Odds & Ends

Suicide threat that moved the lady

The lady who was made a DG overnight had not resigned just because of an executive order. It was after seeing the desperate e-mail of an immediate family member who had threatened to commit suicide if she did not do so.

Young bucks rock JHU

Ven, Ellawela Medhananda, the JHU’s spiritual head is said to be increasingly feeling left out when decisions are taken by young bucks without consulting him. Young bucks have definitely taken on big roles, even advising the executive on governance. One young buck is already having his own Presidential ambitions. They say he has even worked out the dates astrologically.

Foot in the mouth

Has a big mouth in the Government put his foot in the mouth at a regional security conference last weekend when he kept on harping about the great security threat posed to the country from LTTE terrorism. Now everyone is keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that international underwriters will not use that to clamp an insurance surcharge on aircraft and ships calling at Sri Lanka. If that happens on top of all the disturbing happenings here it is certain to add to our cost of living woes as well as making our exports less competitive abroad.

Defender son

The former minister’s son was again in the midst of the action soon after the fracas after the Trinity – Kingswood rugger match. The man drove in his Defender jeep into the grounds this time to ‘rescue’ a New Zealand national who allegedly assaulted the Kingswood players and their supporters.

He not only helped the man out of the grounds but also out of the country to prevent the police taking action against the man.
No business like NGO business.

Sri Lanka may be a dangerous place for some business people, who are said to be leaving the country in large numbers like in the bad old days of the late 1980s.

The story seems to be just the opposite when it comes to expatriate workers attached to NGOs, who have in recent years become a law unto themselves, especially after the tsunami disaster of 2004. According to statistics available at the Immigration and Emigration Department, despite the deteriorating situation in the country last year 1275 new visas had been issued to expatriates working for NGOs here and 1095 other expatriate NGO employees had their visas renewed.

This is despite the authorities introducing new rules late last year to curb their activities like making it mandatory for these foreigners to get a work permit from the Defence Ministry on the recommendation of the respective GA to get the resident visa.
So far this year there are said to be thousands of applications for work permits before the Defence Ministry.