Our former newspaper, The Daily News, which this columnist left 27 years
Ago, is conducting a competition to name the Seven Wonders of Sri Lanka.
That's quite a good thing with 'a large number of prizes amounting to over Rs. 3 million' in addition to weekly prizes for those who name the seven most popular places in the country.
For old time's sake, we thought of offering advice on the subject as well as naming our own Sri Lankan Wonders as a kind guideline for Daily News readers.
Our suggestion is that the competition should not be confined to the
'most popular places' because there are many wonders of the world and in
This country too, not confined to places only.
The subject should be
Open to names of places, people and things.
The guideline given below will provide the reasons.
First Wonder of Sri Lanka.
My choice of the First Wonder of Sri Lanka is that so-called budget airline named Mihin Lanka.
The wonder about this airline is that no one seems to know whether it exists or not. It has no planes and has not flown anywhere for quite some time.
It's highly paid executives who created this wonder seem to have flown away elsewhere.
Besides having no planes now, the two that had been leased earlier have been seized by the owning airlines because of non-payment of lease.
Mihin Lanka owes the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation millions, it has been said.
All this is 'juicy stuff'- as journalists say - for the Guinness Book of Records but, there is a little cost involved:
A sum of Rs. 3.52 billion in the red in just one year of operation.
We pointed out in an earlier commentary that 10,000,000,000 loaves of bread (500 loaves per person at the current going rate) could have been fed to our starving masses who are now so weak that they can't even say 'paaang.'
But, good things, such as records in the Guinness Book, do not come cheap.
As further qualifications we say that it is the biggest white elephant in the 60-year post independence history of the country and all this money is from the pocket of poor people who have to pay even for their water.
Second Wonder.
The Second Wonder of Lanka is the man - without whose dedication, patronage and commitment, the First Wonder would not have been possible.
Our choice for the Second Wonder of Lanka is Mahinda Percy Rajapakse who
Has many more things under his belt than Mihin Lanka. His achievements
Are well known but, as a citation for the second place we mention the
Following in brief:
His latest achievement is that as President and Finance Minister the country now leads Asia in the rate of inflation at 30 per cent.
Rajapakse as a world personality is in the class of: Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahamedinejad, Robert Mugabe, Evo Morales and Kim Il Jong.
He has told the mighty Yankees, our former colonial master Great Britian and the 18-nation European Union and their minor cohorts where to get off.
'Hands off Lanka,' is his clear message.
These colonialists and neo-colonialists may have done the dirty on us by getting Lanka kicked out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, but who cares?
Lanka stands firm on par with Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as a
Leading Third World nation.
The European Johnnies are trying to bring us down by cutting off concessions given to exports, mainly garments.
Thousands of workers will be thrown out of their job these European Johnnies say. Who do they think we are?
A bloody nation of tailors?
We can develop as a nation eating Ala, bathala, manioc and have for desert pure Hambantota buffalo milk with honey.
For leisure we can all read the Mahinda Chintana.
Third Wonder.
Our choice for the third slot is a man who appears to be the permanent Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
He, at the last moment, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
Where Wickremesinghe is concerned our advice to readers is to drop him out of their list if they are to get any prizes from Lake House.
Wickremesinghe is anathema to those who are now running Lake House to the ground.
If you ever mention his name your entry will end in the WPB.
It was only the other day that one Johnny-come-lately to the media announced that no Lake House journalist can criticise the government.
Criticising the government is a crime but praising Wickremesinghe is tantamount to treason for the Rajapakse hangers on.
So, try some other person, place or thing for this slot.
Fourth Wonder.
The Suriya Theivam, Sun God, Velupillai Pirapaharan who is responsible for more than 65,000 deaths should be considered for this slot or even a higher slot.
He is known as a reputed guerrilla fighter, military strategist and mass killer but, in our estimation his greatest forte is diplomacy.
True, his organisation has been proscribed as an international terrorist organisation in all the countries that matter.
His propaganda and collecting agents are being hounded by governments of those countries but, he has been able to get those countries to do exactly what he wants:
come down hard on the Sri Lankan government in their efforts to crush him. America has banned the export of armaments to Lanka,
Britain has passed financial strictures and the European Union is threatening to
impose drastic trade sanctions that will cripple the Rajapakse government.
Velupillai has been able to get Western governments to do exactly what he wants without even asking them.
No doubt Rajapakse & Co. helped by thumbing their noses at the Western potentates.
Velu has shown that diplomacy is the art of getting things done without even making a request for it!
Fifth Wonder.
Fifth on our list is a man who has outshone Ferdinand Magellan who circumnavigated the globe, Christopher Columbus who discovered America,
intrepid sailors such as Vasco Da Gama and travellers like Fa-hien, Ibn
Batuta and our own former foreign minister, the late A.C.S. (All Countries Seen) Hameed.
Our nominee for the Fifth Sri Lankan Wonder is Rohitha Bogollagama, our Foreign Minister.
The chap has outshone Hameed and is going round and round the globe for reasons best known to himself.
Some say, he wants to save the country, refurbish its image, etc.
He proudly points out that at the last vote at the UN, Sri Lanka polled 102 votes and got kicked out of the UNHRC.
Never mind whether we were beaten by countries like Pakistan which was down in the dumps in recent times - being suspended from the Commonwealth - but Bogey argues that we still got more than 50 per cent of the total number of votes. Never mind if that was insufficient.
Will Sri Lanka score many more diplomatic victories like this with Bogey in place? May be, it is victories like this that makes Bogey go round and around.
The old song goes, 'Money makes the world go round and around.'
It costs quite a lot of money to make Bogey go round and around say the Foreign Ministry chaps.
Sixth and Seventh Wonders.
Ours is a toss up between the Master Blaster Sanath Jayasuriya and the Golden Girl of the track Susanthika Jayasinghe.
The exploits of these two are too well known to be repeated.
On the issue of who should be on top we leave it to Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge (who seems to favour Sanath) and former Sports Minister S.B. Dissanayake, who backed Susie all the way
Ago, is conducting a competition to name the Seven Wonders of Sri Lanka.
That's quite a good thing with 'a large number of prizes amounting to over Rs. 3 million' in addition to weekly prizes for those who name the seven most popular places in the country.
For old time's sake, we thought of offering advice on the subject as well as naming our own Sri Lankan Wonders as a kind guideline for Daily News readers.
Our suggestion is that the competition should not be confined to the
'most popular places' because there are many wonders of the world and in
This country too, not confined to places only.
The subject should be
Open to names of places, people and things.
The guideline given below will provide the reasons.
First Wonder of Sri Lanka.
My choice of the First Wonder of Sri Lanka is that so-called budget airline named Mihin Lanka.
The wonder about this airline is that no one seems to know whether it exists or not. It has no planes and has not flown anywhere for quite some time.
It's highly paid executives who created this wonder seem to have flown away elsewhere.
Besides having no planes now, the two that had been leased earlier have been seized by the owning airlines because of non-payment of lease.
Mihin Lanka owes the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation millions, it has been said.
All this is 'juicy stuff'- as journalists say - for the Guinness Book of Records but, there is a little cost involved:
A sum of Rs. 3.52 billion in the red in just one year of operation.
We pointed out in an earlier commentary that 10,000,000,000 loaves of bread (500 loaves per person at the current going rate) could have been fed to our starving masses who are now so weak that they can't even say 'paaang.'
But, good things, such as records in the Guinness Book, do not come cheap.
As further qualifications we say that it is the biggest white elephant in the 60-year post independence history of the country and all this money is from the pocket of poor people who have to pay even for their water.
Second Wonder.
The Second Wonder of Lanka is the man - without whose dedication, patronage and commitment, the First Wonder would not have been possible.
Our choice for the Second Wonder of Lanka is Mahinda Percy Rajapakse who
Has many more things under his belt than Mihin Lanka. His achievements
Are well known but, as a citation for the second place we mention the
Following in brief:
His latest achievement is that as President and Finance Minister the country now leads Asia in the rate of inflation at 30 per cent.
Rajapakse as a world personality is in the class of: Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahamedinejad, Robert Mugabe, Evo Morales and Kim Il Jong.
He has told the mighty Yankees, our former colonial master Great Britian and the 18-nation European Union and their minor cohorts where to get off.
'Hands off Lanka,' is his clear message.
These colonialists and neo-colonialists may have done the dirty on us by getting Lanka kicked out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, but who cares?
Lanka stands firm on par with Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as a
Leading Third World nation.
The European Johnnies are trying to bring us down by cutting off concessions given to exports, mainly garments.
Thousands of workers will be thrown out of their job these European Johnnies say. Who do they think we are?
A bloody nation of tailors?
We can develop as a nation eating Ala, bathala, manioc and have for desert pure Hambantota buffalo milk with honey.
For leisure we can all read the Mahinda Chintana.
Third Wonder.
Our choice for the third slot is a man who appears to be the permanent Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
He, at the last moment, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
Where Wickremesinghe is concerned our advice to readers is to drop him out of their list if they are to get any prizes from Lake House.
Wickremesinghe is anathema to those who are now running Lake House to the ground.
If you ever mention his name your entry will end in the WPB.
It was only the other day that one Johnny-come-lately to the media announced that no Lake House journalist can criticise the government.
Criticising the government is a crime but praising Wickremesinghe is tantamount to treason for the Rajapakse hangers on.
So, try some other person, place or thing for this slot.
Fourth Wonder.
The Suriya Theivam, Sun God, Velupillai Pirapaharan who is responsible for more than 65,000 deaths should be considered for this slot or even a higher slot.
He is known as a reputed guerrilla fighter, military strategist and mass killer but, in our estimation his greatest forte is diplomacy.
True, his organisation has been proscribed as an international terrorist organisation in all the countries that matter.
His propaganda and collecting agents are being hounded by governments of those countries but, he has been able to get those countries to do exactly what he wants:
come down hard on the Sri Lankan government in their efforts to crush him. America has banned the export of armaments to Lanka,
Britain has passed financial strictures and the European Union is threatening to
impose drastic trade sanctions that will cripple the Rajapakse government.
Velupillai has been able to get Western governments to do exactly what he wants without even asking them.
No doubt Rajapakse & Co. helped by thumbing their noses at the Western potentates.
Velu has shown that diplomacy is the art of getting things done without even making a request for it!
Fifth Wonder.
Fifth on our list is a man who has outshone Ferdinand Magellan who circumnavigated the globe, Christopher Columbus who discovered America,
intrepid sailors such as Vasco Da Gama and travellers like Fa-hien, Ibn
Batuta and our own former foreign minister, the late A.C.S. (All Countries Seen) Hameed.
Our nominee for the Fifth Sri Lankan Wonder is Rohitha Bogollagama, our Foreign Minister.
The chap has outshone Hameed and is going round and round the globe for reasons best known to himself.
Some say, he wants to save the country, refurbish its image, etc.
He proudly points out that at the last vote at the UN, Sri Lanka polled 102 votes and got kicked out of the UNHRC.
Never mind whether we were beaten by countries like Pakistan which was down in the dumps in recent times - being suspended from the Commonwealth - but Bogey argues that we still got more than 50 per cent of the total number of votes. Never mind if that was insufficient.
Will Sri Lanka score many more diplomatic victories like this with Bogey in place? May be, it is victories like this that makes Bogey go round and around.
The old song goes, 'Money makes the world go round and around.'
It costs quite a lot of money to make Bogey go round and around say the Foreign Ministry chaps.
Sixth and Seventh Wonders.
Ours is a toss up between the Master Blaster Sanath Jayasuriya and the Golden Girl of the track Susanthika Jayasinghe.
The exploits of these two are too well known to be repeated.
On the issue of who should be on top we leave it to Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge (who seems to favour Sanath) and former Sports Minister S.B. Dissanayake, who backed Susie all the way
