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It is heartening to hear of a bold decision taken by the Health
Minister against prescribing branded drugs, which saves innocent poor
patients, pocket and this bold decision totally discourages the
multi-national shark drug importers by promoting their branded drugs to
the medical physicians by offering various kinds of bribes that I don’t
need to mention because medical physicians know best.
The promoting of drugs should be totally banned in Sri Lanka like in
the UK.
Prescriptions should be written in generic names and promotions
should be done by brochures and let the patient buy the prescribed
medicine by their own choice in price. Hope this bold Health Ministry
decision will remain and never be amended for any reason.
M. A. ISMATH – Beruwala
As far as I know, mosques use speakers to persuade the congregation
together at the mosques in a crowd as much as possible to perform the
prayer together at the scheduled time. The last two stanzas of the
morning call, reminds that the prayer is more valuable than slumber.
This message cannot reach far, if it’s confined to the four walls.
The writer says that the use of loudspeaker had come into effect two
or three decades ago. If it’s three decades ago the SLFP Government
could have permitted the use following the NAM which had been held in
Colombo and participated mostly by the Muslim nations of the Middle East
that accommodate Sri Lankan expatriates perhaps more of Sinhalese than
Muslims.
If it’s two decades ago, it’s late President Ranasinghe Premadasa who
had encouraged the use of speaker as he too had been benefited by that
to start his day’s work afresh.
The whole episode is nothing but a political phenomenon, that has
created an egoism as the President gaining an immaculate popularity,
particularly in the Muslim states to have the country’s economy
stabilised.
Anyhow the writer of the letter dated November 27 has been liberal in
approving the Muslims practising their religion freely without the use
of loudspeaker. Muslims the world over should appreciate his esteemed
generosity and good will.
V.C.H. MOHIDEEN
New-designed coins are issued in denominations of rupees 1, 2 and 5
all now in same metal of stainless steel. But the embossing on these new
coins is very dim and dull as compared to earlier coins where embossing
was sharp and attractive.
Moreover the design of the rupees one and two coins is the same with
size only marginally different. All these faulty features cause
difficulty to the public.
Wide publicity was given to the two-coloured coins designed by
National Institute of Design in Ahmadabad.
But inferior-quality coins are induced in circulation. It is better
to save on coin-minting by discontinuing minting of coins in
denominations of 10 and 25 paise, and to reduce sizes of coins in other
denominations.
It may be recalled that the size of the present 10-paise coins was
likewise reduced to that of the earlier 1-piase coins.
The best is to have coins in the denominations of rupees 1, 5 and 10
only with reduced sizes thereby discontinuing minting of 2-rupees coins
and replacing 10-rupees notes by coins of similar denomination to save
high cost of printing notes paving way to reduce sizes of notes of other
denominations.
MADHU AGRAWAL
We can breathe a sigh of relief now and thank Minister Bogollagama
for his recent statement in Parliament explaining the issues taken up by
him with the British Government concerning the LTTE terrorists.
This is very relevant in the light of the debate that took place in
the House of Commons in last May (ref. UK Parliament website Hansard
debates text May 2, 2007).
His statement in the Parliament that Government should take more
steps to educate the international community on its moves taken to
combat terrorism should be heard far and loud.
The Foreign Ministry should be congratulated for producing a book
listing out the atrocities committed by these terrorists over the past
three decades, and I am sure that they would also set up proper
distribution channels in order to make sure that these are received by
appropriate Western media organisations.
The Sri Lankan Government should keep a step ahead of the Tiger
Terrorists in gentlemen’s attire living in the West to achieve the best
results for these efforts now and also to ensure that the sacrifices and
efforts of the brave Armed Forces and their Commanders engaged in
frontline duties are not in vain.
Another point is the fact that positive media reaction in the West so
created will indirectly contribute to improving country’s risk ratings
in international money market dealings of the Government.
Due appreciation for moving the motion in Parliament by MP Bimal
Ratnayake which prompted this statement by the Minister and also for
MP’s proposal to create an anti-terrorist media unit to confront the
Tiger Terrorist media machinery.
This is a very important proposal and is compatible with the
Minister’s statement. An overdue response to Tiger Terrorists’ media
activities in the West. Hope the Minister would give due consideration
for the implementation of the same.
An effective, efficient and dynamic unit needs to be established with
proper evaluation of its objective and to function diligently and
authoritatively in facing present day Western media challenges.
Let the world know the truth and lift Sri Lanka out of the gloom
created by Tiger Terrorists. Combating terrorism in all fronts should be
the way forward.
INDRAJITH DE SILVA – England
How can people select the seven wonders of the world? It should be
done scientifically on recognised attributes like how they categorise
hotels as 5 star or 7 star.
If you get people to vote, then India has one billion people, China
has another billion people to vote for their own.
As for Sigiriya, Lowa Maha Paya and Ruwanvaly Seya, they all can be
contenders but does the one billion Indians or one billion Chinese or
the rest of the world know anything at all about these engineering
marvels? It is the silliest thing to ask people to vote to select these
seven wonders.
ANIL AMARASEKARA
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