Mawbima News

By Lasanthi Daskon Attanayake –

Dr Ajith C S Perera, in his post ‘Access to Justice : Constitutional Protection for All’ succinctly encapsulate the wide variety of troubles faced by persons living with disabilities in Sri Lanka. His emphasis is ‘access’ of all forms, not just to the constructed atmosphere but to the whole social, political and legal fabric of the country. This is not the initial time Dr Perera wrote about access. He being the only Disability Rights Activist in Sri Lanka to method mainstream print media in writing critical pieces on the want for recognising the huge percentage of persons with disabilities in Sri Lanka continues to campaign difficult .

Much less than four days after we study Dr Perera’s post, a news item seems in a neighborhood newspaper on the discrimination faced by a student with a disability in one particular of the top Girls’ Schools in Colombo, which is followed by however one more article in Colombo Telegraph relating to the issues faced by a traveller with a disability.

It is sad that a youngster with a disability, be it in a major school or not, has to fight for her rights although the School Principal apparently stated that they can not make adjustments ‘just for 1 student’. What would that Principal expect that ‘one child’ to do, exactly where does she anticipate the child to go, if she is not accepted by her personal college? Do we know how many tiny girls and boys in this country are shut out of education in this way? Do we know that physical infrastructure, most of the time, is not the only situation they face? Do we know how significantly we are burdening the families of those youngsters and the society in turn, by not delivering them the chance to be productive members of society?

This is just one story, one aspect. Disability cuts across all dimensions of society, disability could influence any one of us at any offered time. Disability in its numerous types, come to us in our old age. But, we , as a society, look at disability as the abnormality or the impossibility. Our ‘normal’, ‘perfect’ human selves look at persons with disabilities and feel ‘sorry’ for them, wonder what sins they committed in their previous lives to reside with a disability in this life, and heave sighs of relief that we are fortunate not to have ‘sinned’.

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*Dr. Ajith Perera &#8211 Campaigns for the Democratic Correct for Inclusion

We take these attitudes to our governing systems, into our policy generating and into our administration. And we ignore the concerns of persons with disabilities due to the fact, to us, in all our undisputed self-proclaimed perfectness, they are only an unfortunate ‘few’.

What we, as a country are reluctant to recognize is that persons with disabilities are the biggest minority group in the nation, and provided the opportunity to be participants in our socio-financial sphere, they would make their contribution to the nation as significantly as the so-named majority would.

Let us now explore a couple of of the prominent gaps.

Gaps in our Laws

Sri Lanka was among the first countries which signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on the quite day it was opened for signature. We enacted a law relating to disability as far back as 1996, a decade ahead of the CRPD came into getting. Possessing made such progress, we now choose to shy away from ratifying the convention and bringing in new progressive legislation in relation to disability. It is therefore worthy of locating out what trigger or causes have debilitated the aspirations of at least a million and a half (going by the government statistics) persons with disabilities living in the island.

Plainly speaking, the malady of disability rights in Sri Lanka has several tentacles the archaic disability rights legislation, the non-ratification of the CRPD and the reluctance to enact a new, progressive law.

The 1996 Act (Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act. No. 28 of 1996), has only a fleeting mention of the ‘rights’ of the disabled and instead focuses heavily on the establishment of the National Council on Disability, its powers and functions. Professor Fiona Kumari Campbell writes that the Act, despite its pretence of being concerned with rights, severely lack in the provision of a codified statement of rights and a philosophical framework to help interpretation and generate the development of politics and law reform.

Considering that 2006, the Ministry of Social Solutions has been struggling with emerging and disappearing draft disability rights Bills. Mysterious circumstances have made a draft Bill disappear and a various version with no substantial improvements to the 1996 Act emerge. Another Bill was drafted in 2013 which again is mysteriously shelved away. Although wider, nationwide consultations had been suggested on the draft bill by particular advocates, the furthest audience it reached have been a couple of chosen consultants (which includes the author). Yet, the consultants themselves had been not informed whether their suggestions were taken into consideration or not, and as to why the drafting approach did not proceed beyond the point of receiving suggestions from them.

The ratification of the CRPD is an issue vehemently debated by particular disability rights advocates themselves. Some were of the robust opinion that the State can’t ratify the treaty unless and till the domestic law falling in line with the CRPD is enacted.

The core of the debate, according to the author’s understanding, is the vexed query of the Disability Services Authority. The Ministry of Social Solutions appears to be of the firm belief (as expressed by its officials) that the establishment of an Independent Authority will take disability out of the purview of the Ministry and that it would be detrimental to the yeoman services provided by the Ministry to the community of persons with disabilities in Sri Lanka. The members of the National Council on Disability have not voiced their opinion on this concern in the open, but it could be safely assumed that they are drastically divided among themselves on this concern.

Marginalisation within the Movement

It is sad that the majority of the outspoken members of the community of persons with disabilities are not broadly represented in the National Council and that the activities of the Council are not as transparent as it must ideally be.

It is also sad that the majority of activities of Disabled Peoples’ Organisations in Sri Lanka stay in the periphery and does not penetrate into mainstream advocacy. Even though the need for empowerment and service provision is of paramount importance, the require for progression of the movement to influence legal and political adjustments cannot be ignored. The globe has witnessed and is nonetheless witnessing the alterations that are brought about by way of mobilisation and activism. I have often heard Disability Rights Advocates say that aggressive lobbying is not the way to get factors done in Sri Lanka, and that we have to function hand in hand with the political and administrative authorities if we are to acquire good results. But somehow, this mild diplomacy does not appear to have brought a lot good adjustments in the disability sphere.

There is also a lack of solidarity and transparency within the Movement The movement wants to revamp itself, open its doors to young men and women with disabilities and supply them space to express their views. A democratic movement, open for criticism will bring in vigour and vitality. A strengthened movement will inevitably influence social progression and bring in political modify.

Ignorance

Our politicians still remain ignorant (at least) of the potential of the voter base of persons with disabilities and their households. If we go strictly by government statistics (2012) which state that eight.five% of the population reside with some form of a disability and assume that there are close upon a single and a half million persons with disabilities, and add one loved ones member per each individual with a disability, nevertheless the number would be at least 3 million persons. Surprisingly, our political leaders do not seem to accept this as a potential voter base.

Coupled with this disinterest and the extreme lack of access in the electoral procedure, persons with disabilities are kept away from political participation.

Other places

Our whole legal program, like the infrastructure, the courts, the judiciary and the practitioners, remain in the dark of the problems a particular person with a disability would face in accessing legal redress, as quoted at the beginning of this write-up, majority of our schools and universities are not ready to accept a child with a disability, our transport systems, our roads, our public places, regardless of current improvements, remain largely inaccessible to persons with disabilities. Moreover, the corporate sector is poorly informed of the prospective of inclusive firms. All in all, as a nation, as a society, we are totally oblivious to the challenges faced by persons with disabilities in our social and physical atmosphere.

How do we move forward?

The answers are numerous, but the primarily we require to understand that disability is not an isolated problem. It is cross-cutting, and omnipresent, it could affect any 1 of us at any offered time, temporarily or permanently. Persons with Disabilities are not ‘a few’ as many would like to think. they are ‘many’, living among us and with us. Disabilities are not ‘uncommon’ or ‘abnormal’, they are a portion of normality, a reality of life. Persons with Disabilities share the same dreams, aspirations, hopes and feelings as the non-disabled majority.

As a result, as a nation, as a society, it is essential for us to initial and foremost consider inclusion a necessity, not an choice.

*Lasanthi is an Lawyer-at-Law who is reading for her Masters in Human Rights at the University of Colombo. She is an independent consultant on disability and is a going to lecturer at the Department of Disability Studies, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ragama. She is married to Senarath Attanayake, the first and the only elected politician who has lived with a disability his whole life and also the 1st person in a wheelchair to become an Lawyer-at-Law

By Laksiri Fernando –

“If 1 desires to modify the nature of a specific democracy, the electoral program is probably to be the most appropriate and successful instrument of undertaking so.” &#8211  Arend Lijphart

Any electoral reform that intends to substantially alter the proportional representation (PR) in Sri Lanka will go against people’ sovereignty. For that reason, any try to do so need to be opposed. This does not imply that the introduction of ‘first previous the post (FPP) constituencies,’ within the current or a new PR system is undemocratic. In reality these constituencies are necessary to improve the elector-elector links for much better democracy and representative accountability.

Among the so far discussed or disclosed proposals, the ‘best loser’ approach linked with the Dinesh Gunawardena (DG) recommendations on mixing (not linking) FPP and PR is the most undemocratic.

There are two primary nations which employ the ‘best loser’ (BL) strategy at present: Mauritius and Japan. It is possible that DG or his advisers picked the technique from Japan than Mauritius since the program in Mauritius has been far more controversial than in Japan and it is in the method of abandoning at present. Italy also employed the ‘best loser’ technique throughout 1993 and 2005 but abandoned it for whatever the reason.

Expertise in Mauritius

When Mauritius received independence in 1967, it adapted this method from the colonial practice of ‘communal representation.’ It was an appendage to the Westminster FPP program to let particular minorities to give representation on the basis of their assertion. For this objective all candidates have been compelled to ‘declare their ethnicity/religion’ which was fundamentally undemocratic. At the starting it worked nicely and even considered a needed ingredient in a multi-ethnic/religious society. It had nothing considerably to do with proportional representation.

Mauritius is divided into 21 multimember constituencies and elects 62 members by way of the FPP program. As described before, the constitution compels all contestants to declare his/her ethnicity and particular minorities (Muslims, Christians, Chinese or Creoles) qualify for the ‘best loser’ accommodation for 8 seats in a 70 member assembly. All may possibly be losers, but only the greatest are accommodated under the scheme. For that reason, as a approach this is similar to what is proposed in Sri Lanka.

There is or was some validity in the concept when it is/was applied in the case of representation of tiny ethnic/religious minorities. Similarly, if this is applied for representation of females, nevertheless there can be some validity.

Yet, the practice was challenged just before the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) as a violation of certain principles in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and a determination was given in August 2012. That is one reason why Mauritius is now thinking about its abolition and devising a greater technique of representation which includes adopting a PR program.

Among the two primary contentions transpired for the duration of the HRC determination, the inadvisability of the stereotyped communal representation and the deviation from the principle of ‘one vote 1 value,’ the latter has a lot relevance in discarding the ‘best loser’ approach in any country.

Sekihairitsu (very best losers) in Japan

In contrast to in Mauritius, Japan makes use of the best loser technique as a portion of proportional representation. This was introduced in 1996. In a 480 member parliament, 300 members are elected via FPP method in single member constituencies and 180 in a PR tier. The PR tier is a list technique. This is also a mixed member technique, nonetheless allocation of seats in one particular tier does not dependent on the other. In other words, the constituency technique is not linked to an general PR program like in Germany or New Zealand.

As Leonard Schoppa has stated “in a mixed member technique, the devil is typically in the details,” whether in Japan, Germany, New Zealand, Sri Lanka or Russia. Russia is another country which has an unlinked mixed member system however with out a ‘best loser’ technique.

The two principal principles in the Japanese system are (1) the double candidacy (choufuku rikkouho), which is typical to a lot of mixed systems, and (2) the ‘best loser’ (sekihairitsu) provisions. The second provision signifies that the candidates in the PR list also be nominated in a single member district or vice versa. Japan usually ranks the candidates in the PR list collectively and not on a preferential order. Then the candidates who win their single member constituencies are deleted from the PR list. Thereafter, the remaining candidates are then ranked according to how close they came to winning their single member constituencies.

The ‘philosophical’ argument goes that possibly the candidate B lost to A by one vote! Consequently, the best loser notion is democratic. In Japan, the calculation employed is not the calculation proposed in Sri Lanka. Japanese ratio equals, in the above example, the votes received by A divided by the votes received by B.

The following nonetheless is the ‘devil’ according to Leonard Schoppa (The Evolution of Japan’s Party Method, 2011).

“The PR component of the new electoral system has provided a few seats to little parties, but the major parties have employed it to resolve nomination troubles in the single-member districts that are at the heart of the system.” (My emphasis).

Where the Devil in Sri Lanka?

We have nevertheless not seen the devil in Sri Lanka! Of course we have seen several devils in the political arena, but what I mean is behind the electoral reform proposals to introduce the ‘best loser’ method. The final report of the Gunawardena (PSC) Committee is not available for public scrutiny. This is even following the acceptance of ‘right to information’ in principle as a constitutional proper. The Interim PSC Report does not have a lot meat. It is only of six pages. What it says in total about the national electoral technique is the following.

“The majority view favours reforms to the present technique leading towards a Mixed Method of a mixture of First-previous-the-post and Proportional Representation Systems. Issues were raised in respect of a proposed adjust of the present program by minority parties and communities of interests who urged the committee to make sure equitable representation in the method that is finally proposed.”

“Your Committee is of the view that a mixed technique be adopted which involves components of Initial-past-the-post and Proportional Representation systems. The modalities and particulars of the technique to be adopted would be further deemed by the Committee at its future sittings and would be presented to Parliament in due course.”

“The Committee is in agreement that the present quantity of Members of Parliament need to not be elevated.”

Of course it calls for a mixed technique. It talks about a combination of FPP and PR. The Interim Report focuses on other issues like national identity cards, postal voting and even electronic voting which are not altogether unnecessary. It is attainable that there was a final report subsequently. Even so, I have heard even the Election Commissioner saying he has not noticed or it was not submitted to him.

There is significantly speak about the ‘best loser method’ or concept nevertheless. However, there can be numerous approaches of applying even the ‘best loser’ approach as we have seen above in the case of Mauritius and Japan.

In the President Maithripala Sirisena’s Election Manifesto he says the following.

&#8220I guarantee the abolition of the preferential method and will ensure that every single electorate will have a Member of Parliament of its personal.  The new electoral technique will be a mixture of the first-past-the post system and the proportional representation of defeated candidates&#8220

The 1st sentence is significantly far more important than the second. It guarantees the abolition of the preferential system and the introduction of electorates (constituencies) with its own Members of Parliament. It does not say about abolishing the PR method. It is apparent that the formulation is not effectively believed out in the hurry probably. Even though it says ‘the proportional representation of defeated candidates’ what is needed is the proportional representation of all deserving parties for good governance in the country.

Like the bizarre terminology of the ‘best loser,’ the advocacy of a ‘program of defeated candidates’ proportional representation’ (DCPR!) smacks democratic principles and excellent governance. It is unfortunate that this has creeped into Mr. Sirisena’s Manifesto. By altering the terminology to ‘runner up’ from ‘best loser’ would not make a distinction.

Greatest-Loser Mentality

Schoppa identified the intent to ‘solve nomination problems’ as the major motive behind the ‘best loser’ approach in Japan. What could be the motives in Sri Lanka? I hardly consider the concern in the Gunawardena report was for the minor or minority parties or democratic principles. It is essential to figure the period in which this ‘secret’ report has finally carved out – 2007.

The political class in Sri Lanka has, by and big, turn out to be a parasitic tribe. Appear at what they say about the Best Loser at the Presidential elections! The very best loser need to turn into the Prime Minister! This is the very same mentality in proposing the ‘best loser’ approach in the electoral program. Gunawardena is the primary man behind each moves.

I have noticed in current instances at least two essential political figures, one particular in the government and one in the dubious opposition, lamenting that they may possibly shed their assigned electorates beneath a FPP competitors. A single was also a crucial member of the Gunawardena Committee. So they can only get into parliament under the ‘best loser’ system.

This is not to say that there is something particularly incorrect in placing the exact same candidate in each tiers (FPP and PR), if the political party so wish and the individual so deserve. This might be needed particularly in the case of females candidates. Nonetheless, accommodating the ‘best losers’ or ‘defeated candidates’ need to not be the beginning point or the decisive issue in the PR tier.

There is also a essential distinction in between the constituency of the FPP winner and the PR winner. In the case of Sri Lanka, the first should be the constituency or the electorate and the second need to be the all round district. Duty and accountability need to be different. The losers must not be packed to the exact same ‘Kalawana’ seat. The proposed ‘best loser’ accommodation is arbitrary like the old ‘Kalawana’ double seating.

The ‘best loser’ (initial loser) strategy can be a trick to redistribute PR seats amongst the loser candidates of main parties in any country. What about the second or the second greatest losers? The technique will betray the objective of proportional representation altogether. As some of the members of the HRC pointed out in the Mauritius case, the ideal loser system violates a fundamental principle of universal franchise, ‘one vote a single value.’ What the proportional representation tries to obtain is not the equalisation of (obvious) unproportioned votes among winners and losers but to give due share of representation to proportionate votes that the parties and/or candidates receive from the men and women.

It is very best that the ‘best loser’ idea is entirely dropped in election vocabulary not only in Sri Lanka but everywhere altogether.

By Dayan Jayatilleka –

We have already had a bitter experience with Mr. Wigneswaran and we mustn’t repeat or compound it. Mr. Sampanthan is a cultured gentleman, a superb speaker and a fine parliamentarian in the old tradition. But he would be most unsuitable to be created Leader of the Opposition. It is neither due to the fact he is an ethnic Tamil nor since he is the leader of the TNA that Mr. Sampanthan must not be appointed the Leader of the Opposition of the Sri Lankan parliament. It is because of the political project he subscribes to and the political views he holds. Going by those declared views, he would, as Opposition Leader, not oppose only the policies and practices of the Government of Sri Lanka. Indeed he possibly will not oppose the present Government at all, considering that he helped bring it into workplace his celebration colleague Mr. Sumanthiran is a co-drafter of the 19^th amendment which castrates the executive Presidency, turning that office into a constitutional eunuch and his party the TNA has gone on to defend the 19^th amendment in the Supreme Court. As an alternative, Mr. Sampanthan as Opposition Leader would be opposed to the extremely political neighborhood, the quite political unit, which he would be sworn to uphold and operate squarely within.

To place it differently, a single can not have as the Leader of the Opposition a person who is not loyal to the Sri Lankan State. 1 can not have as Leader of the Opposition, somebody who refuses to uphold the quite character – unitary, not merely united—of the Sri Lankan state.

I refer not only to a decade ago, when Mr. Sampanthan and his celebration contested the election on a single point platform, namely that the separatist-terrorist LTTE was “the sole reputable representative of the Tamil People”. I do not refer mostly to the fact that he has yet to express regret and apology for that stand.

I refer mainly to Mr. Sampathan’s stand on so solemn an occasion as his party’s 14^th Annual Convention in 2012 a mere 3 years ago, nicely into the post-war period when his political conduct can’t be excused by the invocation of a most likely LTTE threat to his life.

A mere three years ago, Mr. Sampanthan, the most prominent neighborhood leader of the Northern Tamil neighborhood, which exists a few miles away from the sub-regional landmass of Tamil Nadu with its aggressively hostile streak towards Sri Lanka, reiterated his party’s commitment to reaching with the help of the international community, the very same ‘soaring aspirations’ that could not be accomplished by way of the force of arms.

He asserted—some would say confirmed—that ‘the international community’, by way of its present stance, might open the space for the achievement of that objective: “&#8230The existing practices of the international neighborhood may give us an chance to accomplish, without the loss of life, the soaring aspirations we had been unable to accomplish by armed force.” (R. Sampanthan, speech at ITAK 14^th Annual Convention, Batticaloa, May possibly 2012, Colombo Telegraph)

Plainly the “soaring aspiration” which was unsuccessfully sought to be achieved via “ armed force” is that of the separate state of Tamil Eelam, which axiomatically entails the dismemberment of Sri Lanka. This is the gentleman who some openly suggest for the post of the Leader of the Opposition!

In his keynote speech on this formal political occasion, Mr. Sampanthan called for the restoration of the degree of sovereignty that the Tamil people are said to have enjoyed over 500 years ago, prior to the advent of colonialism. This refers to a entirely independent political existence. “…Up to 500 years ago, the Tamil individuals established their personal governments, and governed themselves.  Our party symbolizes a time in history…during which our individuals had their personal sovereign Tamil governments&#8230Our basic objective is to regain our community’s Property, its historical habitat and its sovereignty. The symbol of the House symbolizes this unshakeable aim…” (Ibid)

The House Mr. Sampanthan is talking about is not the Parliament of Sri Lanka, where the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress ( SLMC) and particular ideologues of the LSSP such as Mr. Lal Wijenaike would like to see him as Leader of the Opposition! No, Mr. Sampanthan is clearly calling for a separate house as a home—not a roomier space in the current home of the unitary Sri Lankan state.

If the globe have been to be re-ordered by restoring the pre-colonial status quo ante of no less than half a millennium if each and every minority of roughly a million people or a fraction of a country’s citizenry, have been to demand this correct and seek its exercising, the planet would be plunged into anarchy, chaos, bloodshed. This project can’t be entertained—and most surely not on a fairly tiny island with no ‘defense in depth’ adjacent to a landmass which has been historically hostile.

Had Mr. Sampanthan’s transparent declaration of techniques at his party’s Annual Convention just three years back been authored by a Sinhalese, it would have been dubbed ‘racist stereotyping’. “…The softening of our stance regarding particular problems, and the compromise we show in other concerns, are diplomatic techniques to make sure that we do not alienate the international neighborhood. They are not indications that we have abandoned our fundamental objectives…In other words – we have to prove to the international community that we will never ever be capable to recognize our rights within a united Sri Lanka… Despite the fact that the issue at hand is the same, the prevailing conditions are distinct. The struggle is the same, but the approaches we employ are distinct. Our aim is the same, but our techniques are distinct. The players are the same, but the alliances are distinct. That is the nature of the Tamil folks. Although we still have the identical aim, the techniques we use are now different…” (Ibid)

Straightforward logic tells us that if such a individual who holds these views is appointed the Leader of the Opposition, he will use his office to further the aims he believes in and is committed to. As a result we shall have a Leader of the Opposition who has “not abandoned [their] fundamental objectives” who believes that “the struggle is the same” and “the aim is the same” (as that of those who employed “armed force”). Logic tells us that he will use “different strategies”, “approaches” and “alliances” in the service of the unchanged basic objective and aim. Most clearly of all, Mr. Sampanthan as Leader of the Opposition will continue to feel and feel, and act on the pondering and feeling, that he and his celebration “must prove to the international neighborhood that we will never ever be capable to realize our rights inside a united Sri Lanka”. Therefore Mr. Sampanthan is committed to proving to the world that Tamil rights can be realized not “within” but only outside a “united Sri Lanka”.

Note that Mr. Sampanthan utilised the term “united” and not “unitary’. If he does not think that Tamil rights can be realized inside a “united Sri Lanka”, is he not making the case for separation? Do we believe his Supreme Court affidavit or his address as leader, the annual convention of his celebration? In other words do we think what he says in English in Colombo or what he says on a formal occasion, in Tamil, in the North and East? At the extremely least we have right here a case of political schizophrenia. Do we want to have a democratic separatist or at the quite least, a political schizophrenic as the Leader of the Opposition of Sri Lanka? These who advocate this are either utterly irresponsible or subscribe to a sinister separatist project. They are either fools or knaves.

Shrinkage of Sinhala Political Energy

Currently the combination of the 19^th amendment which dismantles the robust Presidency would spot national decision making in the hands of a Prime Minister who could be the prepared or unwilling hostage of the TNA and a parliament and a Cabinet that could be bought up by Diaspora slush funds. Taken collectively with the drive to go beyond the 13^th amendment and Mr. Sampanthan’s belief that Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga will settle the ethnic problem by the end of this year on the basis of her political ‘package’ of the mid-1990s, what the Ranil-Chandrika-TNA troika and their external patrons are embarking on is a road map to weaken the centralizing capacities of the Sri Lankan state and lessen the share of state energy, political power, that the Sinhala community has and is rightfully entitled to be given (a) its overwhelming demographic preponderance, (b) antiquity (if the Northern Tamils had preceded the Sinhalese they would hardly have remained stuck in the least arable Northern cone of the island) and (c) the fact that it is the only neighborhood whose language, an ancient a single, is spoken only on this island.

The suggestion to make Mr. Sampanthan the Leader of the Opposition is part of a macro-strategy to minimize the share of political energy and size of the stake-holding inside the Sri Lankan state that the Sinhala nation is naturally and organically entitled to. Ranil, Chandrika, the TNA, and these nations with substantial concentrations of Tamil voters are moving to dismantle the safeguards for Sinhala political power in this island state. The strategic aim is the dilution and dissolution of Sinhala power, the energy of the majority on the island—not least simply because the Sinhalese are observed as the sole obstacle to Western and neighboring hegemony and as allies of China on this strategically placed island on the Maritime Silk Route, whilst the Northeastern periphery is noticed as a prospective base by the external hegemons, who will therefore tilt towards maximizing the energy of the North as a distinct, very autonomous, certainly quasi-independent political unit a la Kurdistan. This is why Mahinda Rajapaksa was externally de-stabilized and ousted, and a puppet regime “democratically” installed. And that in turn is why the multitude wishes him to return, to steer the destiny of their nation a nation that is now manipulated by external hegemons and their disgraceful neighborhood lackeys. The multitude knows in its bones, nay, in its collective soul that this island is the only nation they have on this planet.

By K. Arulananthan –

Wellawatte : Moving to a new apartments at the third floor, as usual drawn water from kitchen tap and boiled prior to drinking. On the second day, all who shared the same water had complained severe thoracic discomfort. Later, came to know that the tap water is drawn from a tube effectively water and distributed among the unsuspicious residence with no any purification.

Rathupaswala : A quickly increasing town, surrounded by paddy fields, is positioned at about 25 km from Colombo. Water is drawn from open duck properly for drinking. A colleague of mine, who lives in Rathupaswala, drawn water from a effectively at her home and tested at the laboratory, exactly where she performs, discovered that the pH remained in between 2 and three – Acidic (pH significantly less than 7 are mentioned to be acidic).

Now the residents at Rathupaswala are supplied with public water program (pipe borne water), thanks for the mass struggle, which ended with deaths, injuries and damage to home. Nevertheless, no 1 knows what triggered the acidity to the well water, a factory or geology of the soil or each! (Rathu –RED, paswala -SOIL)

Mahaweli Upper Catchment : Below the project “Managing Agro-chemical Multiuse Aquatic Systems (MAMAS)”, water samples had been drawn from upper catchment of Mahaweli River by one particular my collogue for testing agrochemical pollution. The samples were offered to be tested for pesticide at the institute, which constituted the expert group to examine the severity of the oil contamination with ground water at Chunnakam. The institute reported that the pesticide content is “not detectable” (negligible or nil) in all water samples. My colleague told me that, suspecting the outcome, he injected pesticide into the sample and handed more than to the very same institute for testing. Nevertheless the test report from the institute indicated that the pesticide content is at not detectable level!

Coastal waters: A current coastal water quality monitoring outcomes revealed that Escherichia coli, a bacteria associated with fecal matter and cause for water borne disease far exceed the accepted limit (The widely accepted limit is 500 cfu/100 ml).The lead to is identified as the municipal raw sewage, discharged at about 2 km into the sea from coastline in Colombo, in other places it is discharged at the coast line itself. One particular of my colleagues, an on looker of the presentation of the monitoring result told me that “it seems taking a swim at our coastal waters is like swimming in a septic tank!”

Padavi-Sripura : CKDu, Chronic Kidney Disease, where “u” stands for unknown or uncertain etiology, was 1st reported in 1994. Soon after two decades, it is at an epidemic scale, affecting far more than 50,000, additional spreading into Northern, Eastern, North Western, Central, and Uva provinces. I keep in mind, it was earlier told that cooking in an aluminum vessel could be the potential cause for the CKD, not too long ago it is reported that the potential result in could be the drinking water contaminated with pesticides. Nevertheless no one appears to know the trigger!.

Chunnakam : In January 2015, it is reported that the Northern Provincial Council has appointed a team of specialists to investigate the contamination of ground water from Chunnakam Power Station. There are other reports indicated that that two separate teams from the Power and Energy Ministry and the Disaster Management Ministry would assess the ground situation and concern would be addressed inside two weeks and also reported that an independent committee consisting of officials from the ministry and the Central Environmental Authority to study the oil contamination issue (Sundaytimes-25.01.2015).

The most typical and deadly pollutants in the drinking water are of biological origin (pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa) and chemical contaminants, which consist of naturally occurring constituents (Arsenic, Barium, Boron, and so forth ), synthetic pollutants (Cadmium, Mercury, and so on ), organic pollutants (Benzene, Carbon tetrachloride, and so forth.) Sri Lanka Requirements Institute published “Tolerance limits for inland surface waters used as raw water for public water supply (SLS 722)”, which contain, if not all the biological and chemical containments, at least for most of them. Is the drinking water within the tolerance limit? No 1 seems to know!

Secure an efficient and successful monitoring, assessment and enforcement is vital to make certain safe drinking water. Ceylon Environmental Authority is mandated to undertake surveys and investigations as to the causes, nature, extent and prevention of pollution and undertake investigations and inspections to ensure compliance in inland waters.

Systematic Monitoring of water top quality is the very first step to assure secure drinking water. Though, discrete monitoring is reported, in my restricted search, I haven’t come across any systematic continuous monitoring. It appears that we do not have capacity to monitor all the health hazardous chemical contaminants. Even, the instruments offered look to be not in desirable working situation, due to lack of certified and trained personals and lack of information in calibration of instruments. Therefore, as of today, we could never know the good quality of water and continue to drink with deadly pollutants.