Blatant Miss Calculation by Minority Political Parties has put the Minority Representation in Peril

Blatant Miss Calculation by Minority Political Parties and their approach have put the Minority Representation in Peril for any local government bodies, provincial Councils and even parliament 

In a Mixed Electoral Process, voters will directly elect a member for a particular seat or electorate through the first past the post system(FPPS), and for the rest of the part to complete the mixed electoral process all the votes cast for all lost candidates would be carried forward as accumulated votes for the particular political party represented by the each lost candidate – to calculate and derive the number of members for the each political party contested either for district or National Level!

Therefore it is crystal clear that higher the number of seats for direct election – more the opportunity for losing candidates’ political party to accumulate more and more votes to gain the representation through Proportionate Representative System (PRS).

When it is said and recommended by Parliamentary Select Committee as 70% FPPS and 30% for PRS for an elected body –but will emerge only after completion of the voting for FPPS as has been in the older system before 1978 system. The 30% PRS should effective only against the total number of representatives of an elected body.  If we take the Parliamentary election as an example to further explain the hair-splitting drawback – pulled down by combined minor and minority political parties, - following tabulation would stripe down their nakedness of knowledge!

If we assume District Kurunagala have 13 electorates for FPPS, it should never mean another 13 would emerge as representatives – as per the 50:50 demand (may mean) of the combined minor & minorities Political Parties if it is accepted as a base.

The total number of seats	Percentage FPPS and PRS	FPPS Number of Seats	PRS number of Seats	District FPPS for PRS deriving Number for each Political Party n1, n2, n3……………
225	70% -30%	158	67	1. P1n =* The percentage derived is set against the allotted PPRS seats to decide particular parties’ number of members 2. added adjustments favouring losing parties, when the winner overhauls more than the ratio allotted for FPPS
225	60% -40%	135	90
225	50%-50%	112	113
240	70% -30%	168	72
240	60% -40%	144	96
240	50%-50%	120	120
255	70%-30%	178	77
255	60% -40%	153	72
255	50%-50%	127	128

* P1n=

If Party 1 (P1) has won 7 seats through FPPS = the same P1’s votes obtained in the balance 06 electorates where it has lost are added and accumulated to derive the number of members thru PRS in Kurunegala District; likewise if Political Party 2 has won only 5 FPPS seats out of 13 – PP2 accumulates votes from all balance 8 electorates it has lost – for further more PRS seats. A Political Party (PP3) which could not win a single seat through FPPS would manage to secure seats based on accumulated votes it has added from all electorates, provided the added votes exceeds 5%! Thus in order to increase the percentage, each party shall contest higher number seats through FPPS thru increasing the divided component!

P1n

Another way of looking at this – District total of lost accumulated votes can only be increased by increasing number of electorates of FPPS – when FPPS winner votes are becoming lesser and lesser percentage attained would be critically low - depriving seats for minor parties, (otherwise only by alignment with major political parties

What has finally emerged as acceptable by minority parties is 50 – 50 gives a lesser opportunity for minority political parties – and abundance of opening for the major political parties.

In order to avoid clashes and further confusion for voters it is advised that district-level deriving should be done away and only national formula PRS applied so that the disposition for responsibility and accountability is ensured on electorate elected members for any elected body. 

   But such a formula would badly affect the minor political parties and the parties that intend to contest within their popular pockets!

As the total votes cast is the main damaging element, it is definitely favourable to reduce the total votes cast to attain a higher percentage, which is impossible in practice but otherwise by the above formula, by subtracting the huger FPPS winner votes from the total votes cast.  Therefore if this mixed electoral process to be favourable to smaller political parties total FPPS winner votes should be higher as much as possible by a higher number of FPPS electorates that would reduce the fractioning power of total votes cast yielding favourable percentage to the minor political parties!!

In an equal (50 – 50) % FPPS - PRS situation total votes cast would become very powerful fractioning component against the lost vote accumulation since the winner vote deduction is very much less thus curtailing the minor and minority party representations!

Why the Government and the Local Council Bodies miserably fails in Garbage collection and disposal? Does a Political Devil arising from the Heaps of Garbage?

Why the Government and the Local Council Bodies miserably fails in Garbage collection and disposal? Does a Political Devil arising from the Heaps of Garbage?

Just after the Meethottamulla Disaster, The Chief Minister of Western Province Isru Devapriya, idiotically ridiculed the idea of burning the refuse for generation of Electricity, he claimed in an interview that idea is only suitable for school children’s project work; poorly performing Chief Minister of Western Province could not streamline the garbage collection regularly within the Dehiwela Mount Lavinia Municipal limits as per the present setup. While I am typing this useful reminder, it is into 5^th week since the garbage truck last came to collect the trash other than the Kitchen Wastes, to Vanderwert Place Dehiwela. I don’t have a land area to burn or bury the trash collected! Own experience is as good as an example for many and for the objective.  

The manner, the workers, and the public officials involved in the collection of garbage put out by the residents of Colombo District and of the proposed metropolitan area are nostalgically unsatisfactory and there is no any hope and visible plans to improve the collection and disposal of garbage against the ever-increasing demands warranted by the so-called development strategies, that totally ignores the trash collection mounted by the every single move by those ignorant development strategies. Added pressure to the garbage put out by existing residential and necessary numerous supporting establishments of those residents such as shopping malls, eateries etc.

Western Province alone has produced 3500 Metric Tons garbage per day by last year, this is 58% of total whole Island Garbage or Trash accumulated, that is another 2535 Metric Tons (42%) of garbage produced in the Pradeshiya Sabbhas of other than Western Province.  Out of this total 6035 Metric Ton of garbage only about 15% is composted and another meagre 10% is recycled – leaving out a staggering 75% - 4526 Metric tons of waste to be seeking a dumping space from Whole Island and Western Province alone would seek dumping space for 2525 Metric Tons – a massive 2525 x 1000 Kg day to day and it is ever increasing hour by hour and had boomeranged into the ignorant strategies to an unmanageable proposition.

Ignoring an issue does not mean that the issue had been settled!

Unless the policy of the authorities to put an halt on looking upon the garbage of any form as just an item for unwanted disposal alone and sensibly changes to foresee the garbage as a resourceful produce to the national economy it will keep on boomerang negatively on many facets of development plans, with direct impact on health and cleanliness for tourism industry. Authorities are putting out many strategies that are not really reaching the public mainly because, the experts and authorities are painstakingly ultra-slowly crawling on Garbage Destination Projects (GDP) such as Composting, Recycling, Reusing, and Regeneration of Energy, but the public is left with garbage many folds in their hand than that has been streamlined into the Garbage Destination Projects. Could an expertise in Garbage Management within an urban and metropolitan area depend on the public alone to predestine the garbage produced to Garbage Destination Projects?  Well if so the so called expert is measuring the garbage in grams not in Thousands of Metric Tons! Further if that same expert heavily depends on many millions of public and families to define the destination of garbage produced, any layman need not guess where and how it would boomerang!   

Why the Public is opting to dump the Garbage various Public Places?

It is not they are uneducated or unaware of laws, it is simply they don’t have separate premises or space or a facility to handle their own garbage to incinerate or to burry, they have to hand over the garbage to the local bodies they are residing and that is the rational reason for assigning the local government bodies to collect the Garbage from the urban public. The Public cannot queue up at various collection points with various trash bags in their hands. As such any local bodies assigned collect the garbage and trash from the public has no any legal right to dictate the public to hand over the garbage after sorting out or into further sorting apart from kitchen waste and other trashes.

Of course the general puplic can be expected to support the government’s definite and well-defined plans, but solely depending on many millions of residents to resolve the garbage issues is blatant irresponsible inaction on the part of authorities.             

The lamenting of Lack of adequate transport and lack labor by concerned authorities stupidly contradicted by their actions itself; as per the demand by the Dehiwela Municipal Authorities the Garbage truck along with the laborers has to visit twice a particular residential area rather than completing the collection of any garbage in just one visit! Any layman would understand that this is a fraudulent activity, and it is an overlapping fraud when they close the subject of garbage-collection for the day or week just after collection one portion garbage (only compostable kitchen waste). Such an activity that has been prolonging for some time now also frames a false picture on the entire management of garbage produced or put out general public of Colombo District.   It is the duty the municipal employees to remove any garbage placed out the residence without refusing or arguing with the residents and demand money to remove various type of refuses, and it is the responsibility of the authorities to curb this type of hindrances for regular streamlined collection of garbage by avoiding the implementation of unsolicited practices through their employees.  It is just not possible for the entire millions population further sorting of trashes and hence It is not justifiable any means to arrest the individuals who opt to throw garbage bags into public places while garbage collection by authorities is continuing to miserably fail! The number arrests simply indices the failed effectiveness of the trash collection by the local government bodies!!

The Government has just banned the polythene shopping bags, lunch-sheets, and regiform lunch boxes, a welcoming move though much belated against the more than three-decade-old menace of environmental pollutants, can the Government authorities be sleeping over this achievement? -  The public and institutions are burdened with the huge amount of banned polythene bags that the government ignorantly overlooked for more than three decades – these banned items which are not easily degradable has to be removed from the public systematically and effectively as trash materials. Now the garbage collectors are lamenting over this ban and refusing to collect those bags even as trash!

The Policy towards Garbage Produced  Requires a Separate Powerful Agency

The Government cannot punish the public for its failures, It cannot be overjoying over its banning whatsoever, and continue to ignore garbage collection issues unabatedly burden the Colombo public; this Good Governance Government is best advised to change the policy over garbage collection issues and establish mega storage facility, for garbage collection and employ labourers to sort out garbage destined to various emerging facilities of composting, recycling, reuse and for generation of Electricity, without heavily depending on millions of public to complete.  Each province shall have two or three storage capacity with separate laborers to sort out, and the Western Province requires such facility very urgently.

All local government bodies including Provincial Government should be freed from collection and handling of Garbage, it should be brought under a Central Government Environmental Ministry and or an appropriate Central Environmental Impact Prevention Authority for Whole Island, enacting necessary laws through this Unity Government. Local Government involvement in GDP should be only optional with the authorization of the Central Environmental Authority.  

Just ill-planned composting of kitchen waste alone will never clean the country! If you are not ready to buy a broom to clean your house you will live the house of dirt and its consequences!

An Open Letter to Chief Minister, Northern Province

An Open Letter to Chief Minister,

Northern Province

Chief Minister C.V. Vigneswaran

It is very much appropriate to remind you at this moment that you are at helm of the Northern Provincial Council as a result of the voters of the Northern Province, emanating a Himalayan trust on the backdrop of you were a Chief Justice, and you were only known as Justice Vigneswaran, but an unknown element as politician. Therefore the people who voted you into the office of CM, expected and believed that you will execute your duties towards the people very honestly, with reflection to the demands and need of the people. An attitude of all the time and at any time for the people will not push you to faults and blunders.

I am drawing your attention, in particular to one issue, to which you have approached in a very delinquent manner, without realizing the seriousness as well as long run consequences of the issue that will affect the present generation as well as the generations to come. On the whole it will affect the entire community as a respectable ethnic group within their own land and completely shake the whole foundation of the Tamil Nationalistic identity. 

Do not pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about. I am just referring to the way you handled the entire crisis of central peninsula well water getting contaminated by spent oil, pumped into the soil with total ignorance to agriculture and bio-environment.  When information about the wells contaminated and polluted by hydrocarbon emancipated, with thirty long years of judicial service of judicious jurisdiction behind you, what you should have done is to appraise the affected parties’ complaints through your commonsense and natural senses; leave alone the huge deleterious impact on bio life of central peninsula, which otherwise should have been the prime concern as the Chief Minster.

On the contrary, to public’s believes and expectations, you have called in the accused party within your chambers, at arms stretched length rather the than the “desperately affected phenomenon” of Jaffna Peninsula.

Therefore, I strongly opine that you have inherited this fraudulent practice all along your carrier despite being seated on an isolated and elevated seat of judicious jurisdiction in a court room for thirty long years. After all now you are occupying the seat of usually occupied by many notorious, uneducated and unethical politicians and thus you can achieve your personal goals of filling up the coffers with much ease and comfortable, than with previous job of authority of jurisdiction. Hence you are truly smart enough to change the job titles from Chief Justice to Chief Minister in order to make the ends meet with scant respect to ethnic identity!

When some truly worrying professional experts of relevant field met you after you and your council have autocratically, otherwise by fraud dispelled the reports of contamination and pollution water /fertile soil you have told them that you are prioritizing Tamil Nationalistic aspirations through this issue! Nonsense, A human count alone cannot survive the identity of the ethnicity!!  First of all you must understand that fertile soil and abundant fresh water are intrinsic foundation for the Tamil Nationalistic aspirations.

All your actions clearly points out that you are working hand in hand conniving with southern racial fanatics with an objective of destroying the survival  of Tamils as an respectable ethnic group within their own land. All your calls towards Tamil National Ethnic Issues have become uttering of ostentatious  nature by your action, like that of the southern Sinhala Politicians take the sword of racism in order to guard against their fraudulent and corrupt practices.

You have become an ostrich of the desert land when you decided to manipulate the water contamination crisis through appointing handpicked eye washing “experts” of utilizable water pollution, with your mind already fixed for an ill directed  analysis on water that has been already smelling hydrocarbon and visibly contaminated by oil seeped through soil. You have made all the highly qualified people you handpicked look like fools in order to protect the Northern Power Plant out of the way, by your Desert Ostrich action – the ostrich buries its head into the desert soil and imagine that whole world is not seeing anything! Mind you if the Northern Power Plant continues pump the brunt hydrocarbon into the soil unabatedly – as you have painstakingly comforted NPP to do so – highly fertile land Jaffna Peninsula would soon become land of Desert where only ostriches can survive!!  Above statement is absolutely vindicated when one analysis the composition of the panel you picked to fabricate and consciously refute the fact that wells have polluted by spent fuel, which is very much conspicuous by visibility and odour – the panel

Names	Specializations
1.      Dr. A. Atputharajah	Electrical Engineer, Consultant NPP
2.      Dr. K. Velayuthamoorthy	Inorganic Chemist
3.Dr. Nalina Gnanavelrajah	Agriculture-chemist Land use
4.Dr. C.N. Nachchinatkiniyan	Community Medicine
5. Prof S.A. Nobert	A Geographer – Colombo
6. Dr. T. Jeyasingam	VC Eastern University,  Botanist
7. Prof. S. B. Weerakoon	Hydrologist, Peradeniya University
8. Prof. R.V.K Piyadasa
9. Dr. S. Raveentran

 It is established that no one in the above list holds the required qualification to negate the complaints of polluted water springs and that itself clearly vindicates your motives. In addition your first choice in above list Dr. A. Atputharajah has been contracted as a Consultant Electrical Engineer by the disputed Northern Power Plant (NPP) when you appointed him into the panel that is purportedly verifying the pollution of fertile soil and as a result water springs as well by the NPP’s waste Hydrocarbon oil. Dr. A. Atputharajah as Dean Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna and as Consultant NPP has failed miserably to advise his pay masters  on safely disposing the dangerous disposals born out of Electricity Generation.  Absolutely dangerous to mankind!      

You may argue that for the need of continued electricity supply that you have to support and defend the NPP, but just through the stroke of a pen you would have asked them to safely remove the burnt oil pond that had been gradually built over the years and to install a mechanism to remove the burnt oil day by day without just pumping into the soil, if you are judicious enough to properly execute that is expected of your office, since the NPP being a complete private entity.  
 Instead what did you do, you allowed NPP to hurriedly hide the entire accumulated burnt oil pond through a bore deep into the ground, and everything got worsened!

From your actions and from the behaviour of Dr. A. Atputharajah as Dean Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna who had acted with a clear conflict of interests for the greediness of pay roles, with total disregard to the mankind, It amply clear and proves that autonomous to the provinces and to the Universities would play havoc and it will continue to spread damaging and destroying natural resources of humanity.    

Coming back to the your eye wash panel, Prof. S. B. Weerakoon, a Hydrologist was the closest to the required qualification from University Peradeniya, though not exactly, I strongly doubt that  he would have contributed anything tangibly to your course though you have inserted the name may be through the friendship acquired through court chamber days of your earlier carrier. 

Anyway, if I assume that you have acted with some transparency and purity, Prof. S. B. Weerakoon would have led the panel – and it is a fact beyond any doubt the panel submitted a more than 50 page report, but has been summarized to mere 4 pages by your council of ministers in concurrence with ideas of Dr. A. Atputharajah, for the purpose of publishing, in order to complete the eye wash!

You shouldn’t have appointed experts to negate the reports of water polluted visibly and by the odour conspicuously of hydrocarbon, Instead you should have sought for expertise in   alternatives for fueling thermo power plant (there are many) if you are executing prudently  and really genuine to the people who elected you to the post of Chief Minister.

Many countries are using collected waste as direct fueling for thermo power plants, make a visit to one of many states of USA, UK, Norway, Holland, China, Japan, South Korea or Vietnam along with your coaxer friend Dr. A. Atputharajah – and introduce the technology to Northern Province, which have multifaceted benefits, including abundantly available cheap fueling and facilitates solid waste management with huge profits if properly planned and executed. By the way it is reported that Sri Lanka Fairway Group has just embarked on making fertilizer and generating electricity with garbage at the new dumping site Karadiyana, Pelliyandela  and you may get in touch with that company as well.

I pray the Lord Aarumugam to bless and make the damage you all have done to Jaffna Peninsula to be temporary in nature for the sake of the people who had been tormented by thirty years of war!  

Thank You

With Best Regards

Dr. S. Mahadeva

An Open letter to Dr. A. Padeniya President GMOA, from Dr. Sarath Gamini De Silva A member SLMC

Dr. A Padeniya

 Dr. A. Padeniya,

President,

Government Medical 

Officers’ Association,

Colombo.

Dear Dr. Padeniya,

Having observed the various developments in the health sector and medical education in the past few years, I thought of writing to you on my appraisal of the current situation. I hope it is not too late in the day to write to you.

I write as a senior physician, a medical teacher, a member of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) for 10 years, and a former Vice President and a long-serving committee member of the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) in the past. I have been in the fore front of many GMOA trade union activities, occasional strikes, and was a part of the public face of the GMOA in TV discussions, press conferences etc. 

You were considered a great asset by all in the GMOA as a man who knew his facts and studied the issues in depth before coming for any discussions. I still remember how in our negotiations over salary issues, you had at your fingertips all details of the comparative salary scales of all categories in the health sector. I remember congratulating you when you were elected the President on the first two occasions.

Let me clarify my position regarding SAITM at the very outset. I do so as a member of the SLMC who took part in the initial discussions with Dr. Neville Fernando on the establishment of SAITM, took part in many relevant discussions in the SLMC until 2012 and also was part of the UGC team inspecting the medical school.

I have no doubt that the SAITM authorities ignored all advice and guidance given by the SLMC on numerous occasions. Instead they have relied on political patronage to get the approval in a surreptitious way. How three cabinet ministers keep agitating for the sake of this private enterprise raises many questions as to what their obligations are

I have little sympathy for the students and their parents as they have been adequately warned regularly by the SLMC over the years on the fact that this institution was not recognised by the medical council. I fail to understand why even some experienced doctors took the risk of admitting their children to a medical school lacking SLMC approval.

That being said, I accept that any solution to the current crisis should recognise the necessity of allowing those students to continue their medical studies. Once that is done, this fraudulent medical school should be closed down. It is not practical for the State to take over every private medical school getting into difficulties. With plans in the pipeline for establishing medical schools elsewhere in the country, there is no necessity for one in Malabe at State expense. I accept that there is room for a properly constituted private medical school in Sri Lanka, guided and recognised by the SLMC. 

Let me now examine the role of the GMOA in the SAITM affair. It has expressed its opposition to the existence of SAITM in no uncertain terms. However I feel there is no justification for repeated strike action to achieve its aims. The hardship caused to the public is really saddening. I would not hesitate to label these strikes as a crime against society.

Perhaps you may remember that we had definite guidelines in undertaking harsh trade union action in the past. It was generally accepted that strike action should not be used for salary issues and others of a more personal nature. We confined strike action as a last resort to protest against irregular transfers and appointments to keep the health service out of political interference. We succeeded in achieving the latter aim to a great extent. We had regional strikes if a member of ours was obstructed by any one during work and police did not apprehend the offenders. I feel all those short lasting actions were justified as they were inevitable.

We also had a general understanding that we should not seek the support of trade unions in other fields for any reason. That would have made us under obligation to join them in their struggles. This was considered unacceptable as our service of caring for the sick cannot be mixed up with or compromised by any of their fields of activity.

What happens now is totally unacceptable. GMOA officials publicly calling general strikes is a bad trend. Doctors going on strike for general political issues like the ETCA are also unwarranted. For the first time in the history, you have allowed a political party leader to address the GMOA membership. As I already indicated to you personally, this should never have happened.

The net result of all this is that in the public eye, the GMOA has become equivalent to any other trouble making union in the public sector. The public has lost all respect for the GMOA and medical profession in general. It is inevitable that many suspect that your actions are a part of a larger campaign to create political instability.

I know you are a very caring paediatrician and a medical teacher doing your duty properly in the health service. You are respected by your members for the service rendered in getting their emoluments and other benefits on par with other comparable services.

The fact that, as president of the GMOA, you have done much work including publishing booklets and conducting workshops guiding doctors to better professional standards, is little known to many in the society.

Yet I believe that you have been the president of the GMOA for too long. You now lack new thinking and when in “power” you tend to ignore the general feelings of the membership. This is why even in the field of politics, I believe no one, however good he may appear, should be allowed to remain in power for more than two terms.

You should plan to step down when your current term expires. You can render a much greater service to society if you now devote full time to being a clinician. After all, paediatric neurology is a relatively new field that needs people like you with imagination and leadership qualities for further development.

I sincerely hope that you will take my advice in the same spirit that I give them.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Sarath Gamini De Silva

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