Columns
Jayawewas for the wrong Khan
View(s):
There was rather an embarrassing moment when the Indian movie star Salman Khan was introduced wrongly at a public meeting held in Borella where he was attending a purported eye camp. The rather breathless and overenthusiastic announcer urged the people present to welcome Mr. Khan by shouting out “Sharuk Khanta Jayawewa. (Long Live Sharuk Khan)”. He repeated this twice before realising that he was referring to the wrong Khan who is an professional rival of Salman Khan.
The announcer then quickly moved to correct his mistake and began once again, nehe Salman Khanta Jayawewa (No. Long Live Salman Khan)”.The Bollywood star showed his embarrassment at being mistaken for his rival as the pictures here show. Namal Rajapaksa, MP the President’s son who was instrumental in bringing the Bollywood actor down was equally embarrassed by the guffaw and so too was Mr. Khan’s escort former Miss Sri Lanka and now a Bollywood actress herself Jacqueline Fernandez.
Mr. Khan left no sooner he arrived having had a meal at Ms. Fernandez’s pricey restaurant at the newly opened Arcade near Independence Square. Defending Mr. Khan’s whistle-stop visit to Colombo where he attended a rally in support of incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Ms. Fernandez said that it was a personal choice of Mr. Khan and nobody should question his choice. He also donated money, she told an Indian journalist in Colombo, referring to his charity work here, one would presume.
Salman and Kumar: The politics of visas
Desperate times require desperate measures, no?
A strict condition for the issue of tourist visas by Sri Lankan missions abroad is that the applicant will engage only in tourist activities and nothing else.
Anybody violating this condition is committing an offence and is liable even for deportation. It will be recalled that even a delegation from the International Bar Association’s Human Rights initiative had their visas suspended as they were trying to enter the country on tourist visas to participate in seminars and interview judicial persons.
Even those who come for humanitarian work must obtain the appropriate visa and not a tourist one.
So what was the visa on which Bollywood star Salman Khan entered Sri Lanka? His companion Jacqueline Fernandez claimed that Khan came to distribute 200 lenses to needy patients.
f so was he violating his visa conditions?
And what of the leader of the splinter group of the JVP Kumar Gunaratnam also known as Noel Mudalige. He is believed to have entered the country on a tourist visa but was already engaging in politics addressing meetings and giving media interviews obviously trying to embarrass the JVP.
Strange indeed is the way of politics.
President apologises to Mannar Bishop
Alleged derogatory comments about the Bishop of Mannar, the Rt. Rev Rayappu Joseph made in the state run radio prompted President Mahinda Rajapaksa to telephone the Bishop and extend an apology. The apology came a day before the President visited the Madhu church on Friday.
The President’s call was followed by calls from Minister Felix Perera and UPFA MP Sudharshani Fernandopulle who also apologised to the Bishop.
The remarks over the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) were made after New Democratic Front (NDF) candidate Maithripala Sirisena met Bishop Joseph along with former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, on Monday and received his blessings.
President apologises to Mannar Bishop
Alleged derogatory comments about the Bishop of Mannar, the Rt. Rev Rayappu Joseph made in the state run radio prompted President Mahinda Rajapaksa to telephone the Bishop and extend an apology. The apology came a day before the President visited the Madhu church on Friday.
The President’s call was followed by calls from Minister Felix Perera and UPFA MP Sudharshani Fernandopulle who also apologised to the Bishop.
The remarks over the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) were made after New Democratic Front (NDF) candidate Maithripala Sirisena met Bishop Joseph along with former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, on Monday and received his blessings.
Kanakaratne: When Lanka’s diplomacy was at its peak
The 193-member UN General Assembly last week adopted a resolution calling on member states to provide any new evidence relating to the mysterious 1961 plane crash that killed former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden and 15 members of his team. But one of the members of that original team of UN advisers was a distinguished Sri Lankan diplomat — former Ambassador Neville Kanakaratne — who was forced to skip that ill-fated flight enroute from Paris to Congo.
As the late Kanakaratne himself would recount the story in the 1980s, he was one of the legal advisers on the team. But since Dr. Hammarskjold needed someone fluent in French for the peace negotiations he was planning to conduct with separatists in the mineral-rich Katanga province in the newly-independent Congo, a Frenchman took Dr. Kanakaratne’s place on that flight.
The following day one of the Colombo newspapers ran a lead story with the headline: ‘Dag Hammarskjold Dies in Plane Crash” — with a sub-heading: “Was our man on that flight?”
“My mother almost got a heart attack,” recounted Dr. Kanakaratne. But those were the days when telecommunication was far less sophisticated than today’s information superhighway — and the news of his survival arrived late in Colombo.
Incidentally, Dr. Kanakaratne joined the UN secretariat on the personal invitation of Mr. Hammarskjold and was legal adviser to the UN Special Representative in the Congo, and later both a political and legal adviser to the Commander of the UN Emergency Force in the Middle East back in the early 1960s.
Although a non-career diplomat whose origins went back to the Attorney-General’s office, he had the distinction of being Sri Lanka’s envoy in three key capitals: Washington, New Delhi and Moscow. And he was one of the brilliant public speakers of his generation.
When he was conferred the honorary degree of Doctorate of Laws at George Washington University in 1978, the University’s President, Lloyd Elliott, paid him the supreme compliment when he said that if ever there was a world parliament, he would be “eminently qualified to be its first Speaker.”
Raincoats, but no boats for poll card postmen
Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya who invited journalists to his department this week reiterated that there were enough precautionary measures in place to ensure that there would be no rigging of the election.
He gave an hour-long demonstration on the electoral process and assured journalists that the bad weather would not also be an impediment to holding a free and fair election.
One of the measures he had taken was to provide all postmen with raincoats so that they would be able to deliver the polling cards even though the weather was adverse. The cost would be borne by his department.
The commissioner, however, did not mention if his department was also providing boats to the postmen to visit villagers marooned by the floods.
Retired military officers used for Rajapaksa campaign: NDF
The National Democratic Front (NDF) under whose banner Maithripala Sirisena is contesting Thursday’s presidential election has protested to Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya, over alleged deployment of retired military officers for polls work.
In a letter dated January 1, NDF Secretary Attorney Shyamila Perera has alleged that these retired persons were functioning under the Ministry of Defence. While accepting that retired military officers had the right to engage in politics, the NDF Secretary has claimed that UPFA election material was distributed by them under the aegis of serving public officials.
She has alleged that a committee of 32 retired military personnel has been placed in charge of the Colombo District. They were functioning under the Ministry of Defence. The list of the names of these officers has been attached to the letter.
The NDF has asked the Commissioner to ensure that these retired officers do not use official installations of the armed forces to carry out their election propaganda activity. They have also named two private security companies that are involved in polls activities.
11th visit to north: MR says he is the known devil
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, on the second lap of his campaign trail in the northern capital of Jaffna, described himself as the “Known Devil.”
He told a rally at the Duraiappah Stadium that he was better than the “Unknown Angel,” his rival candidate at Thursday’s Presidential elections, Maithripala Sirisena.
He said he had visited the North eleven times while the New Democratic Front (NDF) candidate was there only once.
MR gives interview to Chennai-based TV
The run up to the Presidential polls on Thursday is indeed an exacting one for the local media, particularly the electronic media. They are vying with each other to have President Mahinda Rajapaksa interviewed. None was successful. Yet, key players in the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) met with success. That is not for an interview with Mr. Rajapaksa for plantation workers to watch.
It was instead for viewers in Tamil Nadu. The Daily Thanthi TV channel was ready to air the interview when there were protests outside their office in Elampur in Chennai.
It was led by Y. Gopalaswamy better known as Vaiko. He is the leader of the Marumalartchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (MDMK).
The protests, however, did not deter the television channel from airing the interview. Of course the matter ended there. Those who watched it were not Sri Lankan voters.