“Tsunami Warnings”, close to boy cries wolf!

Looks like we are feeling the effects of not having a Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. The recent earthquakes in Indonesia resulted in two Tsunami alerts within a span of about 12 hours and resulted in people being evacuated from the coastal areas.

If we had a proper warning system then we would have been able to confirm whether a Tsunami is headed our way before evacuating the people. What I sense will happen is that after a few warnings like this, people will stop taking them seriously and it might turn into another disaster. It might become a case of the “boy cries wolf”.

It is a pity that this region in which a majority of the countries are ruled by corrupt politicians who put themselves over the law are not taking any interest in coordinating with the other nations to build up a warning system. Hopefully another Tsunami is not what is required for us to get a warning system.

Wonder what SAARC is doing about it? At the recent SAARC conference there were discussions about Tsunami Warning Systems but it looks like nothing has been done just as the other things that were discussed without any action being taken. May be the discussion will be continued at the next SAARC meeting.

At the moment we are at the mercy of the power of nature and any major quake in the Indonesian region will spark evacuations and we are forced to rely on the prognosis of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre which does not have any monitoring equipment in this region which makes their prognosis very unreliable.

A Tsunami Warning System is a must for this region and I won’t be surprised if any of our political parties include it in their election manifestos just to get more votes.

 

UniFlow Patriotism

Not many of us are members of the fortunate clan that owns vehicles or the even more fortunate clan that has the ability to have the roads closed and cleared up for in order for them to reach their destination comfortably. So for those of us who bus it everyday from areas like Colpetty to Pettah as of late, it has become a strenuous exercise. Every minute that you get late to leave office increases the time to travel to Pettah by a larger margin.

Previously when we the ordinary law abiding citizens of this country were not considered a security threat and were allowed to travel to Pettah on the Galle Road, the journey would take approximately 10 minutes. Now of course it is no less than 30 minutes and the later you get, the larger the time required to travel. If the “one who should not be named” decides to take to the roads then only a magic wand can help us and as of now the wands are out of stock.

So at the moment the citizens of this country have no option but to travel in severe traffic for over 30 minutes when the journey should actually take only about 10 minutes and this is just from Colpetty to Pettah, I wonder how it for those who travel on other roads. It is said that time is money so this further adds to the amount of money that is being wasted in this country due to this senseless war. A new high speed train was developed (cannot remember where) to reduce the time taken by commuters to travel by 20 minutes. So instead of taking measures to improve the transport system and time taken to travel, we are successfully implementing measures that will result in more time being wasted. I am sure all of this is adding more pressure to our already unstable economy.

However our local pus patriots only shout against things that will bring some good to this country such as ending the conflict and proclaim that the country is headed down the wrong path. Sri Lanka is a country that has no true patriots in powerful positions and the powerful people who think of themselves as patriots do not know the meaning of patriotism and do not practice it.

 

Sports Galore

This month is a real boom for sports enthusiasts as the Rugby World Cup and the Twenty20 World Cup are to be held. It would have been better to have the two big sporting events in different months but since there are not too many Rugby fans in Sri Lanka there is not going to be too many clashes between the events as not all the Rugby matches will be telecast on pay or free to air television. However all the Twenty20 matches will be telecast live.

Not many people I have spoken to have any idea that the Rugby World Cup is starting tomorrow. Most people in this region are into cricket than any other sport. Even the most recent athletic tournament in which some Sri Lankans took part were not shown over local television. I just hope many Sri Lankans will become more interested in sports than cricket too.

This month and the next is going to be full of discussions on Rugby and Cricket, not to mention the nail biting finish of the 2007 Formula One Season.

For most Sri Lankans the Twenty20 will be the one to watch but I for one will be among those who will be enjoying the Rugby, Twenty20 and the Formula One season finale.

 

Even dogs are not exempt

Thats right even our canine friends are to be taxed. I heard this on the Sun FM evening news bulletin about two days ago and I frankly do not know what to make of it. I know that taxes are an important part of maintaining the economy but isn’t this just taking things too far. They are planning to raise the levy on mobile bills plus an additional Rs 50/= on the SIM. I wonder how this will be charged from people who have prepaid packages, anyway that is a problem that will have to be dealt with by the service provider. Mobile phones are no longer luxury and people from the usual coconut plucker to the CEO has one.

Lets see if I have got this right, we are going to pay higher taxes because the government needs money to run the country, otherwise they will print money which will result in high inflation. However all these taxes are not for improving the stability of the economy but rather for our elected (and non elected) officials to embezzle more in order for them to have a comfortable life once their time is up.

As for now since they are planning to tax dogs I wonder what they will plan to tax next?

 

Lewis Hamilton – the next Schumacher?

Ever the last formula one season ended and the retirement of Michael Schumacher was upon us. I couldn’t help it but wonder whether anyone else would really be able to achieve all what he has accomplished to far. Well looks like this season has answered the question. Lewis Hamilton on his first season in formula one season has put double world champion and his team mate Fernando Alonso on the back foot. From the first race onwards he has been a force to be reckoned with. He has achieved things that no rookie driver has done so far and looking at it, I must say that it is extremely unfair to call him rookie.

In some races and in the statements that are being made it seems that Fernando Alonso is not enjoying playing second fiddle to Lewis at McLaren. It is not only at McLaren that this is happening but in Ferrari Filipe Massa is fairing much better than Kimi Raikkonen who was brought into the team to fill Schumacher’s shoes. He is probably not enjoying the fact of playing second fiddle to Massa either.

One thing is for certain this season Formula One has seen young guns emerging and in the next few years there are going to very interesting title fights between the likes of Massa, Hamilton, Kubica, Heikki Kovalainen, etc. At the moment Lewis Hamilton seems to be the most impressive youngster in the lot and has all the opportunities in world to make Schumacher’s achievements look like child’s play.

This year the championship is a four way battle between Kimi, Massa, Lewis, Alonso and  hopefully Lewis or Massa would come out on top.  Looking forward to the day that Lewis Hamilton joins Ferrari.

 

Airtel to launch services in March 2008

Looks like the fifth mobile operator in Sri Lanka, Airtel will be launching services around March 2008. At least that is what I gather from their press statement recently, they have said that the launch will take place towards the end of the last quarter of the 2007/08 financial year. Oh and for those of you who are looking for a job it seems that Airtel are on a recruitment drive and anyone who is interested can apply.

Now that being said lets look at what we can expect from Airtel. By looking at advertisements on the pay television channels I find Airtel to be more impressive that any of the other cellular operators in India that advertise on the pay television channels. However we cannot go by advertisements alone since they can be very misleading. Airtel is getting ready to launch their very own DTH pay television service too in India. They may make the service available in Sri Lanka as their cellular business gets established here. Airtel will be able to make inroads into the Sri Lankan cellular phone business but the operators already present will not make it easy for them. There is more room for the local cellular market to expand and they can all share the pie without trying to lure the subscribers of the other operators.

Airtel will probably adopt the approach taken by Dialog CDMA and that is by launching services in the rural areas first and them launching in Colombo and the suburbs which are more or less dominated by the existing operators. The expansion into Colombo may come as a mere formality but then not everyone in Colombo has a cellphone either, so they will definitely try to lure non cellular phone users in Colombo too.

What is interesting to note is that Airtel is in close collaboration with Vodafone and at present our cellular market leader Dialog GSM is also in close collaboration with Vodafone. Wonder how that will play out when Airtel launches services here?

One thing that is for certain is that the increase in competition will be very beneficial for the subscribers as well as those who want to purchase a connection in the future as the operating will try to out do each other by providing benefits.

 

The month that passed!

Its great to be back in the blogging world after a lapse of nearly one month. It has been a hectic month ranging from a heavy work load to being down with the flu. Anyway I hope that I will be able to continue my blogging on a more frequent basis hereafter. Instead of writing posts in office during free time, I now hope to write them up at home and bring it to office and then to post it.

The saddest thing that happened over the last few days has been the death of my pet dog. She has been around for close upon 11 years now and I guess the old age finally caught up with her. This is third dog that I have lost to the claws of death. The first one died several years ago while I was schooling, the second one was poisoned and died about 3 to 4 years ago. A few minutes ago I got a call from home and it seems that we have just got 3 new puppies from a person who wanted to give them away. None of the dogs that I have had, have been the well sought after breeds and frankly I cannot afford to spend money to buy any of those. But pets are still pets whether we buy them or get them free.

The coming month is going to be pretty interesting since the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup and the Rugby World Cup would be held. So here’s hoping to be able to blog more frequently hereafter. Cheers!

 

Is this the one

For the past few days I have hearing news of earthquakes close to Sri Lanka , tremors in Tissamaharama and the recent earthquake in the Indian Ocean has been felt by some of my colleagues have felt it too. I have never felt anything yet though. Anyway today as soon as bought the Daily Mirror (July 27th 2007) my eyes caught the bottom of the froont page giving a picture of the seismic forces on the plates on which Sri Lanka is situated.

So according to it and other articles that have appeared in the newspapers, it seems that Sri Lanka may be in for the “Big One“.

This is not at all good since our country is ill prepared for a natural disaster such as an earthquake (all right we are ill prepared for all types of natural disasters). I wonder whether when the engineers who designed bridges, high rise buildings, etc would have taken an earthquake into consideration because if they did not then I am sure any one of us would not like to be close to these when an earthquake strikes.

Coming to think of it I wonder whether this has anything to do with the prophesy that I posted sometime back(links are given below). It is not clear what type of disaster this prophesy predicted, at a glance it looks like a volcano (which I think is highly unlikely) but most of what it says is symbolic. Maybe the prophesy predicted an earthquake or maybe not, but what is important is that a natural disaster was predicted.

Coming back to the earthquake since there is no way of exactly predicting when one will strike added to that Sri Lanka lacks seismic monitors in the areas where the tremors are being felt, we are sitting duck until one hits us and probably the US or Indian Geological Centers would have to give us the magnitude of the earthquake that we were hit with.

The Pictures in the Daily Mirror (July 27th 2007) are given below. Please click on the images for a clearer view.

Given below are the links to posts quoted above 

Prophecy regarding Sri Lanka : The Actual Transcript

Prophecy regarding Sri Lanka

 

East Liberated, South under oppression?

Well that’s what it looked like this morning. Roads are closed (so that the politicians can travel safely for a liberation festival) and there were temporary checkpoints all over the Negombo Road and other roads, they stopped as many vehicles as they can. Looks like we are celebrating the liberation of the East while oppressing the people in the south. Oh by the way the celebration of the liberation of the East takes place in the south and not in the liberated areas. So much for liberation.

This makes me wonder whether the liberation has actually taken place or have we been given a different picture. Thankfully I went to office early enough to miss all this traffic. But the others in office have had a time making it into office and some are still on the way

Many people except a select few (who love this war for some reason and think of themselves as patriots) are of the view that this celebration is not at all necessary. Most house/offices did not have the national flag hoisted as requested by the government. The only national flags I saw were the ones on government buildings and the ones that the local government authorities had got hoisted on poles along the payments.

Speeches made by the politicians gave lip service to the soldiers who died for this cause. They made sure they took centre stage for this entire event. A development drive was also launched to rebuild the east, it looks like it will end up being like all the other development drives started earlier and will be limited to a speech, a piece of paper in parliament and some cash in some politicians pocket.

 

What are we supposed to celebrate?

We are supposed to celebrate the recapture of Thoppigala and the Eastern province from the LTTE. Celebrate for what? It’s not like the war is over and all of Sri Lanka’s problems are solved. Instead of celebrating we should organize a ceremony to pay tribute to the armed forces, specially the ones who laid down their life for this cause. Instead the politicians decide to hold a celebration so that they and their relatives can take center stage and may sure that they use this to achieve their petty political objectives.

We can celebrate when peace dawns upon this country. If anyone thinks that by continuing the war, peace can be achieved, then that person is totally insane. Of course I have read blog posts and articles by people who agree with the government regardless of the present worsening situation. They make themselves the pets of the government.

For certain with this narrow minded war based mindset Sri Lanka will never achieve peace in the near future. It is best to stop all this non sense and come to a peace settlement with the LTTE without aggravating things further.

There is no need to celebrate this victory in the East since greater challenges lay ahead for the Sri Lankan nation and the way we fare in those will decide the fate of this country.