Are you going to die at the age of 40?

Tens of millions of deaths in 2008 worldwide and 150 thousand deaths in Sri Lanka. A large proportion of these deaths occurred before the age of 60, so during the most productive period of life. It’s counting the number of silent bodies, in style.

I am attached to the social outcomes evaluation project of the University of New South Wales, Australia. With my professor [Name omitted], I visited two health promotion pilot areas of our research in [Name omitted] and [Name omitted] area, last week. I was stunned by the knowledge and attitudes of people. They didn’t know that physical exercise or active lifestyle is essential, for a healthy and a long life. But I guess that all dear readers who read this blog are well aware of it, aren’t you?

But, how many of you do put your knowledge in to practice every-day, or perhaps once a week?

Non-communicable diseases: Diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, stroke and heart attacks have killed tens of millions of people every year, and a large proportion of these deaths occurred before the age of 60; during the most productive period of life.

According to “the Global economic burden of NCD” which was published in 2011, by the world economic forum and the Harvard school of Public health, Non-communicable diseases have been established as a clear threat not only to human health, but also to development and economic growth. Claiming 63% of all deaths, these diseases are currently the world’s main killer.

What does potentially lead to death? Is it the fault of your boss, your neighbour  your parents, your college, or your relatives? No my dear friends, it is yours...

Eighty percent of these deaths now occur in low- and middle-income countries. Half of those who die of chronic non-communicable diseases are in the prime of their productive years, and thus, the disability imposed and the lives lost are also endangering industry competitiveness across borders.

Over the next 20 years, NCDs will cost more than US$ 30 trillion, representing 48% of global GDP in 2010, and pushing millions of people below the poverty line. Mental health conditions alone will account for the loss of an additional US$ 16.1 trillion over this time span, with dramatic impact on productivity and quality of life.

A recent World Health Organization report underlines that population-based measures for reducing tobacco and harmful alcohol use, as well as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity, are estimated to cost US$ 2 billion per year for all low- and middle-income countries, which in fact translates to less than US$ 0.40 per person.

So what are we supposed to do? Don’t waste your time pondering; get started right now. It’s just your Dr. Diet and Dr. Exercise that is needed. Can’t you just spare 6 days per year, 24 hours per month, 6 hours per week or just 30 minutes per day for your own healthy life? I don’t think that anyone in the world would have an excuse for just 30 minutes a day. Be careful of your decades old joints and wear a knee guard and a comfortable pair of shoes and get on to the running track nearby your house or on to the main road. Start jogging or brisk walking. Or else if you prefer doing it at home, please go ahead and use your treadmill.

When you do your exercises please remember a few facts. Always pay attention to the gradual building up of the tone of the body with warm up exercises and stretching and then go in to your standard schedule. Once you have finished your schedule do some stretching and warm down before you sleep.

If the first step is taken, the rest of the story is at home. It’s all about how you eat! Can you reduce the amount of salt you put in to curries by half? Can you reduce the number of snacks and oily foods you eat by half? Can you start tasting a tea in the morning and afternoon without sugar? if you cannot start with a low sugar tea. If you are able to tolerate this list so far, trust me, you are through, but even if you don’t like it you may have to do it for the sake of your own health.

The current strategy of NCD prevention is driven through the concept of “Health promotion”. It’s all about coaxing and empowering people to actively think about their own health.

Are you empowered to get rid of this burden of NCD from your precious life? And are you encouraged to introduce this to your close family members and your partner, provided that you really want to make them live longer as you do? Are you motivated to engage in physical exercises at least for thirty minutes a day? Are you determined to modify your diet?

It is all about you and your family. The decision is yours.

Samandika Saparamadu

RIP Ana!

17th of April, 2014 marks the end of a legend of all time.

It is with great regret that I post this as a tribute to this inimitable personality, investment guru, eloquent speaker with aplomb, astrologer, charter member of many societies and clubs in the country and my beloved friend who always raised his voice and did not hesitate to put pen to paper against infringement, maleficence and discrimination.

I would never forget those wonderful memories of you; especially the good times we had with late night discussions, arguments and conversations at the Colombo Club, Capri club and almost everywhere in the city. All the books that you lent and gifted me will be a loving memory of you always!

 We hung up our last phone conversation with the hope of meeting on the 22nd of April, but…

 Ananda Chittambalam, a worthy son of the land, may your soul rest in peace!

The decay of education in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan education system is run by (mob) three super-stars! 

1) Minister of higher education is a former students’ union leader who betrayed all the student activists of the country. Both the Minister and his son were drooling over the documentary about Dr. Neville Fernando’s Private Medical College (PMC), SAITM, which was produced by my friend’s Media Company and used to call them on every morning and evening until it was ready! He wrecked the system to safeguard Neville’s almighty dollar with the certain hope of laundering his money which he has already done. 

2) Minister of education, doesn't even know how to hold a meeting, talk to people and he neglects important meetings. He has narcolepsy and sleeps while giving away the awards at ceremonies. He is a former tuition master and taking cognizance of his own past he closed the deal of the age-old bill which was proposed to prohibit tuition classes on Sundays. 

3) Finally the deputy Minister, (a veteran member of my own club) the owner of the largest International school network of the country, (even though he is resigned from his designations) that will be a conglomerate in the near future with new additions of his son’s business ventures.

Are we Sri Lankans so desperate to appoint a man with a conflict of interest as an authority of education? Or is it a part of the master plan of Rajapaksa Regime in creating a bogged down public education system?

Wonder of Asia - Water, Corruption and Maladies! (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

A Japanese water purification company was about to receive by far the heftiest donation of a few million dollars from the Sri Lankan Government to start their business in the country in order to clean ground-water resources, which would in turn help to get rid of toxic chemicals and agro-chemicals from ground-water to reduce the disease burden of chronic kidney diseases (CKD) in affected areas.

The Japanese company was introduced to “Pelpola Vipassi Foundation” which was inaugurated by ven. Pelpola Vipassi thero and then the Foundation introduced them to the Sri Lankan Government via several Ministers.

A Japanese official of the company who is a good friend of mine got a job to investigate about this suspicious invitation to get involved in an internal health issue which was very unlikely to be a project designed in good faith. Fortunately my friend felt something-fishy as it contradicted the usual diplomatic relationship of two countries and asked me about the credibility of the foundation and this particular chief Buddhist monk. (This happened in 2013)

Palpola Vipassi Foundation is situated near the Royal Colombo Golf Club. The founder Ven Pelpola Vipassi Thero is very fluent in Japanese. So far in the history he had international relations mainly with Japan and had not dealt with any other country.

 

As per the information I obtained from my info-sources, the chief monk has swindled millions of money from Japan. There had been court cases and police inquiries which were filed even by Japanese people, against him. The police officer, DIG [Name omitted] who was in-charge of his inquiries is now living in Australia.

Pelpola Thero had pilfered many case-files against him from the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption through the brother of [Name omitted] (Sri Lankan ambassador of Sri Lanka Embassy in Germany) who was his partner Thero of the Foundation. 

He was an intimate UNP fan during the time of President J R Jayawardana and he was on the border of being jailed due to monetary issues towards the end of his tenure of office. During the latter part of the presidency Thero was not in good terms with the President JR as well.

Everyone advised me to not to reach anyone through the Foundation as they may cut a share in every deal. As far as I know the Foundation earned a lot of money by working hand in hand with Jeyaraj Fernandopulle Foundation, though a temple in Negombo which was constructed by Japanese donations. A friend of mine who is a journalist and a market analyst of the CSE also endorsed it.

“Facts are sacred and the comment is free” which indeed is the favorite slogan of my investment guru. Likewise these "negative" facts are not available anywhere on the internet!

At the moment the deals that take place in the country are extremely suspicious and controversial, mostly the two major determinants of massive projects which are prioritization and decency are nowhere in all senses of the word!

The best example is the top four construction companies of the country. Sanken, Access, Maga and Nawaloka; all of them bribe colossal amounts of money to government officials and any other authority. Even the road construction companies like NEM are famous for their operations with the Ministry of Economic Development and making underhand money!

On the contrary, all our leading construction/engineering companies including “Tudawe Brothers” are capable of carrying out this very water purification project. If by any chance they don’t have expertise and capacities, the next best option is getting in touch with Japanese or any other Voluntary Organizations in defiance of pumping millions of dollars into unrefined projects while entrapping billions in the quicksands of our politicos, halfway through.

Right to Water - A Sri Lankan perspective!

Some parts of Sri Lanka are suffering from severe water related issues due to pesticides and acidity of drinking water. Contamination of soil and the entire water system as a result of industrial acids and pesticides used in farming has led to deaths of tens of thousands of people as a spinoff of resultant kidney decease, in North-western and Southern provinces. Multinational companies like "Monsanto" are directly backing this issue to the worse. "Monsanto" is still trying to invade the economy of the country through the proposed seed bill which has the potential of destroying the entire food and seed diversity, though their branded pesticide "Round up" has been banned in Sri Lanka since last month.

 

Though we knew our government is no more dangerous than an avaricious Multinational company, we never expected to have this experienced so soon. Sri Lankan multi millionaire and a very close ally of His Excellency the President, Dammika Perera owns the Rubber Gloves manufacturing company which created the tragedy at Rathupaswala (Gampaha, Weliweriya). Also known as "Weliweriya water issue". Rathupaswala people had a massive drinking water issue, due to high acidity of water and they protested for their basic human need of enjoying clean drinking water. But, they were treated brutally which wound up marking three deaths, which invariably are homicides. In defiance of banning the Rubber Glove factory of "Dipped Products PLC" or investigating the whole scenario through an impartial, independent party, they are now being given a land in "Biyagama Special Economic Zone" to place their factory again even without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report from environment authorities. Government compensated those families by its almighty dollar and not by justice. No law suit or investigation against the murder cases has taken place so far! Still those people are suffering from the same problem. Government could only make them silence!

Same water issue has now surfaced in Hanwella due to a similar rubber gloves factory that does not maintain proper disposal systems and run no proper treatment of contaminated water in the manufacturing process. After suffering years from the water issue, villagers got onto the roads on the 16th of march 2014 for a demonstration and police troops attacked those people for committing the felony of "protesting against water pollution". On that day at around 5.30 in the morning, police charged the unarmed protestors; men, women and children; hitting them with batons and rifle butts. Villagers fleeing the scene were chased to and attacked in their homes. Those seeking protection in a nearby Buddhist temple were assaulted and part of the building damaged. Some women carrying children were beaten.

One woman told reporters: “I joined the protest on Sunday morning at around five. Suddenly three buses stopped in front of us. More than 125 police officers got out and started attacking us without any warning. They used batons, rifles and rods. Some wore black uniforms. One woman, [Name ommited], was brutally attacked before my eyes".

“Nearly 15 people received injuries and some were seriously hurt. All ran away for safety. Some went to the temple, thinking they were safe there, but the police entered the temple and attacked them. It was so brutal, and they used teargas. I saw a mother running with a baby in her arms to avoid the teargas.”

Arrested protesters were taken to Homagama, Padukka and Hanwella police stations and the assault continued throughout Sunday. Angry villagers chopped down trees and blocked the nearby Colombo-Awissawella highway for almost three hours.

The government then deployed about 1,500 heavily-armed security personnel, who sealed off the whole area and began using water cannon and teargas. A police officer was injured during the clashes and later died in hospital. President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government immediately seized on this to justify a further intensification of the state repression.

Police shameless spokesman Ajith Rohana told the media that the Colombo Criminal Investigation Department was checking whether the police officer’s death was “a premeditated act of violence.” He claimed that the demonstration was a “sudden, disruptive and provocative, act… incited by a specially organised group or groups who want to disgrace the nation’s government and the police internationally.”

This demonstration began after the Magistrate’s Court in Awissawella ruled in the factory’s favour last Friday. Two weeks ago the incident the court had given HRP management 14 days to explain why the plant should not be shut. Instead of ordering the plant closure, as expected by thousands of villagers, the court over-ruled its own deadline on Friday, and gave HRP more time to reply.

A week ago some of my friends who were involved in the scenario told me that they met some villagers from Hanwella and they seek assistance of supportive groups to research on water contamination. As they had explained to my friends, one villager got a little itch in his eye and it led to a permanent blindness. Lots of similar stories were shared and high acidity of water has triggered them all.

Villagers are afraid of their children’s lives. Those villagers had tried to investigate the quality of natural water sources of the area, via government laboratories and all those efforts had been in vain due to the fear of being picked up on it by Govt intelligent services. Furthermore, University laboratories and private labs are also afraid of helping the villagers out in checking water samples as a result of the pressure imposed by the fascist nature of the Rajapaksa regime.

So my dear friends, we would be grateful to you, if you could find a resource person or a group that we can get some advice to help these poor villagers in Hanwella. 

Government is more concerned about investments and commissions that they can obtain some money under hand from businessmen-involved and not about the tens of thousands of dying lives of the poor. We believe in you as those people who scream out for their basic human needs have no hope to cling to!
 

A contribution by a Human Rights Activist from Sri Lanka.