Features
Happenings here and overseas
The most important event in the country last week was the 2023 Budget presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe wearing one of the several hats on his official rack––that of Finance Minister. It is said
Cass does not consider herself competent enough to comment on the budget. However, she wonders why heavily losing enterprises like the management of power (electricity) and fuels (petroleum) have not been privatised. They are major money haemorrhaging government institutions, heavily loaded with too many workers and in one a suspected mafia too.So, she adroitly moves her jaundiced eye to survey lands that have been in the news.
Red vs Blue
The Democrats lead the Senate of the US of America and probably will be in the majority of the House too. As Biden noted, the red wave expected by Donald Trump failed to sweep the elections. Good thing too. Cass hopes the Republicans will now consider Trump a lost case and not present him as prez candidate at the next elections.
As Emily Tamkin wrote in The New Statesman on November 10: “Abortion is an economic issue – and the Democrats know it. A pledge to protect reproductive rights is a pledge to help working–class families and push poverty rates down.” She starts her article thus: “The Democrats, in reminding people that Roe vs Wade was overturned by Republican justices on the Supreme Court in June (leaving Republicans free to attack abortion rights at the state level and flirt with a federal ban at the national level), were not speaking of something abstract….” The point she emphasises is that abortion is not only a privacy and health issue but an economic issue. She says that asking for a vote to protect a woman’s right to an abortion and a vote for more economic security are very much the same in results aimed at. “A person’s ability to have some say on how many children they have and when they have them has a direct impact on their education and professional opportunities, which are, to put it plainly, economic issues.” Hence, to a large extent, the success of the Democrats at the mid-term elections.
In Lanka and India
Sri Lanka was under archaic laws on abortion (1883) and they were draconian, denying a woman the right to abort when she conceives consequent to rape. Not knowing whether we were so archaic and short sighted in policy, in not changing these laws, she googled and among other articles read Meenakshi Ganguly’s article: Reform Sri Lanka’s Draconian Abortion Law and legalize abortion for rape survivors and others. She points out that Justice Minister Ali Sabry has called for revision of these laws and the government should do so promptly. She writes: “Anyone deliberately causing a miscarriage, except for the purpose of saving a woman’s life, can be imprisoned for up to three years. Denying women and girls access to safe, legal abortions jeopardizes numerous human rights, including their right to protection from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”
Cassandra emphasises here that giving the right to legally abort an unwanted child will help economically too. It will also save hundreds of lives of women who resort to illegal, quack abortions. Further, relief if not elimination of stress and worry over unwanted pregnancies will result. Plenty of women suffer such trauma married to unreasonably demanding husbands.
Abortion goes against religions. To Buddhists, the ovum at fertilisation is a living organism. So, the first precept comes in here. But thinking pragmatically, giving birth to an unwanted child conceived in hate and torture due to rape, incest or a manic husband, subjects both mother and child to lifelong debasement, punishment and cruelty. Thus one ‘sin’ has to be balanced against another.
A couple of weeks ago Cass watched with great interest a BBC Indian programme where two women specialists in women’s health and an unmarried girl who had undergone an abortion – all Indian – discussed the issue of legalising abortion in the subcontinent. Many states like Maharashtra have gone liberal, and Cass says humanist, in legalising abortion. An unmarried girl who ‘gets into trouble’ can get into a government hospital and undergo an abortion. Easy as that! The specialists were emphatic this freedom would certainly not encourage loose and irresponsible behaviour which is the major reason for disapproving legal abortion.
Historic meeting
A three-hour meeting of US President Joseph R Biden and President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China has been labelled as break through, historic, etc. It truly is very significant. Watching news clips the words gentlemanly, diplomatic, great, compromising yet standing firm, even amiable came to mind. This is just what is needed: leaders in one to one conversations. We read the western world version but it seemed a successful exchange of views and concerns. Biden and Xi were known to each other having met as Vice Prezs more than a decade ago. They agreed, it is reported, that competition need not veer to combat; wars should never be. China and the US would better manage competition with responsibility. They also agreed that conflicts should never escalate (or deteriorate) to nuclear warfare. Agreement and cooperation on climate change, global macroeconomic stability including debt relief, health and food security worldwide were assured. Contentious issues were forwarded such as Taiwan, Russia’s war with Ukraine. Unfortunately Cass did not get to read the concerns Xi expressed.
This meeting was different from a much anticipated and discussed meeting of Trump and North Korean Prez Kim Jung Un on May 20, 2016, in the Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas, with Trump even stepping into North Korea. It was their third meeting and promised much, but ended a damp squid. The two personalities who had traded name-insults seemed pantomime-like, since both did not show genuine integrity of purpose. Even back then we neutral watchers thought of the two as boru karayas; totally different to the perception we have of Biden and Xi, at least to Cassandra.
Short takes
When Cass saw a photograph of Menike mage hithe Yohani being greeted by Jacqueline Fernandez in Mumbai she hoped the latter was not taking the former under her wing, a very dangerous and threatening wing, now clipped by the Indian government.
Cass saw on TV news a whole host of politicians of different hues but till recently pohottuwas descending the steps of the Election Commission. Most were dressed in kapati suits while a few were in western attire. They have slunk away from the SLPP fold and crossed over to, for them, greener pastures of independence or to flirt with the SJB. They all claim it is to maintain democracy and to serve the people. (That eternally mouthed lie).
A few like Dallas Alahaperuma are patriotic and left the party they joined believing they could serve the country and its people by leaving a party that had not these policies as goals. Most however were slinking away because the ship organised by Brother Basil was sinking. Here were yes men, slipper lickers, obeying a man now named Kaputa and enjoying bonhomie with the elder brother with his charisma, and sir-ing the son and heir, pup though he was. Now they spurn these former tune callers.