Letters to the Editor

English not a fair tool for law admission
The University Grants Commission (UGC) requests G.C.E A/L qualified candidates who apply for admission to the Law Faculty to attach an O/L results schedule. These students should have either a credit pass in English at the O/L exams or an ordinary pass in General English at the A/L exams, to be selected.

Rural students are weak in English due to the poor standards of teaching. That is why students from backward areas obtain poor results. However, they perform very well in their A/L subjects.

Many students selected from backward areas for other university degrees in the English medium, including medicine, do not possess good results for English at the O/Ls. But after undergoing an intensive English course they sometimes perform better than students from cities and urban areas. Hence, English is not a fair tool to assess the capabilities of students to do law.

Many students qualified to do law are not selected as they do not have a credit pass in English at the O/Ls or an ordinary pass in General English at the A/Ls.
This selection process is unfair.

On behalf of these victims, I request the Ministry of Tertiary Education and the University Grants Commission to take prompt action to change the admission scheme for the law faculty.

A child's dream.....
Bionicals are people of the future
When technology takes over from nature.
Bionicals exist on oil -
And nuts and bolts.
They do not need air
In the concrete jungle
Without a tree in sight -
Without birds and bees -
Bionicals do not learn
Nor sit for exams -
Nor tax their metal bodies
Playing ball.
They just exist controlling earth
Turning it into a Mars.
Each has a mask
which reveals their identity -
That's how they make out
Who is who?
Remove their masks - all look alike
White, skeleton faces
With sockets for eyes...
Which do not cry
Nor smile.
They have no feelings - and they do not die...

Lanka heading for a decline?
Take up a newspaper and it seems as if society has gone mad. Violence and corruption are rampant. It appears as if all checks and balances have been swept away and we are heading for the murky depths of no-return!

Yet, Interior Minister John Amaratunga, the guardian of the law, referring to an editorial comment in The Sunday Times advises the public not to take newspapers seriously. Then again a learned defence counsel is accusing the media of giving too much publicity to a fatal accident involving his client, a national cricketer.

When the Watergate scandal broke out in America, the first response of the White House was similar - "We should be on the attack, for diversion". Whatever rosy pictures the politicians and economists try to paint, there is no denying that something is seriously wrong in Sri Lanka and we are gradually sliding into a vortex.

With so much crime, corruption and permissiveness around, one wonders whether Sri Lanka has entered a sort of Roman decline.

Main trouble spots are all part of Muslim world
In a letter to The Sunday Times last week, K. de Silva of Thimbirigasyaya is faulting me for focusing "only on things pertaining to the Muslim world".

If, by some chance, he is inhabiting the same planet as I do, he would probably realise that three of the world's critical political hotspots that have overwhelmed the United Nations recently are Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Unfortunately for Mr. de Silva, all three are part of the Muslim world, and also rank high on the agenda of the UN Security Council.

Mr. de Silva thinks there are far "more important topics" -- such as human rights and the environment-- worthy of discussion from inside the glasshouse in New York.
Human rights is an issue dealt primarily by the Human Rights Commission and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, both of which are based in Geneva, while the environment is an area largely handled by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi.

For Mr. de Silva's geographical edification, Geneva and Nairobi are continents and oceans apart from New York. Mr. de Silva is also far off the mark when he accuses me of "US-bashing". If he reads between the lines, he will find that the barbs are directed at the failed foreign policies of the Bush administration which went to war without UN authorisation and in defiance of world public opinion.

Mr. de Silva thinks I speak the language of Al-Qaeda. I am not in a position to challenge his judgement since he is apparently a devoted student of Al-Qaeda press communiques that supposedly originate from some far-flung caves in Afghanistan.

If, as Mr. de Silva says I am "on the same wave length as (President) Bush and Osama (bin Laden)", I must be doing something right in bridging the two political extremes.

Is Education Minister justified in blaming Provincial Councils?
Education Minister Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku has been lamenting that there are 3,000 unqualified school principals, whom he says are political appointees and that the Provincial Councils under whose purview they come, do not allow the government to do anything about it.

The Minister should not think Sri Lankans are fools. Leave aside these 3,000 - what is he doing to change the unqualified principals of National Schools under him?
The Minister transferred the graded principal at the only Muslim National School in Balangoda and appointed an ungraded teacher. Can the Minister justify this?

CBK’s cold shoulder to visiting General
That the President chose to avoid meeting General Muhammad Aziz Khan of Pakistan can only be attributed to the height of ingratitude (Sunday Times, Sept. 21, 2003). It is pretty interesting that she has so much control over her temperature that she chooses to be indisposed at her will. I suggest that she needs to develop some sort of control over her temperament also.

Only a balanced mix of the two would lead a lady to the right choice for a meeting. You have rightly pointed out in your editorial that state relations left to the whimsical periodic indispositions of this lady may lead us to no gains. It is a recipe for sure disaster.

Nobody cares for these birds
A large number of live birds like parrots and mynahs are crammed into small circular cages and kept for sale at the 14th milepost on the Colombo-Kandy Road at Imbulgoda.This has been going on for months. Why isn't the Wildlife Protection Society stopping this cruel practice?

The pensioners’ cry
It's a long overdue move, I mean rectifying the 'anomalies' of the pensioner's salaries. Government after government appoints commissions regarding this issue, but could one say honestly, that their findings have been implemented thus far? No, not so, what a shame. The pensioners are always hoodwinked. If at least those in power now have a bit of sympathy towards these poor helpless pensioners, and do their best to comply with their fervent request, it will be welcome. This too at a time when the rising cost of living makes it difficult to make both ends meet.

Don’t bypass junction
South-bound buses (Angulana, Moratuwa and Panadura) and Mount Lavinia-designated buses bypass the main junction and terminus halt. They drop commuters at faraway halts, past Templar's Road junction. This is a major problem.
Will the authorities concerned take action?

Police recruitment and unanswered questions
The general public hopes to hear what the National Police Commisssion has to say about the following questions:

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