Pre-school receives musical instruments
Musical instruments were handed over to the pre-school band of the Dabare Mawatha Gautham Pre-School by Western Province Councillor and Pragna Pradeepa Concept initiator Jayantha de Silva recently.
Sri Lanka China Society annual get-together
An enjoyable friendly get-together of the Srilanka China Society will be held on Saturday on November 17 from 10 am to 2 pm at the Police Officer’s Family Welfare Association auditorium in Bambalapitiya. Please contact Nanda Corea on 072 3574910 or Dr Vipula Jayampathi on 077 3072033 for details.
Plant-based diets for better health and planet? Not so fast, says study
ROME, Oct 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Forget all those loud calls to eat less meat and more plants for better health and a stronger planet – new research shows the world is not producing nearly enough fruit and vegetables to feed everyone. Canadian researchers compared global agricultural production with the sort of diet backed [...]
The Digital Divide Is Impeding Development
GENEVA – It is easy to assume that access to the digital economy is ubiquitous, and that online shopping is the natural evolution of commerce. For example, in July, Amazon sold more than 100 million products to consumers worldwide during its annual Prime Day event, a $4.2 billion bonanza that included sales of table salt [...]
The ‘toxin-free’ food panic: Blunders, truths and myths
Reading the interesting and informative article by Randima Atygalle that appeared in the Sunday Times of October 14th titled ‘Getting to the roots of going organic in SL’, I was saddened by plight of Surangi who travels every weekend to the Colombo City from the suburb she lives for procuring organic fruits and vegetables from [...]
There’s no honour among politicians
Having just got my degree and desirous of a career in journalism, I had to fill up an application in which I gave the names of two respectable referees who could vouch for me, present myself for an interview with my original certificates (there were no photocopiers in those days) and then submit myself to [...]
Serving citizens through effective delimitation
This article attempts to explain delimitation and how it can benefit citizens. It is written in response to recent exposure to people’s perceptions across Sri Lanka about delimitation and related issues. Those experiences suggested that general awareness among people, including those engaged in politics, was limited and fraught with misconceptions. The article is based on [...]
Mortality and morbidity from unsafe abortions in Sri Lanka
Births, abortions and deaths have been part and parcel of what is happening in the human race since its beginning. Deaths we can’t prevent. During the last century with the advancement of medical knowledge, deaths from childbirth have been brought down to one-digit figures per 100,000 births, in the developed world. Sri Lanka is still [...]
Obama’s letters and Trump’s delusions
TOKYO – When was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter? I don’t mean an email or a text message; nor would I count a dictated message to a machine or a personal assistant. No, I mean an old-fashioned “Dear Donald” or “Dear Hillary” letter. The reason I ask is that 65,000 [...]
The world with Lanka is going nuts
Lanka, Taprobane, Serendib, Tambapanni, Eelam, Ceilo and Ceylon are the many names this island was called as it evolved down the millennia. It is still evolving. But some of the new names being suggested do not seem to be very complimentary, such as: banana republic and Island of fruits and nuts. Whatever the nomenclature of [...]
Trump is the product of capitalism’s failure, says US socialist leader
After the fall of the Soviet U nion and the general decline in socialist politics at the end of the last century, many people wondered if perhaps socialism was too utopian and its application bound to result in Stalinist and Maoist type regimes. For most people today, there exists little or no difference between the [...]