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Jaffna students attack newspaper boss The Managing
Director of the Jaffna-based Uthayan newspaper was reportedly pelted
with stones and abused by Jaffna University students yesterday after
a dispute with the newspaper over a ragging report. A spokesman
for the newspaper said Managing Director N. Sarawanabhawan had been
prevented by students from attending a meeting of the university
council, of which he is a member. He said the students had also banned the Uthayan newspaper in the campus premises and decided to prevent Uthayan journalists from entering the campus. The spokesman
said the dispute had begun when Uthayan on January 16 published
a letter from a resident who claimed he had witnessed a ragging
incident on the campus. A copy of the letter had also been sent
to the vice chancellor. Four days later, a student union had held
a meeting and allegedly demanded that the vice chancellor should
deny the ragging incident. They had threatened
to boycott lectures till the denial was sent and the vice chancellor
had obliged by sending a denial the same night. The Uthayan
published the VC's denial along with a story about the demands and
threats by the students. The student
union at another meeting on January 23, had allegedly decided to
take tougher action. As part of it, they yesterday abused and harassed
the Uthayan managing director when he went to the university premises
to attend the council meeting, the spokesman said. The council meeting was later cancelled. YMBA blacked out amidst crosscurrents The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Young Men's Buddhist Association (YMBA) management have been embroiled in conflict and crosscurrents for nearly a year after the CEB disconnected supplies to a section of the landmark building. Business and
shop-owners in this popular building say that despite most of the
tenants paying their rent regularly, neither the YMBA nor the CEB
appears to be interested in finding a solution to this problem. According to
CEB sources, the conflict arose mainly because some tenants tapped
electricity. The CEB disconnected the power supply to the 4th floor
hostel in January last year and the basement was blacked out the
next month. "The business had gone down in every stall in the basement and there is so much of sound and air pollution due to the generators that run at a high cost," a trader said. "We are
suffering, we made many complaints to the management but little
action had been taken. When we ask the CEB, all we get is a promise
of a tomorrow that has never come. The CEB asked us to pay Rs.250
for the new meters we paid it, asked for a load of wire, we bought
it and still there is no power. Now they are asking for Rs.200,000.
We have decided to pay that also from our pockets since the management
is silent," buisnessman Uditha Perera said. Though the
dispute became highly charged during the past year, the current
problem goes back to 1992 when the CEB had wanted the YMBA to replace
its 40-year-old transmitter. The cost was about Rs. 1.2 million
and the management was silent for about ten years. After the power
supplies were cut last year, the management made a down payment
of half a million rupees for a new transformer with the balance
to be paid in four instalments. But after paying one instalment
of Rs. 200,000, the YMBA stopped payments because power supplies
had not been restored. Early this
month, the CEB sent a letter to the general secretary of the YMBA
saying that the payment of the instalments for the transformer was
in arrears for two months. He charged
there was some jugglery going on in the CEB. But he also accused
YMBA tenants of tapping electricity, probably in collaboration with
some YMBA electricians and CEB employees. CEB chairman M. Zubair said the YMBA had defaulted on the down-payments and should have understood that the CEB needed about three months to get the new transformer installed and fully operational. The Principal
and the Vice Principal of Ladies College, Colombo have resigned
over a dispute with the management, The Sunday Times learns. Anglican Bishop
and member of the school management board, Lakshman Chickera confirmed
that Principal Sriyani Mittapala and Vice Principal Janaki Galapatti
had sent in their resignation, but he declined to elaborate. A group of past pupils were making efforts to resolve the matter, but Church sources said the resignation letters had already been accepted. |
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