odds & ends

Gag order

The media friendly Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) chairman Sarath Wijesinghe has been put under a gag order by the new Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena.

A scribe who was trying hard to contact the chairman was told that Mr.Wijesinghe had been asked to deal with the legal work of the Authority and avoid commenting on other consumer related issues. Wonder if next the minister will want to gag the consumers as well.

Reversal of roles

A scribe was at the Wadduwa Police station last week when in walked an angry young man shouting abuse at the police.
Using the choicest of words, the man accused the policemen of trying to kill him and challenged the police to shoot him and went on with the verbal abuse for about five minutes.

All the while the stunned policemen looked on and the man, seeing there was no reaction, walked out. It was quite a reversal of roles.

Human too

Some of the inquiring officers at the Human Rights Commission are saying their human rights are being violated by way of deprivation of their payments.Some of them say they haven’t been paid for at least six months.

Persecuted to please a Queen?

Did a former VVIP Madam get an innocent man arrested on a trumped up assets case to get him to needle a political enemy.
Those who zealously flouted the law to do the queen’s bidding are now busy shuffling the relevant file, but let us hope that the commissioners who spotted the illegal act and ordered the poor man released will put their foot down and see that justice is done.

Since there have been so many abuses, those in the know suggest that all aspects of prosecution should be taken away from this institution and given to the Attorney General’s Department, leaving only the investigation aspect with it with a view to checking such abuse.

In the recent past another important case handled by this institution ended being thrown out by the courts and the culprit getting off scot-free for the simple reason it was prosecuted upside down.

Ambassador too busy

Who is the Lankan ambassador who is busy studying while on duty? He is said to be so busy with his studies that he is unable to give much attention to an important meeting there attended by a VIP delegation from Sri Lanka.

That country is said to have lot of LTTE sympathizers.

This global forum convened every two years is attended by virtually all nations and is considered an ideal time to show case Sri Lanka’s own progress in a crucial field.