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Morning Spice by Ginger
No units for aged singletonsGinger has over the years spoken on behalf of the elderly quite a lot.His main lament is that there are no retirement homes and serviced units for single persons. There is I believe one such place but just one place will not suffice—besides I feel it may have prised itself out of the rockoning.
Ginger is speaking of units of around 450 sq. ft. going for around six lakhs which is possible if you are a little austere in the way you get about building it. They should also be available on rent. Such projects could only get off the ground if they are influenced by altruistic motives and not treated as business propositions pure and simple.
That is why it is imperative that some service club or the Department of Social Services initiates the move and help set up building societies to construct such units. The tragedy is that many homes for elders insist that once inmates are too senile or feeble to look after themselves that those who stand guarantor for them take them away. ‘’This negates the very purpose of a home for elders. Such places are the abodes of those who are entering the final phases of their lives and have no one to look after them. Where else have they got to go to?
Lesson by French students
Now French students could have taught us a lesson in how to demonstrate against faulty education systems. Thousands of high school students took to the streets. They were cheered off apparently by overcrowded classes, the shortage of teachers and antiquated equipment. They succeeded in forcing the Education Minister to hasten his education reforms at the end of it.Though they took to the streets and were more than a little articulate in driving their point home They refrained from any kind of violence. The only instances of violence were from some hooligans who were not high school students. They also did not allow politics to creep into the protest which made it easier for the government to comply with.
Kids’ car seats
It was becoming a bit of a fashion here as well but now Ginger sees less of it than in the past. Ginger is referring to children’s car seats. A study has revealed that about 90% of all car seats for children are not installed as they should be in the States. Here often mothers carry baby when they do go out by car.The common errors that many American parents make are not choosing a seat suited for their child’s age and size, not installing them correctly and ensuring the straps are light enough to hold them securely. Another important safeguard is to see that the children face the rear of the car. So if you buy a seat for baby make sure follow those directions.
Quota letters only waste paper
Under the above heading two letters have appeared in The Island on November 7 and 13. With long experience in the garments sector I wish to highlight many other vital areas not covered in these two letters.
Today many factories are in serious financial trouble running into hundreds of millions of rupees in losses and have no work at present and are suffering in silence simply because the quota letters issued by the Textile Ministry (TQB) have suddenly become pieces of waste paper. Foreign buyers have lost total confidence in the ability of the TQB to manage our quotas without leading to embargo situations in the U.S. and are shifting a good part of their orders to neighboring countries. Let us look at the causes and available remedies:
1. The presence of representatives from various associations in the TQB who are mostly big timers with their own interests coming first are totally insensitive to the vast majority of the small and medium factories.
2. All malpractices are done by the TQB under the guise of " maximising quota utilisation for the country". Although TQB has published a booklet giving rules and regulations to be followed, at every TQB meeting a new policy is adopted based on the quota performance as at that day.
3. Certain quotas are brought into the pool to suit certain factories. i.e. recently category 347 was brought into the seven day pool and made eligible only to those holding permanent 347 performance quotas. This is a violation of the fundamental rights of the small factory owners who are excluded whereas in the past other quota categories were brought to the pool and any factory was entitled to apply.
4. In 1997 jackets category 334/634 were kept going in the pool to suit some factories causing 92,354 dozens to be overshipped. As a result the quota year 1998 was a disaster for jacket factories with their quotas cut three times during the course of the year and all further exports suddenly stopped in October fearing a U.S. embargo.
5. In category 635 ladies jackets also exports were stopped by October even though the factories were holding stocks of raw materials, finished garments and their now worthless quotas.
6. Inspite of messing up the above two categories 634 and 635 in October a large number of factories holding category 340 (men’s shirts) quota along with raw materials and finished goods were prohibited any further shipments and subsequently only 200 dozens per factory was allowed. This too happened due to over allocations from the pool to suit certain factories under the now infamous cover of "maximising quota utilisation" thereby ruining the industry.
7. There have been frequent complaints that when small amounts of certain quotas which are in demand are available in excess or for exchange with the TQB. It is the TQB members and their cronies who grab them and by the time the members of these garment associations come to know, these quotas are already exhausted. Obviously such quotas are sold earning millions for them because some of these factories have never produced garments falling into these quota categories which they thus obtained.
SUGGESTED REMEDIES
1. Seven day pool scheme should be abolished and all excess quotas distributed against bank guarantees to ensure performance. If necessary a further penalty to be fixed against factories who fail to perform.2. From past experience the hot categories should be identified and no excess quotas should be allocated in these categories. If performance is low only after -November 15 (i.e. one and a half months before quota year ends) anyone on a first come first served basis should be allowed to export but under no circumstance should over allocations be made in these hot categories.
3. TQB should consist of only members who have no interests in the garments trade. There are very frequent instances when buying offices cancel orders with factories due to quality/delivery problems etc. Similarly there are disputes between factories due to sub contract problems, non payment or delays in settling sub contract dues even ending in litigation. When a TQB member has to decide on a request made by his adversary the request may get turned down on flimsy grounds as set guidelines are changed at every TQB meeting making use of changes in the countries quota performance to justify their decisions under cover of "maximising quota utilisation".
4. Embargo situations should be averted at any cost even if it means not performing the full 100% of countries quota. That is the lesser of the two evils.
5. Any attempt to white wash the serious damage caused to hundreds of factories and get away by issuing statements to the press such as the joint statement issued by the associations under the title and "Textile Quotas: clarifications" which appeared in the Sunday Leader of November 15 I can only tell them that they can fool some people all the time and all the people for sometime but not all the people all the time.
Garment Consultant and former
manufacturer
This letter is in regard to the article which appeared in your newspaper on the selection of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (T.O.Y.P.) organised by the Sri Lanka Jaycees. Many young personalities from different fields were presented with awards on their singular achievements. I am sure this laudable project in future will encourage more quality and dynamic personnel to emerge from these fields.
But at the same time, I am sadden that Mr. Rauff Hakeem, M. P. (National List) of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (S.L.M.C) was selected as the Most Outstanding Young Politician by the Organizing Committee of this project.
For your kind information, especially the award for the Most Outstanding Young Politician, the assessment of the prospective candidates must be thoroughly done in the interest of national harmony.
I have nothing against Mr. Hakeem personally but certainly with his political affiliations with the S.L.M.C. which, is identified as a communal political party due to their partisan and inresponsible actions, which, as jeopardize national unity among the communities living in Sri Lanka. It has created a suspicion on the Muslim community by its actions for which the S.L.M.C leadership including Mr. Hakeem should take responsibility.
Jaycees which is of international fame, when, encouraging national unity, selecting a member from the folds of the S.L.M.C. is a down right insult to all peace loving people who are working towards national unity in Sri Lanka.
Members of Jaycees Sri Lanka should realize by now the unfortunate situation the Muslim and Tamil communities are in as a result of the formation of political parties on ethnic lines such as S.L.M.C, T.U.L.F, T.C, M.U.L.F., etc.
The selection of Mr. Hakeem goes to show the immaturity of the members in Jaycees when organizing projects of this nature.
In future selection of this magnitude should be made by organisations comprising of matured membership in the interest of national harmony which is the need of the hour.
Munzir Haniffa
Matara.
"As a famous injunction has it, such educators must be educated’’ was the concluding sentence of my article titled. ‘’The Education must be Educated’’ that appeared in ‘The Island’ of October 31, 1998. Manifestly unable to make head or tail of the allusion Dr. Tilokasundari Kariyawasam has jumped to the conclusion that I had arrogantly coined the phrase to refer specifically to her. I meant it to apply only to ‘’odd retired educators’’. She evidently thinks that the cap fits.
In a debate she is currently engaged with me in the Sinhala press on the Common General Paper, she had understood the phrase ‘’stand alone learning ability" coined by a journalist, to mean ‘’inherited capacities to live alone in this world’’. Dr Kariyawasam is, of course, not an expert in languages (That did not prevent her, however from approving the payment of Rs. 30,000 to an officer called Dr. (Mrs.) T. Kariyawasam for the construction of tests in language and duly receiving the payment when she was Director-General of the National Institute of Education. But that is another story).
By self-proclamation Dr Kariyawasam is a psychometrist presumably because the term ‘’psychometrist’’ is derived etymologically from words that mean ‘’mind ‘’and ‘’measure’’ she seems to fancy herself as one who has acquired the power to measure the minds of students in the way that scientists measure the intensity of earthquakes with seismographs. The truth surely is that anybody who holds a test is a psychometrist. Those who construct tests which are valid and reliable, are good psychometrists.
Having said that she does not wish to enter into a debate with me, she accuses me of ‘’grossly lacking elementary and professional knowledge of psychometrics’’. All I will say to defend myself against this charge is that I am grateful to this country for having provided me with the opportunity of learning the principles of psychometrics in general at Cambridge, and with special reference to medical education in Chicago. I have practised psychometrics on medical students and doctors for some 36 years without getting sacked from my job.
As to her wish not to enter into a debate with me, feelings are mutual. I have better ways of spending time than arguing with a specialist in juvenile delinquency who claims to be a trained psychometrist. Readers may care to know that this psychometrist is on record as saying that when it comes to sampling a population to obtain an estimate of a given characteristic, the bigger the size of the sample — hold your breath — the less accurate the estimate obtained! A medical student who believed that would be considered something of an academic juvenile delinquent and kept in medical school for as long as it takes to reform her. But Dr Kariyawasam holds that view even after ceasing to hold the post of Director-General of the NIE. Academically speaking this is the equivalent of senile delinquency.
Dr Kariyawasam says that she will continue ‘’to oppose rigorously and vehemently’’ the implementation of the Common General Paper. This is a free country and she can oppose the test without fear of being liquidated for doing so. For my part, because I have been entrusted with the job of implementing this much-needed reform into our educational system, it is my duty to defend it against the attacks of the likes of Dr Kariyawasam.
Dr. Kariyawasam does not seem to know that the phrase ‘’the educator must be educated’’ comes from Karl Marx, who was one of the most erudite men of the nineteenth century. But her attitude to the educational reforms proposed by the present government is strictly in accordance with dictum of Graucho Marx:
‘’Whatever it is, I’m against it’’.
Prof Carlo Fonseka
When Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was elected President in August 1994 by an overwhelming majority, it was hailed throughout the country and there was jubilation everywhere.
"I remember reading the newspapers at the time, which claimed that people in the North, especially businessmen were naming items on the country for sale, after the President. There was one thought in everybody’s mind, the ushering in of peace. Almost immediately thereafter a deputation from the President went to meet a deputation of the LTTE in the North. Here again the TV news showed the people of this country the tumultuous welcome received by this deputation. Everybody, not only in Sri Lanka, but world over was forcussing his attention on the discussions of the deputation. In fact, around that time, a colleague of mine, a pensioner of the Local Government Service, who was the Vice-President of the Pensioners’ Association of the North, visited me in Colombo and his happy parting words were, "Very soon I will be inviting you to Jaffna." Such was his confidence and expectation, which everybody will agree, represents a cross section view of the people in the war-torn area. Alas! all our hops became dupes. It would be wrong to attribute the failure to the President or to any particular person or group, because this has been the time dis-honoured order of events. All concerned have to share the blame. There can never be a settlement with so much distrust, insincerity, lack of goodwill, indisciplined, lawlessness and thuggery.
Then came the Package. Here, again, the LTTE rejected it outright, some Tamil parties say it is not enough for the minorities; some Sinhala parties say it is too much for the minorities, some others say abandon it. The bone of contention being the merger of the North and East. In these circumstances what can the President or anybody do. In the context of the ‘Package’, I would like to recall what I read in the newspapers, the text of the speech made by the Ven. Sobitha Thera, in opposing the ‘Package’. He was reported to have drawn an analogy, a very interesting one too. There was a king who had a horse, which was his pride. The horse was limping and the king spared no pains to get the best of treatment and the best of veterinarians to attend to it, but there was no change. The limp continued. One early morning, the king, very concerned, looked outside his window at the sprawling lawn, his horse was grazing. The horse-keeper was moving around and the king noticed that the horse-keeper was limping, exactly as the horse did. Immediately it dawned on the king, that it was the horse-keeper who was having the ailment and needed treatment and the faithful horse was proudly imitating its keeper. I agree with the venerable thera’s analogy.
The need today is to identify the disease which has gradually brought the country to the brink of disaster. The disease is in my opinion and I am sure the majority of our countrymen will agree is the ‘political party system of government,’ which over the last 50 years has caused enough damage. The politicians are colour blind, they are unabale to see clearly, they suffer from a dissease akin to jaundice. ‘The political party system of government’ is limping, the political leaders are limping, the party members are limping and the whole country will limp into the year 2000. The treatment is, therefore, to abolish the political party system of government and to look for a suitable alternative. For this it requires courage and true statemanship. The country must come first.
S. Thambyrajah,
Col. 3
I submitted a sworn affidavit on Oct. 23,97 to the Bar Association of acts of misconduct by a senior partner of a legal firm, who among other things; submitted an encumbered deed as an unencumbered deed in settlement of a loan of 3.7 million incurred by his relations. This deed was lodged in the office of the firm of which he is a senior partner.
He was co-guarantor of this loan together with his relations. I was under the impression that one of the functions of the Bar Association was to monitor, and deal with acts of misconduct by attorneys-at-law.
To date the Bar Association has failed to respond.
Two unsolicited opinions were received from the Secretary of the Bar Association and Registrar of the Supreme Court; to convince me that the acts of misconduct reported by me did not merit investigation.
It would appear that kissing goes by favour.
A.T.S. Paul
Col. 4.
The President is reported to have stated that the LTTE Tamils were not the "original people" of Sri Lanka. This has raised a hornets nest. Apologists for her have come to her rescue opinion that she has been quoted out of context, and was referring to the fact that they were not original settlers like South African blacks who were the original settlers, when compared to the whites who were not. Unfortunately they have got their facts wrong.
Unlike Sri Lanka which is a small island, South Africa is a huge country. The earliest settlers in the southern part of the country (which was the only part of the country occupied at the time) were the San and Kjoikoi (Hottentot) races. Archaeologists have established that the San people lived in southern Africa 30 - 40,000 years ago. Since both San and Khoikoi races were closely related, they were referred to as Khoisan.
The present day black Africans are not the descendants of the Khoisan, but of the Bantu-speaking Negroid tribes who came from areas to the north of present-day South Africa, and migrated along the eastern coastal belt till they reached Kwa-Zulu/Natal in the 3rd Century AD. It was only in the 12th Century AD that the Bantus commenced migration to the northern provinces of South Africa - Northern Transvaal, Gauteng & Orange Free State.
The whites first set foot in the Cape in 1487, but established settlements in the 17th and 18th Centuries. In expanding their dominion northwards, the white settlers killed off most of the Khoisan people they confronted and made slaves of the few that were left.
The original inhabitants of South Africa were therefore the Khoisan peoples, who as a result of their almost total annihilation do not exist today. The present-day black south fricans, since they are descendants of the Bantus, have no claim to be the original settlers of South Africa.
Ananda Caldera,
Col. 5
The Sinhalese are not the original people of Sri Lanka
Nandana Wickremasinghe articulates a most interesting perspective regarding the reaction of Tamil political parties to the President’s statement that Tamils are not the original inhabitants of the island. (Original People of Sri Lanka—The Island 18/11/98). Since both Aryan and Dravidian indicate linguistic groupings within the human race he seems to indicate that neither the people who speak Aryan dialects nor those who speak Dravidian dialects are the original people of Sri Lanka and that this distinction belongs to the people known as Veddahs—who presumably speak a language that is neither Aryan nor Dravidian in origin.
Had the president—in keeping with this perspective—stated that the Sinhalese are not the original people of Sri Lanka she would only have been stating a historical fact. None of the leaders of Tamil political parties would then have got hot under the collar and neither Nandana Wickremasinghe nor myself would have had to hit the keyboards and go to print to make much ado about nothing by looking back and raising issues which were considered by our ancestors.
With the third millennium around the corner the President would do well to refrain from causing such minor distractions and leave to the major task of indulging the urge to merge so the common homeland is peacefully united and we can spend the future looking out for the wellbeing of our children instead of marching them off to war and certain destruction.
Nirimalan Dhas
Colombo 3.
British High Commissioner in favour of ending N-E war
The High Commissioner for Great Britain is taking a great interest to put an end to this deadly and brutal war.
He I think feels that this is unjust and unfair by a mere microscopic minority of about two percent of a twelve percent minority. Twelve percent holding eighty eight percent to ransom, in reality for no rhyme or reason.
As over six lakhs of Tamils are living in comfort peace and harmony in Colombo and all other parts of Sri Lanka.
Thousands gainfully employed. There is no ethnic cleansing. But only Sinhalese and Muslims are massacred and forcibly driven out of the north and east.
They are killed en masse even in the peaceful south. At the Central Bank 150 killed. At Dehiwela train bomb tragedy 120 massacred.
Thousands more are killed even hundreds of Buddhist monks and hundreds of Muslims at mosques while in prayer, I can catalogue no end but space permits not. Thousands are maimed for life.
It would not be out of turn to say that it is the British of the colonial past that brought down thousands of Tamils from South India, a region in gripping poverty. They were brought for cheap labour to work in estates as labourers, rickshaw pullers, etc.
Later many more thousands crept in as illicit immigrants.
As such the British have a bounden duty to settle and assist by banning funding the LTTE in Britain. The British always fearlessly stand for justice and fairplay. All want peace.
Carl Nanayakkara,
Kalutara.
