Defence Ministry’s Leadership Training Claims Another Life

February 2, 2014 |

Another student died while undergoing the Defence Ministry’s programme to carry out “Leadership Training” for all university students. The student, identified as Mudiyanselage Lahiru Sandaruwan Rathnayake was undergoing leadership training at the Peradeniya Gannoruwa Army Camp and was admitted to the Peradeniya Hospital on 26 January, due to a sudden ailment, passed away yesterday, The Ceylon Today reported.

Selected to the University of Jaffna, upon successfully sitting the GCE Advanced Level Examination in the commerce stream from the Nochchiyagama Vidyadarshi College, Lahiru Sandaruwan was 21 years old at the time of his demise.

Military Spokesperson Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said according to the father of the deceased, the student had been receiving treatment for an ailment from which he had been suffering since his infancy. Asked whether students were subject to a fitness test, prior to their enrolment in the leadership training programme, Brigadier Wanigasooriya said, “No. That is not our responsibility. It is the Ministry of Higher Education which is tasked with obtaining their fitness reports.”

Compulsory leadership training for undergraduates  is a mandatory programme introduced in 2011 by the  Government for all students selected State universities. The residential three week leadership training and “positive thinking development” training camps under the Defence Ministry  has claimed at least two lives so far. In   2011 a student died during the leadership program for undergraduates, while a principal who was part of a similar leadership training program died in 2013.

Mahinda S Sidelined After WikiLeaks

February 2, 2014 

Sri Lanka’s plantations minister and the presidential special envoy Mahinda Samarasinghe is reportedly having difficulty getting himself included in the Sri Lanka delegation to Geneva in March after a WikiLeaks cable published on Colombo Telegraph revealed that the Minister had blamed the Rajapaksa brothers for the country’s human rights problems, government sources have revealed.

Mahinda Samarasinghe

Samarasinghe who is busy attempting to organise a local media delegation is yet to be assured of his spot on the Lankan delegation, having lost his clout somewhat as Sri Lanka’s main focal point on human rights.

However the sources said that the Minister’s popularity in Kalutara, a key district in the western provincial polls battle also due in March may swing things Samarasinghe’s way at least for the March session of the UNHRC.

Last year, Samarasinghe was sent to address the high level session of the Council in March but his blistering speech attacking UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay became a major embarrassment for the Government delegation afterwards when other member states began to defend Pillay against attacks by Sri Lanka. The delegation was led by AmbassadorRavinatha Ariyasinha after the high level meetings and saw a major shift in tenor with Sri Lanka making attempts to engage and convince rather than go on the offensive against the Council and its head.

Senior officials in the Rajapaksa administration are reportedly irked by Samarasinghe’s comments to the US embassy in Colombo that the ruling brothers were calling all the shots onnthe human rights and accountability fronts.

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