Expose` 3 -University is not a property of professors- : Most disgraceful book robberies of culprit professors

(Lanka-e-News -09.March.2016, 11.30PM) While expressing my gratitude to Lanka e news for publishing the traits  and qualities of the University lecturers and professors ,might I be permitted to make some more revelations in that connection...

It is a fact that a majority of the University lecturers today go to India and China to secure their M.A. and Ph.D. The theses written by  some of them do not even run into  100 pages. A strange feature   is , some of them who go to India  and spend three years to obtain their Ph.D. and return have no proficiency in English or Hindi.  Those who go to China to obtain their qualifications  , and return to SL too are in the same boat. They do not know Chinese language  or English. It is therefore deducible that these Dons who went to India and China to secure their M.A. and Ph.D. have followed their studies and done the research apparently in Sinhala using sly avenues..

Those lecturers and professors who have secured their M.A. and Ph.D in India and China do not even reveal their research subjects . The main reason for this is , they have submitted to those Universities the research that was done here in Sinhala  by someone else .

Robbing the research done by others this way has become a practice in Universities. There are also reports of lecturers robbing the research done by students.

The hidden truth  pertaining to Professor Mayura Samarakoon of the social science department of Sri Jayawardenapura University has now come to light. In the Satyagaaraya book of Sannasgala  a teacher, the books robbed by the professor is mentioned.

This professor has for his M.A. submitted a dissertation presented two years before by a student  for the B.A. degree. When Sannasgala showed this book and questioned the professor , the latter turned nervous  and clueless. The student has written it  based on the notes given to him  in the class.  The student said , the same notes are there in the professor’s  book too. 

In the book of this culprit professor ,the first part of basic social science in the seventh paragraph represents   the robbed first principles of criminology contained in  the first chapter of the book written by famous   professor Nandasena Rathnapala . 

In the book titled social behavior and personality  published in the name of this professor , what is contained in the book titled ‘Sigmund Freud and mental analysis table’ written by professor Roland Abeypala had been copied word to word. Yet in the associated books , nothing is mentioned of the book of Abeypala .The latter’s book was published in 2009 , whereas the culprit  professor has claimed his book was published in 2007  , which has been clearly proved as a falsehood. 

At the  substantiating  committee, a group of lecturers pointed out this robbery of the professor . Yet the Vice Chancellor at that time , and the present Vice Chancellor who was in the administrative board then suppressed this robbery .

It has came to light that a  book published by a lecturer of Jayawardenapura University and  a female lecturer of Kelaniya University was copied from the social science introductory book , and ‘family and society’ book written  by Hemantha Kumara , a lecturer at the Ruhunu  University social science division. Lecturers of Sri Jayawardena University and Kelaniya University later  asked pardon from Hemantha Kumara  for the wrong they committed.

If one does a stroll  around the University , another corrupt  methodology adopted when  writing such books can be noted. On the subject he/ she  wishes to write , the students are nominated  to write on that subject and after  transferring  to a CD cassette it is taken into the possession of the lecturer . Later  when the  student  sees  the book coming out in the name of the lecturer , the student has only one choice , silently say and sigh ,  ‘ this is   what we wrote.’

When books are being prepared for the external degree courses too , this robbery is prevalent.   These perfidious professors spend large sums of money to publish the   writings and dissertations of students   , in the form of   books in their  names, and make those  compulsory for exams. 

 It is therefore high time ,not only the pressures and influence  exerted by politicians , but even the mafia ring of professors and lecturers must be rooted  out from Universities once and for all.
 

By Buddhika Molagoda 

Translated by Jeff  

Ven. Uduwe Thera Remanded

BY Buddhi Prabodha Karunaratne and Premalal Wijeratne-2016-03-10

Colombo Additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris yesterday remanded Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera till 17 March over the possession of an elephant calf illegally.

Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera was arrested yesterday by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
A special police squad deployed by CID made the arrest followed by recording a statement from the Ven. Dhammaloka Thera.
Previously Dhammaloka Thera filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court citing CID Director B.R.S.R. Nagahamulla and the Inspector General of Police as respondents pleading Court to stay his arrest.

However, Dhammaloka Thera said he got to know the allegations through the media, and also stated that he adopted the elephant calf when it was abandoned at the temple premises after a ceremony held at Alan Mathiniyarama temple.

Another 33 elephants which were discovered in illegal possession of other persons are currently looked after by the Udawalawa Elephant Orphanage, an official of the Department of Wildlife Conservation stated. The CID is inquiring into three other elephant calves which are in illegal possessions.

Large Processes At Work Destroying Journalism Today

( March 8, 2016, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) In a 34-year career as a journalist, Sainath — the former Rural Editor of the Hindu –– has won over 40 global and national awards for his reporting (and turned down several, including the Padma Bhushan because, in his view, journalists should not be receiving awards from governments they cover and critique). He is the winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2007, for Journalism Literature and Creative Communications Arts. He was the first reporter in the world to win Amnesty International’s Global Human Rights Journalism Prize in its inaugural year in 2000. He was also the first Indian reporter to win the European Commission’s Lorenzo Natali Prize for human rights journalism in 1995. Apart from the 40 plus print media awards, two documentary films on his work, ‘Nero’s Guests’ and A Tribe of his Own,’ have between them picked up over 20 awards across the globe.

Watch here what he has to say about the present context of the Indian journalism;

P Sainath: Large Processes At Work Destroying Journalism

Shashi Kumar: Indian Media at a Defining Moment

US commandos capture head of IS chemical weapons unit

Sleiman Daoud al-Afari worked on Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons programme, which US forces hunted after the 2003 invasion (AFP) 

Wednesday 9 March 2016

US and Iraqi officials say Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, a former expert in Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons division, is being questioned in Erbil

US special forces have captured the head of the Islamic State (IS) group's chemical weapons division in a raid in northern Iraq last month, according to US and Iraqi sources.

The Associated Press news agency on Wednesday quoted senior Iraqi officials as saying that Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, a former expert in Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons division, was captured near Tal Afar.

The New York Times separately quoted anonymous US defence officials as saying that Afari was being interrogated at a site in Erbil, in the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, which the Red Cross had visited.

Afari capture came shortly after the arrival in Iraq of a new unit of "Delta Force" commandos charged with capturing high-level IS leaders. The unit is the first major American combat force on the ground there since the US pulled out of Iraq in 2011.

According to the Times, the captive has provided details about how the group weaponised mustard sulfur agent into powdered form, and loaded it into artillery shells. The agent was not concentrated enough to kill anyone, but it could sicken, the Times said.

The reports of Afari's capture come days after Middle East Eye reported that IS was developing an arsenal of homemade, chemical-laden rockets that have been fired at Kurdish and Iraqi forces in Sinjar, a town recently liberated from the group.

In one attack on 25 February, 175 Peshmerga fighters were treated for the effects of gas released by "Katyusha"-style rockets fired at their base. Witnesses said 19 rockets fell in total. Their contents is still being analysed but the effects were consistent with blistering agents such as chlorine or mustard gas.

"At first, we felt nothing, we just noticed an unpleasant smell. But after a few hours we began to feel unwell and started to vomit," said Ahmed Musa, an Iraqi policeman.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the UN's chemical weapons watchdog, reported that IS had used mustard gas in an attack in Aleppo, Syria, last August, which killed a baby and sickened one other person.

The watchdog's report concluded "with the utmost confidence that at least two people were exposed to sulfur mustard".

The reported capture of Afari is the result of a new push to target IS chemical weapons sites with airstrikes and raids over the past two months, Iraqi intelligence officials and a western security official in Baghdad told the AP news agency. 

US forces have also sought to either capture or kill IS leaders. On Tuesday, the US military said it had "likely killed" the IS military commander Omar al-Shishani in an air strike in Syria. The death has not been confirmed by IS.

IS has been making a determined effort to develop chemical agents, Iraqi and US officials have said, and is believed to have set up a research unit, made up principally of Iraqi scientists from the Saddam era.

However, as reported by MEE, coalition air forces have been largely unsuccessful in finding the low-tech weapons it produces, which are small and can be hidden and moved with ease.

The crude results of the IS programme have been nothing more than "symbolic", according to Dan Kaszeta, a former US army chemical officer and Department of Homeland Security expert who is now a private consultant.

“Furthermore, the chemicals we are talking about are principally chlorine and sulfur mustard, both of which are actually quite poor weapons by modern standards,” he told AP. 

Keeping traditional music alive in Gaza

The Dawaween ensemble

 Shadi Alqarra

Rami Almeghari-

8 March 2016

They come from different backgrounds and have vastly different musical experience. But the 13 members of Dawaween, a newly formed band set for only its fourth concert in Gaza on 10 March, are united around one aim: the preservation and popularization of traditional Palestinian music.

“Our music is pretty lively,” said Abdelraouf al-Bilbeisi, the band’s 30-year-old oud player, who spent the previous nine years performing with a wedding band around the Gaza Strip.

“It deserves to be played on stage.”

The oud, the fretless Middle Eastern cousin of the European lute, is one inseparable component of this effort, and al-Bilbeisi is rediscovering his love for the instrument after so long on the wedding circuit.

“I stopped enjoying playing,” he said, while practicing the traditional tune “Ya Mahairati” — My Beloved Horse — on stage at the Mishal Cultural Centre in Gaza City. “Then I joined Dawaween. Those traditional tunes bring out some beautiful sounds from my oud.”

The Dawaween ensemble performs at the Mishal Cultural Centre in Gaza City.Shadi Alqarra

Woman on stage

Al-Bilbeisi is also one of the band’s three main singers. Another is Riwan Okasha, 24, a financial management graduate and daughter of locally renowned musician, Atef Okasha. Okasha has sung since the age of three — she had little choice, she said, in a musical family — but never contemplated performing in public.

“I was reluctant to join [Dawaween] at first. Gaza is a conservative society, and it is not common for women to perform on stage,” she said.

With her father’s and two musician brothers’ encouragement, however, she overcame her reluctance. Still, she conceded, her first time on stage was nerve-wracking.

“At first, the audience seemed confused,” she recalled. “Then they cheered and encouraged me, clapping loudly. It was really amazing and that’s why I am continuing.”

Read More

Race In Races

By Mano Ratwatte –March 8, 2016

Mano Ratwatte

A short note on US Presidential demographics and does it matter to Sri Lanka?

There is an air of excitement and anger in the US today. We may ridicule or laugh and say “How could people vote for Trump?”

The US is more divided an angry today than 8 years ago. Whether than Anger will result in a demagogue being elected as President is yet to be seen.

Protectionism and tariffs on imports are usually the call of Blue collar Democratic politicians but Trump is carrying that torch. The Wall is his own unique rallying call supported by many in both parties. Don’t underestimate the power of the lesser educated angry white people this time. Republican primaries are drawing massive numbers of voters to the Polls in the same proportions as Democrats did in 2008. Trump has been able to bring people to the polls in unprecedented numbers.

Who will be better for Sri Lanka? It depends. For the current Sri Lankan government, doing great things to heal relations with the USA perhaps a Hillary regime with some of the same failed bureaucrats who bungled Libya will be better. Her focus (that is if she isn’t indicted before November for email server problems) will have to be the Middle East. She is likely to leave Sri Lanka to the bureaucrats in the State Department.

Trump or any Republican candidate will have to focus more on the Middle East and trying to walk a tight rope and appease angry rich Sunni Arab nations, and bring some stability and destroy ISIS. Sri Lanka is never on anyone’s radar for too long except that it is in a strategic geographic area and is an actor in the US-Indian strategies across key shipping routes and in their game to contain China. Republicans are likely to exacerbate tensions and increase military aggression in the Middle East. Trump and Cruz are willing to accept collateral damage, carpet bomb, and be more aggressive in killing terrorists, and their families like how the UNP dealt with the JVP in 1987-89. They are less likely to worry about human rights issues.

There is a racial undercurrent in the USA. Take a look at the numbers below for the states that voted on Tuesday March 2016 in “Super Tuesday” primaries. The states were Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas (all Southern Confederate states), Vermont, Massachusetts and Alaska. What does it tell you about the Trump factor and enthusiasm? It doesn’t bode well for the Democrats. The excitement factor is clearly in favor of the Republican Party in 2016;

Read More

Syria's children: barrel bombing, shelling and air strikes

WEDNESDAY 09 MARCH 2016

More than a quarter of a million children are living in besieged parts of Syria and are enduring constant fear because of the deadly violence around them, according to Save the Children.
(All pictures: Amer Al Shami/Save the Children)

A report from the charity, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the start of Syria's brutal civil war, says barrel bombs, air strikes and shelling are having an adverse pyschological effect on children, who are also being deprived of food, clean water and medicine and surviving on boiled leaved and animal feed.

Besieged areas have borne the brunt of indiscriminate barrel bomb attacks, according to the report, with children also having to contend with the shelling of a school playground in Al Wa'er September and air strikes that led to at least 29 child deaths in Eastern Ghouta in December.

Save the Children interviewed more than 125 parents and children for the report. The children spoke of their fear, while parents said their sons and daughters had changed, becoming withdrawn, depressed and aggressive. Stories of children dying through malnutrition, lack of medicine, healthcare were widespread.

The report says: "No child should have to live under these conditions. Parties to the conflict have an obligation under international law to allow humanitarian aid to reach besieged areas.

"For far too long, the rights of children and other civilians in these areas have been denied, with disastrous consequences. This intolerable situation cannot be permitted to continue.

"They and their families are cut off from the outside world, surrounded by warring groups that illegally use siege against civilians as a weapon of war, preventing food, medicine, fuel and other vital supplies from entering and stopping people from fleeing. Amid the spiralling atrocities in Syria, these children are among the most vulnerable of all."

Turkish first lady praises harem as ‘school for women’

 Women with a sign saying ‘Stop men’s and state violence’ during an International Women’s Day march in Istanbul. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Emine Erdoğan makes comment after her husband caused thousands to demonstrate against his government on International Women’s Day

Emine Erdoğan’s comments were made a day after the president caused protests by saying he believed that “a woman is above all a mother” in a speech marking International Women’s Day. Critics have accused Erdoğan’s government of trying to impose strict Islamic values on Turkey and curtailing women’s civil liberties.

“The harem was a school for members of the Ottoman dynasty and an educational establishment for preparing women for life,” Emine Erdoğan said at an official event on the Ottoman sultans in Ankara, according to Turkish TV stations.

President Erdoğan has been criticised for urging Turkish women to have at least three children and railing against efforts to promote birth control as “treason”.

He and his wife regularly speak of their attachment to Islamic principles and the values of the old Ottoman empire, on the ruins of which the modern Turkish state was founded in 1923.

The term “harem” has long titillated the western imagination. In the Ottoman period it was an institution with strict and detailed rules that even the sultan had to follow, and precise guidelines on the recruitment and education of courtesans.

Each woman would receive an education in a discipline in which she showed promise – for example calligraphy, decorative arts, music or foreign languages. There was no age limit for the harem and women of 60 could live alongside young girls, while the most capable could rise to wield enormous influence over the court.

Emine Erdoğan’s remarks came under fire on social media and her husband’s comments drew thousands of women into the streets of Istanbul in protest.

Ozlem Kurumlar, a professor at an Istanbul university, tweeted: “In the time of Murad III [a 16th-century sultan], books were the only thing that never entered the harem.”

Balkanization of Nigeria as a Done Deal

The Ottoman Empire failed largely because as Muslims dominated empire it started toying with the oppressive Islamic political system of government and ideology. The empire’s fall was rapid and its leaders started looking for escape goats.

by Osita Ebiem

( March 8, 2016, New York City, Sri Lanka Guardian) “And the Ibos [Igbo] have started again about the Biafra. You know what? I am ready to go to the next war if there’s going to be a balkanization of this country.” (Nigerian Tribune February 27, 2016.) That is how Alabi Isama is quoted as his response to a journalist’s question on the current Igbo quest for secession from Nigeria. Isama was a Nigerian army officer who served during the Biafran War. He fought on the Nigerian side. It is even reported that he recently wrote a book about the war.

The current Balkan states are those European states within the Balkan region that emerged in the twilight days of the Ottoman Empire. They were larger union states that broke up into smaller units or countries at the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Some of them had existed in unpleasant unions for centuries. But during the balkanization era they all broke up. The break ups happened despite the resistance of many battle hardened generals who had seen real battles against armies that were equally well-armed during the imperial days when men built empires and annexed vassal states by the force of arms. Some of these Balkan army generals were career military men – from their teenage years till old age, they fought wars. 

Read More

6 reasons why we still need International Women’s Day

By Shiromi Pinto, London, 3 March 2016

Since 1975, 8 March has been a rallying point for feminists worldwide. Established by the UN, it has traditionally been a moment to celebrate women’s achievements while highlighting serious inequalities between the sexes. But 41 years later, is it still necessary?

The answer is yes. Women and girls may have scaled unimaginable heights in politics, science, arts, sports and business, but they are still struggling. Not just for equal pay, which is a concern on so many people’s minds today – but for their basic human rights. Nowhere is this plainer than in women’s struggle for their sexual and reproductive rights. Here are six reasons why we think International Women’s Day is more important than ever.

1. Women and girls can’t get the abortions they desperately need.

About 39% of the world’s population live in countries where abortion is either totally banned or allowed only if a woman’s life or health are in danger. Among those countries are Chile, where abortion is totally banned, and Ireland, where it is only allowed if a woman is at risk of dying. In both countries, women carrying foetuses with fatal health problems are forced to carry their pregnancies to full term or bear the cost of travelling to another country to access these vital services. Similarly in both, women with fatal health conditions are often refused life-saving treatment because of the risk it poses to the foetus. Withholding medical treatment in these contexts – or forcing a woman to endure the pain of carrying to full term a foetus they know will die – amounts to torture.

We can’t let this go on. Chile is debating its abortion law now and momentum is building in Ireland for abortion law reform. Your pressure can make a difference. Call on Chile and Ireland to decriminalize abortion.

2. Girls continue to be forced into marriage.

More than 700 million women alive today were married before they were 18 - about 1 in 3 of them before she was 15 - according to UNICEF. Among the countries with the highest number of forced and early marriages is Burkina Faso, ranked 7^th, with 52% of girls married before the age of 18. When a girl is forced into marriage, she usually has to give up school and accept early and often consecutive pregnancies. Despite the risk of losing their own families, many girls in Burkina Faso rebel against forced marriage - finding their way to shelters sometimes thousands of kilometres from their homes.

Stand with them today. Sign our petition calling on Burkina Faso to enforce its laws against forced and early marriage.

3. Marital rape still isn’t always considered rape.

It took feminist groups the better part of the last century to get marital rape recognized by law. In 1993, the UN declared it a human rights violation. Nevertheless many countries still do not explicitly consider marital rape a crime. In Tunisia, for instance, sex is considered a marital duty for both men and women. In reality, however, this means that women feel obliged to submit to their husbands’ demands. As one woman told Amnesty: “No is not an option, he doesn’t like that, so whatever situation I’m in, whether I’m tired or sick, I have no choice.”

Tell the Tunisian authorities to stop punishing survivors of sexual violence. Email the Prime Minister today.

4. Women are being jailed for decades after suffering still-births.

It’s happened in El Salvador and Nicaragua. It’s happened in the USA as well. Women in these countries have been arrested after suffering a miscarriage or complications with their pregnancies – and jailed for decades. This can only happen in a state where abortion is illegal. Teodora is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence after suffering a still-birth. Charged with “aggravated homicide”, she is another casualty of El Salvador’s inhuman ban on abortion.

Tell the Salvadoran authorities to free Teodora.

5. Survivors of forced sterilization are still waiting for justice.

Throughout history, sterilizing people against their will has been used to control the population of some of the most marginalized groups in society: those with disabilities, people living in poverty, and ethnic minorities. Women in particular have been targeted. In the 1990s, around 200,000 mainly Indigenous or poor women were sterilized, many without their informed consent, in Peru.

Eighteen years on, and survivors are still calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.Join them.

6. Women continue to be sexually harassed in public places.

Sexual harassment is a daily reality for women wherever they are. One UN study revealed that 43% of young women in London, UK, had experienced harassment on the street. In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the UN found that 90% of women and girls experienced some form of sexual violence. Sexual harassment and sexual violence are similarly a scourge for refugee women. Syrian refugee women like Maryam, currently in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, have said that they are frequently targeted for abuse: “Whether I’m single or married, I’m always harassed,” she says.

Women’s ability to control what happens to their own bodies still remains out of reach for millions. On International Women’s Day, let’s remember those women far and wide, and take as many actions as possible in solidarity with them.

Image: Malika 'La Slammeuse' photographed by Leila Alaoui in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, January 2016. © Leila Alaoui for Amnesty International

Int'l Women's Day Proves Strength and Tenacity Year after Year

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

Women’s day is about actions against injustice, in deeds, not simply words.

(OCCUPIED PALESTINE) - On this International Women's Day, I am in Amman attending the Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance Conference where most presentations are by brilliant women (thank you Rita Giacaman for excellent coordination/organizing). In this conference, public health issues are discussed in the regional context and in the context of Israeli colonial occupation.

I was inspired mostly by people here: good dedicated experts who present the data regardless of how they get attacked by the powerful elite who profit from war, conflict and inequality.

We saw sobering numbers about health access inequality, lack of accessibility to medical services, political interference in health, increased cancer rates, increased congenital birth defects, communicable disease, deteriorating mental health, torture and forced feeding and much more. From my lab, we had a poster on genotoxicity.

For a report on last year's conference held at the American University of Beirut, see map-uk.org/news/archive/post/275-lancet-palestinian-health-alliance-conference-report. This year is even bigger (235 attendees from over three dozen countries).

I celebrate Women's Day in Amman and then in Palestine (I will be on my way back to the besieged homeland today). I lament how the mainstream media misses the point intentionally. They highlight elite women (some who make the lives of women everywhere more difficult such as Hilary Clinton), and they fail to give credit to those women on the front line who change things (like colleagues and friends Rana Bishara, Rehab Nazzal, Rita Giacaman, and million other activists).

The media even fails to explain the origin of this day. Having an annual dedicated day for women (action) was proposed by Clara Zetkin of Germany to attendees at the International Conference of Working Women in 1910. Inspired by women socialist movements for fair working conditions in the USA in 1908 and 1909, movements grew of women demanding their rights (until then they did not even have a right to vote).

The first women’s day on 8 March 1911 launched demonstration and marches for women workers’ rights (right to vote, right to fair work condition, right to live free from oppression, right to life, against wars etc).

After a long struggle and many lives lost along the way, the UN finally recognized 8 March as an “International” (I prefer global) women’s day in 1977, 66 years after it was launched by brave socialist women. Thus women’s day is about actions against injustice not about Hilary Clinton who stands in the way of change and pledges allegiance to Zionist lobbies!

The First Arab Women’s Congress of Palestine gathered about 200 women and was held on 26 October 1929 in Jerusalem. The demands were rights of women and against the Balfour Declaration, against the racist idea of Zionism, for self-determination, and for full equality (gender, religion etc). They elected a 14 member Executive Committee headed by Matiel E. T. Mogannam.

Mogannam wrote a book titled “The Arab Women and the Palestinian Problem” published 1937. Moghannam explained how Palestinian women in the 1920s were innovative in many ways: lobbying the colonial power, writing in newspapers, and holding the first demonstration in human history that used automobiles with 120 cars in 1928 (gathered from all over Palestine to drive in the streets of Jerusalem). See my book on “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment” (a href="http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/">qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine).

The struggle of women here continues unabated. Many people like me believe sincerely that had women been in charge here, we would have had a free Palestine by now. My mother who is 84 years old showed us by example what giving and self-sacrifice and love of people and land means.

My wife and three sisters are likewise examples of what we all should aspire to do: kind, dedicated, and hard-working human beings. Like millions before them and millions contemporary with them, these women make life livable while many men (and a few women) engage in hurting others and pushing for conflicts and war.

Words are too mediocre and inadequate to express our feelings but I simply want to say to all the women working for peace and justice: thank you and to pledge that we will work with you for more progressive change in our societies.

As males, we must challenge the system we inherited of giving privilege to men (Patriarchal societies we live in). This must be in deed not in words.

For the local situation of Palestinian women today, I urge you to read this remarkable new issue of the excellent magazine “This Week in Palestine” dedicated to our better half: thisweekinpalestine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/March-215-2016.pdf

Mumbai women fighting for Right to Pee want men to join campaign

BY RINA CHANDRAN- Wed Mar 9, 2016

MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Activists and charities campaigning for better access to public toilets for women in Mumbai are asking men to join the movement, saying greater gender sensitivity can solve the problem faster.

The Right to Pee campaign, a collaborative effort of 33 non-profits, is calling attention to the lack of free, clean and safe public toilets for women in Mumbai.

In the city of more than 22 million, only about one-third of the 11,000 or so pay-to-use toilets are for women.

"There is a huge disparity between facilities for men and women, largely due to the gender insensitivity of the authorities," said Supriya Sonar, an activist with the Right to Pee campaign. "Which is why we are telling men who pee in the open: you too don't have adequate facilities, so why don't you join our campaign."

The lack of adequate sanitation costs India the equivalent of more than 6 percent of its gross domestic product every year, according to non-profit Dasra, an Indian foundation promoting social change.

The issue is particularly important to slum dwellers - more than half Mumbai's population - and to those who work on construction sites and on the streets.

Public toilets for women are often dirty, with broken doors and no running water or lights. Where there are no public toilets, the search for a suitable place comes with the constant threat of sexual harassment or rape.

Women who lack access to clean, safe sanitation tend to drink less water and control their bladders for as many as 13 hours a day. This has significant, long-term effects on their reproductive, sexual and overall health, Dasra said in a report released last week.

In Mumbai, where men can often be seen urinating at street corners and near dumpsters, almost 100 sites have been identified for the construction of toilets for women.

"But nothing has been built, and the funds have lapsed," said activist Sonar, who on Monday returned an award the Mayor's office gave to the campaign last year, saying there had been no progress.

"This is about a woman's dignity," she said. "We urge the Mumbai corporation to think about that. And we urge men who pee in the open to also join this campaign to bring more pressure on the authorities."

The shortage of toilets is a nationwide issue: more than half India's adolescent girls, about 63 million, have no access to a private toilet, according to Dasra.

Girls tend to miss school for an average of six days a month because of the lack of safe toilets there, leading to almost a quarter of them dropping out of education on reaching puberty. This "sharply degrades their potential as individuals and future workers," Dasra said.

The United Nations said in a 2014 report that it was a "tragic irony" that there were more mobile phones per 100 people in India than toilets.

In economic terms, the importance of tackling the problem is that there is a return of between $3 and $34 for every dollar spent on sanitation, through reduced poverty and health costs, and higher productivity, the United Nations said.

The "Clean India Mission" launched in 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi aimed to improve sanitation and increase funding for public toilets to end open defecation.

A separate $7.5 billion renovation of 20 Indian cities is under way with the aim of making them "Smart Cities" by upgrading roads, utilities and sanitation .

($1=67.20 rupees)

(Reporting by Rina Chandran, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories

Recruiting ex-Sri Lankan soldiers an affront to all Tamils

Although vacancies must be filled in the security services sector, bringing in former Sinhalese soldiers is akin to condoning their crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka.

by P Ramasamy-March 8, 2016

Apparently security agencies in the country are up in arms over the rise in crime in the country and the dearth of trained and professional security guards.

Nepalese, who had been recruited earlier to work in security-related jobs have stopped showing interest in coming to Malaysia.

Meanwhile the recent proposal by the Ministry of Home Affairs to recruit former Sri Lankan soldiers to work as security guards here has been welcomed by the Crime Prevention Network Association (NPNA).

Its President Alex Chandran Krishnan said such a move would not only help fill-up vacant posts but contribute to the professionalism of security guards in general.

Since former soldiers would have received extensive training and have battlefield experience, they would be in a position to contribute to the meaningful development of security agencies in the country.

If the Ministry of Home Affairs finalises this move, then former Sri Lankan soldiers coming into Malaysia would be screened to ensure that remnants of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) are weeded out.

However, Alex’s endorsement of this move leaves much to be desired.

While agreeing that vacancies in the security services sector need to be filled, recruiting former Sri Lankan soldiers, invariably, Sinhalese, into the country might have undesirable effects.

Despite assurances that former LTTE members would be weeded out, the question remains as to how many of them are indeed in the armed forces?

While some former LTTE cadres may have joined the Sri Lankan armed forces before the end of the war in 2009, their numbers are still too small to mention.

I do not understand where Alex got his information from or perhaps he has no knowledge of matters concerning Sri Lanka.

There is a global hue and cry that the violence that took place in the final stages of the war in the north and east of Sri Lanka, Tamil areas to be exact, was nothing other than ethnic genocide, where hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils were slaughtered.

Moreover thousands of women were systematically raped and sexually abused by members of the Sri Lankan armed forces.

There were also many reports from human rights organisations about the mistreatment of Tamil women by members of the Sri Lankan armed forces during and after the ethnic war.

Is Alex suggesting that Malaysia condones the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces?

Not a single soldier has been brought to trial for their involvement in crimes against humanity, I mean, against the Tamils.

Alex, being Tamil himself, is somehow more insensitive to the suffering and denigrations suffered by Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Many of the former soldiers of the Sri Lankan armed forces were involved in these crimes against humanity.

Presently, the United Nations Human Rights Council is urging that Sri Lanka open itself to international investigation for crimes against Tamils.

If the Malaysian government allows recruiting of former soldiers of the Sri Lankan armed forces, then Malaysia would be guilty of condoning the terrible crimes perpetrated against the Tamils there.

I can assure you that Tamils in Malaysia will not sit back and look at this recruitment exercise passively.

I hope the Malaysian government rescinds the directive as it would be a grave insult to the dignity and well-being of Tamils in Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Alex on the other hand, should not think of just making a few extra bucks from the misery of the Tamils and should be more sensitive to their concerns, in Malaysia at the very least.

P Ramasamy is Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang.

With a firm belief in freedom of expression and without prejudice, FMT tries its best to share reliable content from third parties. Such articles are strictly the writer’s personal opinion. FMT does not necessarily endorse the views or opinions given by any third party content provider.