Implications of the cultural crisis of Sri Lanka

(July 30, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's rulers are entangled in a knot of cultural issues in a multiplity of sectors and taking various measures according to their whims and fancies creating a vicious circle.

In one scenario, the government has decided to ban the 'adults only' movies even for the adults of Sri Lanka. Before that, the government also initiated legal action against 12 websites the CID had identified containing 'obscene' material. It was not clear why these sites were handpicked among the hundreds of the thousands of websites of that genre. Some critics said that they were the mostly visited sites by the CID officials.

Meanwhile, the state-sponsored commodity worship that is highly exhibited via the ways the mobile phones are used in Sri Lanka took the life of a grade 9 student of Museus Girls' College, a leading private school in Colombo city. The girl was caught by school prefects with a mobile phone in her possession and the sources say that it contained some 'obscene' images. The embarrassed girl hanged herself in a school toilet and was admitted to hospital to succumb a day after.

The Ministry of Education issued a circular banning mobile phones in schools by students.

Meanwhile, the education sector came under severe criticism with the great number of errors in the mid-year test papers provided by the Education Departments of the Provincial Councils. The test papers were full of errors and the testing process also had many faults. Media and the critics pointed the fingers to the highly politicized bureaucracy in the education sector. The government is completely failing to uphold the standards of the education sector since most of the administrators and the senior educators are counter-productive political henchmen.

The government's 'pious' policy is questioned also in its war against the underworld goons sparing one section that is known run by a notorious Minister close to the highest echelon of the rule. Many criminals including the underworld goons are being killed by police and the 'unknown groups' while the people have resorted to street justice against certain offenders.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Justice is polishing the old dialogue on the need of the implementation of the death penalty. Sinhala Buddhist religious leaders are also backing this policy that is condemned by the civilized world. They are ignoring the non-violent principles of the Lord Buddha as they did in many other cases also.

In this context, no wonder they are cruel to elephants as media reported two elephant cubs that were forcibly separated from their mothers living in Pinnawala elephant orphanage had been chained in a garage in Temple of Tooth in Kandy. The reports angered the chief prelates of the Buddhist Malwaththa and Siyam chapters and they accused the environmentalists that raise voice against cruelty against animals are the elements against the Buddhist cultural practices like holding parades for which the elephants are needed. Sri Lanka has only 120 tamed elephants while 90 of them are aged and the cabinet had approved offering the two elephant cubs, the chief prelates said in a statement.

Demilitarize media to bring democracy to society

(July 03, 2009) On the day, the Working Sri Lanka Journalists' Association secretary Poddala Jayantha was abducted and assaulted, while having a discussion with the media organizations, the President Mahinda Rajapakse proposed the journalists to settle the conflicts among them, reported Ravaya editor-in-chief Victor Ivan.

He meant the conflict between the pro-war and anti-war journalists. Anti-war journalists are today branded as the Tiger associates by the victorious pro-war media.

This phenomenon is reflected once again with an incident reported by Sunanda Deshapriya in the Freedom of Expression Sri Lanka blog. The title of the post is 'Death threats to Ravaya journalist from Divaina editor.' (You can read it by clicking the headline.)

We do not think the Army Commander or any other authority is naive enough to take any journalists tale readily and to punish a person swiftly. The problem remains among the journalists themselves. Sri Lankan journalists have to cultivate the patience to tolerate diverse opinions. They who criticize others should be able to bear criticism on them as well. Pens should be dealt with pens and not by guns.

First step to bring democracy to Sri Lankan society is to demilitarize the media persons. One party in Sri Lanka has already been demilitarized with the defeat of the Tamil nationalist militant movement.According to Ravaya editor Victor Ivan, the defeated party is also similar to the victorious.

Health authorities on high alert to control spread of communicable diseases in refugee camps in Sri Lanka

Due to fear of dangerous outbreaks of communicable diseases in crowded Tamil refugee camps northern Sri Lanka, surveillance by the Ministry of Health staff has been strengthened. The greatest disease outbreak reported so far was chickenpox, with more than 12,000 cases, but those numbers had since been decreasing, a UN report say. Medical officers working with the displaced suspect that most of the chickenpox patients contracted the disease before they arrived in camps.

The number of new cases reported is steadily declining and admissions to hospitals are 40–50 patients per day, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed on 19 June.

“In Vavuniya, the number of Hepatitis A cases is also declining. A total of 2,139 cases were reported as at 12 June,” the report added.

Until 18 June, 1,060 cases of dysentery and more than 5,000 cases of diarrhoea had been reported from the camps,the UN says.

Until 19 June, only 29 cases of malaria had been reported, but health officials initiated a high alert when two cases were reported on 18 June from zone 4 in Menik Farm.

Fate of the 10,000 insurgent suspects yet to be determined by Sri Lanka state

"Human rights watchers have estimated that close to 10,000 post-war detainees with suspected links to the Tamil Tigers are being held at government safe houses even as screening of war-displaced persons continues in camps in Vavuniya," writes Satarupa Bhattacharjya to Sunday Times of Sri Lanka on June 28, 2009. Over 270,000 displaced people from Vanni are held in these camps.



Sri Lanka state does not consider these persons as political prisoners or prisoners of war but terrorists. Their fate remains still undetermined while several thousands more persons suspected of abetting terror acts are languishing in detention or remand for years due to slow legal process.


"Between March and May 2009, ICRC delegates held private interviews with more than 6,700 security detainees in nearly 135 government-run places of detention throughout the country and provided them with clothes, toiletries and recreational items. The ICRC supported the families of some 1,400 detainees to visit their detained relatives," reported Relief Web.

The government granted amnesty to most of the rebels of 1989 insurrection led by People's Liberation Front (JVP) in a rehabilitation process that stretched for some years while some insurgents were tried for criminal offences. However, the top and middle level leadership was eliminated and the present situation is also similar to 1989 era.  

Sri Lanka tourism: "Small Miracle" shown as "Land like No other" gone

Aiming to revive the tourist industry of Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the devastating civil war, Sri Lanka Tourism officially launched its new logo and tagline “Sri Lanka Small Miracle”, ushering in a new era for Sri Lanka Tourism.

The new brand of Sri Lanka Tourism was conceptualized following months of research by A C Nielson, and strategic planning sessions intended to replace the current tagline “Sri Lanka, Land like No other”. As part of the communication campaign, many promotions, road shows and press conferences were planned across fifteen cities in ten countries leading up to the local launch- a move that is expected to attract and generate more tourists into the island.

Leading up to the rebranding, Sri Lanka Tourism launched an island wide programme in May titled, “Making of the Small Miracle”. The main objective of this programme was to get all Sri Lankans to be a part of the rebranding. Local communities were asked to provide pictures, artifacts, and other collectibles that they believed was a good example of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Tourism ended this programme successfully last week, having collected thousands of items.
The collectibles were displayed at an exhibition on the day of the launch while some of the best items were used by the communication agency for the new print campaign.

Coinciding with the new brand launch, all communication material of Sri Lanka Tourism have been revamped .The website was re-launched with a new look and feel in keeping with the brand strategy while brochures with eight different themes unique to Sri Lanka have also been printed. Posters, stationary and other memorabilia will be available.

In addition a new print campaign will be launched in prominent international trade magazines as well as TV campaigns on BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and Discovery Travel & Living. To mark the launch, Sri Lanka Tourism introduced value additional offers for tourists. A postcard campaign will be launched the day after the rebranding, where 250,000 post cards will be distributed while a discount booklet campaign will also launched with over 50 discount offers in a booklet. 10 postcards and a discount booklet will be bundled together and packed in a gift box and handled over to tourists arriving in Sri Lanka from June 24thfor a period of one month.

In addition, a cyber competition for the blogging community is planned to be launched for six months beginning this week.A radio campaign to promote lesser known places in Sri Lanka was also launched locally through Narambamu Sri Lanka – the domestic campaign.

A commemorative stamp was launched at a Press Conference which symbolized the new brand- Small Miracle.Meanwhile addressing the guests and media via a live feed from Temple Trees at the launch of Small Miracle at the BMICH, His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared 2011 as a “Visit Sri Lanka Year”. In keeping with this theme, a series of activities and events have been planned in 2011 to lure in more tourists to the island.

President Rajapaksa in his address stated that “Having regained peace, my vision for development of tourism has become a reality. Every effort will be made and all resources will be provided to Sri Lanka Tourism to meet the target of 2.5 million tourists by 2016, as envisaged in the tourism strategic plan”