The Hive at NTU is the centrepiece of the university’s flipped classroom pedagogy, a new model of education in the digital age. Source: NTU Singapore
17th October 2017
NANYANG Technological University in Singapore (NTU) is now no.1 in Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) Asia University Rankings.
The rankings released today show NTU has beaten its local rival, the National University of Singapore, to the top spot, which the latter held last year but has since dropped to 2nd place this time around.
NTU President, Professor Bertil Andersson said this year’s result is proof of NTU’s “fantastic progress” from its 14th spot when the QS Asian rankings first started in 2009.
“The latest rankings are an outstanding achievement and strong endorsement of NTU’s excellent reputation built up over the years, and I wish to thank the entire NTU community for their contributions,” Andersson said in a statement.
NTU Singapore@NTUsg
No. 1 in Asia: #NTUsg tops the table in latest @QS_Asia University Rankings.
3:41 pm - 16 Oct 2017
The Singaporean school, founded in 1981, also scored the highest marks among regional universities for citations per paper, a metric that measures the impact and quality of scientific work done by the school.
Ben Sowter, QS’ Research Director said: “NTU has improved its standing in the academic and employer reputation indicators, as well as in the “international faculty” metric. Additionally, it has enhanced its research productivity (“papers per faculty” indicator) and impact (“citation per paper” indicator).
This is not the first NTU has bested NUS in global rankings. In QS’ World University Rankings, released earlier this year, NTU took 11th place while NUS was 15th best worldwide.
The World University Rankings uses a different set of metrics than this Asian rankings. For one, the Asian rankings measures how international the universities in the region are, through the proportion of inbound and outbound exchange students.
To this end, the young NTU brings in more than 2,000 international students each year and aims for at least 8 in 10 undergraduates to have an overseas experience.
“There are ample opportunities for our students to widen their international cultural, academic and cross-learning experience through various global programmes, including spending a semester at one of our 350 exchange partner universities. This enables NTU graduates to gain a global mindset that is vital to career success in today’s dynamic and complex global workplace,” Andersson said.
However, in Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2018, the gap between the two rivals are much bigger, spanning 30 spots. NTU was at 52nd spot, while NUS shared the 22nd place with Canada’s University of Toronto.
The city state has consistently performed well in global university rankings. Source: Shutterstock.
Competition aside, Anderson had this to say about Singapore’s performance in the rankings: “Besides celebrating NTU’s success as Asia’s highest-ranked university, Singaporeans should also be very proud that Singapore leads the rest of Asia with two world-class universities.”
“As a small country, Singapore was determined to be at the forefront of research and innovation to punch above its weight when competing with the bigger Asian countries in the knowledge economy. I’m happy that NTU has contributed to this achievement for Singapore,” added Prof Andersson.
Apart from these two Singaporean universities and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the rest of the universities in the rankings’ top 10 is dominated by universities in China and Hong Kong.
2018 Rank
2017 Rank
Institution
Country/Territory
1
3
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
Singapore
2
1
National University of Singapore (NUS)
Singapore
3
4
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Hong Kong
4
6
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Bangladesh has been host and home to some of the world’s most famous people. Apart from a historical figure, Satyen Sen was a novelist, journalist, historian and politician who was born on 28th March 1907 in Munshiganj.
by Anwar A. Khan writes from Dhaka-
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey
( October 17, 2017, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) Bangladesh has an age-old cultural heritage. Its culture has largely been influenced by its past. For centuries, Bangladesh has been synonymous with music and was home to Satyen Sen like many more cultural figures of or relating to the shared knowledge and values of a society. This outstanding cultural heritage has been preserved right to the present day. The country is proud of an outstanding literary tradition with a special focus on theatre, art, novel, poem and dramatic literature. It is a country of full of life and history, has cultivated itself through many eras and embodies the very definition of culture; and the tending of natural growth. Satyen Sen had the power of personal magnetism; a personal attractiveness or interestingness that enables to influence others. He is a Bangladesh’s cultural personality – the complex of all the attributes–behavioural, temperamental, emotional and mental–that characterise a unique individual and Sen personifies all such attributes.
Sinha forced to take leave and go off to Australia
Hasina did not want Sinha removed outright
Justice Abdul Wahab Miah new power centre in judiciary
Sinha’s remark hurts Hasina personally
Sinha allowed to board aircraft, but permission denied to his wife
With the forced exit of Bangladesh Supreme Court Chief Justice, Surendra Kumar Sinha, over the 16th Constitutional Amendment (16A) which gives parliament power to sack a higher court judge with a two-thirds majority, the issue of the independence of the judiciary in Bangladesh has come to the fore once again.
Chief Justice Sinha was clearly forced to take a month’s leave and go off to Australia so that the Awami League Government headed by Sheikh Hasina could appoint a new Chief Justice and get Sinha’s earlier judgment nullifying the 16A, reversed.
The 16A, Sheikh Hasina’s idea, was passed by parliament on September 17, 2014, when the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headed by Khaleda Zia, had no representation in parliament. The BNP had boycotted the January 2014 parliamentary elections.
Prior to 16A, higher court judges could be removed only by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC). On November 5, 2014, nine Supreme Court lawyers went to the High Court to get 16A nullified on the grounds that it shackles the judiciary and makes mockery of the principle of Separation of Powers.
The High Court sent a notice to the government asking why 16A cannot be annulled. In May 2016, a Special High Court annulled 16A. On May 8, 2017, the government went on appeal against this to the Supreme Court, which headed by Chief Justice Sinha, unanimously rejected the State’s appeal on July 3.
The system that has been in place is that the country’s president appoints judges in consultation with the Chief Justice. But the appointing and dismissing authority in the case of the lower judiciary has been retained by the Law and Home Ministries
While the verdict was a blow to the power being enjoyed by Prime Minister Hasina and her government, Chief Justice Sinha’s remarks were even more annoying. These gave rise to the fear that he might undermine her power further, if left to his devices.
Sinha warned the government, albeit indirectly, that the judiciary could send a Prime Minister home as the Pakistan Supreme Court did in the case of Premier Nawaz Sharif. But indicating that the court would not act in haste on such matters, Sinha added: “We have been patient. We are keeping patience. We are only saying we have to be more mature.”
Sinha also questioned the competence of MPs to sit in judgment over judges and asked the Attorney General how a party system which has no faith in its own MPs and has to use the whip to prevent them from falling out of line while voting, can have confidence that MPs would decide on the fate of a judge on merits. The Chief Justice also complained that the government had taken way the lower courts from the purview of the Supreme Court. “I have no power over 80% of the lower courts,” he remarked. In the Masdar Hossain case on the Separation of the Judiciary from the Executive, Sinha had pointed to the inequity involved in the government’s directive that a lower court judge accused of misdeeds would be absorbed by the Justice Ministry. The Chief Justice felt that this was nothing but a way of shielding undesirable lower court judges. Judges of the lower courts are appointed, not by the Supreme Court, but by the Ministries of Law and Home, and it is these bodies which have the power to sack them, not the Supreme Court. Writing to The Daily Star on March 10, 2014, Prof. Rafiqul Islam pointed out that Art 22 of the Constitution enjoins the Separation of Powers, but this provision has been observed more in the breach.
Masdar Hossain, a lower court judge, had gone to court to get the lower courts separated from the Executive. In 1999, the Supreme Court issued twelve directives to give effect to its ruling separating the lower Judiciary from the Executive. But these directives were not implemented. In 2007, an Interim Government separated the entire Judiciary from the Executive. But again because of the transience of the Interim Government, this was not implemented.
The system that has been in place is that the country’s president appoints judges in consultation with the Chief Justice. But the appointing and dismissing authority in the case of the lower judiciary has been retained by the Law and Home Ministries.
According to Prof. Rafiqul Islam, the lower judiciary and the Public Prosecutors Office have been thoroughly politicized since the promulgation of Bangladesh’s first Constitution in 1972.
Politically-motivated cases are filed in thousands, and cases are also withdrawn on political grounds. He points out that between 2009 and 2014, at least 7,177 politically-motivated cases were asked to be withdrawn. The Code of Conduct for the lower courts was promulgated in 1988, but it is rarely followed. The long-standing demand for a Judicial Service Commission to appoint, discipline and sack lower court judges is yet to be met.
The issue has been made worse by Sinha’s unwarranted remarks about the applicability of the Nawaz Sharif case to Bangladesh
It is against the background of this decades-long tug-of-war between the Executive and the Judiciary that current standoff between the government and Chief Justice Sinha has to be seen. The issue has been made worse by Sinha’s unwarranted remarks about the applicability of the Nawaz Sharif case to Bangladesh and the role of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the independence struggle of Bangladesh.
Sinha had damaged the ruling Awami League’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) by saying the credit for winning freedom for Bangladesh could not be given to one individual. Although the name of Sheikh Mujib, Awami League founder-leader and Father of the Nation, was not mentioned, the allusion to him was unmistakable.
Sinha’s remark hurts Hasina personally as she is Sheikh Mujib’s daughter and derives her political legitimacy from her father. However, according to sources in Bangladesh, Hasina did not want to remove Sinha outright. She is said to have suggested that he feigns illness, takes a month’s leave and goes off to Australia. Sinha did agree to this, but reluctantly, as the opposition BNP was backing him.
Sensing political machinations, the government sent emissaries to Sinha to persuade him to leave without a fuss. But when this did not prove effective, a government agency levelled eleven charges against him, including money laundering and moral lapses. Sinha’s colleagues in the Supreme Court met him to get his side of the story, but apparently the fellow judges were not satisfied with his responses. Meanwhile, the government appointed Justice Abdul Wahab Miah as Acting Chief Justice. He is the new power centre in the judiciary.
An angry Sinha met the media as he was leaving for the airport to fly to Australia, and told them that he was not ill and that he was leaving because he was disappointed at the turn of events.
However, a strange incident happened at the Dhaka airport, according to journalistic sources in Bangladesh. While Sinha was allowed to board the aircraft, the Bangladesh immigration denied permission to his wife. Whether or not Sinha will be allowed to come back to Bangladesh is a matter of speculation. With the BNP readying itself to contest the next parliamentary elections in January 2019, Sinha, the fighter for the independent judiciary, could well be one of BNP’s mascots in the run up to the poll.
Irecently met Penny Green to discuss the situation in Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi’s role in the perpetration of the horrific crimes carried out against the Rohingya.
A professor of law and globalization and the founding director of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Queen Mary University of London, Green has been closely monitoring the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar for the past five years. In a 2015 report based on 12 months of field work and over 200 interviews, ISCI found ample evidence that the Rohingya have been subjected to systematic and widespread human-rights violations, including killings, torture, and rape; denial of citizenship; destruction of villages; land confiscation; and forced labor. Citing Daniel Feierstein’s Genocide as Social Practice, which outlines six stages leading to genocide, ISCI claimed that the Myanmar regime had already perpetrated four: (1) stigmatization and dehumanization; (2) harassment, violence, and terror; (3) isolation and segregation; and (4) the systematic weakening of the target group. Now the Rohingya potentially face the final two stages of genocide—mass annihilation and erasure of the group from Myanmar’s history.
Neve Gordon: Can you provide some background about the Rohingya’s plight and the processes that have brought us to where we are today? Penny Green: Burma, known today as Myanmar, received independence in 1948. The country had been part of a vast British colony, and not unlike India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Burma’s borders were determined partly according to religious lines, with the Bengal state being mostly Hindu, Bangladesh mostly Muslim and Burma mostly Buddhist. The Rohingya, who are Muslim, had been living for centuries mostly in what became Rakhine State in the newly established Burma. In 1950, they were issued citizenship identification cards and granted the right to vote under the first post-independence Prime Minister, U Nu. Until the late 1970s, the Rohingya held important government positions as civil servants, the official Burma Broadcasting Service relayed a Rohingya-language radio program three times a week, and the term “Rohingya” was used in school textbooks and official documents.
In the early 1980s, we start to witness the beginning of the process that ultimately aims at erasing the Rohingya from Myanmar’s history and geography. In 1982, the Rohingya were removed from the list of Myanmar’s 135 officially recognized ethnic minorities and stripped of citizenship. A little more than a decade later, the government suddenly refused to issue birth certificates to Rohingya babies. It then began to completely erase the term “Rohingya” from the official texts and even to condemn anyone who uttered the word. After the 2012 government-sanctioned Rakhine violence, the Rohingya were restricted to secure zones, detention camps, ghettos, and prison villages, and were excluded from higher education, all professions, the military and the public service.
Finally, in 2014, the Rohingya were excluded from the census. This is crucial in my mind, even more so than the prohibition to participate in the November 2015 elections, since, as history teaches us, when the state stops counting people it means that the state no longer considers them subjects of management and control, and when people are no longer monitored and managed, it means that they are considered superfluous.
NG: Before turning to the current crisis and to Aung San Suu Kyi’s role, can you explain what led to the concentration of Rohingya in camps, prison villages, and ghettos, and could you tell us about the living conditions within them? PG: The concentration of the Rohingya in camps was a key part of the 2012 violence, which was, in turn, a consequence of a concerted hate campaign backed by the government and orchestrated by a hard-line group within the Buddhist Sangha (a term used for the monkhood) led by Ashin Wirathu. You must keep in mind that even though there were periods of tension before 2012, the Rohingya used to go to school with all the other ethnic groups living in Rakhine, not least the predominant Buddhist population. They lived together, they shopped at each other’s stores, and they participated in each other’s celebrations.
Over the years, however, an anti-Muslim fever effectively gripped the country. While the degree of xenophobic nationalism inside Myanmar is astonishingly high and penetrates every level of society, rendering life extremely difficult for Muslims residing in Mandalay, Yangon, and other parts of the country, the Rohingya in Rakhine State experience a double sense of persecution: both general xenophobia and a specific racial hatred directed against their ethnic group.
The 2012 violence was directly precipitated by the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman, allegedly by three Rohingya men. This was the pretext for the violence in and around Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, which was perpetrated by Rakhine nationalists and fomented by hard-line Buddhist monks and local Rakhine politicians. From the people we interviewed, it was very clear that the security forces did nothing during the first three days, allowing the violence to run its course before they intervened. There were no prosecutions following this violence, even though 200 people had been killed.
As the Rohingya fled their burning homes, they were herded into an area that we now call the camp detention complex. That is where they have been contained for the past five years. A relatively small number of Rohingya remained in Sittwe and live in Aung Mingalar ghetto. They were apparently protected by a Burmese commander, whom we have been unable to locate, but testimonies suggest that he stood up against the Rakhine nationalists and other members of the security forces, protecting the Rohingya from the mob. Aung Mingalar is a very deprived ghetto. It does not receive aid from the World Food Program because it is not a registered camp, and therefore the Rohingya there rely on aid from Muslim communities and limited rations from the state.
Toilets in the camps are collective and located on the camp’s outskirts, a long way from the living quarters, which could, I would think, be dangerous for women. People are terrified of leaving the camps for fear of violence, and as our fieldwork suggests, their fear is justified, given the vicious attacks perpetrated against those who dared go to Sittwe.
The people we saw were profoundly depressed. We visited the overly crowded huts, and people would just be lying on the floor because there was nothing to do, no work, no food to prepare, nowhere to go, and indeed very limited opportunities to do anything. In all these senses, it felt like we were witnessing first hand Giorgio Agamben’s notion of “bare life.”
NG: In your 2015 report you claim that the Rohingya are under threat of genocide. Do you think what we are witnessing is actually a process leading to genocide, or would ethnic cleansing be a more appropriate term? I ask this because, according to the United Nations, ethnic cleansing is defined as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.” In other words, the violence associated with ethnic cleansing is directed at emptying a space of certain populations and has a spatial dimension that is vital to the definition of the violence. Genocidal violence, by contrast, focuses on the extermination of populations, and its object is the human body, while the spatial dimension exists but is incidental. PG: The term “ethnic cleansing” is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it has no legal recourse, rendering it easy for foreign governments to describe what they are witnessing in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing because it places no obligation on them to intervene, either to prevent the violence and protect the Rohingya or to punish the culprits. Another problem is that the term “ethnic cleansing” was initially used by Slobodan Milosevic to mask the genocidal elements of the attacks against the Bosnian Muslims. It is the perpetrator’s term.
Raphael Lemkin understood that genocide is a process when he first coined the term and campaigned for the introduction of an international law against it. Genocide begins with practices of stigmatization and dehumanization, which we have witnessed in Myanmar for a very long time. In the process of othering the Rohingya, the stigmatization continues, but we move into a stage of harassment, where civil rights are gradually removed, such as the right to vote, the right to take certain forms of transport, and the right to have as many children as you like. The Rohingya have been denied these rights as well as many others. During this period of harassment, you often witness instances of sporadic violence, violence used to test the local population’s capacity to engage in violence against the target group. As I explained earlier, as a result of the 2012 Rakhine-led violence the Rohingya were forced into concentrated spaces and were removed from the sight of the rest of Rakhine’s communities. They were completely isolated. All of these practices are necessary for securing the compliance and active involvement of the local population in the annihilation process.
The history of the Jews in the 1930s teaches us that when a group is isolated and systematically weakened—through lack of food, limited access to health care, work and livelihood—and their community is deliberately fragmented, the group becomes extremely vulnerable. This is what has been happening to the Rohingya, and the Myanmar government has been an active supporter of this process. We know, for example, that local politicians were involved in planning the violence of 2012; they organized buses that picked up Rakhine men and women and brought them to Sittwe to torch Rohingya houses. Rakhine nationalists who carried out the pogroms recounted in the interviews with ISCI how free food was laid out for them and how they were given weapons.
Moreover, it is crucial to understand that genocidal annihilation is not only about decimating the body but also about destroying the ethnic identity of a people. This is what the Myanmar state has been embarking on. Aung San Suu Kyi, who has effectively been the equivalent of a prime minister for over a year and a half, called the US ambassador to her office and told him that the term “Rohingya” was not to be used. Along similar lines, when ISCI was still allowed to work in Myanmar, we had to be very careful not to use the term “Rohingya.” This process of annihilating an ethnic identity fits well with Lemkin’s notion of genocide.
From August 25, 2017, we have been witnessing an escalation of this whole process. As far as I understand, the destruction of villages continues despite the denial of the Myanmar government. We do not know how many people have been killed, but it is undoubtedly in the thousands. Over half a million have fled, crossing the Naf River into Bangladesh. But what most people do not understand is that they are joining another five to seven hundred thousand Rohingya who have fled since 2012. So, all along the Bangladesh side of the Naf River, there are over a million Rohingya living in appalling conditions, in unregistered camps, while only a few hundred thousand are still living in Rakhine State.
In several senses, Myanmar has been successful. The Rohingya who are still living in Rakhine can only identify as Bengali and the term “Bengali” is coded as illegal immigrant. What we are now witnessing is the social reorganization after the annihilation of the Rohingya identity. Former Buddhist prisoners have been resettled under the government’s Na Ta La village program in an effort to change the demographic structure of northern Rakhine State, creating an ever-increasing hostile environment for the remaining Rohingya community.
NG: The world has condemned Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence. What do you think is her role, if any, in this new stage of violence against the Rohingya? PG: I challenge this idea of silence. Aung San Suu Kyi has not been silent. Every step of the way she has exercised agency. I understand how difficult it is for people in the West to consider her as an active perpetrator of the horrific crime of genocide, given that she is the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, and literally scores of other significant awards. But let’s remember that Henry Kissinger was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as he was carpet-bombing Cambodia. It is important to also understand that for the past 19 months, Aung San Suu Kyi has been Myanmar’s State Counselor, the equivalent of prime minister. She is definitely not a minor or weak actor in Myanmar.
During her tenure as premier, she has not once criticized the violence perpetrated against the Rohingya. She has condemned all violence, all human-rights abuses, as if somehow this was a symmetric conflict.… I cannot call it a “conflict,” because this is a one-sided annihilation of a particular people. She, as I mentioned, called the US ambassador and instructed him and all other diplomats not to use the term “Rohingya.” She has not condemned the hate speech pouring out from the monk groups that aim to destroy the Rohingya. She has continuously lied about the situation in northern Rakhine State while simultaneously denying international access to the region, and has actively participated in covering up her government’s crimes.
But even before the current crisis, she participated in sowing the seeds of violence. Although the National League for Democracy had Muslim candidates in the past, in the 2015 elections Aung San Suu Kyi refused to include any Muslims on the party’s list, thus pandering to her constituency and to the Islamophobic atmosphere in Myanmar. In 2017, following the publication of a UN Flash Report that documented mass killings and mass rapes by Myanmar’s security forces in northern Rakhine State, Aung San Suu Kyi’s office declared that these were “fake rapes” and fake news. This is precisely around the same time that Trump began using the term.
When the most recent cycle of violence began this past August, her office made the ludicrous claim on Facebook that the international community was aiding and abetting the terrorists, by which she meant the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which in August had attacked a security outpost. As a result, all aid and humanitarian agencies were forced to leave Rakhine State, and consequently Rohingya camps were left without food for weeks—another act that precipitated the massive exodus. She has also consistently and unreservedly aligned herself with the military, refusing to condemn its actions against the Rohingya.
Her relationship with the military is interesting, since in the West she is considered the one person who for years stood up against the military junta. We need to keep in mind that her father was Gen. Aung San, who led the independence movement in 1948, and therefore there is a historical family link with the military. She is also a member of Burma’s Bamar, the Buddhist elite. She was indeed held under house arrest for 15 years, but in a rather beautiful house on Inya Lake; she had servants and was on occasion allowed to meet with international visitors. Despite the fact that it was the junta that imprisoned her, she famously declared her love for the Burmese military not long after her release. How can one explain this apparent paradox?
In my mind, Aung San Suu Kyi is a very ambitious and utterly ruthless politician whose primary goal is to become Myanmar’s president, regardless of what it takes. According to the country’s Constitution, because she married an English citizen and her two sons were born in the UK, she is prohibited from becoming president. In the past 19 months, all of her political efforts have been designed to change the Constitution. This, however, is impossible without the military’s support,
since according to the deal she brokered before the 2015 elections, the military retains 25 percent of the seats in Parliament, and, to change the Constitution, one needs over 75 percent of the votes. In other words, without the military, the Constitution cannot be altered. Consequently, she not only refuses to condemn the military but has also allowed it to continue controlling three key ministries, defense, interior and borders. She has, in other words, created an unholy pact with those who were her enemies.
The sacrifices Aung San Suu Kyi is willing to make are many. The annihilation of the Rohingya is one of them.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday confirmed an outbreak of bird flu at broiler chicken farms in a central province, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement.
FILE PHOTO: People participate in an emergency exercise on prevention and control of H7N9 bird flu virus organised by the Health and Family Planning Commission of the local government in Hebi, Henan province, China June 17, 2017. Picture taken June 17, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer
Flocks are particularly vulnerable to avian flu during the drier winter months, following which outbreaks usually die down.
The outbreak in Hexian, a city of about 500,000 people in the province of Anhui, was caused by the H5N6 strain of virus, and has been brought under control, the ministry said on its website.
The local government culled 30,196 fowl after the outbreak, which infected 28,650 broiler chickens and killed 15,066 of the birds, it added.
The last bird flu outbreak, also of the H5N6 strain of the virus, killed 9,752 birds on quail farms in the southwestern province of Guizhou, the ministry said in August.
South Korea and Japan battled major outbreaks during the winter.
The H7N9 strain of the virus has caused at least 281 deaths since October in China, with two cases of human infection last month, authorities said last week.
Live poultry markets were shut down in many provinces following the human infections.
China’s last major bird flu outbreak in 2013 killed 36 people and cost the farm sector more than $6 billion in losses.
The release of the Constitutional Assembly’s Steering Committee report on constitutional reform gave the hope that it would be the government’s priority in the coming months. This calculation was buttressed by the government’s repeated postponement of local government elections which also became extended to the postponement of provincial council elections. The problem facing the government is that any local election would pit the coalition partners against each other, possibly to the detriment of their alliance. This led to speculation that the government would go into a referendum on a new constitution on the basis that this would be the best way to reunify the government alliance. It was argued that a referendum would impel all parties that supported the candidacy of President Maithripala Sirisena at the presidential elections of 2015 to get together again as a unified force to win the referendum.
However, it now seems more likely that the long postponed local government elections will take place prior to the referendum. The report of the Steering Committee on Constitutional Reforms has not yet reached the stage of being a draft of the new constitution. At the present time it is only a set of principles and proposals that are 26 pages in length. It is not written with the requisite degree of detail and specificity to be a draft constitution. This is also immediately visible in the fact that the Steering Committee report is unsigned. It is still far from being a consensus document which can be seen by the fact that the eight annexes to the 26 page Steering Committee report from eight political parties amounts to 65 pages in length.
A perusal of the set of nine documents that comprise the Steering Committee report with annexes would reveal that political parties are still far from reaching agreement on many of the principles of the new constitution. Although the Steering Committee report asserts there is general consensus that the Executive Presidency as it exists today should be abolished, most of the political parties want it to continue albeit with reforms. Although the Steering Committee report proposes an alternative formulation of the unitary state, most of the political parties are in disagreement with it. These parties include the SLFP, headed by President Maithripala Sirisena and co-partner with the UNP in the government which takes a stand that is contrary to the Steering Committee report on both these issues.
AVOID ALIENATION
The government has announced that the Steering Committee will meet once again on October 19 to discuss its report and annexes. The government has also set aside three days beginning October 30 to discuss these matters in parliament. There is anticipation that these deliberations will yield a sufficient consensus for the constitutional drafters to get on with the task of preparing a draft constitution. This is likely to take several months. This process is unlikely to be completed by January next year when the local government elections are most likely to take place according to the Election Commissioner. It is unlikely that the constitutional drafters on the government side will wish to bring the outcome of constitutional discussions to the public attention until after the local government elections.
Constitutional reform is highly charged for both political actors and the general population. It is liable to be distorted and misinterpreted. The mere fact that the government is engaging in constitutional reform in the context of international pressures on it due to war time excesses has enabled the opposition to attack the government. The opposition has claimed that the government’s reforms are meant to surrender to the demands of the international community and to pave the handing over of war heroes to international tribunals. The opposition has been claiming that constitutional reform is meant to appease the international community rather than to protect the national interest.
Therefore, in the next three months the government will be focusing its attention on how best to win the local government elections. A key instrument for electoral advancement will be the forthcoming budget, which will be out in November and is expected to contain many attractive features for the general population. There is unlikely to be much progress in terms of advancing the constitutional reform process. If at all the government will engage in a strategic retreat to the existing conservative formulations of the unitary state and the granting of foremost place to Buddhism. This is the common denominator to which all Sinhalese-led parties will accede. The government will wish to avoid alienating its majority Sinhalese voter base.
IDEAL SCENARIO
The repeated postponement of local government elections has given rise to a belief that the government has lost much of its popularity and that the opposition is strong. This impression is given credence by the fact that people are ever willing to complain against the government for its failure to transform the economy into a high performance one in which the cost of living is reduced, salaries are increased and exciting new job opportunities are created. This has enabled the Joint Opposition led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to project itself as a strong force that can capture state power in a few years if not topple the government immediately. The prevalence of strikes by various trade union groups is attributed to the strength of the Joint Opposition which is seen as having a hand in every trouble for the government.
The ideal scenario for the government would be to use the opportunity presented by the local government elections to dispel this negative image. The government will go into these elections as rival political parties represented by the United National Front (UNP and allies) and the United People’s Freedom Alliance (SLFP and allies). They will be contesting each other, which is the situation that they tried to avoid by postponing the local government elections. However, their main opponent, the Joint Opposition will not be in an advantageous situation either. The main party of the Joint Opposition will be the newly formed SLPP which comprises SLFP members loyal to the former president as its main component. The new party will be hard pressed to break the monopoly the UNP and SLFP have long enjoyed.
Reports from the field indicate that ordinary SLFP members prefer to stay with their traditional party, the SLFP, which is part of the government and enjoys the benefits of state power rather than join the SLPP, which is given leadership by the former President. It is also reported that the SLPP is having difficulty in some areas in finding suitable cadre who are prepared to contest the elections. Prospective candidates are aware that voters at the local level are more likely to vote for a candidate who has access to the state machinery. This lays the ground for victory by the government parties at the local government elections. Such victory may also lay the ground for victory of the government at a referendum on a new constitution. The post-election challenge will be to come up with a consensus document that harmonises the Select Committee report with the annexes of the political parties.
16/10/2017
In a way of adjournment motion which will be presented tomorrow in Parliament, TNA leader R. Sampanthan has responded to the state minister of defense Ruwan Wijewardena, who has reiterated their position that there are political prisoners in Sri Lanka at present and Tamil detainees held under the PTA will not be released.
In his adjournment motion Sampanthan says that ” these cases cannot be considered as coming purely under the purview of the Attorney General’s Department. [and] … have a certain political dimension and cannot be addressed as a purely legal issue. It can be justifiably stated that if Sri Lanka’s national question had been reasonably addressed in time, many of the persons in custody, would not have been in their present position and would have been useful citizens. ”
The full text of the adjournment motion follows:
16th October 2017
Hon. Speaker, Parliament of Sri Lanka, Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte.
Sir,
Motion Pertaining to matter of Urgent Public importance , 17 Oct 2017
I hereby give notice that I shall on the adjournment of Parliament at 6.30pm on 17th October 2017, move the following motion pertaining to a matter of urgent public importance.
The motion pertains substantially to persons held in custody from the North and East under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The facts are as follows: –
(I) These persons are held in custody under the Prevention of Terrorism Law irrespective of whether they have been convicted, have been charged, or have not yet been charged. They have been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Law and all action taken against them has been in terms of that Law. (ii)It has been accepted by the Sri Lankan State both domestically and internationally that, the said Prevention of Terrorism Law is draconian, obnoxious, and should therefore be regarded as obsolete. The Sri Lankan State has made several commitments both domestically and internationally that the said Law will be repealed, and that a new Law will be enacted in keeping with acceptable domestic and international norms.
(iii) The Sri Lankan State is yet to fulfill this commitment, but that does not derogate from the Sri Lanka State’s commitment that the said Law should not remain on the Statute Book.
(iv) The only evidence available against most of these persons are confessions extracted from them against their will under the Prevention of Terrorism Law which would be inadmissible against them in a normal Court of Law. Many of the cases have been postponed because the Prosecution is not ready to proceed with the Cases.
(v) Almost all of them have been in custody for very long periods of time, for as long as, they would have been sentenced, if sentence was passed on them shortly after being taken into custody.
(vi) The families of these persons in custody have suffered for very long periods of time, without the support of their bread winners. This vitally important factor has not been given due consideration.
(vii) Quite apart from the pernicious nature of the Prevention of Terrorism Law. Persons in similar situations such as persons taken into custody during the insurrections of the J.V. P have been granted an Amnesty and released. It is not understood why the same principle cannot be applied in regard to these prisoners.
(viii) These cases cannot be considered as coming purely under the purview of the Attorney General’s Department. With due respect to the Hon. Attorney General as the Chief Legal Adviser of the State, these cases have a certain political dimension and cannot be addressed as a purely legal issue. It can be justifiably stated that if Sri Lanka’s national question had been reasonably addressed in time, many of the persons in custody, would not have been in their present position and would have been useful citizens. This circumstance makes it obligatory that you address this issue politically too. The issue not being addressed politically is a strong impediment to reconciliation and the restoration of goodwill and harmony.
(ix) An unnecessary complication has been created by the transfer of some cases from Vavuniya to Anuradhapura. If witnesses needed. 0protection, such protection could have been provided without the cases being transferred.
The accused in the cases to be transferred from Vavuniya where the Language of the Courts is Tamil to Anuradhapura where the Language of the Courts is Sinhala are from the North-East and are Tamil speaking and not proficient in Sinhala /the other Language of Administration /Courts. Their cases being transferred to Anuradhapura where the Language of the Courts is Sinhala is a denial of their constitutional right to have their Cases heard in Tamil a language which they can understand. In a criminal prosecution the rights of an Accused person are fundamental. He has a right to fully comprehend the evidence and the Case presented against him.
By such transfer the Accused is also denied the opportunity and the right to Legal Assistance of his choice These and other factors could prejudice a fair trial. The proposed transfer reflects a measure of insensitivity to the fundamental rights of an accused person. The Prisoners have been continuously carrying on a Fast against such transfer. This situation needs to be addressed on an urgent basis.
I have to also very strongly urge that for the reasons stated above all these Prisoners be released without any further delay.
R.Sampanthan,
Member of Parliament-Trincomalee
Leader, Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi
Leader of the Opposition, Sri Lankan Parliament
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe must be applauded for volunteering to appear before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) into the alleged Central Bank Bond scam to “clarify any matters with regard to the references made to him at the sittings”.
Whatever the reasons the PCoI had for not summoning him in the first place, it now has a golden opportunity to seek clarification from the PM if indeed he appears before the PCoI.
It must be said that the “references made to him at the sittings” were relatively marginal.
I am confident that the PCoI will maintain its credibility by going well beyond this in the context of:
1. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), the issuing agency for Treasury Bonds, falling under the purview of the Prime Minister
2. The PM hand-picked Arjuna Mahendran a foreign national to be Governor – CBSL
3. In the context of the widespread demand to not give Arjuna Mahendran a second term as Governor due to his perceived role in the alleged bond scam, it was the PM that robustly endorsed him for a second term.
4. Being fully confident on the propriety of the issuance of Bonds, the PM robustly defended the same in Parliament despite the evidence that subsequently transpired before the PCoI.
5. Malik Samarawickrama who did not hold a ministerial portfolio at that time and who was Senior Advisor to the PM and Chairman of the UNP has confirmed attending the initial ‘Breakfast’ meeting in February 2015 (presumably with the concurrence of the PM) on the issuance of Treasury Bonds. PM Wickremesinghe is UNP leader.
6. It is disappointing that the AG’s Department had no questions to ask from Ministers Malik Samarawickrama and Kabir Hashim (UNP General Secretary) when they appeared before the PCoI and did not seek to clarify whether a discussion regarding funding to the tune of Rs.15 Billion could be concluded over a ‘breakfast’ meeting. One wonders what the funding requirements must be to have a formal meeting! No questions were also asked as to how an ‘advisor’ can request funding.
7. Dr. Harsha de Silva - Deputy Minister, Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs where the PM is the Minister in charge.
On Dr. de Silva’s contribution to the controversial ‘footnotes’ saga in the alleged bond scam ‘The Sunday Times’ of October 30, 2016 reported as follows:
“As is clear, the thrust of these footnotes is to make clear that Mahendran has not been responsible for any impropriety.
The UNP is confident that it can, through the documentation Deputy Minister Harsha de Silva has received, prove its case that its man Arjuna Mahendran is not to blame.”
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/161030/columns/the-dramatic-bond-issue-how-cope-went-beyond-bioscope-215374.html
As if this were not enough, consider his response to the following question from a journalist on the ‘Footnotes’:
“Minister do you at any point now regret the footnotes on that COPE report? Going by what is being revealed now, do you regret it or was there a lack of information at that point?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL0p8o580K4
What does his response from (21:25:40) indicate? The clarification sought from Harsha de Silva has still not come.
8. Rosy Senanayake - ‘Deputy Chief of Staff’ in PM Wickremesinghe’s ‘core team’. It was alleged at the PCoI that COPE documents relating to PTL CEO Kasun Palisena’s testimony were given to ‘PTL owner’ Arjun Aloysius by “Rosy’s son” identified as “Kanishka Senanayake”.
This has been denied by Ms. Senanayake on the grounds she was not a COPE member after the August 2015 parliamentary elections. Does not the question arise whether in her capacity as ‘Deputy Chief of Staff’ in PM Wickremesinghe’s ‘core team’ she would have access to COPE reports? Although requested, she has still not clarified this position.
9. R. Paskaralingam - Advisor to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs (Ministry held by PM Wickremesinghe) is said to have been present at the meeting convened by then Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake with Chairmen of State Banks (BoC, PB, NSB) relating to bidding at the Bond auction.
I have previously stated that this is one of the largest financial scams to have taken place in the post-independence history of Sri Lanka. The muted response of the opposition exemplifies the rot in the governance of this country.
The sooner this issue is put to rest, the better. The country seems obsessed with this alleged scam while placing other instances of alleged corruption also under the Rajapaksa regime and issues of governance on the back burner.
With the forced exit of Bangladesh Supreme Court Chief Justice, Surendra Kumar Sinha, over the 16th Constitutional Amendment (16A) which gives parliament power to sack a higher court judge with a two-thirds majority, the issue of the independence of the judiciary in Bangladesh has come to the fore once again. 
Sinha had damaged the ruling Awami League’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) by saying the credit for winning freedom for Bangladesh could not be given to one individual. Although the name of Sheikh Mujib, Awami League founder-leader and Father of the Nation, was not mentioned, the allusion to him was unmistakable.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe must be applauded for volunteering to appear before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) into the alleged Central Bank Bond scam to “clarify any matters with regard to the references made to him at the sittings”.