In a country where there are innumerable children without a mobile device for online education, the children are subjected to a tremendous injustice, said Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa, speaking at the occasion of distributing digital computer screens and equipment for classrooms worth Rs. 750,000 at the Marawankulam Paradisan College, Vavuniya yesterday (07) under the ‘Sakwala’ program undertaken by the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).
The Opposition Leader noted that the rulers have a responsibility to provide education to the children of this country without any discrepancy.
Those gaining power by dividing the people in the country have no continuous existence, he emphasised, adding that a SJB government will work to protect human rights, civil rights, economic, social, cultural and religious rights, as well as human rights such as education, health and other social security rights.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa says that the relief was not given to the people with the intention of holding an election but considering the difficulties faced by the people due to the increase in commodity prices.
“Some people have a habit of asking when relief is given to the people, if an election is coming. As a government, we propose relief because it is difficult for the people when commodity prices rise. We always try to fulfill the promises made to the people even through challenges. When challenges come, unity is needed to accept that challenge.”
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said this while participating in the opening ceremony of the Mawathagama Water Supply Project yesterday (07).
Former Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi had allowed the appointment of new doctors as well as the annual transfers of doctors. The Government Medical Practitioners’ Association says that many doctors have been inconvenienced due to this and that there are many irregularities in the annual transfer list of grade medical officers prepared for the year 2021.
The association points out that the current medical transfer system, which was introduced in 2001, is an outdated system, with 11,000 of the 19,000 doctors employed by the Ministry of Health stationed in the Colombo, Gampaha and Kandy districts.
Accordingly, medical appointments and transfers should be freed from the clutches of trade union leaders and a new system should be introduced to suit the needs of the country, the union said.
Following is the full text of the statement issued by the Government Medical Practitioners Association (GMPA).
A man of about 50 years, walks to a vegetable shop in Savithripura, Anuradhapura, and in front of a few others who also have come to buy some vegetables, he asked the small shop owner whether he could borrow two raw papaya fruits from the shop owner’s garden, in order to feed his children who have been starving for two or three days. The surprised shop owner immediately obliged. It is one of the persons who was present that reported this matter.
Another lady in her 30s reported an incident which she has seen when she went to visit a neighbour’s house. The women of this house had made small rotis from 200 grams of flour since that was all she could manage to buy in terms of food for the day. She had given two of the small rotis to a young child and divided the balance roti to be shared between herself and her husband. Her husband is bedridden with serious kidney problems and under these circumstances, the family had no money to buy his medicines. These and several other stories were told by a group of persons from the area who were narrating what they themselves have been shocked to see in recent times.
Throughout the country, various groups including economists, persons from various political parties, and others are discussing the issue of the economic crisis faced by the country mainly due to the Dollar shortage, besides other reasons. There are many discussions in the media channels and talk shows where various kinds of discussions are being held on the impending crisis which is expected to make things much worse within a short time to come. Various kinds of discussions are also held about the possible solutions, for example, there are issues like whether to go to the International Monetary Fund to obtain a loan to deal with the present situation. Even Ministers sometimes join in, talking of the gravity of the situation.
However, what is not talked about publicly is the manner in which the people, particularly the lowest income groups, are coping up with the present situation. Their stories are not brought to the surface.
However, much more than abstract discussions on the issue of the economic crisis as well as the societal crises of every kind, what really will make the difference is by bringing the narratives of the actual circumstances of the manner in which the people cope up with their basic food necessities. Again, what is needed is not an abstract discussion on food availability or food security but a detailed account of how various families particularly within the lower income groups which constitute quite a larger part of the Sri Lankan population cope up with the food problems.
If these narratives are brought about, it is quite likely that some quick response could be made to alleviate this situation. We know from past experiences that such measures had been adopted and the acute forms of malnutrition had been brought down in Sri Lanka on several occasions.
One time when even the sending of children to schools became problematic due to the food problems faced by the children, there was the adoption of giving noon day meals for the children. Some politicians became even known popularly as Banis Mama – an uncle who gives bread, due to the advocacy of a policy of the alleviation of children’s hunger in order to encourage the children to come to schools.
In at least two other occasions, the Thriposha was manufactured and distributed particularly to women from lower income groups who were pregnant. According to reports, such measures proved adequate to prevent such ill effects of malnutrition such as the low weight of babies and also stunting.
It may not be a very attractive issue for journalists and media persons to interview those who are facing this kind of food issues and to report this to the public in a society where news often means reports about the political quarrels of political parties. The problems relating to the livelihood of the people, particularly, the problems of food and other basic necessities go unreported.
However, it is time that the actual situation of food security as experienced by the people be researched into by way of interviews and by other means and that these stories be told to the country as a whole.
While it may take a longer time to resolve the bigger problems relating to the economic crisis, the problems relating to the basic food needs, need to be addressed on an urgent basis. If the situation goes unnoticed, it is likely that under the growing crisis of the economy, there may be mass scale malnutrition and even starvation.
The All Ceylon Bakery Owners’ Association says that there will be a huge shortage of bread in the future due to the dollar shortage in the country.
“There will inevitably be a huge shortage of bread in the future. We had a discussion with the flour companies yesterday. They say we can give as much flour as we want, the problem is in dollars, they only get a 10% of the dollars they need. Ordinary people will have to face situations where they cannot get a loaf of bread even if they stay in a queue. It is a pity to say that a bundle of flour which was less than Rs. 5000 has gone up to Rs. 7500 yesterday ”
The President of the All Ceylon Bakery Owners’ Association N.K. Jayawardena stated this addressing a media briefing held yesterday (07).
Shop owners and restaurant owners also say that there is a shortage of wheat flour in the market at present.
Sidney Poitier, whose groundbreaking acting work in the 1950s and 60s paved the way for generations of Black film stars, has died aged 94. His death was announced on Friday by the minister of foreign affairs of the Bahamas, Fred Mitchell.
He added: “Sadness that he would no longer be here to tell him how much he means to us, but celebration that he did so much to show the world that those from the humblest beginnings can change the world and that we gave him his flowers while he was with us.
“We have lost an icon. A hero, a mentor, a fighter, a national treasure.”
Hollywood figures paid tribute to Poitier’s achievements. Oprah Winfrey posted a photo of herself with Poitier, adding: “The utmost, highest regard and praise for his most magnificent, gracious, eloquent life. I treasure him. I adored him. He had an enormous soul I will forever cherish.” Denzel Washington, the second Black actor to win the best actor Oscar, said in a statement: “It was a privilege to call Sidney Poitier my friend. He was a gentle man and opened doors for all of us that had been closed for years. God bless him and his family.”
Actor and director Tyler Perry wrote: “The grace and class that this man has shown throughout his entire life, the example he set for me, not only as a black man but as a human being will never be forgotten.” Whoopi Goldberg wrote: “If you wanted the sky I would write across the sky in letters that would soar a thousand feet high. To Sir… with Love. Sir Sidney Poitier R.I.P. He showed us how to reach for the stars.” Westworld star Jeffrey Wright called him “a landmark actor. One of a kind. What a beautiful, gracious, warm, genuinely regal man. RIP, Sir. With love.”
Actor Viola Davis added: “No words can describe how your work radically shifted my life. The dignity, normalcy, strength, excellence and sheer electricity you brought to your roles showed us that we, as Black folks, mattered!!!” Questlove, musician and director of Summer of Soul, wrote: “King Sidney. One of the greatest actors of his generation.”
Born to Bahamian parents while they were visiting Miami to sell tomatoes in 1927, Poitier grew up in the Bahamas – then a British colony – before returning to the US aged 15 and working at a series of low-paid jobs before briefly serving in the army during the second world war (and attempting to feign insanity to win a medical discharge).
Somewhat directionless, Poitier auditioned for the high-profile American Negro Theater, based in Harlem, and although he was rejected he worked hard to improve his acting skills – and to lose his Bahamian accent. After being allowed to attend classes, Poitier stepped in when Belafonte, then a star student, was unable to perform. Having been spotted by a Broadway director, Poitier subsequently carved out a nascent career in the Black theatre circuit of the period.Sidney Poitier: a life in pictures
Poitier then secured his first significant film role, in the 1950 film noir No Way Out, in which he played a hospital doctor whose racist patient (played by Richard Widmark) starts a race riot. With its overt depiction of racial conflict, No Way Out was considered too controversial to be shown in southern states, but established Poitier’s trademark persona as sensitive, forbearing figure, more intelligent than the white characters around him.
Though films examining the fraught state of race relations were popular at the time, there were still limited roles for Black actors in the US. As one of the few who had made an impact, Poitier then went to South Africa to shoot the British-produced adaptation of Cry, the Beloved Country; his experience of apartheid in there pushed him towards activism.
Poitier with Rod Steiger in a still from In the Heat of the Night. Photograph: Allstar/UNITED ARTISTS/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
Poitier’s breakthrough role came back in the US, with another social comment picture: Blackboard Jungle, in 1955, in which he played a rebellious high-school student. The film was a hit, with its use of Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock ensuring a large teenage audience; in the UK it inspired the infamous Elephant and Castle teddy boy riot of 1956.
Poitier continued to win plaudits: he played a dock worker who mentors John Cassavetes’ drifter in Edge of the City, and then secured an groundbreaking Oscar nomination as best actor for The Defiant Ones, the Stanley Kramer message movie about social cooperation in which he played a convict who escapes in the deep south while shackled to Tony Curtis. (Both Curtis and Poitier were nominated; they lost to David Niven for Separate Tables.)
He continued to take on ideologically charged roles, such as Porgy in Otto Preminger’s film of Porgy and Bess, and the lead in A Raisin in the Sun, the adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s much-admired play about family life in segregated Chicago. (Poitier had appeared in the same role in the original theatrical production in 1959.) He finally won his Oscar for the earnest drama Lilies of the Field in 1964; he played a handyman who helps a group of German nuns build a chapel in the Arizona desert.
Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy, Poitier’s best known directorial effort. Photograph: Allstar/COLUMBIA PICTURES
After the interracial romance A Patch of Blue (which, again, was censored in the south with scenes of Poitier kissing his white co-star Elizabeth Hartman being removed), Poitier would experience arguably his high-water mark as an actor in 1967, with three hit films. To Sir with Love, was a British-produced answer to Blackboard Jungle, featuring Judy Geeson and Lulu in its cast; In the Heat of the Night, directed by Norman Jewison, starred Poitier as shades-wearing detective Virgil Tibbs investigating a murder in a racist Mississippi town; and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, which again tackled the thorny subject of interracial romance.
However, despite two further Tibbs movies (They Call Me Mister Tibbs! in 1970 and The Organization the following year), Poitier suddenly found himself out of favour, as a more confrontational, politicised attitude gained traction in the wake of the civil rights struggle; Poitier responded by reinventing himself as a director. For his debut, Buck and the Preacher, he cast himself opposite Belafonte in a civil war western; but after that his directorial output would largely consist of comedy pieces. He cast then-hot comic Bill Cosby in Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let’s Do It Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action (1977) – though his best known directorial entry is arguably Stir Crazy, the 1980 jail comedy starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.
Poitier with Glenn Ford in 1955 teen hit Blackboard Jungle. Photograph: www.ronaldgrantarchive.com
Poitier largely retreated from cinema in the late 1980s and 1990s, directing Cosby in Ghost Dad and taking odd roles in the likes of surveillance thriller Sneakers; he assumed the role of elder statesman in both cinematic and diplomatic circles. Having been knighted in 1974 (due to his Bahamian citizenship), he was appointed Bahamas ambassador to Japan in 1997 and received an honorary Oscar in 2002. In 2009 he was awarded the presidential medal of freedom, and in 2016 a Bafta fellowship.A ‘most memorable moment’: Sidney Poitier accepts 2002 honorary Oscar – video
Poitier was married twice: to Juanita Hardy between 1950 and 1965 (with whom he had four children), and subsequently to Joanna Shimkus in 1976 (with whom he had a further two).
President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa says that the Army will continue its organic fertilizer program in the next Yala season as farmers have not been properly educated on the use of organic fertilizer.
“I gave fertilizer free of charge and then increased the guaranteed price for paddy. Organic cultivation is not just collecting leaves, it has a lot of technology. But I admit that we did not come to these farmers and explain what they should be doing. At the beginning of the harvest; I do not think it will decrease. If this fertilizer is applied properly we can get the same harvest. It is non-toxic. Here’s what I want to do. This is a bit difficult. But unfortunately, our people did not come and explain to the farmers that this is the type of fertilizer that is used in this way.
Now I am using the army for this Yala season. There could be a few organic fertilizers we can not use yet. We can use some familiar fertilizers like urea for a certain time. But we have to gradually organize this, looking at the lives of these little kids. We can do it, we can get a better harvest, we can get a good price for it.”
President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said this when he met a group of farmers in Siyambalanduwa yesterday (07) and exchanged views with them. The farmers stated that they would definitely trust the President.
It is reported that the official visit of the Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa to India which was scheduled to take place from the 10th to the 12th of January has been postponed.
He was speaking to the media yesterday (07).
Earlier on November 30, Basil Rajapaksa visited India and held discussions with several parties, including the Indian Finance Minister. As a result, India is preparing to provide a US $ 1.9 billion economic package to Sri Lanka.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to pay an official visit to Sri Lanka today Saturday 08 prompting the government to settle the controversial organic fertilizer procurement issue mending damaged fences between the two countries. .
Political analysts say this will be a crucial visit to Sri Lanka as the Chinese Foreign Minister will visit Sri Lanka following the signing of an agreement with India on the Trincomalee oil tank complex.
Both India and China are concerned about each country’s involvement with Sri Lanka.
The Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka visited the Northern Province last month and during his visit also launched several projects to provide infrastructure facilities to the people in the province.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will have an opportunity to help out Sri Lanka when he visits the country as the island nation searches for funds to rebuild foreign exchange reserves and repay debt amid ballooning import bills.
Wang’s visit comes as Beijing seeks to balance U.S. and Indian influence in the Indo-Pacific region during a pivotal political year in China.
He may offer more grants while in the capital Colombo, according to a Sri Lankan government official who wished to remain anonymous. The ministries of finance and foreign affairs didn’t officially respond to questions on the matter.
Chinese loans to Sri Lanka have been a contentious political topic over the past decade, with the country becoming an oft-cited example of debt diplomacy in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative — an allegation Beijing has refuted.
In particular, Sri Lankan politicians came under scrutiny for a port in southern Hambantota that lost money and was eventually sold to a state-owned Chinese firm in a much-criticized debt-to-equity swap on a 99-year lease.
Still, Sri Lanka currently needs cash, and its leaders have sought to balance ties between major powers to get funds. The country’s finances have nosedived since the pandemic grounded airplanes and shuttered its tourism industry, a major source of foreign exchange earnings.
The situation has been exacerbated by looming debt repayments that Fitch Ratings put at $6.9 billion this year. Citigroup has flagged the risk of a “future potentially disorderly default.”
Sri Lanka is fast mending damaged fences with China with the People’s Bank’s action to pay US$ 6.9 million to the Chinese company that shipped a much-disputed consignment of organic fertilizer to Sri Lanka.
The payment came after the Colombo Commercial High Court dissolved the enjoining order preventing the payment on Letter of Credit to China-based Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Co., Ltd.
On January 03, the enjoining order in question was dismissed as all parties had agreed for a settlement to ship a new stock of standardized fertilizer.
As per the terms of the contracts between Sri Lanka and the Chinese company, the payment for the controversial organic fertilizer shipment was slated to be made through a Letter of Credit established via the People’s Bank.
However, last year, the Ceylon Fertilizer Company (CFC) had secured two enjoining orders from the Colombo Commercial High Court against Seawin Biotech, its local agent and the state-run People’s Bank, preventing the payment on Letter of Credit.
The first court order against the Chinese firm in question was secured on October 23, blocking the People’s Bank from making any payment under a Letter of Credit opened in favour of the Chinese company.
The fertilizer consignment in question was under the spotlight over the past few months after the National Plant Quarantine Services (NPQS), which tested the fertilizer samples sent by the Qingdao Seawin Biotech, revealed the detection of the microorganism called ‘Erwinia’ in September 2021.
Several days later, Sri Lanka decided to suspend the importation of organic fertilizer from Seawin Biotech.
The Chinese firm retaliated, saying that the NPQS took only three days to draw a suspicious conclusion although it takes more than 6 days to identify Erwinia as per the ISPM27 rule in IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention).
The Chinese company later sent a letter of demand seeking USD 8 million in damages from the Additional Director of the National Plant Quarantine Services (NPQS) of Sri Lanka.
