Opinion

SJB opposes import restriction on underwear!

Published

4 years ago

2021/09/13

The Opposition has a habit of opposing every move of the government, whether it is good or bad. It is protesting against the government to impose a 100% margin deposit requirement on the importation of non-essential goods. Among these non-essential goods list is underwear. Some of the SJB MPs have said that the government has disregarded people’s need to wear underwear. How ridiculous they sounded! Why did they have to mention underwear, one cannot fathom, when several of the items on the list, such as mobile phones, are of an essential nature in the modern world. They probably like to play to the gallery by talking about underwear with catchy Sinhala phrases. By doing that they display their callous naivety and lack of experience, wisdom and judgment on the need for self-reliance in these Covid times.

We have been living beyond our means and that is one reason why we are struggling to survive now. We have been spending borrowed money to import luxury vehicles and goods. We have not paid any attention to the need to be self-sufficient in food and other items that could be produced locally. Instead, we have depended on export of items, like tea and garments, and remittance from our foreign employed labour, to earn foreign exchange to import food and other items that could be produced locally. Sri Lanka’s expenditure on imports is more than double its income from exports. More than half of this is spent on food items that could be produced locally. Further, our exports are subject to the vagaries of market forces and if these are unfavourable, as experienced at present, due to the Covid pandemic, we would struggle for existence and will have to beg for loans from countries, like Bangladesh, which had been economically behind us but now seems to have overtaken us and are on a fast track in development.

Bangladesh had managed its economy very carefully. They have invested adequately for achieving self-sufficiency in food, medicine, and other essential items. They did not spend their hard-earned foreign exchange on luxury vehicles and other goods, including luxury underwear. SJB should be ashamed to talk about underwear as if it was an item of clothing that is difficult to produce without the highest technological know-how. Do people in this country need imported underwear? One third of them exist on one meal a day and probably have no money to spend on underwear. And the SJB says the Government has put paid to the people’s wish to wear imported underwear.

Almost all our neighbouring countries have managed their economy quite well in the past two decades and are well on the way to reach developed status. And the impact of the Covid pandemic, on the economy, is bearable for most of these countries, whereas Sri Lanka would be struggling to survive. Vietnam, for instance, which was down in the doldrums after its scathing war with the US, have surged forward and would be competing with its richer neighbours soon. These countries have developed their economy by focusing on self reliance and food and medicine security as priorities. They have not gone for luxury. The super luxury vehicles, that we see so frequently on our roads, are not to be seen on their roads. Perhaps same could be said about underwear.

Sri Lankans have a penchant for imported stuff. We do not value our ability to produce goods of good quality. This seems to apply to things like underwear also. And a leading political party, like the SJB, endorses this sad state of affairs when it should be welcoming the Government policy to restrict import of non-essential goods. Import restriction, apart from saving foreign exchange, should have the more important goal of moving towards self-sufficiency and growth of local industry. SJB and its predecessor, the UNP, never had a substantial import substitution policy. Self-sufficiency was not in their agenda at any time. The SLFP, under Sirimavo, made a huge effort to control imports and develop local industry though the extreme controls it imposed proved to be counter productive. The UNP followed a policy decided by the IMF and during its reign in the ‘yahapalana’ times managed to bring down the GDP from a healthy 6% in 2014 to less than 2% in 2019. The SJB, though trying to show a different face, cannot escape the imperialist yoke and would try to encourage imports, including underwear.

The present government must teach our people to live within our means. It must make virtue of necessity and show the people the value of local products. Instead of importing duty free super luxury vehicles, for politicians, they must start using locally manufactured vehicles. The ban on import of vehicles must remain and local manufacture of vehicles the country needs must be encouraged. Similarly all food items and medicine we need must be locally produced and the country must achieve self-sufficiency in food, medicine and clothes, not to mention underwear.

N.A. de S. Amaratunga

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Opinion

Education needed about people not feeding wildlife

Published

6 hours ago

2026/02/15

Thilina Walpola

Being wildlife enthusiasts and bird watchers we took a river “safari” during a recent family trip to Bentota. We were dismayed to see that it seems to be the standard practice to feed the monkeys, I think they were the purple faced langurs, that were encountered on the river banks. Each boat that passed by stopped with boxed fruit, coconut and other odds and ends to feed them.

We managed to stop our guy from doing so but faced derision and laughter that we shouldn’t be afraid of monkeys. We tried to explain to him that this is a plague affecting Sri Lanka; elephants being fed on road sides and even in national parks, monkeys being fed from hotel balconies and apparently during river boat rides, birds being fed on hotel terraces etc.

This was met with further mockery and amused dismissal. An effort to make them understand that this was their livelihood that they were destroying it in this manner sailed over their heads. They even have a picture of a baby crocodile on the shoulders of a tourist on their billboard.

We need to consider the following:

Educate such tour operators about the importance of not interfering with the environment and the behaviour of wild animals.

Include education and training in the hotel school, and in schools in tourist resort towns about their duty and responsibility to the environment and the ecosystem on which we all depend.

If it is not already the case such operators should have licenses that should be revoked and fined if found to be engaging in such destructive acts.

Tamara Nanayakkara

Opinion

Capt. Dinham Suhood flies West

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/13

Thilina Walpola

A few days ago, we heard the sad news of the passing on of Capt. Dinham Suhood. Born in 1929, he was the last surviving Air Ceylon Captain from the ‘old guard’.

He studied at St Joseph’s College, Colombo 10. He had his flying training in 1949 in Sydney, Australia and then joined Air Ceylon in late 1957. There he flew the DC3 (Dakota), HS748 (Avro), Nord 262 and the HS 121 (Trident).

I remember how he lent his large collection of ‘Airfix’ plastic aircraft models built to scale at S. Thomas’ College, exhibitions. That really inspired us schoolboys.

In 1971 he flew for a Singaporean Millionaire, a BAC One-Eleven and then later joined Air Siam where he flew Boeing B707 and the B747 before retiring and migrating to Australia in 1975.

Some of my captains had flown with him as First Officers. He was reputed to have been a true professional and always helpful to his colleagues.

He was an accomplished pianist and good dancer.

He passed on a few days short of his 97th birthday, after a brief illness.

May his soul rest in peace!

To fly west my friend is a test we must all take for a final check

Capt. Gihan A Fernando

RCyAF/ SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines, SriLankan Airlines

Opinion

Global warming here to stay

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/13

Thilina Walpola

The cause of global warming, they claim, is due to ever increasing levels of CO2. This is a by-product of burning fossil fuels like oil and gas, and of course coal. Environmentalists and other ‘green’ activists are worried about rising world atmospheric levels of CO2. Now they want to stop the whole world from burning fossil fuels, especially people who use cars powered by petrol and diesel oil, because burning petrol and oil are a major source of CO2 pollution. They are bringing forward the fateful day when oil and gas are scarce and can no longer be found and we have no choice but to travel by electricity-driven cars – or go by foot. They say we must save energy now, by walking and save the planet’s atmosphere.

THE DEMON COAL

But it is coal, above all, that is hated most by the ‘green’ lobby. It is coal that is first on their list for targeting above all the other fossil fuels. The eminently logical reason is that coal is the dirtiest polluter of all. In addition to adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it pollutes the air we breathe with fine particles of ash and poisonous chemicals which also make us ill. And some claim that coal-fired power stations produce more harmful radiation than an atomic reactor.

STOP THE COAL!

Halting the use of coal for generating electricity is a priority for them. It is an action high on the Green party list.

However, no-one talks of what we can use to fill the energy gap left by coal. Some experts publicly claim that unfortunately, energy from wind or solar panels, will not be enough and cannot satisfy our demand for instant power at all times of the day or night at a reasonable price.

THE ALTERNATIVES

It seems to be a taboo to talk about energy from nuclear power, but this is misguided. Going nuclear offers tried and tested alternatives to coal. The West has got generating energy from uranium down to a fine art, but it does involve some potentially dangerous problems, which are overcome by powerful engineering designs which then must be operated safely. But an additional factor when using URANIUM is that it produces long term radioactive waste. Relocating and storage of this waste is expensive and is a big problem.

Russia in November 2020, very kindly offered to help us with this continuous generating problem by offering standard Uranium modules for generating power. They offered to handle all aspects of the fuel cycle and its disposal. In hindsight this would have been an unbelievable bargain. It can be assumed that we could have also used Russian expertise in solving the power distribution flows throughout the grid.

THORIUM

But thankfully we are blessed with a second nuclear choice – that of the mildly radioactive THORIUM, a much cheaper and safer solution to our energy needs.

News last month (January 2026) told us of how China has built a container ship that can run on Thorium for ten years without refuelling. They must have solved the corrosion problem of the main fluoride mixing container walls. China has rare earths and can use AI computers to solve their metallurgical problems – fast!

Nevertheless, Russia can equally offer Sri Lanka Thorium- powered generating stations. Here the benefits are even more obviously evident. Thorium can be a quite cheap source of energy using locally mined material plus, so importantly, the radioactive waste remains dangerous for only a few hundred years, unlike uranium waste.

Because they are relatively small, only the size of a semi-detached house, such thorium generating stations can be located near the point of use, reducing the need for UNSIGHTLY towers and power grid distribution lines.

The design and supply of standard Thorium reactor machines may be more expensive but can be obtained from Russia itself, or China – our friends in our time of need.

Priyantha Hettige