Letters to the Editor
View(s):Be mindful of dangers associated with rising CoL
Besides affordability in terms of the rising cost of living, price hikes have health sector costs. Malnutrition, I am sure, comes to mind. Given that a new Budget is imminent, a few considerations need to be mooted.
What is often unrealised is the cost to the health sector of burns. Almost island-wide electrification in the past few decades minimised or made rare, bottle lamp injuries. Managing them once upon a time, was painful to the patient and expensive to the health sector. Often poor children (especially in the estate sector) were the victims. Studying under the light of a bottle lamp, full of kerosene, when it toppled on them accidentally due to wind from an open window or due a pet upsetting it, setting alight their kerosene soaked clothes, some died of extensive burns, as a result.
If the cost of cigarettes is made high, people begin to use ‘beedi’, which was associated with a horrible disease, leading to artery occlusions in the limbs, in the young, very often leading to ascending amputation predominantly of the leg. Due to improvement in nutrition and the change to cigarettes, one hardly sees a case now, but beware, it could come back.
The increase in the cost of liquor is countered by people drinking kasippu which is more toxic to the liver.
Needless to say what would happen if the spares, brake pads of vehicles and if bald tyres are not replaced due to the cost.
This is simply a warning to the decision-makers, in these trying times.
Dr Channa Ratnatunga Via email
RASSL should also hold event on W. A. de Silva’s great works
I am delighted that the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka (RASSL) is holding a lecture on the writings of D.B. Jayatilaka. They should hold a similar event on the work of Dr W. A. de Silva, another of our great statesmen.
He was a polymath with a wide range of interests and wrote over 50 papers on subjects ranging from Sinhala literature, Sri Lankan history, Buddhism and agriculture in many journals including the Journal of the RASSL, Buddhist Annual of Ceylon and Tropical Agriculturist.
He also published books on Cotton Cultivation, Folk Songs of the Sinhalese (with G.P. Malalasekera) and the Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts and a play Kuveni. Tisara Prakasakayo published a compilation of his work Selected Writings W A de Silva in 2009. A critical assessment of his writings is long overdue.
Dr R.P. Fernando UK
Wonderful gesture by Panadura Johnian administration and student population
What kind, heartwarming, lovely things have you heard lately?
Neil Perera, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at St John’s Girls’ School, Panadura, phoned me to convey some heartening news.
The principal of this 137- year-old school, Ms Lakshila Ilapperuma, had received information that attendance at a neighbouring boys’ school, (name withheld for obvious reasons) had dropped significantly. On further inquiries, it had been established that most of the absentee students were from fisher families who are much below the poverty line, who had been deprived of even a single square meal a day! It did not take long for the Principal to realize that, ‘A child cannot learn with an empty stomach’.
The good lady, in discussion with her staff and senior students of this private fee levying institution, after obtaining permission from the Board and the relevant authorities, had worked out a very methodical programme in assisting them by providing around 90 lunch packets daily. The idea has been meticulously executed during the past couple of months and is being continued to-date, with lunch packets being collected from the over 2000 strong student population (who could afford to contribute) and the over 100-staff, on a roster basis.
It is being done without burdening anybody on an absolutely voluntary basis, by a team comprising teachers, prefects and senior students. Only home cooked lunches, with a note attached indicating the contents, are collected and delivered to a place close to the school where we are told attendance has since improved.
If only we could all think like the Panadura Johnian administration and student population, who are not only steadfastly attached to their 146-year-old motto (of schools and colleges coming under the umbrella of the St John’s), Nihil Amanti Difficile (nothing is difficult for the lover), but have also extended their love beyond school boundaries as well.
While admitting my own two children to the kindergarten in 1977 and 1979, I had told them of my first day at St John’s Girls School holding my mama’s finger, on January 29, 1949. As an old Johnian (Girls’ School as well as at College), I am extremely proud of their really great effort which serves as a pointer to other schools to also reach out to the needy in their own surroundings, rather than wasting time looking to politicians to make ‘system changes’.
Wish them all the strength and courage in their magnanimous act!
K.K.S. Perera Panadura
Culling wild animals not the answer
The action taken by the Wildlife Minister Mahinda Amaraweera to immediately inquire into the tragic death of the leopard caught in a snare in the up country is highly appreciated.
But I was surprised to read in the media on the holy day of Nikini poya that his Ministry is to initiate action to cull wild animals to tackle massive crop destruction.
What a way to increase food production! I do not have to recall the advice given by another Mahinda to the then ruler that the birds that fly in the sky and the animals that roam in the jungles have a right to move about freely as the humans and the ruler is duty bound to protect them.
May wiser counsel prevail.
Dr P.G. Punchihewa Via email
Running at a loss, but paying big salaries
The Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation though run with great losses, pay comparatively massive salaries and other perks to their employees. If those cannot be reduced or stopped at present, the two organisations should introduce more reasonable emolument structures for their new recruits which would be based on the actual performance of the two entities.
By the way, how do these two institutions still keep “Ceylon” in their titles – to be more special than others?
A. Ratnayake Via email
Sell eggs by weight not the number
Although the price of eggs goes up daily, the size is getting smaller. Producers are facing many problems running their poultry farms and as a result they increase the price. Consumers are helpless and have to buy whatever is available irrespective of size or price.
As a solution to both parties – producer and consumer, could not the Ministry of Trade direct the producers to sell eggs by weight not the number. Many fruits, vegetables etc. which were sold in the past by numbers are now sold by weight.
K. Siriweera Via email
The money in these deposits are our life’s only savings
The Finance and Guarantee Real Estate and Property Developers Ltd. have been holding the hard-earned money in our deposits with them for the last 13 years without any interest, causing untold suffering and pain of mind. The money lying in these deposits are our life’s only savings.
Secondly, U.B. Finance Company has been, we are told, looking for an investor for the last 12 years without success. They have promised depositors that our deposits will be converted into shares. But this matter has been dragging on with no solution in sight. We are not interested in shares because we are not millionaires but only poor depositors.
Many of us are past 80 years and ailing. We will not be alive to get the benefits of price appreciation on shares, which too is very unlikely in the present economic crisis.
In both of these finance companies the Board of Directors and their staff are getting paid with our hard earned money in deposits. The ill-conceived decision of a one-time Central Bank Governor to convert deposits into shares has created an impasse, which is criminal misappropriation of poor depositors’ money.
The CB directions for supervising and monitoring finance company activities seem to have not done enough to control these errant finance companies.
The one and the only alternative is to wind-up these finance companies and pave the way for us to be paid back our deposit money from the depositors’ insurance scheme, or else, those depositors above the age of 70 years be paid back their deposits from the available resources of these companies.
In the circumstances, we depositors most humbly request the present CB Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe, who has proved himself in so short a time to be an extremely efficient, knowledgeable and honest official to please look into our grievances and grant us much needed relief.
Victimised depositors Via email
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