Bandula ready for public debate

Wednesday, 28 March 2012 20:22,Daily mirror

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardene said today said he was ready for a public debate to prove that a family of three could survive with a monthly income of Rs.7500.

He told a news conference he would meet anyone with a sound knowledge of economics to disprove what he said.

Mr. Gunawardene said his argument was that a small family could survive on Rs.7,500 a month and pointed out that school hostels spend only Rs.2,500 to feed a student for a month.

The minister who used to be an economics teacher said a family spends only 41 per cent of the monthly income for food and the rest is spent on clothes and to pay utility bills.

He said this is what is computed by the Colombo Consumer Price Index which works out the average income of a family and their spending patterns.
The minister said his argument was based on sound economic principals and he could prove it any time. (Yohan Perera)

Agro chemicals damage environment, health

March 28, 2012, 10:01 pm

By Maheesha Mudugamuwa, The Island.

Agro chemicals have already done plenty of harm to environment and become a major cause of many non-communicable diseases in Sri Lanka, Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute Director Lalith Kantha Jayasekara told The Island Yesterday (28).

According to world statistics, agriculture mortality rates have remained consistently high throughout the world in the last decade in contrast to other dangerous occupations. Farm workers are at a very high risk of occupational diseases due to exposure to pesticides due to inadequate education, training and safety systems, he said.

"The pesticide laced foods we eat, the smokestack befouled air we breathe and the petrochemical based products we use negatively affect our quality of life," Jayasekara said.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Ministry Secretary W. A. Sakalasooriya said that ministry has taken steps to manufacture 50,000 MT of organic fertilizers this year to increase crop productivity, improve soil fertility and reduce chemical fertilizer imports.

He added that the Government was investing about Rs. 500 million a year for that purpose and had also made a Rs. 500 million allocation for organic farming last year. The allocation is made not only to make organic fertiliser but also to train farmers on how to make organic fertiliser and popularise organic farming.

By increasing the organic fertilizer the government can save valuable foreign exchange spent to import chemical fertilizer, Sakalasooriya said.

The Ministry has also conducted a large number of organic fertiliser projects around the country. The Organic Fertiliser Promotion Centre was established in Weligama recently at a cost of Rs. 4.5 million by the Agriculture ministry. The main objective of the establishment of this organic fertilizer centre is to encourage people to grow fruits and vegetables free from chemicals.

Driving children to suicide? Who is responsible?

March 28, 2012, 7:53 pm , The Island.


Your editorial of March 27, ‘Driving children to suicide?’ is indeed praiseworthy. I wish to congratulate Prof. Chandrika Jayasinghe, a junior colleague mine on her excellent article in The Island of March 23 on this subject where she had made use of her own experience as a mother of her young daughter as well as a medical teacher. She belongs to a rare breed of medical professionals in this country who write regularly to the press (mainly in The Island news paper) on current issues thereby exhibiting her social conscience and therefore her intense patriotism.

My intention is not to delve into the psychological, social and medical consequences of the current education system which has been dealt adequately by your editorial as well as Prof. Jayasinghe’s letter. I wish to consider some possible causes and identify who is responsible for this malady. It is certainly not the child who is at fault but most of the blame should be borne by the parents themselves as well as the educational authorities who in turn are dictated by the politicians. The politicians have seen to that the economic development of our country do not percolate down to all sections of the society. They perpetually keep them undereducated and therefore misinformed so that hey could be fooled by exotic promises made at an election time. The upcountry Tamil politicians have done it so effectively so that the economic standards of the estate sector have not appreciably improved during the past several decades. While most of their children are being educated abroad, it is the children of the poor and the middle classes who have to compete for the limited resources that are available to them and it is so intense that it has become a do-or-die battle for some of them. The farmer or the carpenter or the manual labourer does not wish his child to follow the same vocation and the only avenue left for them to advance their future is based on a sound education. In this respect it has been shown by recent reports that most children who commit or attempt suicide belong to the lower social classes.

The parents are at fault since it is they who drive and push these children to unattainable goals since all children are not made intellectually equal. They do not recognize the potential of a child to train for a profession that the child would be good at. Instead every parent wants his or her child to be a doctor, an engineer or an accountant or a lawyer since that is where future economic stability lies. In contrast children of rich families are aware of the fact that it doesn’t matter what educational stream he chooses as he knows well that he will some day inherit the fortunes of their parents. The second reason why the parents are at fault is it is they who ultimately vote for the politicians to come to power and enrich themselves at the expense of those who elected them.

Prof. Upali Illangasekera,
Professor in Medicine,
University of Peradeniya

FUTA (Pera) condemns SB’s statement

March 28, 2012, 10:18 pm

By Cyril Wimalasurendre, The Island.

KANDY: The Federation of University Teachers’ Association’s Peradeniya Branch totally rejected and condemned a statement purported to have been made by Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake recently that the security personnel of the Peradeniya University were supplying ganja (cannabis) to university students.

A statement released by the FUTA Peradeniya Branch under the signatures of the President D. P. Abeyratne and Secretary A. S. Liyanage yesterday (28) said that Minister Dissanayake had made an unreasonable and undue accusation.

"What we observe from the statement is that he is making a vicious attempt to ridicule the entire university student population through the security personnel that they are addicts to intoxicants such as drugs and cannabis and create the impression in the public that the university students are a set of vagabonds, and thereby promote the private university concept," the release adds.

The release has highlighted the valuable service rendered by the university security personnel under trying conditions with a sense of responsibility and coordination.