by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam ( April 17, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Sri Lanka Guardian reports that Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka – Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France, has been summoned to Colombo to meet with the President as well as the Minister for External Affairs. Each one of us would work out the reason to be one or the other – as per our desires and needs. This may or may not be identical to that of the reason shown by the Sri Lankan Administration. But those who are true Administrators would intuitively identify with the true reason why.
I identify with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka’s situation through my own, when I went to meet the Vice Chancellor of the University of New South Wales. If I had not gone, I would have become a nobody to myself and to all those who value themselves through me and my work – knowingly or otherwise. I did actually resign after listening to Ms Pauline Hanson on ABC’s Four Corners program on 10 August 1998, thinking of returning to Sri Lanka. I reacted to Ms Hanson’s statements asking us to ‘go back’ to our countries of origin. Now I know that I have to make the decision to value both my countries. No one else should be given the authority to tell me what to do. That to me was the sovereign power I was born with and needed to preserve right through my life.
The same Four Corners program presented the Channel 4 (British) report against Sri Lankan soldiers. Some Australian Parliamentarians reacted to this particular program and now the Sri Lankan High Commissioner does not seem to be happy with the Australian Government. With surface reactions we add and deduct as per the apparent authority (ABC combined with Australian politicians) instead of basing it on common principles and values – the deepest one being the Truth we know about ourselves. According to that Truth I had every right to stay here in Australia as an Australian. By upsetting me and other true Australians, Ms Hanson was diluting her sense of belonging at the level of real management that current Australia is driven by.
ABC presented also in April 2002, the story of Professor Bruce Hall, of the University of New South Wales, on the basis of scientific misconduct and fraud. According to this presentation, Professor Hall would seem ‘guilty’ as charged. The charges against Professor Bruce Hall included the following:
- Misrepresented data in a grant application to the National Health and Medical Research Council.
- Subsidised his wife's laboratory from his NHMRC grant.
- Transferred $46,000 from another researcher's NHMRC grant to cover his own research assistant.
On 08 July 2008 (years before the above presentation by ABC) I felt very upset by the conduct of the University’s Head of Research Administration in relation to NHMRC grants. Following is an excerpt from my report to my supervisor: Read More »
