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The following incident cannot be put down to schoolboy pranks but
villainy.
Some A/L students from a leading girls school were on their way to
tuition near Havelock Park when they were confronted by a group of boys,
identified as students of a nearby school of rugby fame. In passing the
boys sprayed some liquid with what looked like diluted condis crystals.
The result - not only did the girls suffer purple stained uniforms
but one of them took ill.
Upon examination of the affected student, the physician revealed that
the condis was laced with a proportion of acid. In this instance the
girls escaped serious injury.
Can the authorities please take note of this harassment and task
plain clothes policemen to safeguard our future generation?
CLIFFORD LAZARUS
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Thank you very much for sparing your precious time to give me an
opportunity of a lifetime to meet the President of the country, which I
deem a great honour and privilege.
I am one among the thousands of Sri Lankans working abroad, and I
believe that I need not elaborate on the great contribution made by all
the expatriates to the economy of our country by way of remittances.
We are thankful to your Government for increasing our duty free
allowances and other facilities provided to Sri Lankan expatriate
workers.
However, please allow me to list below some requests complied by
myself in liaison with a large segment of the Sri Lankan expatriate
community in Saudi Arabia for necessary action by the concerned
Ministries and the Sri Lanka bureau of foreign employment.
* Arrange to exercise our franchise
* Provide duty free vehicle permits; permits to include one or two of
the following; car, lorry, three-wheeler, motor cycle, tractor (all of
them could be used for commercial purposes to make a living upon
return).
* Provide expatriates with a list of items that will be set off
against the entitlement allowance and others which will be subject to
nominal duty to be specified.
* Permit reasonable amount of gold jewellery to be taken to Sri Lanka
during annual vacations and/or during final departure.
* Exempt all items taken for personal house building including
bathroom items, floor tiles, fittings etc.
* Permit items taken to establish a business or venture upon return
(i.e. machinery, equipment etc. for e.g. welding machine, office
equipment)
* Introduce a provident fund or pension scheme for the benefit of Sri
Lankan expatriate workers.
* Streamline the recruitment especially of housemaids to ensure that
they report to the Sri Lankan Embassy/Consulate first before being
handed over to the sponsor, so that their sponsors are known and
whereabouts can be tracked.
It is our fervent hope and desire that our request will receive the
President’s utmost consideration. A large section of the Lankan
expatriate workers in the Kingdom and the Gulf who contributed towards
this are confident of your positive response.
They promise to help the Government in every way in its forward
march.
Seyed Hamid Moulana
Saudi Arabia
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Soon after independence and at a time when our hydro-power projects
were being inaugurated, we boasted on supplying our excess capacity of
power generated to India.
But after more than half a decade of mishandling and bungling of our
affairs by some of our politicians, now we are in a situation where we
have to look up to India to meet our power requirements.
This scenario is not confined only to electricity generation, but to
all aspects of our economic life. What a shame!
NIMAL DELWELA
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