospital in east London, said in his post: People appreciate us and salute us
for our rewarding job which are very inspirational but I would like to say we
have to protect ourselves and our families/kids in this global disaster/crisis
by using appropriate PPE and remedies.”
Manjeet Singh Riyat, who was the United Kingdom’s first Sikh
A&E consultant, died on April 20. Mr Riyat was described as
“instrumental” in building emergency services in Derbyshire over the
last two decades, and was widely respected across the NHS.
Bhai Amrik Singh, the Chair of the Sikh Federation (UK) said:
Manjeet had spent most of his life helping others as an A&E consultant,
from treating the sick to training junior doctors. Something very much in line
with his faith principles of being a devout Sikh.
This is a true tragedy, as another frontline NHS worker
falls victim to this deadly virus. His death comes as a huge loss to the Derby
& Burton hospital, wider NHS family and to the whole Sikh community.”
The limited data available and images of those who have passed
away suggests Covid- 19 is disproportionally impacting on Sikhs and wider BAME
communities.”
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, British Medical Association (BMA) council
chair, welcomed the review into BAME deaths, but stressed it must be informed
by real-time data to understand why the virus appears to be disproportionately
affecting BAME communities and healthcare workers.
This must include daily updates on ethnicity, circumstance and
all protected characteristics of all patients in hospital as well as levels of
illness in the community which is not currently recorded,” Dr Nagpaul said.
The government must send a directive to every hospital telling
them to record the ethnicity of patients who are admitted and succumb to COVID
immediately.”
Why are there more BAME coronavirus patients?
Black, Asian and minority ethnic patients are shown by new data
to face a disproportionately high risk of death from coronavirus. Of the 13,918
victims who tested positive in hospital up to April 17, 16.2 per cent of these
were of BAME background. BAME communities make up around 13 per cent of the
total population.
Last week, data on patients with confirmed Covid-19 from the
Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) also suggested
ethnic minorities are over- represented compared with the general population.
Around 7.5 per cent of the population were Asian and 3.3 per
cent black in the 2011 UK census.
The first 10 doctors named as having died from Covid-19 in the
UK were from BAME communities – a figure that the Labour Party described as
“deeply disturbing”.
Some analysts have suggested that the burden of coronavirus falls
on poorer communities, in which BAME people are over-represented.
Are BAME communities more vulnerable?
Marsha de Cordova, the shadow equalities secretary, called for
the Government to “urgently investigate why BAME communities are more
vulnerable to this virus”.
Her call came after the chairman of the BMA, Dr Nagpaul, said it
could not be random that the first 10 doctors named as having died from the
virus were all from BAME communities.
Those doctors have ancestry in regions including Asia, the
Middle East and
Africa. However, the BMA chair said that even allowing for the
over-representation of BAME staff in the NHS the fact that they were all from
ethnic minorities was extremely disturbing and worrying”.
England’s Chief Medical Officer, Prof Chris Whitty, said it was
critical to find out which groups are most at risk. He said it remains unclear
why some ethnic groups appear to be more vulnerable. “I’ve had discussions
with scientists about this in terms of trying to tease this apart today,”
he said.
What about BAME patients outside of the UK?
It is not just in the UK that the number of BAME people affected
by coronavirus has caused alarm.
In the United States, there has been growing concern over the rising number of coronavirus deaths among African-American communities.
The latest data suggests that people who are black or Hispanic in the US are twice as likely to die from Covid-19.
In states reporting fatalities by race, 34 percent of American victims were black, according to research from John Hopkins University, and black Americans also represent
Note
It is essential that Sri Lankan research organizations ponder
into the fact that the rate of infection of high portion of a certain minority
may be due to their life style
One said that moor community attends the prayers and keep touching the floor by placing the temple on the ground and also place both unprotected hands on their face thus increasing the danger of getting infected ?
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
CEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard
Colombo
Sri Lanka
President Gotabhaya is interested in creating a new economic
trend- establish new businesses and
industries”(From: Rebuilding a policy driven economy: Daily FT:17/4).
Let me hark back to my days in the Administrative Service, some
five decades ago. Perhaps my experience as an Assistant Commissioner in the
Marketing Department, aa a Deputy Director of Small Industries and my work as
the GA at Matara working on the DDC Programme could offer some ideas.
My subsequent achievement after eighteen years in the
Administrative Service lies in the
international field. This includes the
Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh, which I commenced from scratch,
when the ILO attempt to create a self employment programme at Tangail,
Bangladesh had gone bust. The Self Employment Programme I established, being
implemented by youth workers who were recasted by me to become more economists
has grown to become the premier
employment creation the world has known, having created three million
youth entrepreneurs by now. It will be of interest to note that this Youth Self
Employment Programme I established from scratch in 1982 in Bangladesh, is now holding a prime place in the Five Year
Plan of the Planning Commission. It is not only a major development programme
of Bangladesh, but also the premier employment creation programme to be ever
implemented in the world.
In rebuilding the lost economy may our leaders have the foresight
to not only re establish the petty distribution systems that have been lost in
the past few months, but to take one step ahead, and leave something for
posterity, making a major change in creating new employment, bringing incomes,
obviating imports and making a permanent contribution to national development.
That is how I suggest to kill two birds with one stone.
Let me hark back to my days in the Administrative Service, some
five decades ago. Perhaps some of what I
dared to do could offer some ideas.
Let us consider making Paper as an industry. Sri Lanka does
not make any Paper today. We happen to be the only country in the entire world
that does not even make use of waste paper to make paper. A number of youths on
my Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh make a living for the past few
decades on making waste paper into card
board. When we were addressing hundreds of youths on self employment training
workshops and providing them with lunch packets packed in in cardboard boxes some youths carefully collected the used cardboard to be used in
their industry to 3make new cardboard. Go back to the days of the Divisional
Development Council Programme of the days of Prime Minister Sirimavo and
then the Divisional Secretary at Kotmale
established a Unit making Paper out of waste paper. Today the most evident
industry in Colombo is the collection of old paper and cardboard and shipping
it to India some 70 tons a month and
buying back cardboard from India. Once we had the Valachenai Paper Factory.
Around two years ago I went upto the gates and gazed at the Factory with its
broken down and overgrown buildings
because I had been there several times in the Sixties. I gazed at the ruins
remembering the nights I spent at their plush Circuit Bungalow on my
circuits. I have seen myself the straw
being washed and being used to make paper. Valachenia made easily half our
requirements and all from straw. Farmers
in Hingurakgoda made good money and I had to linger behind lorries laden with straw as those were
the non motorway days and overtaking any lorry was impossible. Later we
established another Paper Factory at Embilipitiya. That is also closed now.
Paper Making in Sri Lanka
has an interesting history. The original Valachenai Factory was meant to use
the illuk grass and that grass ran out and making paper stopped. Then it was
our Valachenai scientists that did experiments and made paper out of straw. It
is strange how Sri Lanka does not make any paper and straw is wasted and mostly
burnt to get rid of. However today in
many countries like India and China Paper is made out of straw.
Let us get down a few small paper making machines from India and get them installed in the colonies. This can
be easily done within two months and straw from our present Maha harvest in
July and August this year can be made into paper. The cost of the few paper making machines,
cost of air flowing them, installing the units and the full out lay can be
recouped within the sales of the paper that we make in the fist two years. I am
certain of this.(For further reference: Let’s get back to the days when the colonists
at Higurakgoda and Polonnaruwa sold
straw and made money: www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2018/04/26/lets-get-back-to-the-days-when-the-colonists-at-polonnaruwa-sold-straw-and-made-money/)
Let me suggest another
industry which we once did very successfully. That is Food Preparations making
Jam, and Juice. When I was in charge of the Vegetable Purchasing Scheme at
Tripoli Market in 1957 there were days when I would send off two lorries to
Embilipitiya to purchase all the melon, red pumpkin and ask pumpkin the
producers had brought for sale and feed it to the Canning Factory. We made Red
Pumpkin into Golden Melon Jam, Ash Pumpkin into Silver Melon Jam. Chena
cultivators all over the DryZone made good incomes selling to the Marketing
Department. The MD always paid more than what the traders paid for produce.
Unfortunately under President Jayawardena who caved into the
International Monetary Fund and accepted their conditions and we had to abolish
this Canning Factory. Out went the Canning Factory privatized for a private
entrepreneur to make money Earlier under the MD days the Canning Factory
brought high incomes to chena producers and Sri Lanka was self sufficient in
all Jam and Juice. It was then that we exported pineapple pieces .
All that, including building up an export trade in pineapple
pieces and pineapple juice had been
established in three years 1955 to 1957
Let us consider doing
something phenomenal- a Perfume Factory. I saw on the television the
inauguration of our President at the hallowed precincts of Ruwanweli seya. The
flowers offered at Ruwanweliseya and Sri Maha Bodhi can be made into
perfumes. That will be a new industry.
Once when I went to Lucknow I was asked to buy some perfumes from Sugandhika.
There was a range of perfumes and I bought some. I then asked to be shown their
perfume factory and was surprised when I was told that they did not have a
permanent factory. They said that they had a few small scale portable plants
which they took to the places where flowers were available. However I noted
that they made a vast range of perfumes and have built up a world wide trade..
Getting back to the flowers we have being offered at Ruwanweliseya and Sri Maha
Bodhiya and Dalada Maligawa and places like Kelaniya we can easily get down to
make perfumes.
Some one has to take the initiative and when I went to Lazareotte
I saw a full science laboratory they have established to make products from
Aloe vira. We have to get a science lab to experiment on making perfumes and
get a factory going. It is not a new
idea. It is a new idea to Sri Lanka.
It so happened that when I paid a visit to Corrinth in Wales I saw a small distillery
making all sorts of drinks. It was a small scale machine the type that will be
required to make perfumes out of flowers.
That is a new industry. Get down a small distillery machine and
get going and establish a laboratory to experiments on various scents and we
have a full scale perfume industry. This
is not fanciful thinking. If small scale some even portable perfume manufacturers
can have viable industries I am certain we can also make headway. Let me make a
statement that if I had known of small scale distillery machines like what I
saw at Corrinth, when I was GA at Matara I would have established a perfume
making industry with the flowers offered at the Matara Bodhi. Perhaps this idea
may be taken up and a perfume industry established in Anuradhapura in the near future. (For further reference: A
Perfume Making Industry t Anuradhapura & Kandy, Lanka Web, 20/11/2019: www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/11/29/a-perfume-making-industry-at-anuradhapura-and-kandy)
I have written at length on Making Paper, on a Canning Factory and
making Perfumes and our economists whose approval will be sought would run down
these ideas as impractical as old fashioned and not worth talking about. But
those authorities may please note that I as an administrator have been
successfully doing this type of thing for a few decades. If anyone wants to
dare my ideas let them first tell us what industry they have ever implemented
on their own.
Let me talk of the Crayon Factory that I established when I
was the G.A. at Matara in 1971.. Under
the Divisional Development Councils Programme as the G.A. I was entrusted with
the task of establishing employment creation programmes. I did establish a Boat
Making Industry that turned out 40 foot sea worthy fishing boats some 30 to 40
boats a year. This was established at Matara and was a successful industry that
provided employment to around thirty youths. It worked successfully from 1971
to 1978.when on the IMF advice it was run down and abolished by the Government
of President Jayawardena. In its heydays from 1971 to 1977 it was a successful
thriving and viable industry.
I had suggested other viable industries but the Ministry of Plan
Implementation wanted us to concentrate on smallscale craft type of industries which actually
duplicated the work done by the Small Industries Department. My suggestions of
establishing a Butter Creamery in Deniyaya and a Water Colour Industry was
turned down. The view of the Ministry
was that I should not venture into new fields. I was told to make tiles and
bricks I disagreed because we were already making all the tiles and bricks we
needed.
One day I summoned my Planning Officer a chemistry graduate of the
University of Colombo and convinced him of trying to make a crayon. I had worked for close upon a year as Deputy
Director of Small Industry and I was in charge of registering small
industrialits and allocating foreign exchange for them to buy raw materials and
machinery. Crayons to my mind would be
akin to making water colours and I had seen a water colour making factory and
had approved it. To my thinking making water colours was similar but basic to making crayons. We decided to have a go at it. We purchased
some essentials and commenced experiments at my residence. In a few days we
realized that we needed equipment and obtained the permission of the Rahula
College Principal, Mr Ariyawansa to use the science lab at Rahula College. That
was the largest school lab in Matara.
After school closed the school science lab was ours and we did a myriad
of experiments for two long months every working day from six to mid night. It
was our Planning Officer aided by the science teachers at Rahula College
that did experiments to make crayons. In
two months of experiments what we made was never a perfect crayon. We had spent
two months at least five days a week from six to mid night and never got a
perfect crayon. Then our Planning Officer had a bright idea of consulting his
professors in chemistry, the authorities that had taught him chemistry. I
happily authorized him subsistence and off he went. Four days later he emerged
a broken down man. He had beseeched advice from his professors and gone behind
them for three full days to be told that they had no time to get involved with
him and his fanciful ideas as they were busy lecturing and marking answer
scripts. . I and my team were not going
to take this lying down. We recommenced experiments from six to mid night again
at the school lab. Finally in another
month we mastered the art of
making crayons. I sat with the
Planning Officer and we together fine tuned the crayon to be equal to the Reeves, which was the best
crayon at that time.
Having successfully found out the method of making crayons it was
decided to make it a cooperative venture. My team decided that it should be a
cooperative industry directed by us. I
decided to entrust this task to Mr Sumanapala Dahanayake, the Member of
Parliament for Deniyaya in. his capacity as the President of the Morawak Korale Cooperative Union. Sumanapala could be
trusted and he readily agreed. I authorized him to use cooperative funds to buy
a few small scale items that were required and we, myself and my team the
Planning Officer, Vetus Fernando, Development Assistant Daya Paliakkara, and a
few others moved to Morawaka. There we did train some twenty youths to make
crayons. It was a handmade crayon, as are most industries successfuly run in
China and our task was to train the youths
to ensure that each crayon was of good quality. In three weeks, working day and
night we filled two rooms with crayon boxes. I and Sumanapala took a few boxes
of crayons to present them to Mr Subasinghe the Minister for Industries. He was
surprised at the quality and readily agreed to open sales. A day was fixed to have the sales opening
ceremony and the industry came to be officially declared open. Within a month
the crayons were sold islandwide.
In establishing this programme no Ministry approval was sought and
so we had to buy dyes, the only item that required to be imported, at a high price in the black market. I tried to get the Ministry of industries to give an allocation of foreign exchange for
the import of dyes, the type of allocation that I had a year ago given to the
other industrialists when I worked as Deputy Director of Small Industries. We
were refused.
In the mentime the Controller of Imports was allocating foreign
exchange to import crayons. I met Harry Guneratne the Import Controller and
convinced him hat by giving us a small allocation of foreign exchange to import
dyes he could stop the import of crayons and make a big saving on foreign
exchange. He wanted me to approach the Minister Mr Illangaratne and obtain his
approval. Mr Illangaratne not only approved it but also insisted that a crayon
factory should be established at Kolonnawa, his electorate. The Controller of Imports cancelled all
imports of crayons because we undertook to make crayons for the entire island.
It was a massive saving on foreign exchange.
The Crayon Factory was a glorious success from 1971 to 1977. This
Crayon Factory became the show piece industry of the DDC Programme. In fact the
crayons were of good quality and the industry was well run, bringing great
credit to the DDC Programme that President Jayawardena had a special
investigation done to discredit Sumanapala and this industry. A Deputy Director of Cooperative N.T.Ariyaratne was entrusted with this
investigation. After a lengthy investigation and audit Mr Ariyaratne had
reported that the industry was well run and all the books were in order.
This Crayon Industry too was abolished by the Government of
President Jayawardena on the instructions of the IMF.
I have provided details of establishing the Crayon Factory in the
hope of inspiring any present Government Agent to make an attempt at
establishing an industry. My blood boils
even today, whenever I see any foreign crayon- now Crayola crayons being sold
in Sri Lanka. I am sad to think of what
Sri Lanka has lost.
The suggested industries, making Paper, a Canning Factory and a
Perfume Factory are all far easier to establish than the Crayon Factory I
established in 1971 which was a glorious success. I can assure anyone of this
fact.
It is hoped that the contents of this Paper will convince our President a nd our Prime
Minister that new industries can be
easily established.
I will be writing next week about the Youth Self Employment
Programme of Bangladesh, the premier employment creation programme the world
has known.
Garvin Karunaratne Ph.D.
Michigan State University
Former G.A. at Matara and Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the
Government of Bangladesh 1981-1983
Author of:
How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development, Kindle/Godages,
2017
How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternate Programmes of Success,
Godages, 2006
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu (R) attend a press conference in the East Room of the
White House, in Washington DC, the US, on January 28, 2020. (Photo by AFP)
An Israeli TV network claims that US intelligence agencies
knew of an emerging coronavirus outbreak in China and gave Israel an advance
warning in mid-November 2019, more than a month before clusters of infection in
China started to be globally reported.
US intelligence agencies had become aware of the outbreak
as it spread early on in central China’s Wuhan City, Israel’s i24 news website
cited a report by Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 as saying on Thursday.
The agencies decided to warn US allies, such as the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries and Israel, after initially
passing the information on to the White House, which did not deem it of
interest,” according to the report.
The report did not specify when US intelligence agencies
allegedly first learned of the coronavirus outbreak before notifying Israel in
November.
The report added that the information reached Israel’s
decision-makers and the Health Ministry” shortly later, but ultimately
nothing” was done.
The revelation comes a week after the US-based ABC News
published a report citing informed sources as saying that US intelligence
services had been warning since November that a potentially cataclysmic”
outbreak was unfolding in Wuhan.
The ABC report was, however, rejected by US President
Donald Trump a day after its publication.
As of Friday, more than 2.14 million confirmed coronavirus
cases have been reported across the world, and 143,744 people have died,
according to a Reuters tally.
China, the initial epicenter of the global pandemic, reported its first coronavirus infection on December 31, 2019.
Each time the
Rajapaksas win a legitimate mandate from the people the moralising mafia comes
out howling mendaciously that it is going to be the end of democracy.
Historical evidence, however, has debunked this canard of the hired
fear-mongers. If the tumultuous post-independent years have proved anything, it
is that the bitter battles to eliminate fascist dictators, whether they came
from the South or the North, or from the Left as well as the Right, were fought
and won by the fiercely independent – in fact, almost ungovernable – Sri
Lankans. President Ranasinghe Premadasa crushed the Southern fascists who posed
as ‘liberators.’
He
removed the threat to democracy while strengthening the welfare state and,
above all, resisting the overbearing neo-colonialists by sending them home. The
Rajapaksa brothers crushed the Northern fascists ending the biggest threat to
democracy and regional stability. These leaders were forced to fight with fire.
Despite the punditry of the moral purists they had no alternative.
The telling testimony of their role as defenders of democracy is
in the longest running war in living memory fought on Sri Lankan soil. The Government
of Sri Lanka (GOSL) fought it within a democratic framework, however flawed it
may have been, preserving one of the commendable welfare states that
distributed social justice within its limited means and without any systemic
discrimination thrust upon any community.
In other words, the secure foundations of democracy laid by the
Founding Fathers, the Senanayakes, have not been shaken by multifarious
pressures, devastating cataclysms and brutal violence that battered it. In an
emotional cry let me proclaim as emphatically as I can: Long live the founders,
defenders and protectors of democracy in Sri Lanka because the alternative
would have been unbearable, intolerable and disastrous!
Despite the evidence staring in their faces, the moral
mediocrities – synonymous with anti-Sinhala-Buddhist media critics — have
rushed to pick on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, ever since he won the
impossible victory. They project him as the latest manifestation of the
‘Rajapaksa dictatorial syndrome.’
They deliberately ignore that the greatest battle to restore
democracy right across the nation was waged by the Rajapaksa brothers who
dismantled decisively the killing machine of Tamil extremists kick-started in
Vadukoddai in May 1976. It was the greatest threat to peace, democracy,
security and stability of the whole of SAARC region, mainly India. By
demolishing the one-man regime of the Tamil Pol Pot the Rajapaksa brothers had
saved democracy, human rights and regional stability more than Paikiasothy
Saravanamuttu – picking just one of the fake human rights activists — and his
mercenary mafia could ever imagine.
It was the victory of the Rajapaksas in the battlefield that put
history back on its democratic tracks. Everyone can agree that it is not the
best democracy in the world. In the same breath, everyone can agree that they
have provided a far superior political alternative to anything that the LTTE
fascists could have ever offered to the nation.
Besides, the peace they won restored the dignity particularly of
the Tamils’ basic political rights to act freely according to their political
will and elect representatives of their choice. It was a right that either R.
Sampanthan or Abraham Sumanthiram ever had under their Thalaivar (Leader).
The two brothers have restored the rights of all citizens of all
communities to share the peace they won by eliminating Tamil tyranny from the
political equation. As enunciated in the classic, Mahavamsa, the Rajapaksa
brothers wrote their chapter in keeping with the historic mission of making
the island a fit dwelling-place for men.” (MV-1:43). This is not hagiography
written to boost the image of the Rajapaksas. This is to recognise in our time
the hard facts that will fill the pages of historiography sooner or later.
But the moralising mafia, with their pretentious political
prescriptions which have never worked to resolve any of the vexed issues of the
nation, gang up to demonise the majority and their iconic figures. Presenting
the majority as the enemy of the minorities has been the political mantra on
which they have survived.
A typical representative of the moralising mafia is Paikiasothy
Saravanamuttu. I will be focusing on him because he combines in his person all
the characteristics of a habitual anti-national, anti-historical, pro-American,
pro-Tamil, foreign-funded, NGO hack posturing as the liberal and democratic
kokatath-thailaya (panacea) for national problems. Also he represents the kind
of intellectual who failed to produce a single theory, strategy or formula to
end the war and restore peace, stability and democracy. His biggest
contribution to the local scene has been to amble like a fat cat living off the
fat provided by his Western donors. His advertised job description though was
to provide alternative policies and programs for good governance which must
begin with restoring peace and stability. But he failed in every department.
Hissing through his teeth, he mobilised his national and international links to
prevent the victory of the national forces advancing to defeat Tamil fascist
terror. The corrupt and the kakistocratic performance of defeated Yahapalanaya,
of which he was a stakeholder and defender, speaks volumes of his ability to
make a meaningful contribution to the well-being of the nation ever.
Who can ever forget how in the final days of the Vadukoddai War
he was pole vaulting from one Western capital to another to protect, preserve
and perpetuate the one-man regime of the Tamil Pol Pot – the inveterate and
incorrigible enemy of human rights and democracy?
Of course, Paikiasothy, to his everlasting shame, rushed to save
Prabhakaran proclaiming mendaciously that he was trying to stop the war in the
name of rescuing the Tamil civilians facing annihilation. But he never ventured
to stop the war from Prabhakaran’s end during the 33-years it raged in the
North and the East.
In the early phase Prabhakaran was seen as a Tamil conqueror.
Like any other Tamil leader, Paikiasothy saw no reason to stop the war from the
Northern end as long as Prabhakaran was winning. He was quite content to let
the war rage as long as the brain-washed Tamils were led to believe that
Prabhakaran could establish the first Tamil state in the post-colonial period.
Paikiasothy stepped in aggressively only when he saw Prabhakaran had put on his
running shoes without taking the pill he had recommended for his followers
facing defeat.
Besides, his argument of saving the annihilation of Tamils in
the last stages of the war was nothing but hogwash. Prabhakaran had already
annihilated the cream of the Tamil leadership. Paikiasothy didn’t lift a finger
to stop the war from Prabhakaran’s end at a time when the threatened Tamil
leadership was living under care and protection of the demonised Sinhala South.
Annihilation of dissident Tamils was seen as a necessity to
achieve the Eelam promised in the Vadukoddai Resolution. Prabhakaran was also
financed and encouraged, either overtly or covertly, by the Tamil Vellala
elite, particularly in the Tamil diaspora, to wage his futile war until the
last Tamil child was sacrificed to save his life. That didn’t move Paikiasothy
to stop the war waged by Prabhakaran. All his theories, formulae, legalities,
moralities, principles, strategies were drawn to tie the hands of the GOSL and
give the strategic advantages for the Pol Potist forces to win. Even when he
saw the futility of the Pol Potist war in the end he didn’t move to force
Prabhakaran to accept the internationally guaranteed offers to end the war. At
all times his international interventions were to put pressure on the GOSL to
give into the extremist demands of the intransigent Pol Potists.
Behind the facade of his bogus cover of saving Tamils trapped in
the final assault he knew that his attempts were directed at saving the
notorious killer of Tamils ever in the history of Jaffna. His hidden objective
was to keep him alive to fight another day when it was opportune for the Tamil
terrorists to start their next round of violence. It was in his interests to
keep Prabhakaran alive and kicking because he was the bargaining chip
Paikiasothy needed to (1) rake in money from the Western masters and (2) to
keep the flames of Eelam burning. Every available clause and theory in the
books of human rights were exploited by Paikiasothy and his NGO mafia to
strengthen the bargaining power of Prabhakaran. Saravanamuttu knew that he
should, at any cost, keep alive the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Deflecting attention to the war casualties and human rights
violations of the Security Forces was a common trick to divert attention from
the horrors of Tamil terror. In the last days of the Vadukoddai War launched by
the Tamil leadership in 1976 he also knew that the only way to save Prabhakaran
was to stop the war from the GOSL end. So he threw in all his weight to save
Prabhakaran – the most evil mass murderer that came out of Tamil culture after
the first mass killer, Sankili who massacred 600 Tamil Catholics in 1544.
Sankilli went down in a rage to massacre the Tamils in Mannar because they did
not recognise him as the sole representative of the Tamils. They owed
allegiance to the King of Portugal. History takes a long time to repeat itself
in Jaffna.
But it does eventually. Prabhakaran massacred the 600 Policemen
who surrendered in the East. Saravanamuttu knew all this. He knew that the
peace, security, dignity and the human rights, particularly of the Tamil
children were not going to be achieved as long as Prabhakaran was kept alive.
V. Anandasangaree and S. C. Chandrahasan are on record saying that Prabhakaran
had killed more Tamils than all the others put together. With all its
imperfections, the Tamils found greater security and dignity under the
Rajapaksa brothers than Prabhakaran. Yet Paikiasothy pursued the politics of
saving Prabhakaran who was the sole intransigent obstacle to regaining peace
and human rights.
For instance, the TNA (Tiger Nominated Agents” – EPDP) had to
go on their bended knees to get nominations from their Thalaivar. Under the
Rajapaksas they had the right to make their own choices without fear of being
eliminated. Also how many TNA political heroes had the gumption / right to
criticise their Surya Devan” the way they criticised the Rajapaksa brothers?
Paikiasothy also had the right to take the Rajapaksas to courts for violations
of his rights — and he did. But did he ever have the guts to take his Tamil
Thalaivar to the Tamil courts in Vanni for dragging underaged Tamil girls and
boys to fight in a futile Tamil war?
The Centre for Policy Alternatives aimed at changing only the
democratic South where they had the right and the liberty to do so. They never
had policy alternatives to change Prabhakaran’s one-man regime. As a Tamil –
let alone his dubious role of a human rights activist — he never fought for
the fundamental rights of the Tamils denied by the one-man regime of
Prabhakaran. With all the resources he had he never fought for the oppressed
Tamils – including Tamil children – in the de facto state of the Tamils. He
paraded pompously only in the democratic courts of ‘the Sinhala state.’
Compared to loud-mouthed hypocrites like him, parading in the
cocktail catwalk in Colombo, the Rajapaksa brothers fought tooth and nail in
the tough terrains in the Vanni, to restore the democratic rights and liberties
of the Tamils – and won. Paikiasothy, like most Tamil leaders who never dared
to confront Prabhakaran, was a deplorable political coward who abandoned his
own people when their children were plucked from their homes and thrown to
fight in a war that was glorifying Tamil terror.
His posturing as a courageous champion of human rights was only
confined to the independent courts of the Sinhala state.’ But this pompous hero
of human rights has no record of fighting for the Tamil in the de facto Tamil state
of Prabhakaran. Why? Isn’t it because the democratic, liberal, pluralistic and
tolerant ‘Sinhala state’ gave the minorities (and their representatives like
Paikiasothy) rights which they never got from their one and only Tamil state?
Didn’t they win their rights from the courts of the vilified ‘Sinhala state’ –
a right which they could never dream of getting from their Tamil Pol Potist
state? Paikiasothy won because the Rajapaksa brothers won for him the right to
step into independent courts which he couldn’t find in the only state
established by the Tamils. The irony is that they denigrate the ‘Sinhala state’
which has given them the rights they had never enjoyed either in their Tamil
feudatory or under the Vellala sub-agents of the colonial masters.
On any realistic scale of human rights can Paikiasothy point out
to a period in Tamil history – from Sankili to Prabhakaran – when the Tamils
had better human rights and dignity than under ‘the Sinhala state’? Not even
‘1983’ – deplorable as it is – can be compared to the horrors inflicted on the
Tamil people by the Tamil leadership.
After wasting millions of foreign-funds in opposing and
denigrating achievers like the Rajapaksa brothers what is it that Paikiasothy
and his gang have to show as defenders of the oppressed people, or their
rights? What can they show as their great victories for peace, democracy, and
stability that has not been won by the Rajapkasas?
Which theory, formulae, strategy, national or international
intervention of the Paikiasothy gang, with the blessing of the international
community, helped to end the war and restore peace? Isn’t the victory won on
the banks of Nandikadal far, far superior to Paikiasothy leaping from one
Western city to another in a desperate bid to save Prabhakaran? What rights
would the Tamils have today if Prabhakaran won the Vadukoddai War?
What peace would the nation have if Prabhakaran won the war?
Paikiasothy has enough resources and researchers (e.g., Sanjana Hattotuwa
blowing his megaphone) to prove his case with concrete examples. Having backed
Tamil Pol Potism, either covertly or overtly, and with all their energies and
resources, isn’t it a bit rich for them to accuse the Rajapaksas of being
dictators?
Besides, the existential experiences of the two Rajapaksas, who
had defended the greatest threats to the nation from abroad and at home, would
have informed them that turning democratic Sri Lanka into a dictatorship would
be as easy as transplanting the Himalayan range in the Horton Plains.
The fear-mongering to blacken the image of the Rajapaksas may
help the American Ambassadress to write adverse reports to the State
Department. But neither the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist pulp fiction of the NGOs nor
the demonising of the Rajapaksas by the American Embassy was successful in
preventing the stunning popular wave that swept Gotabaya Rajapaksa into the
Presidency.
The new Sinhala-Buddhist middle class, particularly the
English-speaking, trousered elite in the mushrooming urban and village
marketplaces, is the new force that rallied behind Gotabaya’s viyath maga.
Armed with Facebook and Twitter, they had replaced the traditional native
‘pancha maha balavegaya of 1956.’ They rose in unison on November 19, 2019 to
throw the neo-liberals of the West allied to the International Democratic Union
(IDU) led by Ranil Wickremesinghe into the dustbin of history.
General Spitting and expectorate (eg. phlegm, mucus)
People do not care about spitting
in public places. They have become accustomed
to it. They will continue to do it freely and openly, without fear.
It is very bad for sanitary and health reasons. Their actions cause environmental pollution/public
nuisance. It is very bad for tourism.
Given the Corono
Pandemic, it is of paramount importance that public spitting is made illegal.
Those who continue to spit
publicly should be fined.
(In Arizona, USA spitting on sidewalks or
in public buildings could bring a $500 fine).
Spitting
out Betel chew
In the last
30 years or so a large number of people gave up cigarette smoking. Unfortunately,
many of them instead took up betel chewing
They chew
betel leaves with areconuts, tobacco and lime.
It is
incredible that a very large number of young people have taken up this bad
habit.
Betel
chewing in big cities/towns is largely prevalent among people of ‘lower social
strata’. They are mostly heavy duty labourers. These are people who do hard physical
work.
Betel
chewing operates as a stimulus. It keeps
people awake. Thus, it is ideal for heavy vehicle/bus drivers, three-wheeler
drivers and bus conductors. They labour for many hours a day. One could often
see them spitting out betel chew in to public from inside their vehicles.
Colombo
streets are littered full of these red spills.
Literally,
they are everywhere on our roads and sidewalks. During dry seasons, they last
for long times. Only rains would wash them away.
As they have no other choice, people are compelled to walk on
betel chew spit, all the time.
Like normal
spit, betel chew spit also causes our cities and towns very unclean and unhygienic.
They are a major source of environmental pollution. Tourists hate them.
Now with the deadly Corona Pandemic very
much in, public spitting of betel chew and associated expectorate (eg. phlegm, mucus) can bring forth death and
destruction to people. Hence, this practice must be banned with immediate
effect.
If people
want to publicly chew betel (with or without nuts/other ingredients), they
should be asked to collect their own spit (in private containers), and safely
dispose them; more preferably take them home with them.
Severe
fines should be imposed on people who are found for violating the measures to stop betel chew spitting.
Those who dispose their
containers irresponsibly (people may try to leave them in busy places, parks,
public utility terminals); such people should face criminal sentencing.
(The betel chew is extremely addictive.Chewing
of betel nut should be discouraged at every level – they cause oral cancer,
throat cancer, and even cardio-vascular arrhythmias).
Way
forward
Despite the
curfew, many people still walk on our roads/streets. They include the armed
forces/police personnel, and street cleaners. Because of the spits, these good,
hard working people could easily become infected with the Corona Virus.
We should
also not forget the homeless people, beggars who live on the streets.
There are
many others who use the roads/streets.
Hence, the ban must be implemented immediately, to save lives.
It is important to launch a massive publicity campaign
about the ban.
(A
chewinggum ban is successfully in place in Singapore since early
1990s).
Article
70 (1) of the Constitution – ‘The President may by Proclamation, summon,
prorogue and dissolve Parliament’.
The law
is very clear, the President has clear power to dissolve the Parliament (Article
33 (1) also provides this power.
Accordingly,
the President issued a gazette notification on 2 March 2020 dissolving the Parliament.
In
the said gazette notification the President fixed 12 March 2020 to 19 March
2020 as the nomination period for the election of Members of the Parliament
(MPs).
Unless
there was a technical defect in the gazette notification (the writer could not
find any), it is incomprehensible how one could seek a judicial declaration that
the said gazette notification is null and void.
Those who
demand reconvening the Parliament state that Article 70 (7) compels the President
to do the same:
Article
70 (7) If at any time after the dissolution of Parliament, the President is
satisfied that an emergency has arisen of such a nature that an earlier meeting
of Parliament is necessary, he may by Proclamation summon the Parliament which
has been dissolved to meet on a date not less than three days from the date of
such Proclamation and such Parliament shall stand dissolved upon the
termination of the emergency or the conclusion of the General Election,
whichever is earlier.
The language in
the said Article is clear, that the President can reconvene the dissolved Parliament,
and that will be at his sole discretion.
There is no
mandatory requirement for the President to reconvene the dissolved Parliament,
owing to the current Corona Pandemic.
If Corono Pandemic
has caused an emergency situation in the country, especially in relation to appropriation
of funds for governance until the new Parliament is convened, Article 150 (3) provides
the remedy. The President has power to act on his own:
Article 150 (3) – Where
the President dissolves Parliament before the Appropriation Bill for the
financial year has passed into law, he may, unless Parliament shall have
already made provision, authorize the issue from the Consolidated Fund and the
expenditure of such sums as he may consider necessary for the public services
until the expiry of a period of three months from the date on which the new Parliament
is summoned to meet.
The
writer thus states that it is unnecessary to reconvene the Parliament. The
government should concentrate on curbing the Corono Pandemic.
There
is no public consensus for such a demand (reconvening the Parliament).
The
writer believes that any judicial action seeking reconvening the Parliament is
doomed to fail.
It
is well known that owing to the President’s early dissolution of the Parliament
62 MPs lost their pension rights, as they failed to complete the full
Parliamentary term of 5 years. If the
Parliament is reconvened now, those MPs may become eligible for pensions (if
they manage to complete the full 5 years); as well as their salaries. The daily cost of running the Parliament is
enormous. These will be a huge unnecessary drain on tax payer funds.
The
argument that these MPs are willing to forego pensions and salaries is
immaterial; they are legally entitled to them:
(9th
Schedule – Appendix III, List II):
(o) Pensions,
that is to say, pensions payable by the Government of Sri Lanka or out of the
Consolidated Fund;
(p) Salaries and allowances of Members of
Parliament and the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of Parliament;
They
are no longer MPs, but former MPs. But,
many continue to act as MPs!
Many
of them have failed to vacate their parliamentary accommodation – bungalows,
houses and flats (not by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Ministers; they are
part of the government).
Given
the Corona Pandemic, it is humane to allow them to remain in their
accommodation until the lifting of the curfew.
Also,
there is no public consensus in holding the general election on 20 June 2020.
The people live in extreme fear of the Corono Pandemic. They want the Government/Presidential
taskforce to working full steam and take every possible action to eradicate the
Pandemic. They are least concerned about an election.
An election can be
conducted only after the Corono Pandemic is successfully defeated; as currently
seen, definitely not on 20 June 2020.
Yasiru Ranaraja is a maritime regulations and BRI developments expert. Maya Majueran is a Ph.D. candidate at the State University of Kalaniya researching the BRI. The article reflects the authors’ opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
Sri Lanka is considered a vital part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) because of its strategic geographical location. However, due to the increase of commercial financing of BRI projects in Sri Lanka, the term ‘Debt Trap Diplomacy’ was coined in the last few years as a way to discredit the relationship between China and Sri Lanka.
The term ‘Debt Trap’ is now being disputed by numerous renowned academics since the general public has access to government’s debt portfolio. Prominent think-tanks have published a number of research articles after undertaking comprehensive analyses and concluded that none of these sources suggest China is ‘Debt-Trapping’ the island.
In recent years, China has expanded its support for global health, and in January 2017, China and the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed to jointly establish the “Health Silk Road” under the BRI. By August 2017, China made public financial commitments towards building a resilient health system at the BRI Forum for Health Cooperation, highlighting an initiative “Towards a Health Silk Road” by enabling its member states to further cooperate within the BRI.
China is not only one of Sri Lanka’s key trading partners and investors but has also been one of the most important donors by providing aid and technical assistance, which has contributed to Sri Lanka’s healthcare improvements.
Even though China officially established the “Health Silk Road” in 2017, China’s support in Sri Lankan healthcare can be traced back to 1967 as the two countries worked together on donating corneas. At present, around 1,500 corneas have been flown to China for transplant annually, and China is the second-largest recipient of cornea donations from Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (R) meets with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 14, 2020. / Chinese Foreign Ministry
The present fight against the COVID-19 pandemic with a lack of resources and considerably limited capacity threshold in Sri Lanka led the Sri Lankan government to turn to the international community for aid and technical assistance. As a result, China was one of the countries to step up and coordinate with assistance, the first to respond was the companies that are involved in major projects in Sri Lanka, donating a large number of medical supplies such as masks, PPE, and test kits.
However, in terms of Chinese funding, Sri Lanka is considered as one of the countries to receive the largest quantity of Chinese aid, in which the healthcare sector receives around 20 million dollars annually. One of the landmark projects was completed when China provided a grant to the Sri Lankan government to build a nine-story new wing of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital which was opened in the year 2000.
Another landmark project is the Kidney Hospital in Polonnaruwa, initiated as result following a request by former President Maithripala Sirisena to the Chinese government in 2015. It is expected to be opened by the end of 2020. The new Chinese-funded hospital in Polonnaruwa will consist of a 200-bed ward complex, OPD with 100 dialysis machines and six modern operation theaters, which will be constructed at a total cost of nearly 80 million dollars.
Nonetheless, Polonnaruwa is an ancient capital of Sri Lanka and also known to have one of the world’s first hospitals back in the eleventh century. The “Alahana Pirivena” belongs to the reign of King Parakramabahu I in the Polonnaruwa era, which was a part of a wider network of medical practices along the region, and the Silk Road played an important role in spreading medical knowledge during these times.
Also, some written sources from the fifth century and later centuries testify that acupuncture, the great healing art that came from China during ancient times was known in ancient Sri Lanka. This medical practice has been known to ancient monastic hospitals of Sri Lanka and indicates the diffusion of the science between South Asia and China.
This relationship between China and Sri Lanka started back in ancient times along the Silk Road. The reason why the relationship is quoted now with the propagated term “Debt Trap” diplomacy is mainly because China was a frontrunner in funding projects in Sri Lanka.
The untold fields of partnerships such as Health Silk Road between Sri Lanka and China could help people from both countries. Similarly, if these areas are under-reported in local media, it can also build a baseless narrative as a “Debt Trap” due to lack of research based on local primary sources of information.
(Cover image: The construction site of the Colombo Port City project in Colombo Port City, Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 5, 2018. /Xinhua)
An early start of the process of containment and subsequent innovative steps have helped keep the infection under control
Colombo, April 26 (President’s Media Division): In a TV discussion with his Principal Advisor, Lalith Weeratunga, on April 20, on some key concerns regarding the COVID-19 epidemic, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa explained the steps taken when a person tests positive for COVID-19 virus.
At the moment, we have minimized the spread of the virus in the country. This has been possible because, from the very beginning, Sri Lanka had a proper mechanism to collect information needed to stop the infection from spreading from one patient to another,” the President said.
When someone shows symptoms of COVID-19, that person is sent to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) in Angoda and for a PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) examination, which is the best in the world. If the results are positive for the virus, the origin and source from which the person got infected is investigated.”
Every person that the patient had closely associated, casually met and places visited are identified. Then, the people who associated with those who had come in contact with the patient are identified. This method of identifying the first and second rings of contacts is known as contact tracing”. The group of people thus identified to have associated with the infected person is known as a cluster.”
Identification of clusters well in advance has enabled Sri Lanka to quarantine people before symptoms develop. Analysts have acknowledged, even in international forums, that Sri Lanka’s success in managing the crisis is because of contact tracing carried out methodically by the intelligence units of the country.”
The infected person’s immediate family members and people who closely associated with the patient are quarantined. Those who did not associate with the patient directly will be subjected to self-quarantine. Public Health Officers and Police Officers regularly monitor those under self-quarantine.”
If there is a possibility that a larger group of people had got compromised and are in danger of getting infected, then that entire area will be isolated. Most cases currently being reported are from such groups.”
It is clear that some carriers had entered the country before the quarantine program began. There had also been cases from countries like Indonesia where carriers had not been anticipated. They were identified as COVID-19 patients only after the symptoms appeared.”
Daily I receive all data pertaining to every one of these cases. Further decisions are taken after in-depth discussions with the Chief of Intelligence.”
Timeline of Action Taken
Sri Lanka has controlled the COVID-19’s impact because of the people’s commitment, the President said.
Everyone has played a part. In the health sector, from the laborer onwards to Public Health Inspectors (PHI), nurses, specialist doctors have rendered a huge service. The Tri-Forces, police and intelligence units have contributed tirelessly. It has been the commitment of the public sector, from secretaries to ministries, districts and divisions which had ensured essential services without interruption. Citizens have quietly borne the difficult times.
Mid-January 2020: The first case of the COVID-19 was reported from Wuhan in China. The Chinese Government warned the world about the new virus.
January 26, 2020: A National Task Force was established bringing the Health Ministry, Tri-Forces, Police, Intelligence and other related disciplines together. Their primary task was to advice the government on steps to control the epidemic.
January 27, 2020: The first COVID-19 patient in Sri Lanka was identified. She was a Chinese tourist.
February 01, 2020: A special flight was sent to bring back 34 Sri Lankans and their immediate families who were studying in Wuhan. As soon as they landed, they were quarantined in the Diyatalawa Army Camp. Thereby, the virus was prevented from spreading in the country.
February 10, 2020: It was decided that arrivals from Italy, Korea and Iran should be sent to a quarantine center.
February 16, 2020: It was decided that everyone who arrives in Sri Lanka must be quarantined.
February 19, 2020: The Chinese lady who was found infected with the virus on January 27 had fully recovered and left for China.
March 11, 2020: The first Sri Lankan infected with COVID-19 was identified. He was admitted to the IDH. Since then, almost every day new patients were identified. Out of them, 38 were those who had come from abroad and were already in quarantine centers. Since then, another 79 from quarantine centers had been tested positive for COVID-19. It was also found that another 139 outside quarantine centers, were infected in various ways.
March 12, 2020: Every school, university and education center was closed. But while the schools and universities were physically closed, a separate Task Force was established to facilitate distance learning.
March 18, 2020: All arrivals at the Airport were stopped. A special flight was sent to bring back home 900 pilgrims who got stranded in India. They were sent to a quarantine center.
March 20, 2020: An All Island curfew that was imposed.
March 27, 2020: The first work from home” week for public servants was declared from March 20 to March 27.
Since March 27 to date, Sri Lanka has lost seven to COVID-19. New cases continue to be added to the total number of infected cases almost on a daily basis. At the same time, a steady number of recoveries are also increasing almost daily.
