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Editorial

Fake news over the grand snub

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We are happy to join former President Chandrika Bandanaike Kumaratunga and Ven. Omalpe Sobitha in congratulating some graduands of the University of Colombo, for snubbing their university’s new Chancellor, Ven. Muruththetuwe Ananda Thero, who was chief guest at its recent convocation where he was to hand over their degree certificates to the class of 2019. Tens of thousands of social media and television viewers were treated to images of what seemed a gigantic snub which left the venerable monk clearly bewildered and obviously embarrassed. Several young graduands, both men and women, walked past the monk holding the scrolls in which their certificates were enclosed without accepting their degrees from him. This forced the Vice-Chancellor to take the scrolls from Ven. Ananda and do the honours, posing briefly with the new graduates for the customary photographs. We did seen a few graduands accepting their certificates from the venerable Chancellor; but the vast majority did not snub the monk although social media clips attempted to project such a scenario; a clear lesson to us all not to take such clips at face value.

Earlier, Ven. Ananda was conducted to the platform at the head of the customary procession of the university’s faculty clad in their academic regalia. Not being a graduate, perhaps he was not entitled to be similarly attired though he did add a silk sash to his robe. However that be, he was installed on an ornate chair, draped with a white cloth as is traditional, to do the honours of handing over the degree certificates. What happened thereafter is now well known though the picture painted was much blacker than reality. No doubt the snub, however big or small it was, has been widely welcomed by a nation angered by what is widely considered a rank bad and inappropriate appointment similar to that of the serving head of the One Country, One Law Presidential Task Force.

The Colombo University chose to largely ignore what happened, issuing a short statement titled “Statement from University Colombo on Ceremonial Graduation 2019.” This was distinguished by not what it said but what it did not say. Some bland sentences were strung together in a few paragraphs reporting that three day-long physical ceremonial graduation of 2,668 graduates of the 2019 graduation class had been duly completed. “All those who graced the occasion and supported us” were thanked. So was the “Venerable Chancellor,” who was specifically named though what happened to him was politely ignored. Various others who helped organize the convocation were mentioned by title as were the young graduates and their parents who too were thanked for their support. To crown it all, the university reiterated its commitment to “uphold decent behavior and attitudes among all sectors of the university and regretted any misrepresentation of the university’s reputation and good name in producing the best of global citizen,” whatever that may mean.

This statement issued through the Government Information Department was unsigned. Presumably the Vice Chancellor takes responsibility for it. But what could the poor lady do? She can’t stand up like the rest of us ordinary folk and say “serves him right, he damned well deserved it.” After all the President made the appointment. Can the university collectively thumb its nose at him? And would the president have got the message that was clear though blatantly exaggerated? The usually vociferous monk has attempted to brush off the incident which will be long remembered even in this nation of notoriously short memories. At a press conference, an acolyte (golaya) was sharply critical of the Vice-Chancellor who Ven. Ananda’s supporters seem to regard very negatively over what happened. She, after all, handed over the degree certificates to some graduands who refused to accept them from the monk and posed for photos.

Ven Ananda’s already got what used to be Thimbirigasyaya Road named after him. His temple served as a political office for the ruling Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) before the presidential and parliamentary elections. More recently he was a familiar presence on national television, stridently critical of those he helped elect on various issues over which the government had become massively unpopular. It would not be unreasonable to ask whether the recent appointment was an attempt to shut his mouth.

Opinions widely differ on whether some jobs are not for the clergy. There are those who strongly believe that Parliament is not a place for Buddhist monks. But several members of the Buddhist clergy have been elected to our legislature by the votes of the people and others have been appointed thorough party National Lists. Archbishop Makarios was President of Cyprus. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist Minister who led the American civil rights movement. Clergymen of various religious persuasions would surely have run for and been elected public office in many parts of the world. The Sorbonne-educated Prof. Ven. Kollupitiye Mahinda Sangharakkhitha Nayake Thero is the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya and not even a whisper of criticism has ever been heard about that appointment.

Apart from Chancellors, there have been eminent Buddhist monks who have served as Vice-Chancellors, the chief executives of universities, and two notable names readily come to mind – Ven. Welivitiye Sri Soratha, who became the first Vice-Chancellor of the Vidyodaya University when the Vidyodaya and Vidyalankara Pirivenas were accorded university status, and Ven. Walpola Rahula who was also Vice-Chancellor of Vidyodaya. Ven. Soratha, a scholar monk of revered memory, was credited as being a fount of great wisdom and his appointment adorned the university he headed. So also the highly accomplished Ven. Rahula, the first Buddhist monk to be appointed a professor of a Western university when he was appointed to the Chair of History and Religions at Northwestern University in the USA.

We are not admirers of much of what university students in this country do, notably the savage ragging that have too long been permitted to continue. But in this instance, though infinitely smaller than falsely projected, we join a cross-section of the country in applauding what a decided small minority of the students did.



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Editorial

Ensure safety of COPF Chairman

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Saturday 8th June, 2024

It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.

The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.

The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.

The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.

On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.

While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.

Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.

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Editorial

Dead man walking!

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Friday 7th June, 2024

The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.

The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.

The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.

EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.

It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.

Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.

Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.

Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.

What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.

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Editorial

Modi Magic on the wane

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Thursday 6th June, 2024

The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.

Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.

Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.

Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.

Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.

Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.

The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.

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