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7th June 1998

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CEB delay holds up jobs for 600

By M. Ismeth

Ceylon Electricity Board's (CEB) delay in providing a transformer to a BOI approved project has deprived nearly 600 youth from getting direct employment, claimed an executive of a US $5mn. project at Biyagama.

Personnel and Administration Executive, Dinesh Meedeniya of Jung Yoon (J. Y) Textiles (Pvt) Ltd. a wholly Korean owned factory which manufactures fabrics for soft toys, alleged the company had paid by cheque Rs.1,029,323 on April 9 to the CEB for an additional power supply but they had not been supplied with the additional 500 KVA power.

If we had not made the payment we are at fault, but even after paying the amount in full, we are at a loss why the CEB had failed to deliver the goods, he added.

We are at the stage of expanding our factory as we have US$ 500,000 orders in hand. This will go waste if we do not execute them before the end of June.

The toys manufactured here are exported to Disneyland, Tokyo, Disneyland, Mauritius, India and many other countries.

At the moment Jung Yoon has in its employ 600 youths from areas like Anuradhapura and Kurunegala. The factory is offering another 600 jobs.

The demand for our products is heavy but everything now depends on the CEB, said Dinesh.

Managing Director H. C. Kim and General Manager S. G. Chang are waiting for the additional power supply to meet the new orders and to give employment to another 600 youths.


LTTE's political wing eligible to contest

It's hard to believe it's the truth.The LTTE's political wing is among the 34 parties listed as eligible to contest the forthcoming Provincial elections.

It may be recalled that after the attack on the Dalada Maligawa in January this year the LTTE was proscribed by the government.

Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake told The Sunday Times that he has no right to delete names of any political party unless of course they violate some election law.

The question whether the LTTE's political wing would contest the Provincial Council election is anybody's guess.

In the meantime some of the political parties are still to declare their candidates for the Chief Ministership.

Speculation is rife that some Cabinet Ministers might contest the provincial council polls. Prominent among the names mentioned are Minister of Trade Kingsley Wickremaratne.

Five of the councils are to be dissolved this month.


Police hunt for club owner attackers

Police are hunting for a four member gang which attacked a company director and a club owner at Bambalapitiya.

Bambalapitiya Police said that they were acting on a complaint made by a security guard of the night-club who had stated that the club owner had been assaulted in the basement as he was returning home in the early hours.

'The club owner after finishing his duties at the club had taken the lift and as he came to the basement the gang had pounced on him and started attacking him. He had received head injuries', Police said.

Police said nobody had seen the attackers and the club has not been able to identify who was responsible for the incident.

The gang was reported to be armed with clubs and a pistol.

The gang had escaped in a van in which they had come. They had also damaged the vehicle of the club owner


Always Breakdown is Ishini's idea: TNL plea

Legal action has been filed in Colombo High Court against Harith Gunewardene, the scriptwriter of TNL's programme titled 'Always Breakdown'.

Teleshan Network (Pvt) Ltd - (TNL),- in its plea, has prayed for a declaration that it is entitled to all the economic rights of the programme including its name the muppet characters featured in the programme constitute protected works in terms of Section 7 of the Code of Intellectual Property Act.

The action which is instituted under and in terms of the Code of Intellectual Property Act is valued at Rs 3,000,000 and settled by Lakshman Perera and S.L.Gunasekera.

This action follows a claim by defendant Harith Gunawardene that he is the creator of the name of the programme and those of the muppet characters like 'Annibal Akka, Amdan,' etc and disputing economic rights of TNL in respect of the programme, including the names of the muppet characters.

The plaintiff in its plaint states that the concept of producing and broadcasting the television programme entitled 'Always Breakdown' was conceived by Ishini Wickremesinghe Perera, the Director News of the Plaintiff after viewing a satirical 'muppet show' about politics in the United Kingdom entitled 'Splitting Images.'

The plaintiff having accepted the aforesaid concept set about making preparations for the production and broadcasting of the said programme in or about July 1996 and appointed one of its employees, Saddhamangala Sooriyabandara to be the director of the said programme, it states.

Sooriyabandara having devised the plot and the setting of the said programme then designed the muppets, including the muppets who were to be the central characters, featured in the said programme and the muppets designed by Sooriyabandara were manufactured by Dhammika Kalyanapriya who was commissioned for the said purpose by the plaintiff, it adds.

After the muppets had been manufactured, the plaintiff commissioned several others to perform the several tasks necessary for the production of the said programme, it states.

The defendant was commissioned by the plaintiff to write the scripts for the programme and paid the mutually agreed fee of Rs 1500 per script. While the defendant was commissioned to be the script writer and did provide script for the programme the scripts submitted by him were not used without amendment. The said scripts were amended both on legal advice and also by the director of the said programme, it further states.

Although the defendant was commissioned to be the script writer for the said programme there were occasions on which the defendant did not provide scripts for the programme on which occasions the scripts were written and furnished by Sooriyabandara, it states.

The plaintiff pleads that the 'Always Breakdown' programme including its name, the muppet characters featured therein and their names are original literary and artistic works.

A cause of action has therefore accrued to the plaintiff to sue the defendant for a declaration that the programme 'Always Breakdown' including its name and all the muppet characters featured therein and the names of such characters constitute protected words in terms of Section 7 of the Code of Intellectual Property Act.


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