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BASL furious: Returning officer gives phone bribes
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A serving Government official in the Anuradhapura District held a ceremony and distributed free mobile telephones to retired Grama Niladharis.
This is the gist of a complaint made to the Commissioner of Elections by the district branch of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. It alleges the official in question would be acting as a Returning Officer on polls day and hence it violated the legal guidelines set out by the Commissioner of Elections.
The event, the local BASL branch has said, had been organised by the official concerned. Speaking at the ceremony before the presentation, a monk, it is alleged, made a request that the ex-Grama Niladharis, in an act of gratitude should support the ruling party’s candidate at the Presidential election. The official has also said that the onetime Grama Niladharis should convey to farmers that arrangements have been made to grant them Rs. 5,000 each. That was to buy equipment for their farming activities.
The move comes despite repeated comments by the Commissioner of Elections that it was illegal for public sector officials to organise meetings and events which may be helpful to any of the Presidential candidates.
JR started Sri Lanka’s tea and cigar diplomacy with Cuba
With the announcement last week of Cuba and the United States resuming full diplomatic relations after a 53 year hiatus, memories go back to the the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit meeting in Havana when President Junius Richard Jayewardene formally handed over the chairmanship to Fidel Castro back in September 1979.
Although JR, nicknamed Yankee Dick, was a close political ally of the US, he was also paradoxically a great admirer of the Cuban leader. A relationship they built during the Havana summit went far beyond politics as they regularly exchanged gifts: Ceylon tea in return for the legendary Cuban cigars which were dutifully shuttled between the two countries in diplomatic pouches. In fact, JR told the Cuban leader Fidel Castro “our tea and your sugar mix very well”.
And that summit was also memorable for the formidable team of Sri Lankan journalists who covered the conference: Mervyn de Silva for the Lanka Guardian, Rex de Silva for The Sun, S.P. Amerasingham for The Tribune, Jimmy Barucha for the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Thalif Deen for the Daily News — all of them also doing live broadcasts for SLBC.
Playing the role of liaison between the Sri Lankan journalists and the Cuban ministry of information was Eamon Kariyakarawana, one time editor of Janata and chairman of SLBC, and a close friend of JR. A seventh journalist at the summit was Ernest Corea, a former editor of the Daily News — but this time around, in his role as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Canada and a member of the official delegation.
Cuba, of course, went onto chair NAM a second time in 2006.
Lankan resolution will help millions of youths worldwide
Sri Lanka, which has been making a strong push for a UN holiday for Vesak, was successful in another resolution last week when the 193-member General Assembly declared July 15 World Youth Skills Day.
The resolution spearheaded by Sri Lanka and backed by the 132-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing nations, highlights the importance of youth skills development. The goal is to achieve better socio-economic conditions for today’s youth, including as a means of addressing the challenges of unemployment and under employment. This is the only resolution promoted by Sri Lanka at the UN in New York since 1999.
The proposed resolution on Vesak is still pending. President Mahinda Rajapaksa mooted the idea of a UN Youth Skills Day in his address to the 68th Session of the UNGA in 2013. The proposal to designate a day for youth skills development was endorsed by both the youth and the policymakers, including Ministers, at the World Conference on Youth held in Colombo in May 2014.
The ‘Colombo Declaration’ which was adopted by consensus, after detailed debate, called upon the United Nations to designate a day to highlight youth skills development to draw attention to the critical need for marketable skills.
Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona said the successful adoption of this resolution is a fulfillment of a commitment made by Sri Lanka to millions of youth around the world.
Conflicts in NDF campaign strategies
That a ding dong battle rages between factions of the National Democratic Front in promoting their candidate Maithripala Sirisena is no longer a secret.
One faction that churns out SMSes for mobile telephone users is repeating the messages twice. Perhaps they believe if the first is missed out, the second would be taken note of.
One such message sent out on Friday said, “I will not act according to international conspiracies, but will follow the people friendly proposals – MS in Rideegama. Details faxed/mailed. MS Media.”If the message, though unwittingly, concedes that there are international conspiracies, is one expected to believe that “people friendly proposals” among them would be enforced?
Well, no answers are forthcoming. While the proactive SMS campaigners claim that issues, if any, could be raised at news conferences, the formidable faction tasked to undertake propaganda activities are otherwise busy. As one irate member pointed out, ‘they are at conferences from morning till night and have little or no time to service the media.’
Hotel doors closed for NDF
Frontliners of the United National Party (UNP) did a tour of almost all hotels in the City of Colombo this week.
The idea was to find a venue for the ceremony related to the release of the Manifesto of the National Democratic Front (NDF).
One after another politely declined the request for fear that they would face punitive treatment from the Government. At least three different star class hotels said when a booking is allowed, they were visited by sleuths who admonished them for allowing their premises.
The result — the NDF decided that the event should take place at the Viharamahadevi Park.