Wednesday 17th February, 2021
The government has, true to form, sought to make light of severe environmental degradation caused by some of its development projects, and programmes to help the rural folk. Its ill-conceived scheme to promote traditional agriculture by releasing what it calls residual forests for farming has had a devastating impact on the country’s forest cover, which has decreased to an alarming 17%. Land grabbers are having a field day. They have encroached on the Sigiriya sanctuary as well on the pretext of growing crops.
Minister of Highways Johnston Fernando, speaking at a recent function to mark the launch of an irrigation project, lashed out at environmentalists. He seems to consider them a nuisance. What he ought to realise is that the proposed irrigation reservoirs will invariably fail for want of water if the country’s forest cover recedes further. He should know the value of trees more than anyone else because his electorate, Kurunegala, is in the Nort
“The sleep of reason produces monsters.”
–
rd etching in the Los Caprichos series)
The tyranny of unreason does not stop at the borders of politics. It spreads its tentacles to every aspect of human life. In his first post-Trump media briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci provided a telling summation of the existential costs of Trumpism. “The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence what the science is,” the immunologist said, “…it is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”
It is a sentiment many a medical practitioner in Sri Lanka would understand.
Days after Donald Trump left the White House, hopefully forever, Sri Lanka’s Health Minister was diagnosed with Covid-19. Even in a cabinet of outstanding ineligibles, Pavithra Wanniarachchi stood out, a peerless yes-woman who seemed to promote disease rather than health. On the behest of her masters, she obfuscated the gravity of the pandemic, ignored scientific opinion, punished medical doct
Sajith Slaps Voters, Activists In The Face: Appoints Rajapaksa Ideologue Dayan J As International Relations Advisor
Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa delivered a resounding slap in the face to civil society representatives and the Tamil constituency that got behind his presidential candidacy in 2019, when he appointed former Rajapaksa Ambassador Dr Dayan Jayatilleka as his international affairs observer on Tuesday (5).
The SJB released a photo soon after the appointment was made, where Jayatilleka was shaking hands with Sajith Premadasa, while SJB MPs Eran Wickremaratne and Dr Harsha de Silva stood beside them. Both opposition legislators are advocates of a liberal economic policy and reform antithetical to Jayatilleka’s positions on same issues. Ironically Jayatilleka has also been a vocal critic of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs when Dr Harsha De Silva was Deputy Foreign Minister.
Posted on December 29th, 2020
Courtesy Hiru News Prof. Jennifer Perera, the Chairman of the expert committee appointed to determine the course of action to be taken regarding the corpses of people who have died due to coronavirus infection, has submitted its report to the Ministry of Health.
Steps were taken to appoint a new nine-member expert committee to give an opinion on whether the bodies of those who died after being infected with the virus should be cremated or buried.
The report of the expert committee chaired by Prof. Jennifer Perera was handed over to the Ministry of Health yesterday afternoon. br br Hiru news team was informed that the decision of the report of the expert committee has been an unanimous decision regarding the course of action to be taken regarding the dead bodies.
The panic on the COVID-19 threat has totally eclipsed many issues that would have otherwise become hot issues. Main among them is Tamil nationalistic politics. Some others are the plight of the United National Party (UNP) and the bickering within the Ape Jana Bala Pakshaya or the Our Peoples Power Party (OPPP) led by Ven. Athureliye Rathana thera and Ven. Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thera.
The UNP which was the ruling party when Sri Lanka gained Independence and the OPPP, an unknown party until the previous parliamentary election had lost in all districts at that election yet managed to secure one national list seat each. But both the parties, one which was generally known as the Grand Old Party in Sri Lanka and the other which claimed to be the savior of the Sinhala Buddhist community in this country have pathetically failed to come out with a clear solution to the internal row over the appointment of a member to the solitary parliamentary seats they won.