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Perfume plant: Minister likes the foreign scent
Police and Customs continue to conduct raids on those dealing with wallapatta or Aquilaria spp used in the manufacture of perfumes.However, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena wants the Government to import young plants from this Thymeleacae family “to boost the development process” and to “introduce strategies of earning foreign exchange through recently popularised walla products exporting.”
According to the Agriculture Minister, wallapatta is grown on a commercial basis in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. He notes that “there is a higher growth speed in Aquilaria spp than Girinops walla which is peculiar to Sri Lanka.”He believes there is potential to export resin obtained from those plants which are used to produce high value perfumes and drugs. Whilst encouraging commercial scale cultivation of the plant, Minister Abeywardena wants to issue licences to import seed but adds that they are not available throughout the year. Hence, he says, plants without soil should be imported under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture.
New ambassador given wrong visa form
Former External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunatilleke Amunugama was at the German Embassy in Colombo last week.His mission was to obtain a long-stay visa to that country after he was appointed as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador. Officials at the embassy off R.A. de Mel Mawatha (Duplication Road) had to politely remind him that the form he had applied was not the one that was required for the long-stay visa.
It turned out that the form had been given to him by the Protocol Division of the very Ministry, of which he was one time administrative head.
So he had to return to obtain the correct form and turn up at the embassy again. It was processed in double quick time.
Amunugama wants embassy in booming Kazakhstan
Sarath Amunugama, Senior Minister of International Monetary Co-operation and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning, wants the Government to establish a Sri Lanka embassy in Kazakhstan. He made the recommendation in a report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa after leading a Sri Lanka delegation to the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting held in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Amunugama has noted that Kazakhstan has the largest economy in Central Asia. It possesses oil reserves as well as metals. He has added that the GDP of that country last year was US$ 243.6 billion and GDP per capita was US$ 14,000.
Jaffna prison costs over the bars
Costs for the construction of a Jaffna prison complex keep mounting, according to Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera.
He obtained Government approval earlier for more than Rs. 158 million. He has now sought Rs. 17 million more on grounds of cost escalation.
Fonseka’s bedside joke for JVP leader
Politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties visited Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the Merchant’s Ward of the National Hospital. He was there undergoing treatment after the double cab in which he was travelling met with an accident near Ratnapura.
When Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva came to see Mr Dissanayake, Democratic Front leader and former General Sarath Fonseka also was there.
Minister de Silva, who has a campaign on his hands in the Uva province for the ruling coalition, told the opposition JVP leader in Sinhala; “you must rest a lot.” Mr. Fonseka was quick to wise-crack; “if he has to do that, he has to be arrested.”
VVIP’s son gives wings to Jackie
When former Sri Lankan beauty queen turned Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez who was in Sri Lanka recently to open a restaurant she co-owns named “Keama Sutra”, arrived at the BIA, Immigration officials had found that she had travelled on an inactive (deactivated from the system) passport. When the actress was asked about this lapse, instead of responding, she had immediately called up the son of a VVIP and soon a message was relayed to the Duty Officer at the BIA that the actress should be allowed to leave the airport without further delay.
While normal passengers would have been subject to much grilling if they were faced with such a situation, having friends in high places helped the lady to make a convenient exit. Big names do count these days. They even move mountains, remarked a passenger who witnessed the episode.
Hulugalle: His high-flown days are over
His bodyguards and escort vehicles were not there this time. He had to trudge in an old Land Rover to ‘Temple Trees’.That was how Lakshman Hulugalle, now Deputy High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in Australia, turned up to seek an impromptu meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa. However, Mr. Rajapaksa was busy and Hulugalle had to leave without meeting the President.
Mr. Hulugalle was earlier Director General of the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS). He lost the position after the centre was shut down amidst a controversy over his personal life. He was in town, inter-alia, to attend the board meeting of the Commercial Bank, of which he remains a director.
Like Mao, like Mahinda
Decades ago in what was Communist China, books on thoughts of Chairman Mao Zedong were best sellers. Then the maxim went “study Chairman Mao’s writings, follow his teachings and act according to his instructions.”Now comes a decision by Sri Lanka’s Cabinet of Ministers that all speeches made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa during visits abroad together with those made by his counterparts there should be published.
The book is to be made essential reading for ministers and Government Parliamentarians. The compilation of the book has been placed in the hands of the Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Dr. G.L. Peiris.
The moon and Ban Ki-moon
As US Muslims celebrated Eid — and the end of the Ramadan fast — last Monday, the United Nations fell behind by declaring Tuesday the UN holiday (primarily due to the fact that the UN calendar of holidays for any given year is determined in January.)
Asked about the discrepancy, one Muslim journalist remarked rather facetiously: “Well, Monday was the Eid festival because of the sighting of the moon — and Tuesday was the UN holiday because of the sighting of Ban Ki-moon.” (who has been shuttling between capitals in a desperate attempt to halt the killings in Gaza.)
Coal plant to sell fly ash
Now, the Government wants to sell fly ash (or ash produced in small dark flecks, typically from a furnace, and carried into the air) at the Chinese built Lakvijaya (Norochcholai) coal fired power station. Earlier, residents living around the power plant area complained that their agricultural and other plants were laden with this ash. It caused fears of environmental problems.
The move to sell the Fly Ash follows a recommendation to the Government by Power and Energy Minister Pavithra Wanniaratchchi. Her Ministry officials said the ash is being produced in generators 2 and 3 of the power plant.Fly ash is the fine ash produced at coal-fired power plants that develops cementitious properties when mixed with cement and water. Fly ash in concrete is widely used to strengthen concrete.
New wholesale vegetable market in Dambulla
The Dambulla Municipal Council has been called upon to pay the Urban Development Authority (UDA) Rs, 3,245,100 for 16 hectares of land it will receive.
The council will build a new wholesale market complex at this site to replace the well-known market, from where supplies of vegetables are sent to most parts of the country.
Lanka’s UN mission on healing mission
The Sri Lanka Mission to the United Nations is trying to heal the political wounds suffered back home after years of ethnic hatred, and more recently, the violence against Muslims and Christians by fringe elements in the country.
Last month there were two events heading in that direction: an all-night pirith ceremony in the premises of the Sri Lanka Mission to mark the gifting of a “pirith mandapaya” (octagon from where chanting by monks is done) constructed by the Sri Lanka Army at the request of Major General Shavendra Silva, the deputy permanent representative.
The gift was at the request of the two Buddhist temples in New York. The invitation went out both to Buddhists and few Muslims in an attempt to transform the ceremony into an inter-faith event.
A second event was the Ifthar ceremony — breaking of the Ramadan fast — attended by Muslim expatriates on the eve of Eid celebrations. The host, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona, spoke of the need for peace and goodwill as part of a healing process among all communities and faiths both in Sri Lanka and overseas. The dinner that followed the ceremony was also attended by Christians and Buddhists.
At least two proposed upcoming events will mark the celebration of Christmas and probably a Hindu festival (although most Tamil expatriates have, as a general rule, kept away from functions hosted by the Sri Lanka Mission on political grounds).
“This time, it may be a good try in a lost cause,” said one Lankan expatriate.New wholesale vegetable market in Dambulla
The Dambulla Municipal Council has been called upon to pay the Urban Development Authority (UDA) Rs, 3,245,100 for 16 hectares of land it will receive.
The council will build a new wholesale market complex at this site to replace the well-known market, from where supplies of vegetables are sent to most parts of the country.
Lanka’s UN mission on healing mission
The Sri Lanka Mission to the United Nations is trying to heal the political wounds suffered back home after years of ethnic hatred, and more recently, the violence against Muslims and Christians by fringe elements in the country.
Last month there were two events heading in that direction: an all-night pirith ceremony in the premises of the Sri Lanka Mission to mark the gifting of a “pirith mandapaya” (octagon from where chanting by monks is done) constructed by the Sri Lanka Army at the request of Major General Shavendra Silva, the deputy permanent representative.
The gift was at the request of the two Buddhist temples in New York. The invitation went out both to Buddhists and few Muslims in an attempt to transform the ceremony into an inter-faith event.
A second event was the Ifthar ceremony — breaking of the Ramadan fast — attended by Muslim expatriates on the eve of Eid celebrations. The host, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona, spoke of the need for peace and goodwill as part of a healing process among all communities and faiths both in Sri Lanka and overseas. The dinner that followed the ceremony was also attended by Christians and Buddhists.
At least two proposed upcoming events will mark the celebration of Christmas and probably a Hindu festival (although most Tamil expatriates have, as a general rule, kept away from functions hosted by the Sri Lanka Mission on political grounds).
“This time, it may be a good try in a lost cause,” said one Lankan expatriate.