The Medical Faculty Student Action Committee today (29) organised a march in Colombo demanding the stepping down of the President and the government.

The group walked to Colombo Fort and tried to enter the GotaGoGama agitation site in GalleFace.

The Police had set up roadblocks near the World Trade Centre and as the medical students attempted to remove the roadblocks and move forward, the Police launched tear gas and water cannons to dissolve the march.

MIAP

As the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) will continue to back the comprehensive 21st Amendment to the Constitution it adapted, an amendment bidding the will of the Rajapaksas are being formulated by the government, Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa alleged, speaking to a programme held by the Party with the Gampaha and Galle District Social Media Media activists at the Opposition Leader’s Office in Colombo today (29).

While the first step of the necessity to abolish the Executive is being taken, some opportunists are working to protect the Rajapaksas, Premadasa went on, adding that conspiracies against the full-fledged 21A tabled by SJB Secretary General Ranjith Madduma Bandara as a private MP motion should be reversed immediately.

It is the country’s objective and demand to send the Rajapaksas home but certain groups are attempting to protect them, he added.

MIAP

In its heydays, Radio Ceylon had managed to capture all of India’s major vernacular markets, by dividing the day’s programming schedule into Hindi, Tamil and Telugu segments.

New Delhi: Long before the age of podcasts and audio streaming, the radio saw its own version of the Cola Wars in India from the 1950s to the 1970s. One was the hometown favourite, All India Radio (AIR), which remains a mainstay on the airwaves till today. But the other was a foreign radio service that managed to gain a foothold in India. It was South Asia’s oldest station and much like AIR, had colonial roots, down to its name — Radio Ceylon.

Established by the British Empire in Colombo on 16 December 1925, Radio Ceylon functioned as a news service for the Allied forces during the Second World War and came under the control of the Ceylon government after the country’s independence in 1949.

By the time the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation took over following its establishment in 1972, Radio Ceylon had already cultivated a large fanbase stretching well beyond Sri Lanka’s borders into the rest of South Asia, including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal, but especially in India.

It had an array of iconic announcers, polyglot presenters and diverse music and entertainment programming, but that was not its secret to its success. Instead, it was its vast library and material collections that allowed it to dominate South Asian airwaves.

“Radio Ceylon had the largest library of gramophone records, of Hindi, Punjabi, Pakistan, Nepalese songs, as well as instrumentals and English songs, a collection the likes of which you couldn’t find anywhere else,” says Ripusudan Kumar Ailawadi, a former newsreader for AIR in Bhopal who relocated to Colombo from 1977 to 1980 to work for the rival station.

“Our records rotated at 78RPM, with Extended Plays (EPs) at 45RPM and full-length Long Play albums (LPs) at 33RPM, using magnetic tape storage. It was thanks to this record collection and library that presenters like Ameen Sayani were able to successfully broadcast Binaca Geetmala and other music shows,” Ailawadi added, referencing the crown jewel of Radio Ceylon’s programming, for Hindi audiences.

In its heydays, Radio Ceylon had managed to capture all of India’s major vernacular markets, by dividing the day’s programming schedule into Hindi, Tamil and Telugu segments — to name a few — and even found room for children’s shows on Sunday afternoons, which were initially spearheaded by the likes of legendary presenters Vernon Corea and Greg Roskowski before Ailawadi got involved.

While former diplomat and high-profile long-time listener Nirupama Rao had claimed that she first heard English-language music such as The Beatles thanks to Radio Ceylon, others said that they learnt Hindi thanks to the station’s popular programs, according to Ameen Sayani’s son, Rajil.

The ‘real reason’ behind its meteoric rise

Radio Ceylon’s meteoric rise in popularity among Indian listeners perhaps benefitted most from the restrictive policies of then-Information and Broadcasting minister BV Keskar, an observation documented by Calcutta University’s Department of Museology associate professor Mahua Chakrabarti. The minister had banned film music on AIR in 1952, deeming it too risque and crass.

“The attempt was forcefully executed with a refusal of the public to go along with it,” Sayani said.

“When people found out they could hear Hindi film music on ‘Radio Ceylon’, they started getting fed up of AIR and started shifting to ‘Radio Ceylon,’” Chakrabarti wrote.

She notes that the initial years of Radio Ceylon’s foray into the Indian market were amateurish and unprofessional, but it didn’t take long for the station to overcome its ‘teething problems’ and surpass AIR during the 1950s-70s period. While Hindi listeners enjoyed radio hosts Sayani or Manohar Mahajan, Tamil listeners both in Jaffna and Madras had the privilege of hearing Mayilvaganam.

“Mayilvaganam’s silken voice, with his singsong Jaffna Tamil diction, captivated the ears of Indian listeners. Between them [English-language presenter Jimmy Barucha], Sayani and Mayilvaganam opened up the listeners’ sensitivities to the finer elements that transcended mundane facts,” V.S. Sambandan wrote in The Hindu.

On the whole, Ailawadi believes that within his tenure, he observed and was involved in Radio Ceylon’s pioneering shows that bigger television networks in India have since appropriated.

“Doordarshan’s Newstrack was a copy of our show Radio Patrika, while Rajat Sharma lifted from S. Kumar ka Filmy Muqaddama to create Aap ki Adalat, and many music countdown shows are imitations of Binaca Geetmala,” Ailawadi asserted.

According to long-time fan and retired bank clerk Piyush Mehta, Radio Ceylon also benefitted from AIR banning Kishore Kumar songs during the Emergency as listeners turned to the Sri Lankan station to continue enjoying their favourite artist.

Impact of Sri Lankan Civil war on Radio Ceylon

But Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) underwent political turmoil of its own in the late 60s and early 1970s. Affected by linguistic controversy and bouts of violence that later led to the protracted Sri Lankan Civil War, broadcasting was temporarily ceased in Tamil Nadu as a result of the rise of Dravidian parties and Sri Lankan Tamil separatism.

“On August 14, 1970, a report was published announcing that the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation would progressively reduce and ultimately stop playing South Indian film music…In two weeks, Radio Ceylon banned songs penned by famous Tamil poet Subramania Bharathi. According to Sutantarian, a weekly published by the Federal Party of Tamils, the line in a song that went…’we will build a bridge across the sea (to Ceylon)’ made the Lankan authorities deeply uncomfortable,” Nitya Menon wrote in The Hindu.

Apart from these external issues, AIR by this time had launched its own competitor programme in Vividh Bharati, which Ailawadi considers to be the real kicker to Radio Ceylon’s dwindling revenues in India by the late 1970s.

“The Ceylon administration was now disappointed by the lack of money coming from India. Some advertising clients like Lux came for small radio spots but they also shifted to Vividh Bharati as they got better deals.”

Ailawadi broke his contract with Radio Ceylon and returned to India in 1980 due to spikes in violence related to the civil war — severing one of the last links the station had to its Indian market.

Forty years later, Radio Ceylon lives on through its mobile app, YouTube archives and the popular memory of fans like Mehta who interviewed several former Ceylon announcers and created a Facebook fan community group to document the station’s best works online. Ailawadi, on the other hand, laments the lack of recognition received from the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation for his contributions, having “earned so much money for them”.

(Edited by Monami Gogoi)

ThePrint

The crude oil price in the global market is once again indicating a surge, marking the highest price after three months.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has reportedly exceeded US$ 119 and a barrel of WTI crude oil, over US$ 115.

Last time, the price of a crude oil barrel was less than US$ 110.

MIAP

Former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, former Minister Namal Rajapaksa and several other government figures have been summoned to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) in connection with the investigations into the May 09 assault, where a group of pro-Rajapaksa protesters brutally attacked the then 30-day peaceful protest held in GalleFace.

Former Ministers Rohitha Abeygunawardena and Johnston Fernando and Minister Ramesh Pathirana have also been summoned to appear in the HRCSL next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police (IGP) C.D. Wickramaratne and Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police in (SDIG) in charge of the Western Province Deshabandu Thennakoon have also been summoned to appear in the HRCSL next Thursday.

MIAP

A general election is expected to be held in the first quarter of 2023, most likely in March, sources said.

As of February next year, the President will be given the power to dissolve Parliament and he is likely to do so upon being given the power.

A number of parties are of the argument that the people should be empowered to dissolve Parliament and elect a new one, but the President will not be given the power to dissolve Parliament until the completion of a period of two and a half years since the current Parliament convened.

Meanwhile, sources further claimed that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) is preparing to regain power before any Parliament dissolution, and the current Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is likely to be ousted before the end of this year in a move to form a single SLPP-led government once again, ignoring the islandwide protests demanding the stepping down of the corrupt regime.

MIAP

Sri Lanka’s first and largest general oral solid and liquid dosage pharmaceutical manufacturing facility with state-of the-art WHO GMP and EU GMP compliance  has commenced its commercial production at Pitipana  in Homagama recently. ,

Morison Ltd., one of the pioneers of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Sri Lanka since 1959, announced the commencement of commercial production at its state-of the-art factory unveiled in late 2020.

The factory marked the launch of commercial production by manufacturing and releasing its 1^st commercial batches of Chlorphenamine Oral Solution and Paracetamol 500mg tablets to the market on the 26^th of May.

Marking a new era in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka, with a commitment to increase access of high quality yet affordable medicines, Morison’s investment of Rs 4 billion in its new state-of-the-art pharmaceutical research and manufacturing facility, is  the highest  investment to date in the local pharma manufacturing industry, company officials said.  

The facility,  the first general oral solid and liquid dosage manufacturing plant in Sri Lanka, built as per European Union-Good Manufacturing Practice (EU-GMP) specifications and Quality Management Systems, has a capacity to manufacture over 5 Bn tablets and 2 Mn litres of liquid during two shifts,  which can cater up to 40% of the national demand.

Dinesh Athapaththu, Managing Director of Morison Limited said that . “With the launch of commercial production at the new facility, Morison continues its 60-year long mission to offer the highest quality products at affordable prices to Sri Lankans. 

 Living up to its purpose, Morison recently launched the 1^st locally manufactured SGLT-2, a new generation Diabetes molecule – Empagliflozin at a cost that is approximately 50% lesser than the prevailing market prices. According to the company, it is also working on a new product pipeline which will include some of the latest therapies predominantly in diabetic, cardiovascular and vitamin segments.

Further, leveraging the long-lasting relationships of the Hemas Group, Morison has signed up for contract manufacturing arrangements with a few leading regional pharmaceutical companies, which will be operationalized during the year.

Morison is hopeful that it can make a step change in the pharma manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka while helping to save much needed forex at this juncture and eventually build an export business.