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By Ayesha
R. Rafiq The alternate
group including ministers Mahinda Wijesekera, G. L. Peiris, Bandula
Gunawardene and Jayasundera Wijekoon is to hand in applications
for UNP membership to the Prime Minister at a ceremony in Kandy
on March 12, Minister Dissanayake said. The group which
joined the UNF in 2001 remained as an alternate group as it did
not immediately wish to join on the UNP ticket. At the UNP convention mid-last year in Trincomalee, Minister Dissanayake was expected to receive membership from the Prime Minister but it was delayed. Meanwhile, former PA minster Richard Pathirana has said he would contest the next Southern Provincial elections as the UNP’s chief ministerial candidate. Tobacco control specialists here Two foreign
specialists in tobacco control are currently in Sri Lanka on the
invitation of the Sri Lanka Medical Association to address the issue
of protecting children from the adverse effects of unethical advertising.
Mr. Michael
Pertschuk, of the Advocacy Institute, USA, a leading strategist
and advocate for tobacco control for 35 years and Dr. Prakash Chandra
Gupta, Senior Research Scientist at the TATA Institute of Fundamental
Research in Mumbai, India and Honorary Consultant at the TATA Memorial
Hospital are in Sri Lanka to share their expertise in this field.
They will look
into the practical and related policy issues concerning the very
real harm caused both by the use of tobacco and by unethical advertising
which is targeted at children and will convey their own experiences
in relation to these issues in their own countries Mr. Pertschuk,
is the Founding Co-Director of the Advocacy Institute, created in
1984 to build the capacity of citizen groups to advocate policies
in the public interest. Much of the Institute's most intense work
has been in public health: tobacco, alcohol and gun control. He was also
instrumental in developing the Smoking Control Advocacy Resource
Centre (SCARC) within the AI to inform, guide, provide mutual exchange,
coordinate, broaden and build the tobacco control movement. The strategist
in the US Senate behind much of the major health promotion legislation
of this half century, Mr. Pertschuk was Chief Counsel to the US
Senate Committee on Commerce and Commissioner of the Federal Trade
Commission. He was later Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission
in which capacity he pursued a series of preventive health measures
including his proposed rule banning all advertising targeted to
children, centred on the promotion to children of highly sugared
cereals and candy and high fat snack food. He was also
the legislative strategist for the Senate Commerce Committee behind
a series of landmark public health laws including the auto safety
law, the flammable fabrics law, the natural gas pipeline safety
law and the electronic products radiation safety law. Dr. Prakash Chandra Gupta, was the recipient of a Tobacco Free World Award in May 1999, from the Director General of the World Health Organisation, for Outstanding Contributions to Public Health. Budding social workers in the lurch Students of
the National Institute of Social Development are boycotting exams
due to uncertainty surrounding the awarding of the Bachelor of Social
Work Degree from the Ministry of Social Welfare. The batch consisting
of 25 students, 18 Sinhala medium and seven Tamil medium had been
invited to apply for the proposed Bachelor of Social Work Degree
course by a newspaper advertisement in January 2001. Though the
four year course had been designed for the 2001/2004 intake the
students are to be turned away with only a diploma, despite the
country requiring highly trained social workers. However, Director General of the National Institute of Social Development, Upasena Thenuwara, told The Sunday Times, "We called applications for a proposed course. We need to obtain UGC approval. We expected to get this permission in two years, but it has not worked out yet.
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