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Tigers must
give up Eelam
The Eksath Sinhala Maha Sabhawa expresses grave concern and doubts about the honesty of the LTTE with regard to the peace process. We have carried out a random opinion poll of a cross-section of the people including Muslims and Tamils. Only one Muslim was for the de-proscription of the LTTE unconditionally, while others expressed reservations about the prudence of this action. We demand that the government should consider de-proscribing or lifting the ban on the LTTE only if the following criteria are met:
If the LTTE is not willing to meet these conditions, the government should not bow down. A legitimately elected government of a sovereign state has already granted several concessions to the LTTE, a branded terrorist movement. Why should it give in to more unfair and unethical demands? If the LTTE
is adamant in its demands, the government should lobby the support
of the anti-terrorist coalition which includes the United States,
Britain, Australia, India, China and Israel to end this menace! Why is SLMC
silent on Middle East crisis? For a party that claims the Holy Quran and the Sunnah as its constitution and demands to be recognised as the sole representatives of the local Muslims, it is indeed reprehensible. Is it that the SLMC, like the leaders of the Arab and Muslim countries, is scared to offend the US and President Bush? It is well known
that when the LTTE was harassing Muslims in the Eastern Province,
the SLMC rushed to the US Ambassador for a statement of support.
Is it that the SLMC has now taken President Bush as its protector
instead of Allah? Viagra at 70 Readers would
perhaps like to know more about the drug and its specific use. Could
healthy people in their seventies use it without any fear of after-
effects? Phone firms
dialling wrong number Here, the consumer is always burdened with corruption and inefficiency of both the government and the private sector. If operators cannot function successfully, they should hold their management responsible and discover methods of operating satisfactorily without burdening the consumer. If the Telecom
Regulatory Commission approves any further increases, it should
also be held responsible. Terror from
the sky Stop
destroying coconut estates Successive governments
have failed to stop this. The Minister of Environment and Natural
Resources should enact legislation to prevent the felling of even
a single coconut tree. At present, coconut estates are being stripped
bare and converted overnight into housing 'parks'. The profits must
be enormous, as refrigerators and gold coins are offered as incentives
to purchase these building blocks.Droughts have always been with
us, but we did not fork out Rs. 17 or 18 for a coconut ever. It was like
a home away from home I am a kidney transplant patient, the surgery being done in India a couple of years back. Once prior to the transplant and twice after the transplant I was an in-patient in this hospital in the Class-1 paying rooms, the third time being about six months back. In addition to this I have been an out-patient for almost three months (three times a week) on dialysis prior to the transplant and since then twice a month and at least once a month to the clinic. At no stage did I experience such traumatic conditions as this particular patient. I cannot imagine that there is such a change in the attitudes of the Staff of Class-1 ward within the last six months!! In short, one
gets Class-1 attention, which one obviously expects and pays for.
I have spoken to quite a few other patients during my "stays" at this hospital, both in Class-1 and normal wards and most of them express satisfaction and some of them, including myself, feel as if we are in "a home away from home". As to two other persons, patient and one other entering the main section, - well, a rule is a rule and one should not take it out on the security as they are only carrying out their orders from the highest authorities. This is the same for all patients. All this patient should have done was to have kept the "stand by" down in the waiting area, gone to Class-1 ward upstairs where you are given four visiting passes including one for the "stand by", come down and given it to the "stand by" so that he could also come up. It is unfortunate
that this patient encountered all these problems - maybe it is a
"one off" case and I hope it will not happen again to
him or anyone else. Stretch
rubber with multi-crop plantations With right techniques
of land and plantation management, coupled to arboriculture and
other cropping practice, such multi-cropping is possible and should
succeed. Sadly, unless professionals advocate, the public sector will not experiment. The private sector may therefore, initially attempt, at least a few sample plots. Furthermore, a diversity of crops is more eco-friendly. It is even superior in aesthetics, job generation, and in frequency of yielding the economic returns. The recreation
potential must also not be forgotten. In a multi-crop, the target
goal must not only be diversity of crops but also of the uses of
the crops. Say, rubber from a seedling yields the latex as well
as more wood. Taken for a
ride Passengers wait in queues for a long time. They generally check their tickets and the balance after boarding the train and often find the balance short. This matter
deserves the immediate attention of the Railways General Manager
and the Minister of Transport. Sterling slash
for pensioners Now in retirement, they still receive their pensions at Rs. 22.50 per sterling pound whereas the actual rate of exchange is Rs. 138. The All Ceylon Pensioners Society sent several letters to the Finance Ministry urging it to rectify the anomaly. The Treasury's then Director of Pensions recommended Rs. 30 but the then Finance Minister, Ronnie de Mel, cut it down by Rs. 7.50. Sterling pensioners
pray that the present Government will pay them at least Rs. 30 per
pound as recommended by the then Director of Pensions. ETF chief's
proposal illegal Section 8(C) of the ETF Act makes it a statutory obligation of the Board to refund monies due to a member after he or she retires or resigns from employment. Is the Chairman proposing that a poor employee should pay a bribe of Rs. 1000 for the ETF to perform its statutory obligation? The Chairman should realise that 90% of the members have balances less than Rs. 20,000. There is no
provision in the ETF Act to levy such a charge for performing a
statutory duty. Since this is an illegal levy, the Auditor-General
and other relevant authorities should intervene to stop it. Plunder
before admission 'Letters
to the Editor' should be brief and to the point.
Address them to: 'Letters to the Editor, The Sunday Times, P.O.Box 1136, Colombo. Or e-mail to steditor@wijeya.lk or stfeat@wijeya.lk Please note that letters cannot be acknowledged or returned. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
The
Sunday Times article (April 28) on the drug 'Viagra' would have
been a relief to many men who suffer from erectile dysfunction and
who would rather suffer it than see a doctor. 
