• Make public aware of new law on Tobacco and Alcohol Act

• How funeral directors mutilate your dead beloved

• Cinderella treatment for Baddegama-Udugama Road

• Indecent advertisements on TV

Make public aware of new law on Tobacco and Alcohol Act

This is to draw the attention of the general public to an unusual situation being created with regard to the executing of regulations under the recently enacted National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol Act.

It was reported in several dailies that magistrates in several parts of the country have dismissed cases brought to the courts by police officers for violation of law.

It is also unusual that much publicity has been given to these incidents.

The new law came into effect on the first of this month, but it is interesting to note that police officers started prosecuting people smoking in public places even before the law came into effect. Why is this unusual interest?

The other interesting thing is that every time police officers prosecute people for smoking in public places even in distant areas of the country, they are promptly reported in almost all dailies.

When the cases are taken up in the courts, for utter embarrassment of the police officers the magistrates dismiss the cases having pointed out that under the law, smoking is not prohibited in public places. It is also prominently published in the print media, some times with graphic cartoons.

Certainly the police officers cannot say that they are not aware of the law.

If they came to know of the law by the newspapers, then they had surely read the half a page advertisement as well, which clearly stated the new law and where smoking is prohibited.

If they were given directions by their higher-ups for the prosecutions then, they might have given clear instructions, under the new law.

Then how did these wrongful prosecutions come?

The Swarna Hansa Foundation, which had been advocating effective law in tobacco control, for the last several years, fears that all above happenings with regard to new law implementation, are different components of a master strategy to make the new law a farce or a mockery.

GALLAGE PUNYAWARDANA

How funeral directors mutilate your dead beloved

The contents of this letter apply to all of us. If it is a family member and if the person is young and the death took place suddenly, it is a very sad and an unbearable event.

It is also very sad if the person is young and died of a terminal disease like cancer after a period of time even though death relieved the suffering of the person.

On top of this, unbearable sadness when the body is returned by the funeral directors the bereaved family members have to bear the ultimate in unbearable mental agony on seeing the body having turned blue, black and totally unrecognizable.

It is made even worse by the stuffing in the mouth that removes the natural contours of the face. In elderly persons their natural wrinkles are completely removed by stuffing the mouth.

In the case of Mrs. Bandaranaike, her body was kept for a few days but her skin complexion did not change except for a very slight tinge on the eyelids. She appeared to be a sleep. J. R. Jayewardene's body was also kept for a few days and his skin complexion also did not change. He too appeared to be in sleep.

This should give the readers the clue that all bodies can be preserved the same way as was done to the two well known persons. Hence the mutilation of your beloved is a deliberate act and it is done by the funeral directors.

It was by accident that I found how they mutilate the body when I went to one of the well established funeral director to pay for my funeral in advance.

This is a well established large upper class place with a new big building. I asked them how much my funeral would cost and they told me that there are two types; one for rupees 15,000 with the box and the lid and the other is a casket which costs rupees 20,000.

They invited me to see a typical box or casket but I declined in my mental state that wanted to get away from it all.

They also said that that is the total cost of the funeral including the removal of the body to their 'laboratory' and the removal of the body to the cemetery and cremation. This was a few years ago. Today the charges have gone up by rupees 5,000.

I paid rupees 20,000 at that time some years ago and told them that as soon as they receive a phone call that I am dead for them to come remove the body, obtain the death certificate and without displaying the body to cremate immediately with whatever clothing the body comes in and dispose of what remains after cremation any way they wanted.

I also told them that even though I have paid for the casket to place my body on a stretcher, cover it with a white sheet and cremate. They refused saying that the Municipality will not permit it. I do not know how far it is true.

I told them that the reason for the immediate cremation is to avoid the body being turned into a horrible blue black corpse by what they do to it. Then they revealed the secret of mutilation by saying that they would give me the imported injection and not the locally made injection.

Upon questioning further they told me that the imported injection costs around rupees 5,000 more than the locally made one which costs around rupees 1000 to 1,500. With such a low margin of profit I now wonder whether they would actually give me the imported injection.

They also told me the details of what they do. As soon as the body arrives they give the injection through the arm or leg under pressure. After the high pressure has been created in the body they puncture into the heart and pump out the blood. The mutilation can also take place if the injection and the drawing out of blood had not been done properly.

I now ask the readers whether they would not pay that extra rupees 5,000 if they only knew what was going on. Are we totally incapable of getting legislation on this?

L. JAYASOORIYA
via email

Cinderella treatment for Baddegama-Udugama Road

The daily commuters of Baddegama-Udugama route will raise a hue and cry for asking a boat service on their way to work if the spiralling things are allowed to be hamstrung.

"Where we even, where we mean"
"To mend her we end her"

These two sentences uttered by a great poet by the name of G. M. Hopkins are true to the route of Beddegama-Udugama. In other words, that route is speaking to the truth of the above adage. The route in the area called Kotagoda is in a deplorable state making it a view of mud water to the every eye, except the eyes of those should be accountable to put remedial measures into action.

This road portion is laid through a highway site of the Southern highway project map. The mud discarded from the fields and soil unloaded to the development process of the highway have created a mud layer on the tar layer. Heavy equipment are an anathema to the road to be withstood as they pin the road to reduce it to the sole wreck.

To give birth to a highway through state-of-art machinery they destroy the byways make us sighting the veracity of the step-motherly treatment. Drivers and riders who use the road daily are to do an arduous struggle to pass this hell.

Road network of a country is one of the prime life givers to the development wheels of a country, but this road is helplessly doing the opposite facet of that development.

It is not of that ignorance but negligence of the responsible. So what I want to give temperamency for the road. The village grape wine accused at the RDA lacerating that the project has paid RDA to mend the road or is it a blank cheque? But anyone is not conscious of what the reality is.

But the people who are at the top end of the ladder in the professional attainments in other words, people in the big seats many know because they are responsible. One muddy puddle is too much enough for a jumbo to have a fine bath.

Myriads of sincere thanks are deserved if the financial allocation for remedial measures is furnished to mend them pro bono publico. Above all Cinderella treatment to the environmental systems at that outskirts is worthy of mentioning.

This area of Beddegama is known as a Bermuda Triangle because of natural beauty and it buoyancy is being vanished into its wreck and ruin saying good bye to the Planet earth where the forna and flora are anchored.

So what I want to accentuate is that measures to be taken soon to give temparamency for the road. I do agree with that we have to tolerate opportunity cost and negative externalities. But we want our road as it was.

I wouldn't like to talk about the harm done to the surroundings, as how we decide on the horns of dilemma. I request those who are responsible including the Minister of Highways to lend their ears to our approach.

Uvindu Chamika Illeperuma
Beddegama

Indecent advertisements on TV

It is reported that a certain radio station has been closed down because some of its programme were found to be indecent.

it is high time that the authorities looked into the practices of TV stations.

TV is a much more pervasive medium, accessible even to a child. In addition to vulgar and offensive programmes, indecent advertisements are aired throughout the day.

One such advertisement is shown, just before 'Woody Woodpecker', when children are crowded around the TV, waiting for the cartoon.

I refer to the 'Desperate Housewives' ad. Another vulgar advertisement is for 'Girl Friends'.

Such advertisements should not be aired along with innocuous programme.

These days, when going out for entertainment is fraught with danger, children and decent people have a right to enjoy TV without being forced to watch such garbage.

C. C.