No Madam! We’d Rather Not!
Lakmali Hemachandra
Universities around the country will be closed during the whole of next week and the purpose of this sudden decision according to the Chairwoman of University Grants Commission, Kshanika Hirimburegama, is to allow the students the opportunity to experience the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) that is scheduled to be held next week. Speaking to media, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo cajoles, the students that this is in fact a great chance to learn and gain knowledge and asks them to study, the event (from home) and prepare their own reports. Kshanika Hirimburegama during her days in the University played the mother to thousands of students who were away from home, she would reprimand the students if there was a strike, make sure that their activities were under surveillance and keep them on a tight leash, because every mother knows that young children are impressionable and the world is waiting to devour them! However the tiny detail she missed back then and seems to be unaware of even today is that university students are above the age of 18, all of them can vote at elections to decide on the government that is entrusted to appoint all the administrative officers like herself, most of them are allowed to drink and get married without parental consent, allowed to enter to into contracts of employment and allowed in general to make decisions about their lives for the simple reason that they are capable of doing so. To be protected when one is a child is to feel loved, to be treated like children when you are grown up adults is condescending and demeaning, to be treated like idiots when you are engaged in serious academic activity is outright insulting and offensive and that is precisely what Hiriburegama has done with this bogus reasoning for closing universities during CHOGM. Read MoreWhen The Treasure Fleet Sailed Into Galle
Prof Kumar David
Zheng He, and perhaps Nelson (whose fame belonged to a different genus), were the two greatest admirals to sail the seas. The Treasure Fleet visited Ceylon on five of Zheng’s seven voyages to South and South East Asia, the Malabar Coast, Arabia and as far as the east coast of Africa. All this was between 1406 and 1431; the first voyage some 80+ years before Columbus reached San Salvador Island (Bahamas), or Gama, Calicut. Despite awesome naval and military power the Chinese did not colonise Asia, leaving that to Europeans – why? How different would history have been if it had been the other way round? And why did the great fleet disappear as suddenly as it arrived? And what about the curious incident when Zheng took the King of Kotte by his ear to the court in Nanjing because “he was in need of instruction”?
A five day Plenary Session of the Chinese CP’s Central Committee opened in Beijing on Thursday (7 November) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been on steroids promising changes as “momentous” as the December 1978 Plenum which raised Deng Xioping to the leadership and adopted a radical economic turn. What happens in China is crucial for the rest of the world and of earth-shattering significance for hangers on like the Rajapakses, so I presumed readers would like to hear a historical story first. I will deal with the outcome of the Plenum when news leaks out. Read More
