Need graduates who can perform

A friend in the education ministry told me a story last week. In Sri Lanka there's a village call "Atakalampanna”. There is a small school in this small village. Some time back there was an art teacher in this school. He was very talented. In the first year he was appointed to a school in this village, six students from this school received medals from Shankar international art competition. Second year also they received six medals. This news was published in a very tiny invisible slot of a news paper. So in the second year, principal of this school wrote a letter to one of the education directors. Principal mentioned in his letter that their students are very talented and emerged this much of awards. But there wasn't any place in the school to keep at least the awards. So he requested the education director that, if this school gets a building for the students to study, that will be a great help. Now you must be thinking education director might not have replied as usually what could happen in Sri Lanka. No actually he did reply. Can you imagine what the education director's reply was? Just imagine. He replied saying "Please bring all the medals to the education office. There's enough space to keep the awards. No need for a building". Not only that. He transferred that art master in to Ananda College. (I have nothing against Ananda College. Glad they got a good teacher). In the first year after he joined Ananda College, two students from Ananda College won Shankar competition. But news papers gave them half a page publicity compared to the small place they gave to that small school. This art teacher is the one who later become the very famous art teacher of Ananda College. Please don't misunderstand me. This article is not about that art teacher. I'm happy he got a better place with better facilities. Happy for him and I do respect his talent and service. This is about some thing else. When I heard this, for a moment I felt the tragedy of the education system in this country.

In the papers last week I saw one of our famous ministers has made a comment that there are 48,000 graduates in the public sector and 25,000 are idling without having any work to do. What an unfortunate country? Where is the fault? Normally in private sector, they hire people only if there's a vacancy. Most of the top businesses have a career plan for their staff. They invest on their staff expecting to capitalize on their talent. Why these governments don't have such plans? I know one of the ministries submit a paper saying they need 60 odd graduates. They got 600 graduates. What can they do with this extra staff? Ministers can argue that they have to give jobs to people, otherwise people will die from hunger. But just pump graduates in to anywhere will not solve the problem. They will eventually hate this society after all.

But why does graduates have to go behind politicians and beg for a job? They are the so called most brainy people in this country. Who make these students in to such low level situation? Well in Sri Lanka the cream of this country is selected to universities from one of the most competitive exams in the world. Then what happen to these intelligent students? They have to go through very hard time. It starts with ragging welcome. Then for 4 years they have to be in the campus. Some universities don't allow their students to do a job and earn money or get some experience during that period. Because of this, university students has happen to print book marks, papers and go around buses and every where and beg money for their studies from people who didn't even pass their O/Ls . How sad? Our universities still stick to their old believes. They don't like students doing any other exams too. Because some of these lecturers do not have any qualification more than their first degree. They do not specialize on teaching or they neither do much research. So they never allow their students also to exceed them. In some famous universities in the world, only having a 1st class degree is not a qualification to teach. If you are really good in teaching, if you have far superior knowledge, you can teach even without a degree.

Does what we teach in our universities match for today? Can their graduates compete with other similar students who are professionally qualified with various other exams? (Some of course are very much better I do agree.) I feel our politicians and other policy makers bring these students to universities and then humiliate them. I feel they betray the students to take the revenge that they couldn't go to university. Do they really do any skill development? One of my mates who are qualified from University of Moratuwa told me that none of their graduates are unemployed up to now. I don't know how true that it. But if it is the case that is something a university can be really proud about them selves. How many universities in this country can give such a guarantee?

In other hand students also should know that a university is not a place which gives jobs. Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you have a job. Students should be intelligent enough to understand the tragedy they are in. Some students just spent their 4 years of life in the university doing strikes and ragging (please read the book "Giniralla Conspiracy by Nihal De Silva”) and all sorts of foolish work without taking any effort to develop their skills. They always complained that they do not know English. But as students who have a very high brain capacity, if they really want, they could learn English very well. May be better than the English speaking community in this country. They could assess them selves as to whether they are competent. If they are to stand superior to others, I think their degree certificate is not enough. They should grab skills. They should know about the world around. I think more than all, they have to develop their attitudes. Otherwise they could not market them selves and they will never get a chance to show their abilities to the world.

Another thing is I guess if we can categories the universities in this country as to different sections we can reduce the number of unemployed graduates. I think they have to have some universities to develop skills. Some for only academic and research purposes. Some for job oriented degrees. I don't know how the university system works in other countries. But I feel there is something terribly wrong with some of our universities and our systems and the mind set of our people.

In an interview at TV one of the spokes man said that even at a crisis situation, our garment sector develops. That’s because there are skilled labor in that industry to cater the demand at a world class level. But our IT sector does not develop even at good times, because we do not have enough IT professionals to serve. When are we going to fill this gap? Is the education in country is for the glorification of the politicians and foolish education officers who make these policies? Does the exams of this country focus on testing knowledge or failing students? Only less than 1% of the students go to a university in this country. Just look around. Just think. Is there anything we could do to change this?

People often ask me whether I'm a socialist, do I hate this country, why I always blame some one and various similar questions. No I'm not. I'm a very neutral ordinary citizen. I love this country. If we all try, we could make it a really nice place. What ever it is love to live in this country.

Sri Lankans looses many jobs due to country situation

Yesterday I met a friend who is working for one of the key BPO companies in Sri Lanka. According to him, Sri Lanka is loosing many of the jobs in BPO sector due to the political unsuitability here. Many of critical projects are taken out of Sri Lanka. These projects were again out source to countries such as India, Malaysia & China. Because investors are scared to keep these back offices in Sri Lanka. If there was a bomb blast and if anything happened to staff or if staff can't come to work for one day, that is a problem for them. Because if the staff here gets unable to work for one day, that has a direct impact on their share price with regard to some of the key processes. Some of the staff has made redundant. Some are not yet made redundant, but these professionals who handled most important tasks of the key companies in the world are idling today. They can easily find a job anywhere in the country with their skills, but the problem is they obtained very high salaries with these foreign clients. Because these clients who are operated world wide earned in dollars & pounds. They paid salaries in Rupees. So they did have a competitive advantage. For a Sri Lankan based company who cater for local market, it will be impractical to pay salaries even closer to these margins. Therefore this has a huge impact on our economy. Ultimately these officers will have no option but to leave the country for the same job in another country.

Countries such as India take the advantage out of this. They have already put up some large offices in many south Indian cities just to grab Sri Lankan market. Not only that. They have put up even training colleges to train their employees to receive these high end work. That is something which we never did. Our youngsters managed to do all these tasks without even having any idea what those companies are. They learned it hard way.

Not only BPOs, but even at other sectors we could see this. Just look at the hotel promotions these days. Hotels which cost about Rs 10,000 per night, have now introduced new packages. I saw one such hotel has offered one night, bread and breakfast for Rs3,000 only for Sri Lankan citizens or Sri Lankan VISA holders. They can't give full board package to this amount. But still they have introduced new packages at such comparatively lower rates, because they need to find some ways to survive. Half of the contract staff has sent home. In this sector even the permanent staff do not get attractive high digit salaries. But they had lavish life styles because they received commission from foreign tourists. At the end of the month most of the time, total of these commission exceeded their salary. But now it’s not the case.

These are only 2 examples which I know. In general we all are aware that the politics has an effect on everything and business is very sensitive to these issues. Some one could argue that there's a war going on and we have to tighten our belts. Now days what ever happens, the excuse is war. If you are a patriotic, you have to bear with it for the sake of the mother land. Is government responsible for this tragedy in economic sector of this country? Well economics or business is not my field and I'm not an expert of it. But as a citizen I believe YES. Government is responsible. Do they have any plan to develop the economy of this country? If they don't know what to do, at least they have to appoint some people who can run the game. Except for few I don't see any talented experts on the field. I don't see any plan to boost business or any infrastructure development to attract investment. Its reported that people like Lee Luan Yew and Mahatheir Mohammad also have killed people and abducted people in the early stages after they appointed. But they did develop their country. They didn't do those to take the revenge from anyone or hide witness. They made their countries as wonderful places to live. They made their citizens proud about their country. I think if you are a real patriotic that’s what you should do. Rather than destroying the country further more, if you can build it from scratch that’s great. War or what ever, as a responsible government they should develop the economy of the country. There is a strong private sector in this country and they have taken enough initiative to drive through this out break. But I feel there are things they cannot do. That's why a government is there.

Who can help you when there's a robbery?

Yesterday morning I saw in world news that President Bush who went to Albania has been received a welcome of a hero or a star. People of Albania were gathered to see the American president. Today morning in world news I saw that some body has robbed the president's watch while he hand shake with people. But white house announced that president just removed the watch and put it in his pocket before he goes to people. When I saw this I remembered something else. I met a friend of mine after a long time. He told me that his house has been robbed. Robbers couldn't find much of money from the house, but they have taken some of the goods at that house. As usually happens, he has gone to the police. Put a complain on their books. Next day police had come to their house. Has taken finger prints. Asked every one whether they know who the thief is. They asked whether there are any suspects. They asked neighbors whether they saw anything happened. Then they started walking around the house and tying to find from which door they entered the house , whether roof is strong enough for the thieves to walk on it , whether thief has entered the house while residents were sleeping last night etc etc. Then they have gone away with a promise to catch the suspects within 1 week. It never happened after months also.

Same thing happened to their neighbors. Some body robbed their house too. Knowing what happened to my friend, they did not expect the help of the law or help of the police. They had couple of under world friends around. They seek the under world help to find their stuff. Within 2 days they found the stuff and everything was returned.

Well now my friend has a fair doubt. Where we should really go when we are in trouble? Even though there's a law in thief country, will it be useful most of the occasions? I'm sure our police can find any sort of crime or any sort of suspect. But do they really care? There's a war in the country and everyday big crimes such as killing, raping etc etc takes place. Police department has only few resources to allocate for all the incidents reported. So day by day, small incidents are neglected. May be these robberies are not worth millions and comparatively small for police department. But for the victims who faced it has much more value for it. May be its’ everything they earned all their life. May be it has much more sentimental value. For such people, when the police never care to find the suspects, that it self is a shock to them. They live with anger and frustration. My friend's little daughter is saying now it self she will never go to police for anything in the future. This is only a primary stage where the society looses its confidence on law. This could ultimately lead to the hatred towards the country.

There are so many criminals around us. Some of them are army deserters and it’s difficult for the police to deal with them. So police thinks its better they mind their own business. I put forward this question with one of the senior police officer whom I met. What he said was, if they are to get information they will have to hit the suspects. Otherwise no one will come voluntarily and say "yes I did it” unless they are out of their senses. But when the police do those human rights organizations comes against them. According to new laws police officers will have to pay compensation personally if they are charges with human rights cases. It’s true that these laws came with a back ground. Police was treating even innocent people very badly at a particular time and some suspects died in the remand. So I'm always standing by the human rights laws. My friend believes that they are any way a pain to the society so let them die. This police officer's question was “then why don’t you go and complain to a human rights organization when you got robbed”. Because when someone steal you, that violates your rights. Hm who knows? Every coin has 2 sides. But I cannot agree with the fact that these police officers are not doing their job properly and using human rights laws as an excuse. What should we do now? Either we should look after our own security as president J R Jayawardana said. Can we rely on police in every case?

Betrayal

All these days some of the foreign media kept on repeating the news that Prime minister of Sri Lanka has apologized from the Tamil people who are evacuated from Colombo and taken to their home areas. It was a good step that he apologized and I’m happy about it. Same as i believe that this evacuation should not have been done. But my concern is not to explain this same old story which you already know.

I am sure most of you are not going to believe the baby talk of government saying they did not know anything about it. If they didn't know this, that it self shows how poor the intelligence system of the government heads and how poor administrators they are. Anyhow what ever done by the army, as the commander of forces president should be responsible. Therefore most people have their fair doubts.

Last couple of days I met various people from various levels. This article is based from facts I gathered from them. People think that what government did was like "Killing 2 birds with one stone". Because every one had the doubt why the Tamils were expelled during the time Akashi comes here for donation. Its quite obvious that Akashi will not recommend donation after such incident. Then why couldn’t they postpone it to couple of days if they really wanted to send those Tamils to North? Well people have different ideas on this issue. One person claimed that, foreign donors have requested to the government that Tamil people should not be checked and restricted from traveling any where in the country they want etc etc. But if government just accepts that, majority of the Sinhalese people will not like the government. Because they do have a reasonable fear that LTTE bombers will come with civilians. So what government did was they played this drama. Obvious next step is Tamil NGOs goes to court and get an order. Then they could nicely say "Hay look, its not us, the Supreme Court has given the order. We can’t do anything about it". Same as by doing this they can scare who ever helping LTTE. So it’s advantageous for them anyway.


Climax comes after that. Prime minister went and apologized saying they didn't know anything about it and Army has done something very wrong and they should be punished etc etc. Very next day minister Jeyaraj has criticized saying that he don’t agree with the fact that prime minister apologized because it demotivates the Sri Lankan forces. When I saw this news in Daily Mirror, I remembered one of the fighting strategies we had in school. Once our football team had to go for a fight with another team. If they didn’t go for the fight, that means they loose their status. Everyone could have thought they are week. But if they go for the fight, they will get banned for couple of matches. So they had a plan. They planned on how to hit the other team. Now the whole team is going for the fight except for the captain. Because next day captain has to go and apologize for what the team did. Then they don’t get the punishment. So simple. I feel now days our government also follow the same strategy.

But these jokes are not the sad part of it. I guess some of the Tamils who are innocent got in to trouble. Same as our army and police officers who just obeyed the rules were in the danger now. Government has nicely betrayed them after all. It’s a very bad strategic move. This definitely demotivate the army. According to Daily Mirror 12/06/2007 "Western diplomats in Colombo has mentioned yesterday that Sri Lankan security forces members may be denied Visas to European Union if they have human rights abuse charges against them. An Inspector involved in expelling Tamils from Colombo this month told reporters at the week end that he has been denied Visa to an unnamed European Union country because of this action. “One thing is now these officers are an easy target of LTTE. I am scared that the same thing happened to our Intelligence unit will happened to these officers too. And in such case they can’t go out of country too. I'm sure though these officers are wrong, they did it with the good intention and it’s for the country. They don't have any personnel benefit from that. So my friends, this is how this country betray its heroes.

Gone for a six

Through out last week, did we have any good sports news in our country? Did we have anything joyful to read in our sports pages? Well my opinion is no. When I read these articles I remembered some of the incidents I have personally faced and some others which were happened to my friends.

Most recent jumbles seen in Rugby field. It starts with the battles between couple of school teams’ couple of months back. One ugly battle was between Royal and Isipathan. Another unfortunate battle finishes with a wise decision by Kings wood college to drop the case against Trinity even though couple of their boys got injured. A Sri Lankan winger was suspended over his alleged role in the assault of a school referee at this match. After this incident there was a rumor that referees threaten to boycott Bradby. But finally they agreed. Same as there are 2 cases pending against St Anthony’s and Wesley. What I couldn’t understand here is it seems even the principles in schools promoting unethical behavior of school players. They suppose to teach their players to accept defeat and victory both. But today what happened is even under aged players and hired professionals included in teams just focusing on the victory.

I feel that there’s a “Jonah” with the sports of this country. The only sport we emerged a world level is Cricket. No need to write about the interim committee and the other misconduct take place at ICCSL, today. This situation is no much difference with other sports of this country. During the time period of one of the sports ministers (who was famous for VISA racket), most of the committees of sports unions were broken and ruined. This is the wound at the top level of the sports field. But there are enough and more other barriers also for younger players to come up. We all know that there are many talented players in the school level. But most of the times they are never visible after they finish their schooling. In every sport there’s some thing sad.

In some sports, only some families can win the matches. I do agree that those players are talented. Without talent you can’t play any match. But same as there are many other kids who are with the same capabilities. They are really discouraged to enter the arena. May be they are not rich enough to access the national level coaches or their parents have not much idea how to enter their kid to a match. Only few people know how the draws work in these tournaments. I remember at once in a leading Buddhist girl’s school, the teacher in charge received some of the invitations to divide between school team to participate in an Indian open tournament. She gave the invitations to players after the tournament was finished. Her explanation was she though that their players were not good enough to play with Indian teams. How inhuman? Those talented girls may not have won the Indian match. But that could have been a very good experience for them.

In some sports only some of the coaches can make players. Simply because they do not let others to win. When it comes to foreign matches, only their players can participate. If I say the sport any one who has played knows these incidents and people. Since personal insulting is not my aim, I will put it this way. Now if you play cricket, if you hit a six, umpire can’t say it’s not a 6. But there are some sports, where the judgment is fully at the referee’s discretion. In such games young players do not have a future sporting career unless they become part of the “gang”.

I know that there are good things as well as bad things. I know that there are teachers, coaches, officers, unions who really love the sport and play by rules. Why the pin point is always at the bad side is, because we have to sort out these things if we are to be stronger as a nation. Ultimately every time our players perform well, pride is on our side. They will be most probably good will ambassadors of this country. Therefore we have to speak against the injustice. If not these young players may think that this country is such a bad place and they will start hating it and there’s a chance that kids who are brought up seeing the injustice happened to them, may not be good citizens one day.


If any of you have similar experience please share with us. Because if the communication channels are stronger and if we can shed some light on general public that this is happening, there may be a possibility of reducing it.

Who gets the lowest salary in our country?

Recently I met a group of auditors who were involved in preparing the half yearly accounts of our organization. Since they had to meet a dead line they were working almost 18 hours a day I guess. When I came to office at 8.30 in the morning they were there. I worked late for couple of days to finish some of my work. When I left office it was around 2.00AM next day. I thought everyone has gone home. But there were lights on at a meeting room, to see these youngsters were still working. This happened couple of days. It was very surprising to see even girls worked in this team at that time. One day I felt like having a chat with them.

The group consists of 10 junior staff and 1 senior guy. I had a chat with them while having dinner. I asked them how much over time are they receiving and what their salary scales are. I knew the job they were doing is extremely difficult. It needs very high level of understanding of accounting as well as the knowledge on that specific business. More than that they had the access to very confidential information of the company. I got to know that most of them were university graduates. Some of them were CIMA qualified. All of them were following the exams of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. With so much qualifications and talents, I guessed they must be earning thumping amount of salaries.

Guess. Just guess… The senior guy in that team gets only Rs.4,500 per month and there's nothing call "over time fees". He was double qualified and facing his final 1 examination of his 3rd professional qualification. First I thought he was kidding. I asked him whether I asked a wrong question. He smiled and said “no I'm not joking". I asked him is it only for him or is it the same for others who are in the same level. Then he said, it is the normal standard salary levels of any audit firm in Sri Lanka. I called one of my friends who is in another country working for this globally recognized audit firm to see how is their salary schemes. He confirmed me that an auditor with such qualification would get at least $2,000 + other benefits for the same position. I was shocked. It’s the same company, same talent. Same work. I agree you can't pay $2,000 per month in an economy such as Sri Lanka. But can you imagine earning Rs 4,500?

I asked the young auditor, why do you work in this company? Why? What motivates you? Are you enjoying doing voluntary work? Because they knew how large their audit is fees and they don't get even 1% of the fees the company owners earn. I can understand if they were uneducated or people who are with just paper qualifications which cannot perform any work. But these people actually work hard. They have so many capabilities. I pointed him some of the multi nationals in Sri Lanka which pays about 20 times higher salary than what he earns now and I asked him why he will not join those companies.

Then only I understood the real reason behind this exploitation. Institute of Chartered accountants has drawn the guide lines for their students. If they are to face their final level exams they have to have 4 years experience. But they can't work in any company to get this experience. It has to be an approved company by the Institute. Most of the approved companies are audit firms. There are few other companies. But they recruit only few people a year, therefore most students don't have any option than joining an audit firm. Best part is they have to sign an agreement with the firm for 2 or 4 years saying they will not leave the company. If they leave they have to start their training from the beginning at another firm. Therefore they bear all the pain, all the sufferings happening inside these hidden organizations. It was really sad. I asked him why that Institute is having such ridiculous guide lines? Then they told me, people who are heads of this Chartered Institute are the partners of audit firms. That speaks all about it.

People, please be informed. Please know about these organizations. I know we can't do anything about them. I have heard so much about exploitation of labor in Sri Lanka. Recently i saw a salary sheet of a worker who is involved in a strike. If you are reading news papers daily you might have remember this. His monthly salary was more than 100,000/= (1 lac). But never heard any sort of organization fight for the rights of these auditors. I personally hate strikes and other sorts of nasty work. Therefore that’s not my recommendation. But to be honest it’s very frustrating for me to listen to their stories. I can imagine how frustrated it is for them.

On Air..........

One of my friends happened to come to SL from Scotland. He planned to come by an Emirates flight as usual. Emirates stopped flying here but then again agreed. Now this flight was suppose to land here at night time. But according to new rules, Katunayaka air port is closed after 6PM I guess. So Emirates have informed them that they will have a 16 hour transit at Dubai.

When I first heard I told him, so you can do shopping there. Then he asked me "How can I do shopping for 16 hours?"

To see, even though they have to go through quite a long hours of transit, air line is not providing them hotel facilities. Because closing down air port is not the fault of the Air Line. They only obtain VISA for travelers to go inside Dubai. But they will have to find places to stay by them selves.

Hm. I thought. ............................ What to do. Where the fault?

What’s my share?

Recently I involved in some consultancy project with a government department. If you served in any private sector company who have dealings with government departments or places like harbour its a known fact that there's a special fund, allocated to give commission, or in local language bribes to officers.

If the commission was not given, it’s better to give up hopes on that particular project or task to be done. In these dealings, you have to gift the ground level workers starting from ministers. Commission goes to different officers depends on their power & ability to get the work done. If it’s a very big project, most of the share goes to minister or his family or electoral. These are most of the times indirect as well as direct.

Very surprisingly in my recent project I met an officer who never gives any hint on bribes. Not only he didn't ask for commission, he was a very talented officer. When he started his duties in the last year, that department had funds only enough to pay the salaries. As a person who closely worked with that organization I saw how they developed. In terms of profits as well as in terms of scale. They started some major projects, some with foreign investors. He expanded their work in to larger category.

Last week I suddenly got to know that he was dismissed from his job. I couldn't hide my curiosity I called one of the directors of that Bureau who is a friend of mine. I asked him,

"That chairman has showed incomparable results during his time & I heard he was fired?"

His reply was,

"Yes he is superb. But what's the use for us? What's our share from that profit? Nothing. What did minister get? Nothing. There are enough people who supported us in the elections & there are more elections to do. When he was requested to give some jobs to minister's carders he refused saying there are enough & more people in that office. So I don't see why we keep him any more"

Even though this was quite a normal news for us, I felt I should write it here as a respect to that gentleman who did his duties. What do you think people? This is the system we have. Is there anything we can do to change this? Most people enter this system becomes a part of it. Otherwise they will be a victim of it like the hero in my case.

What do you think? Can we change it?

Missing in action

If you are watching “News 1st", abductions may not be such an alien topic for you. I feel many things when I watch these sad news every day. Different people say different things. I would like to share your views as to how would you feel about this.

Some people say these people who are abducted & killed are LTTE intelligent officers or some sort of terrorist attached with them. Therefore people think SL army is using a " Mozard" system to disappear them. There was a belief that when you disappear the supply for the problem, problem will get disappear with time. One of my friends in the SL army claimed that these people are not innocent & involved in killing so much of innocent citizens. Therefore it’s not a sin to kill them. He claimed that people should support the government for this as the same way American people supported the war against terrorism. His point was after Bush started so called "War against terrorism" there wasn't a single terrorist attack in America. Therefore it proves the success of it.

Another set of people think these are done by organized gangs in Colombo. People think they are abducted to take huge ransoms. One of the guys who stand for this argument told me that they abduct people who earn so much black money. Because then, when they get released they could not go to police & complain about the real amount they paid. Then they will have to answer the questions of income tax officers who will be at their door step next day morning. So some category of people thinks its fine to charge them since anyway its unlawful money. But as we all know, not only rich people get abducted.

But in my opinion I cannot agree with any of these. I do not know what happened to these people. I do not know whether abductions are for real like "News 1st" says or those are fake like president says. I do not know who do these things. (But I am sure that is some group with a very high power & political backup). All sorts of people belong to all levels & all religions get their victims. In the beginning it was only Tamils. But recently I saw they have abducted some Sinhalese lady & her little daughter at the Battaramulla check point. Whether its Sinhala or Tamil it’s human. It’s our people after all. Every person has a right to live. My friend still argues these people are terrorist & therefore should get punished. I agree. But there is a way. There is a law. You should give them a chance to prove their innocence before the court.

This shows that our society is not developed much. It’s true that even in developed countries these things happened. If you have watch “Prison break" you may have see how the intelligent service disappear the people. When these things happened in a country, after some time there are so many criminals that gradually develop. People uses the chances for their personal users & who are with power will always win.

Is it fair?

Did anyone think what will it be like if this happens to any of our family members? How sad it will be? Their families also must be feelings the same way. My friend here argues that people who get killed by them & their families also have fundamental rights. I know. I know. But still I feel very sad about this. What do you think?

Most Critical Problem in SriLanka

What do you think the most vital problem in Sri Lanka these days?

Is it War? Corruption? Abductions? Poverty? Cost of living? Well… when I read the news papers & listen to radio these days it seems that none of the above is “THE” problem of Sri Lankans. It is Lasith Malinga’s hair. There are so many conversations, arguments, insults on this talented boy’s hair style.

What do you think? I felt like analyzing who are these people who made it their favorite topic? First category is quite surprisingly a few Sri Lankans who are migrated to other countries, doing small super market & petrol shed jobs & feeling inferior about them selves. They don’t even work for this country. They don’t try to be Sri Lankans in any aspect. But try to make others live in the past forever.

Other category is who are here not doing any creative things & blaming others for whole day & expect someone to come & make a miracle for us. When a poor lad from here comes to an international level, they expect him not only make the hair style as they want but head too. What a joke it is. If he don’t play good cricket, then it’s a problem. If he’s not a good team mate it’s a problem. If he is match fixing it’s a problem. But he should have all his rights to cut his hair as they want. What harm does it do to other people? It’s all their deceitfulness. Patriotism is something different.

I remember once I met a daughter of a well known businessman laughed at one of our good cricketer saying he can’t speak good English. I asked her whether she can play cricket. She got shocked & mad with me.

Don’t be scared Malinga. & don’t look back. We need new people. New thinking. New patterns within the frame work of rule of law & fair play. We’ll always be with you. Even though you made up your hair style often, you are original by heart unlike some people who blame at you.

Go Malinga go.