Posted by Hello
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Dispelling shadows of darkness: Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa addresses the meeting on CEB reforms at the Temple Trees on Friday. (From Left) Power and Energy Minister Susil Premjayantha, Treasury Secretary P. B. Jayasundera, the Prime Minister, ADB Country Director Alessandros Pio and other ADB officials. CEB trade union representatives were also present.
Posted by Hello
Posted by Hello
Donor forum tomorrow
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga will inaugurate the Sri Lanka Development Forum at the Earl's Regency Hotel Kandy tomorrow Monday 16.
This is the first time this important international donor forum is meeting in Sri Lanka, thus providing an opportunity for the international donor representatives to acquaint themselves with Sri Lanka's economic performance at close range. The forum will also provide the people with an opportunity to have a better insight into its nature and proceedings.
Around 200 delegates from the international donor agencies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Japan Bank of International Cooperation and other funding agencies are expected to participate in this two-day forum.
The welcome address will be made by Finance and Planning Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama. World Bank's Vice President Praful Patel will make a speech on development partners. Sessions 1 and 2 on May 16 will be on post-tsunami. The venue for the conference will be at Mahaweli Reach Hotel in Kandy.
Registration of delegates for the Sri Lanka Development Forum -2005 will take place at the Mahaweli Reach Hotel, Kandy at 4.30.p.m. today, followed by a reception and a cultural show organised by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board at 6.30 p.m. The opening ceremony at the Earl's Regency Hotel Kandy will be from 9 a.m. to 10.00 a.m. tomorrow, Monday.
Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation, (TAFREN) Chairman Mano Tittawella will speak on needs, assessment and the reconstruction strategy. TAFREN Director Mahesh Amalean on implementation, monitoring and district capacity issues.
Ministry of Finance and Planning, External Resources Department Director General Sujatha Cooray, representatives from TAFREN and Government Agents in Matara, Trincomalee and Mullaitivu will address the forum.
Among speakers listed to address the third session on May 17, are Central Bank's Governor Sunil Mendis, Treasury Secretary and National Council for Economic Development (NCED) Chairman Dr. P.B. Jayasundera.
Senior DIG Ranges III, Jayantha Wickramaratne who is in charge of the overall security operations said that a joint security operation has been launched with assistance from the Special Task Force (STF), the Ministerial Security Division (MSD), Presidential Security Division (PSD) and the Kandy Police to ensure the safety of the delegates.
Around 800-1000 policemen from all ranks have been detailed for duties connected with the conference. The Army too will be in readiness to assist the Police in case of an emergency. During the conference most roads in Kandy will be kept open.
However the movement of traffic will be restricted due to road blocks and traffic diversions to enable delegates to travel about without hinderance. Several mobile patrols too will be deployed for security work. DIG Central Province Nimal Mediwake and SSP Kandy Guneratna Banda will be in charge of the security arrangements.
This is the first time this important international donor forum is meeting in Sri Lanka, thus providing an opportunity for the international donor representatives to acquaint themselves with Sri Lanka's economic performance at close range. The forum will also provide the people with an opportunity to have a better insight into its nature and proceedings.
Around 200 delegates from the international donor agencies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Japan Bank of International Cooperation and other funding agencies are expected to participate in this two-day forum.
The welcome address will be made by Finance and Planning Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama. World Bank's Vice President Praful Patel will make a speech on development partners. Sessions 1 and 2 on May 16 will be on post-tsunami. The venue for the conference will be at Mahaweli Reach Hotel in Kandy.
Registration of delegates for the Sri Lanka Development Forum -2005 will take place at the Mahaweli Reach Hotel, Kandy at 4.30.p.m. today, followed by a reception and a cultural show organised by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board at 6.30 p.m. The opening ceremony at the Earl's Regency Hotel Kandy will be from 9 a.m. to 10.00 a.m. tomorrow, Monday.
Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation, (TAFREN) Chairman Mano Tittawella will speak on needs, assessment and the reconstruction strategy. TAFREN Director Mahesh Amalean on implementation, monitoring and district capacity issues.
Ministry of Finance and Planning, External Resources Department Director General Sujatha Cooray, representatives from TAFREN and Government Agents in Matara, Trincomalee and Mullaitivu will address the forum.
Among speakers listed to address the third session on May 17, are Central Bank's Governor Sunil Mendis, Treasury Secretary and National Council for Economic Development (NCED) Chairman Dr. P.B. Jayasundera.
Senior DIG Ranges III, Jayantha Wickramaratne who is in charge of the overall security operations said that a joint security operation has been launched with assistance from the Special Task Force (STF), the Ministerial Security Division (MSD), Presidential Security Division (PSD) and the Kandy Police to ensure the safety of the delegates.
Around 800-1000 policemen from all ranks have been detailed for duties connected with the conference. The Army too will be in readiness to assist the Police in case of an emergency. During the conference most roads in Kandy will be kept open.
However the movement of traffic will be restricted due to road blocks and traffic diversions to enable delegates to travel about without hinderance. Several mobile patrols too will be deployed for security work. DIG Central Province Nimal Mediwake and SSP Kandy Guneratna Banda will be in charge of the security arrangements.
Disciplining bus crews
The private bus transport sector in Sri Lanka is not regulated and managed well. For example owners of private buses are mostly individual businessmen and others engaged in full time employment. Often they lease buses and run them as an additional source of income to them. On the other hand route permits to operate on specific bus routes are issued on a political basis by politicians to their supporters.
Bus conductors and drivers do not receive any training at all, and specially the job of being a bus conductor is open to any person without skills training as there are no training requirements.
On the other hand bus crews are paid daily wages as per the income they generate on a particular day. If the bus crew brings in Rs. 3,000 (after settling diesel bills etc.) for the owner at the end of the day the driver and the conductor would be paid around Rs. 300. If they bring more than that they will earn more. If they collect lesser amounts no wages will be paid in order to motivate them to bring more income to the owner.
Sri Lanka's bus conductors and drivers do not have a dress code and they wear any thing acceptable to them. Usually they wear sarongs, shorts, trousers, t-shirts, shirts etc. Sometimes they wear slippers and often are bare footed. Bus crews do not think seriously about pleasant appearance thus hardly can you see a bus conductor who is neatly shaven with a good haircut. Thus sometimes it is an eyesore.
It is time that the government of Sri Lanka take steps to administer and regulate private bus transport sector in a professional way. For an example it is important to give on the job training to both bus conductors and bus drivers. For private bus conductors a "Diploma" may be organized and conducted in Sinhala and Tamil mediums.
This diploma may cover areas like, ethics and communications with commuters, commuter relations, cash management, basic skills in English, Sinhala and Tamil languages, social responsibility, soft skills scheme, etc. Bus drivers may also be given additional training in same areas. Also it is important that either a dress code or a uniform is introduced for them.
The present wage compensation for them results in fierce competition to earn a bigger collection at the end of the day. The bus accident in Alawwa was caused due to competition and trying to overtake another bus.
A wage system linked to the income earned per day will work for sectors like marketing of tangible goods, manufacturing sector (to encourage high out put) etc. But when this is introduced in a service industry like the transport service it results in disregard to the quality of the service offered to the commuters. Also commuter safety and pedestrian safety are risked. Thus the service standards will be lowered.
It is time for the government to constitute a "Wages Board" for private bus crews, under the Wages Boards Ordinance. Wages boards are tripartite bodies. They are constituted for sectors where employees do not have bargaining power to demand higher wages/salaries from their employers. The state can intervene through a negotiating mechanism. Such wages boards are presently constituted for private security guards, plantation workers etc.
Bus crews should be paid a fixed salary, and also they should be made members of the ETF, EPF and other social security schemes for which they are not covered at present. The Government of Sri Lanka should put an end to the practice of issuing route permits on a politicized basis.
Instead route permits should be given after careful analysis of the number of commuters in a specific area and also the population. Other wise too many route permits for one route as it happens now will result in fierce competitions among the bus crews to grab the commuters. This will do more harm than any good.
The Government must also make gazetted laws requiring bus owning individuals to form limited liability companies for their transport business rather than own buses on an individual basis.
This will ensure that the individuals concerned operate their transport business in a systematic way with more focus than the present way of individual ownership of buses. Government must strengthen regulatory powers and functions of the National Transport Commission.
Love ends up in murder
Nerosha was a vivacious sixteen year old girl when she first met her boy friend in their native village of Mabola Wattala sometime ago. It was love at first sight for the man despite their age differences. He was a 26 years old without employment living at his parents residence. Despite being unemployed he was hell bent on pressing Nerosha for an affair.
He was attracted to her like a moth being attracted to a flame. The girl however was bit cautious and wondered how he was going to look after her after marriage. While these thoughts crossed her mind, the man constantly made amorous overtures with the idea of trapping her down.
The affair dragged on for a couple of years but the girl still was reluctant to marry him. How was he going to support her without a job she thought. They met very often in Wattala town and went about on errands together. They also quarrelled often on marriage as nothing seemed to work for him. He was frightened to loose her for someone else and was terribly a frustrated man. He often discussed his personnel matters with his buddies. They often advised him to elope with his beloved one.
The man took their advise seriously and decided to elope with her one fine day. He told his parents about the idea of bringing home his sweet heart. The parents vehemently opposed the idea but were helpless as theywere scared of him. So the man schemed and plotted to abduct her while she is out home.
The girl was unemployed and was confined to her home. He kept a constant vigil on her movements. Some where in January this year when Nerosha was on her way to Wattala town she was bundled into her a three wheeler taxi and whisked away to an annex which he had rented a week earlier.
She was kept in the annex but was not free to to go about as she pleased. He even threatened to kill her if she walked out of the annex to complain to her parents. Meanwhile the Wattala police launched an investigation four months ago into a complaint of abduction made by the girl's parents.
According to Wattala OIC Inspector Dharmasiri Fernando there was a case of abduction pending before in courts. While the couple continued to live in the annex at Wattala, the land lord allegedly raped the girl while her paramour was away from home.
The girl complained to Wattala police about the rape and the couple shifted to her man's parental house. The parents however left the house in disgust as they could not tolerate her presence. However when things became difficult for them to eke out a living, the girl found a job in a garment factory close by. But things changed quickly when he suspected the woman to have tryst with a three wheeler driver. One fine day he saw her talking to her in an intimate manner.
That evening when she came home after work he insisted her to reveal every thing about her affair with the three wheeler driver. This eventually led to a heated argument and the man stabbed his girl with a kitchen knife. The knife cut a deep wound on her back and blood was oozing off her body.
The man having grabbed her then put her in three wheeler and rushed her to Ragama hospital with the help of two friends. On the way to Ragama hospital the suspect alighted from the three wheeler and instructed his friends to admit her to hospital.
Meanwhile the two friends took her to hospital and the doctor who examined the patient told then that she was dead already. The two friends later told Wattala police what took place and the suspect was subsequently arrested hidding in a house at Dematagoda.
Further inquiries are being made by OIC Wattala IP, Dharmasiri Fernando.
He was attracted to her like a moth being attracted to a flame. The girl however was bit cautious and wondered how he was going to look after her after marriage. While these thoughts crossed her mind, the man constantly made amorous overtures with the idea of trapping her down.
The affair dragged on for a couple of years but the girl still was reluctant to marry him. How was he going to support her without a job she thought. They met very often in Wattala town and went about on errands together. They also quarrelled often on marriage as nothing seemed to work for him. He was frightened to loose her for someone else and was terribly a frustrated man. He often discussed his personnel matters with his buddies. They often advised him to elope with his beloved one.
The man took their advise seriously and decided to elope with her one fine day. He told his parents about the idea of bringing home his sweet heart. The parents vehemently opposed the idea but were helpless as theywere scared of him. So the man schemed and plotted to abduct her while she is out home.
The girl was unemployed and was confined to her home. He kept a constant vigil on her movements. Some where in January this year when Nerosha was on her way to Wattala town she was bundled into her a three wheeler taxi and whisked away to an annex which he had rented a week earlier.
She was kept in the annex but was not free to to go about as she pleased. He even threatened to kill her if she walked out of the annex to complain to her parents. Meanwhile the Wattala police launched an investigation four months ago into a complaint of abduction made by the girl's parents.
According to Wattala OIC Inspector Dharmasiri Fernando there was a case of abduction pending before in courts. While the couple continued to live in the annex at Wattala, the land lord allegedly raped the girl while her paramour was away from home.
The girl complained to Wattala police about the rape and the couple shifted to her man's parental house. The parents however left the house in disgust as they could not tolerate her presence. However when things became difficult for them to eke out a living, the girl found a job in a garment factory close by. But things changed quickly when he suspected the woman to have tryst with a three wheeler driver. One fine day he saw her talking to her in an intimate manner.
That evening when she came home after work he insisted her to reveal every thing about her affair with the three wheeler driver. This eventually led to a heated argument and the man stabbed his girl with a kitchen knife. The knife cut a deep wound on her back and blood was oozing off her body.
The man having grabbed her then put her in three wheeler and rushed her to Ragama hospital with the help of two friends. On the way to Ragama hospital the suspect alighted from the three wheeler and instructed his friends to admit her to hospital.
Meanwhile the two friends took her to hospital and the doctor who examined the patient told then that she was dead already. The two friends later told Wattala police what took place and the suspect was subsequently arrested hidding in a house at Dematagoda.
Further inquiries are being made by OIC Wattala IP, Dharmasiri Fernando.
Khalid
News Today
Sri Lanka - has drawn up plans to helps millions of people plunged into poverty by the country's two decade civil war and the December tsunami, with a first-time study identifying the country's critical development needs. ``There are about 5 million people living in poverty in Sri Lanka - , perhaps more,'' the UNDP said quoting the report, noting that if statistics from districts affected by the two decade separatist war were available, poverty figures would be much higher.
The tsunami killed at least 31,000 people and displaced 1 million from their homes. The ethnic conflict, which began in 1983, killed 65,000 people and displaced 1.6 million most of them minority Tamils before a cease-fire was signed in 2002. Until the cease-fire there had been no development in the northeast, home to most of the country's 3.2 million Tamils.
The government study, the first of its kind, assesses the United Nations' target of halving poverty in Sri Lanka - by 2015 and will be the yardstick by which the country measures the success of long and short-term strategies.
The survey covers broad areas of development goals with focuses on the economy, aid flows, health and education, water, sanitation and the environment and infrastructure growth.
``Sri Lanka - has long been at the forefront of human development among developing countries. Access to health and education is widespread and the results have been impressive,'' said Miguel Bermeo, the UNDP's resident representative in Sri Lanka - .
``But the tsunami disaster and the two-decade internal conflict have raised tremendous challenges,'' Bermeo said.
Fast-track projects funded by foreign aid are expected to alleviate the impact of the tsunami on people who were affected.
The government's focus is on developing housing, roads, railways and other infrastructure and on generating job opportunities. But there has been criticism of the slow pace of building new housing in tsunami-affected areas, and the government and Tigers have yet to sign a deal allowing the guerrillas to receive foreign funding to speed up development.
``Persistent problems dogging the crucial plantation sector, the embattled regions of the north and east and other rural areas are set against a backdrop of steady progress in lowering infant and maternal mortality and achieving significant education goals for children,'' the UNDP said referring to some of the achievements of Sri Lanka - , home to 19 million people.
Despite the slow pace of development on some fronts, the island boasts high literacy rates with some 85 percent of youngsters between 6 and 10 years enrolled in school and high numbers of both girls and boys having access to free primary and secondary education.
The tsunami killed at least 31,000 people and displaced 1 million from their homes. The ethnic conflict, which began in 1983, killed 65,000 people and displaced 1.6 million most of them minority Tamils before a cease-fire was signed in 2002. Until the cease-fire there had been no development in the northeast, home to most of the country's 3.2 million Tamils.
The government study, the first of its kind, assesses the United Nations' target of halving poverty in Sri Lanka - by 2015 and will be the yardstick by which the country measures the success of long and short-term strategies.
The survey covers broad areas of development goals with focuses on the economy, aid flows, health and education, water, sanitation and the environment and infrastructure growth.
``Sri Lanka - has long been at the forefront of human development among developing countries. Access to health and education is widespread and the results have been impressive,'' said Miguel Bermeo, the UNDP's resident representative in Sri Lanka - .
``But the tsunami disaster and the two-decade internal conflict have raised tremendous challenges,'' Bermeo said.
Fast-track projects funded by foreign aid are expected to alleviate the impact of the tsunami on people who were affected.
The government's focus is on developing housing, roads, railways and other infrastructure and on generating job opportunities. But there has been criticism of the slow pace of building new housing in tsunami-affected areas, and the government and Tigers have yet to sign a deal allowing the guerrillas to receive foreign funding to speed up development.
``Persistent problems dogging the crucial plantation sector, the embattled regions of the north and east and other rural areas are set against a backdrop of steady progress in lowering infant and maternal mortality and achieving significant education goals for children,'' the UNDP said referring to some of the achievements of Sri Lanka - , home to 19 million people.
Despite the slow pace of development on some fronts, the island boasts high literacy rates with some 85 percent of youngsters between 6 and 10 years enrolled in school and high numbers of both girls and boys having access to free primary and secondary education.
Khalid
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)