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COVID-19 Pandemic in Sri Lanka: Contextualizing it geographically – Part I

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By Dr. Nalani Hennayake and

Dr. Kumuduni Kumarihamy

Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

The emergence of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was inevitable, although the sudden outbreak in Minuwangoda took us by surprise. We now see that it is steadily spreading outside of Colombo. The districts of Nuwara-Eliya and, Trincomalee have been declared as areas not suitable for tourist activities, and pilgrimage to Sri Pada is discouraged. Kandy, where we live is the fourth district in terms of the total number of COVID-19 positive cases detected. The actual reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, changing nature of the virus, how many are infected, detected, tested, and identified as infectious, where they live, work, and move around, could be far beyond what statistics and dashboards may reveal.

Along with the health and security personnel, the government successfully managed the first wave with a series of controlling strategies from travel restrictions, imposed quarantines, self, and institutional isolations. Interestingly, all such strategies, have been territorial or spatial measures. In other words, the management of the COVID-19 pandemic requires a set of spatial strategies that affect human spatial behaviour, relations, and attitudes. Inspired by this, in this article, we embark upon a project of contextualizing the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka, geographically. This article aims to show the significance of a geographical framework of thinking, with limited data and information. In other words, what we present here is a sample of what can be done if the data are available at the GN division level. Such an analysis would demonstrate how geography is an innately central character of how COVID-19 is spread, dealt with, and, most importantly, in an academic perspective, in representing, analyzing, and understanding the present situation and future scenarios of the pandemic.

 

Current situation: What is reported, recorded, and represented?

In its Situation Report on February 3, 2021, the Epidemiology Unit at the Ministry of Health reports 65,698 as ‘the total number confirmed’ and 59,883 as ‘the total number recovered’ COVID-19 cases. Thus, we have only 5485 patients as confirmed and hospitalized, with 548 added as suspected and hospitalized patients. The other basic information provided on this website is the district-wise and hospital-wise distribution of the total number of confirmed patients. The highest number of COVID-19 patients, nearly about 42 percent, comes from the Colombo district, while Gampaha and Kalutara record respectively about 23 and 8 percent (see Table 01) Nuwara-Eliya-Ratnapura. The number of COVID-19 infected seems to increase in the districts of Kandy, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Nuwaraeliya, Rathnapura, Kegalle, Galle, Badulla, and Kalmunai.

 

Table 01: District Distribution of Confirmed Patients (as of February 3, 2021 -10 a.m, Situation Report)

Note:

Considered only the individuals who contracted the disease from the districts

How the COVID-19 pandemic is reported and represented in the media and various sources is all the more confusing. The statistics coupled with the newscasters’ tone (depending on which channel you watch the news in the evening) determine the outbreak’s nature for the day. Frequently, in the middle of the regular news reporting, we hear, “Here we received some new information right now” – new COVID-19 cases added – leaving us with a sense of uncertainty as to how this coronavirus proliferate daily. Generally, during the first wave, the media played a crucial role in raising awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic and sensitizing the people towards the situation with their frequent announcements and reminders. Such an effort is not noticeable during the second wave. Perhaps, the ‘new normal’ has become normal. The new cases are generally attributed to the four clusters. As of February, 2021, the Minuwangoda cluster has proliferated up to 61,705 cases, as it is reported on the relevant official websites. At different phases of the second wave, Peliyagoda and Prison clusters were also added to the Minuwangoda cluster. In the popular memory, informed by the official line and the format of reporting by various channels and mainstream media, such reporting creates an impression that it is still the Minuwangoda/Peliyagoda cluster that is expanding as if it has not yet spread to other parts of the country.

The first wave of the outbreak that began with the case of the Chinese tourist and lasted until almost late April 2020 was well controlled before the general election, through strategies such as physical distancing, quarantine, contact tracing (social, temporal, and spatial), lockdown, and isolation of villages and communities and travel restrictions. The first wave witnessed that restricting and controlling human spatial conduct and mobility are the determinants of preventing further transmission of the coronavirus. The government took strict measures to control human spatial mobilities through curfew and prolonged lockdowns at the provincial and, at times, even at the national level. It is reasonable to say that controlling human spatial mobilities has been a successful strategy in curtailing the first wave, enhanced by the commitment and dedication of the health, security, and various other sectors. However, during this first wave, the coronavirus carriers were identified as foreigners of two kinds instead of locals. They are the immigrant workers who had returned from the Middle East and Italy and a small number of actual foreigners visiting Sri Lanka. The exception to this was the Welisara Navy outbreak and small groups of the infected in a few low-income localities in Colombo. Thus, the coronavirus had not fortunately been ‘socialized’ into the local society.

At present, the second wave that began in early October, when an employee from a garment factory in Minuwangoda was found positive for COVID-19, is different. Although it was debated in the early days whether the coronavirus had still come through ‘foreigners,’ it is clear that the virus is, by now, ‘indigenous‘ to us. It took a while to acknowledge that the coronavirus is ‘socialized‘ – meaning that it is out there with us. It is imperative to know the geographical spread of the COVID-19. This is important for the decision-makers to enact necessary controlling mechanisms (i.e., isolation, lockdown, inter-regional restrictions on mobility, etc.) in the relevant regions, places, and localities on the one hand, and on the other, for the individual citizens to safeguard themselves from the coronavirus and to prevent its further transmission. Looking at the COVID-19 pandemic geographically is far beyond a simple exercise of mapping where the COVID-19 cases are found and located. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the geography of the world. Under pre-pandemic normalcy, spatial and geographic barriers are removed within the capitalist system to facilitate a smooth expansion and circulation of capital and commodity markets. The resultant flat geographical surface is what made the globalization of the COVID-19 pandemic possible. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed this as the countries resort to spatial and geographical restrictions (lockdown areas, restricted mobilities, isolated villages, high- risk, low-risk areas, etc.) to control the pandemic. Thus, we must contextualize and unravel the geographical dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic to gauge its extent, scope, and severity and reevaluate the efficacy of the controlling strategies and problematize it further.

 

Geographical contextualizing of the pandemic

Contextualizing the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka would involve a range of geographical inquiries, analysis, and interpretation that spans from a simple mapping exercise to analyses of socio-cultural, economic, and political dynamics of the communities/ localities where the infected are detected. Geographers’ holistic and integrative perspective allows any phenomenon to be viewed in an interdisciplinary manner and a synthesized form. A geographical line of inquiry, on the one hand, enables the decision-makers to foresee and plan for the future scenarios in terms of, especially, risk areas (for containing the COVID-19 as well recovering the economy) and also to implement the controlling strategies more efficaciously and in a socially more responsible manner. On the other hand, such an exercise helps the public to understand the extent, scope, and severity of the crisis and to reflect individually upon the ethics of personal conduct necessary to prevent the further social proliferation of the coronavirus. Here we use the three themes of infection, vulnerability, and immunization to focus on COVID-19 in Sri Lanka geographically; out of seven themes (infection, vulnerability, resilience, blame, immunization, interdependence, and care) introduced in the Editorial, the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (volume 45 of 2020). In addition, we introduce ‘social distancing’ as a form of micro-geography of COVID-19 since it enfolds a set of human spatial interactions involving spatial distancing at the individual level.

Geographies of infection

: With the first wave, particular places, except for Atalugama and a few low-income localities in Colombo were not identified with COVID-19. A majority of the infected were detected from those retained at the quarantine centres. Now, with the second wave, it is different. The questions of where the infected have been found, where they live, where they have been, and what kind of neighborhoods they have been found from are critical information relating to the transmission and control of COVID-19. At the global level, universities, research institutes, and various geo-visualization sites have produced maps demonstrating the global nature of COVID-19. They are mapped not only at the national scale but also covering the regional and local scales. In these global maps, Sri Lanka was earlier highlighted as a country that managed to control the COVID-19 successfully in the first wave with an insignificant number of fatalities. With the second wave, we are now reported as “at peak and rising at a rate of 16 infected per 100K people during ‘the last seven days’ (See the REUTERS COVID-19 TRACKER). Sri Lanka is classified as a country at 75% of the peak of the infection curve with a daily average of 523 new infections. In these global analyses, Sri Lanka places itself at the lowest end, compared globally and within Asia and the Middle East, regarding the total infections, deaths, average daily reported, and total per population. The relatively low position of the country’s outbreak in its region and the world should not be used, especially by the politicians, to downplay its severity at the national level. It is interesting to note that most of the news channels, immediately after reporting the outbreak’s national situation, instantly turn to the pandemic’s global standing, highlighting its severity, almost making the Sri Lankan situation, so to say, uneventful and insignificant. The politicians often tend to overemphasize this as a GLOBAL pandemic to escape from criticisms and lessen its significance at the national level.

 

(To be continued)



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Features

What JVP-NPP needs to do to win

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A JVP protest

By Dr. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

A young academic at the Open University writing on a popular website has recently defined the NPP project as ‘Left populist’, a term which is very familiar to us at least from the writings of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. He also mentions several parallels and precursors internationally.

As one who has been advocating a ‘left populist’ project for years, I am disinclined to nit-pick about whether or not the JVP-NPP fits the bill. At the moment and in its current incarnation, it is indeed the closest we have to a ‘left populist’ project. Its competitor the SJB, which its founder-leader identifies as social democratic, would be as approximate –and as loose– a fit for the labels ‘progressive populist’, ‘moderate populist’ or ‘populist centrist’, as the JVP-NPP is for ‘left populist’. But that’s the deck of cards we have.

The points I seek to make are different, and may be said to boil down to a single theme or problematique.

Distorted Left Populism

My argument is that the JVP-NPP is as distant from ‘left populism’ globally as it was from ‘left revolutionism’ globally in an earlier incarnation. In both avatars, it is unique in its leftism but not in a positive or helpful way for its cause at any given time.

Mine is not intended as a damning indictment of the JVP-NPP. It is intended as a constructive criticism of a rectifiable error, the rectification of which is utterly urgent given the deadly threat posed by the Wickremesinghe administration and its project of dependent dictatorship.

The JVP-NPP has a structural absence that no ‘left populist’ enterprise, especially in Latin America, has ever had. It is an absence that has marked the JVP from its inception and has been carried over into the present NPP project.

It is not an absence unique to the JVP but figures more in Sri Lanka than it has almost anywhere else. I say this because the same ‘absence’ characterised the LTTE as well. In short, that factor or its radical absence has marred the anti-systemic forces of South and North on the island.

The homeland of left populism has been Latin America while its second home has been Southern Europe. With the exception of Greece, it may be said that ‘left populism’ has an Ibero-American or culturally Hispanic character, which some might trace to the ‘romanticism’ of that culture. But such considerations need not detain us here.

‘Left populism’ has had several identifiable sources and points of departure: the former guerrilla movements of the 1960s and 1970s; the non-guerrilla movements of resistance to dictatorships; parties and split-offs from parties of the Marxist left; left-oriented split-offs or the leftwing of broad flexible even centrist populist formations; leftwing experiments from within the militaries etc.

Populism, Pluralism & Unity

Despite this diversity, all experiments of a Left populist character in Latin America and Europe, have had one thing in common: various forms of unity – e.g., united fronts, blocs etc.—of political parties. I would take up far too much space if I were to list them, starting with the Frente Amplio (which means precisely ‘Broad Front’) initiated by the Tupamaros-MLN of Uruguay and containing the Uruguayan Communist party and headed by a military man, General Liber Seregni, in 1970. The Frente Amplio lasted through the decades of the darkest civil-military dictatorship up to the presidential electoral victories of Tabaré Vasquez and Mujica respectively. Another example would be El Salvador’s FMLN, which brought together several Marxist guerrilla movements into a single front under the stern insistence of Fidel Castro.

Though the roots of unity were back in the 1970s, the formula has only been strengthened in the 1990s and 21st century projects of Left populism. There is a theoretical-strategic logic for this. The polarisation of ‘us vs them’, the 99% vs. the 1%, the many not the few—in socioeconomic terms—is of course a hallmark of populism. But pro-NPP academics and ideologues are unaware of or omit its corollary everywhere from Uruguay to Greece and Spain. Namely, that socioeconomic ‘majoritarianism’ is not possible with a single party as agency.

When the JVP and the NPP have the same leader, and the JVP leader was the founder of the NPP, I cannot regard it as a truly autonomous project, but a party project. Left populism globally, from its inception right up to Lula last year, is predicated on the admission of political, not just social plurality, and the fact that socioeconomic, i.e., popular majoritarianism is possible only as a pluri-party united front, platform or bloc.

This recognition of the imperative of unity as necessitating a convergence of political fractions and currents; that unity is impossible as a function of a single political party; that authentic majoritarianism i.e., “us” is possible only if “we” converge and combine as an ensemble of our organic political agencies, is a structural feature of Left Populism.

It is radically absent in the JVP-NPP and has been so from the JVP’s founding in 1965. It was also true of the LTTE.

It is this insistence on political unipolarity (to put it diplomatically) or political monopoly (to put it bluntly) is a genetic defect of the JVP which has been carried over into the NPP project.

I do not say this to contest the leading role and the main role that the JVP has earned in any left populist project. I say it to draw the Gramscian distinction between ‘leadership’ and ‘domination’. Only ‘leadership’ can create consensus and popular consent; domination through monopoly cannot.

The simple truth is that however ‘left populist’ you think you are; no single party can be said to represent the people or even a majority – as distinct from a mere plurality– of the people. Furthermore, the people are not a unitary subject, and therefore cannot have a unitary leadership. This is the importance of Fidel Castro’s insistence to the Latin American Left of a ‘united command’ which brings together the diverse segments of the left by reflecting plurality.

Anyone who knows the history of Syriza and Podemos knows that they are not outcrops of some single party of long-standing but the result of an organic process of convergences of factions.

Had the JVP had a policy of united fronts – within the Southern left and with the Northern left– it would not have been as decisively defeated as it was in its two insurrections, and might have even succeeded in its second attempt. Though it has formed the NPP which has brought some significant success, it is still POLITICALLY sectarian in that it has no political alliances, partnerships, i.e., NO POLITICAL RELATIONSHIPS outside of itself.

I must emphasize that here I am not speaking of a bloc with the SJB, though it is most desirable, to be recommended, and if this were Latin America would definitely be on the agenda of discussion.

Post-Aragalaya Left

Let us speak frankly. The most important phenomenon of recent times (since the victorious end of the war) was the Aragalaya of last year. The JVP, especially its student front the SYU, participated in that massive uprising which dislodged President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but it played a less decisive role in the Aragalaya than did the FSP and the IUSF which is close to it. This is by no means to say that the FSP led the Aragalaya, but to point out that it played a more decisive role – which included some mistakes– than did the JVP.

How then does one remain blind to the fact that the JVP-NPP’s ‘left populism’ does not include the FSP and by extension the IUSF? How can there be a ‘popular bloc’ – a key element of left populism—without the IUSF?

Given that Pubudu Jayagoda, Duminda Nagamuwa, Lahiru Weerasekara and Wasantha Mudalige are among the most successful public communicators today (especially on the left), what kind of ‘left’ is a ‘left populism’ devoid of their presence, participation and contribution?

What does it take to recognise that unity of some sort of these two streams of the Left could result in a most useful division of labour and a quantum leap in the hopes and morale of the increasingly left-oriented post-Aragalaya populace, especially the youth?

Surely the very sight of a platform with the leaders of the JVP-NPP and the FSP-IUSF (AKD and Kumar Gunaratnam, Eranga Gunasekara and Wasantha Mudalige, Wasantha Samarasinghe and Duminda Nagamuwa, Bimal Ratnayake and Pubudu Jayagoda) will take the Left populist project to the next level?

As a party the JVP from its birth, and by extension, the NPP today, have set aside one of the main weapons of leftist theory, strategy and political practice: the United Front. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Dimitrov, Gramsci, Togliatti, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro have founded and enriched this strategic concept.

It is difficult to accept that Rohana Wijeweera and Anura Kumara Dissanayake knew/know better than these giants, and that the JVP-NPP can dispense with this political sword and shield and yet prevail–or even survive the coming storm.

The JVP must present a LEFT option in the leadership of which is the major shareholder; not merely a JVP option or para-JVP option, which is what the NPP is. A credible, viable Left alternative cannot be reduced to a single party and its front/auxiliary; it cannot but be a United Left – a Left Front– alternative.

***********************

[Dr Dayan Jayatilleka is author of The Great Gramsci: Imagining an Alt-Left Project, in ‘On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative’ eds Richard Falk et al, Routledge, New York, 2019.]

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Obtaining fresh mandate unavoidable requirement

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Protesters demanding local goverment elections

by Jehan Perera

The government’s plans for reviving the economy show signs of working out for the time being. The long-awaited IMF loan is about to be granted. This would enable the government to access other loans to tide over the current economic difficulties. The challenge will be to ensure that both the old loans and new ones will be repayable. To this end the government has begun to implement its new tax policy which increases the tax burden significantly on income earners who can barely make ends meet, even without the taxes, in the aftermath of the rise in price levels. The government is also giving signals that it plans to downsize the government bureaucracy and loss-making state enterprises. These are reforms that may be necessary to balance the budget, but they are not likely to gain the government the favour of the affected people. The World Bank has warned that many are at risk of falling back into poverty, with 40 percent of the population living on less than 225 rupees per person per day.

The problem for the government is that the economic policies, required to stabilize the economy, are not popular ones. They are also politically difficult ones. The failure to analyse the past does not help us to ascertain reasons for our failures and also avoids taking action against those who had misused, or damaged, the system unfairly. The costs of this economic restructuring, to make the country financially viable, is falling heavily, if not disproportionately, on those who are middle class and below. Fixed income earners are particularly affected as they bear a double burden in being taxed at higher levels, at a time when the cost of living has soared. Unlike those in the business sector, and independent professionals, who can pass on cost increases to their clients, those in fixed incomes find it impossible to make ends meet. Emigration statistics show that over 1.2 million people, or five percent of the population, left the country, for foreign employment, last year.

The economic hardships, experienced by the people, has led to the mobilization of traditional trade unions and professionals’ organisations. They are all up in arms against the government’s income generation, at their expense. Last week’s strike, described as a token strike, was successful in that it evoked a conciliatory response from the government. Many workers did not keep away from work, perhaps due to the apprehension that they might not only lose their jobs, but also their properties, as threatened by one government member, who is close to the President. There was a precedent for this in 1981 when the government warned striking workers that they would be sacked. The government carried out its threat and over 40,000 government officials lost their jobs. They and their families were condemned to a long time in penury. The rest of society went along with the repression as the government was one with an overwhelming mandate from the people.

TEMPORARY RESPITE

The striking unions have explained their decision to temporarily discontinue their strike action due to President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s willingness to reconsider their economic grievances. More than 40 trade unions, in several sectors, joined the strike. They explained they had been compelled to resort to strike action as there was no positive response from the government to their demands. Due to the strike, services such as health, posts, and railways were affected. Workers in other sectors, including education, port, power, water supply, petroleum, road development, and banking services, also joined the strike. The striking unions have said they would take up the President’s offer to discuss their concerns with the government and temporarily called a halt to their strike action. This would give the government an opportunity to rethink its strategy. Unlike the government in 1981 this one has no popular mandate. In the aftermath of the protest movement, it has only a legal mandate.

So far, the government has been unyielding in the face of public discontent. Public protests have been suppressed. Protest leaders have been arrested and price and tax hikes have gone ahead as planned. The government has been justifying the rigid positions it has been taking on the basis of its prioritization of economic recovery for which both political stability and financial resources are necessary. However, by refusing to heed public opinion the government has been putting itself on a course of confrontation with organized forces, be they trade unions or political parties. The severity of the economic burden, placed on the larger section of society, even as other sectors of society appear to be relatively unaffected, creates a perception of injustice that needs to be mitigated. Engaging in discussion with the trade unions and reconsidering its approach to those who have been involved in public protests could be peace making gestures in the current situation.

On the other hand, exacerbating the political crisis is the government’s continuing refusal to hold the local government elections, as scheduled, on two occasions now by the Elections Commission and demanded by law. The government’s stance is even in contradiction to the Supreme Court’s directives that the government should release the financial resources necessary for the purpose leading to an ever-widening opposition to it. The government’s determination to thwart the local government elections stems from its pragmatic concerns regarding its ability to fare well at them. Public opinion polls show the government parties obtaining much lower support than the opposition parties. Except for the President, the rest of the government consists of the same political parties and government members that faced the wrath of the people’s movement a year ago and had to resign in ignominy.

PRESIDENT’S OPTIONS

The government’s response to the pressures it is under has been to repress the protest movement through police action that is especially intolerant of street protests. It has also put pressure on state institutions to conform to its will, regardless of the law. The decisions of the Election Commission to set dates for the local government elections have been disregarded once, and the elections now appear to have to be postponed yet again. The government is also defying summons upon its ministers by the Human Rights Commission which has been acting independently to hold the government to account to the best extent it can. The government’s refusal to abide by the judicial decision not to block financial resources for election purposes is a blow to the rule of law that will be to the longer-term detriment of the country. These are all negative trends that are recipes for future strife and lawlessness. These would have long term and unexpected implications not to the best for the development of the country or its values.

There are indications that President Wickremesinghe is cognizant of the precariousness of the situation. The accumulation of pressures needs to be avoided, be it for gas at homes or issues in the country. As an experienced political leader, student of international politics, he would be aware of the dangers posed by precipitating a clash involving the three branches of government. A confrontation with the judiciary, or a negation of its decisions, would erode the confidence in the entire legal system. It would damage the confidence of investors and the international community alike in the stability of the polity and its commitment to the rule of law. The public exhortations of the US ambassador with regard to the need to conduct the local government elections would have driven this point home.

It is also likely that the US position on the importance of holding elections on time is also held by the other Western countries and Japan. Sri Lanka is dependent on these countries, still the wealthiest in the world, for its economic sustenance, trade and aid, in the form of concessional financing and benefits, such as the GSP Plus tariff concession. Therefore, the pressures coming from both the ground level in the country and the international community, may push the government in the direction of elections and seeking a mandate from the people. Strengthening the legitimacy of the government to govern effectively and engage in problem solving in the national interest requires an electoral mandate. The mandate sought may not be at the local government level, where public opinion polls show the government at its weakest, but at the national level which the President can exercise at his discretion.

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Sing-along… Down Memory Lane

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Sing-alongs have turned out to be hugely popular, in the local showbiz scene, and, I would say, it’s mainly because they are family events, and also the opportunity given to guests to shine, in the vocal spotlight, for a minute, or two!

I first experienced a sing-along when I was invited to check out the famous Rhythm World Dance School sing-along evening.

It was, indeed, something different, with Sohan & The X-Periments doing the needful, and, today, Sohan and his outfit are considered the No.1 band for sing-along events.

Melantha Perera: President of Moratuwa Arts Forum

I’m told that the first ever sing-along concert, in Sri Lanka, was held on 27th April, 1997, and it was called Down Memory Lane (DML), presented by the Moratuwa Arts Forum (MAF),

The year 2023 is a landmark year for the MAF and, I’m informed, they will be celebrating their Silver Jubilee with a memorable concert, on 29th April, 2023, at the Grand Bolgoda Resort, Moratuwa.

Due to the Covid pandemic, their sing-along series had to be cancelled, as well as their planned concert for 2019. However, the organisers say the delayed 25th Jubilee Celebration concert is poised to be a thriller, scheduled to be held on 29th April, 2023.

During the past 25 years, 18 DML concerts had been held, and the 25th Jubilee Celebration concert will be the 19th in the series.

Famous, and much-loved, ‘golden oldies’, will be sung by the audience of music lovers, at this two and a half hours programme.

Down Memory Lane was the brainchild of musician Priya Peiris, (of ‘Cock-a-Doodle-Do’ fame) and the MAF became the pioneers of sing-along concerts in Sri Lanka.

The repertoire of songs for the 25th Jubilee Celebration concert will include a vast selection of international favourites, Cowboy and old American Plantation hits, Calypsos, Negro Spirituals, everybody’s favourites, from the ’60s and ’70s era, Sinhala evergreens, etc.

Down Memory Lane

 

Fun time for the audience Down Memory Lane

Singers from the Moratuwa Arts Forum will be on stage to urge the audience to sing. The band Echo Steel will provide the musical accompaniment for the audience to join in the singing, supported by Brian Coorey, the left handed electric bass guitarist, and Ramany Soysa on grand piano.

The organisers say that every participant will get a free songbook. There would also be a raffle draw, with several prizes to be won,

Arun Dias Bandaranaike will be the master of ceremonies.

President of the Moratuwa Arts Forum, Melantha Perera, back from Australia, after a successful tour, says: “All music lovers, especially Golden Oldies enthusiasts, are cordially invited to come with their families, and friends, to have an enjoyable evening, and to experience heartwarming fellowship and bonhomie.”

Further details could be obtained from MAF Treasurer, Laksiri Fernando (077 376 22 75).

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