In a world which is rapidly changing, human rights gained attention over the years. More and more discussion is in the current news and people discuss current issues in an unprecedented manner.
While human civilization advances, other aspects may not advance due to various factors. People tend to forget the human worth and people treat their fellow human beings inhumanly. Recent issues, particularly the issues related to right to life and human dignity are serious concerns that we must consider. The governments all over the world seem to disregard human rights and human dignity.
I don't say that all the governments are bad or undermining the rights people have but many governments ill-treat people. This is noted in the incidents that happened in Myanmar recently and Sri Lanka is also in a situation where she cannot allow people from Myanmar coming here. On top of it, the present condition in the country is getting worse and people superficially look at things in a lighter manner. As human beings, we all have our natural rights and they should be protected at all times by the respective governments. We, the citizens have a legitimate right to be protected and we exercise our franchise at polls and request governments to look after us all. Does it happen? I hope not. The government protects the powerful and politically connected people.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Human Rights in Transition
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Use of English
Use of English in Sri Lanka is highly regarded as a good indicator of education. Many people think that English educated people tend to secure better jobs than those who have not proficient in English. English has a good demand in employment and the government spends millions of dollars to educate the people. However, one can notice the deplorable conditions of English education due to a variety of reasons. One reason may be the methodology used in the classroom and its irrevance in the modern world. Many are used to incorporating the Communicative Approach which seems to be a wrong approach. This approach has been there for a long time and no one seems to question its relevance and appropriacy. As educators, the class room teacher should be educated more on the choice of methods available to her because what may be right in one context may be wrong in another context. It is always good to be vigilant and to envisage the outcomes of a bad approach in the classroom. The teacher is in charge of the teaching process and she is accountable for the progress made by the student. No one can and should blame the teacher and everyone has a duty to help her achieve her goals in the school. I feel that she should be given mare training and a good method should be introduced to the school rather than sticking to one method. I note that we do not have our own methodologies and what we have are approaches and methods devised by foreigners particularly linguists from America and England.
Internet Access in Sri Lanka
Internet access in Sri Lanka is available but it has not penetrated the rural areas in the country. Particularly, the townsfolk enjoy Internet but the far corners of the country do not still have access. What can the rural people do with Internet? One may ask so? Well, we can provide them facilities for education. Internet can effectively be used to educate the masses in the country and we can very soon introduce Web based learning and open and distance education services. Education does not reach the villages and if we can take Internet to the villages, I feel that we can help everyone achieve their dreams in education.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Human Rights in Sri Lanka
Violations of human rights in Sri Lanka is unprecedented and the people in power and authority seem to turn a blind ear to such acts. People have a right to be free from harassment from those who govern them but unfortunately the situation in the country is getting worse.
Many incidents of citizens being deprived of their rights have been reported but those poor people cannot seek justice due to various reasons.
In Sri Lanka most of the people are unaware of their rights and when they have issues, they don't know where to go for getting redress. If this trend continues, the image we have built over the years will be lost. We are a country that is noted for values particularly values related to culture are very much recognised in the other parts of the world.
However, I personally feel that we have got to seriously look at our treatment given to those who need us. I am not telling that we are completely neglecting the rights of people but we have got to be more concerned about our relationship with others. One may argue that we are too democratic but are we truly democratic?
Many incidents of citizens being deprived of their rights have been reported but those poor people cannot seek justice due to various reasons.
In Sri Lanka most of the people are unaware of their rights and when they have issues, they don't know where to go for getting redress. If this trend continues, the image we have built over the years will be lost. We are a country that is noted for values particularly values related to culture are very much recognised in the other parts of the world.
However, I personally feel that we have got to seriously look at our treatment given to those who need us. I am not telling that we are completely neglecting the rights of people but we have got to be more concerned about our relationship with others. One may argue that we are too democratic but are we truly democratic?
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
New Ways to Be Happy
If you're struggling with how to define your life beyond material goods, Deepak Chopra has seven ways for you to make the shift, once and for all, to a purpose-driven life and authentic happiness. One of the most positive ways to live is to look on every obstacle as a hidden opportunity.
This time poses huge challenges for those among us who have lost their jobs or feel financially insecure. Even if you don't fall into that category, the evening news brings worries on many fronts, from the deficit to terrorism. I'd like to propose that there is a common problem in all these things that you can turn into an opportunity.
The problem is how to be happy.
Right now, our modern way of life defines happiness along lines that are quickly being outmoded:
• You will be happy if you consume as much as possible.
• You will be happy if you have money, the more the better.
• You will be happy if you can distract yourself with gadget, video games, television, the Internet, movies etc
• You will be happy if you fall in love with "the right one" and raise a family in a house you own paid for by a secure job.
However, in reality many things are not as secured as they seem, many factors have affected all these. As a result, stress is rising in everyone's life.
Instead of ignoring these trends, why not go to the root of the problem, which is that we need a new way of being happy.
What do divorce, terrorism, unemployment and buying big-screen television sets have in common? They all show that happiness can be taken away, because when you depend on anything outside yourself to make you happy, your happiness is vulnerable.
A new way to be happy would be based on the following new principles:
1. Life has a purpose. When you live up to that purpose, inner happiness develops.
Because of a recent best-seller, the word "purpose" has acquired overtones. That is by no means necessary. Every life needs meaning, and the more inspiring that meaning, the better. What erodes happiness more than anything else is the loneliness and emptiness that results when you feel that your life has no meaning. Millions of people live by the slogan, "Family is everything," but it's not. Meaning and purpose are everything.
What kind of meaning should you seek? Here are the standard choices. Consider them as they apply to you.
|Work |Family |Love |Service |Giving |Personal Growth |Hobbies |Recreation |Education |Study |Creativity |Friendship
Most people select a few of these, primarily family, friends, hobbies and work, which they hope will be enough. But what about the higher values, which will bring far more lasting, secure happiness? Among these I'd select love, giving, service and personal growth. If you leave these out, your happiness can be snatched away by losing your job or your friends. You run the risk of becoming an empty nester as your family grows up and moves away.
Establish a higher purpose early in your life—preferably starting today—and your future won't be so vulnerable to change.
2. Inner happiness can't be taken away.
We hear this phrase a lot, to the point that it becomes meaningless. All those models on TV look as if they gained inner happiness from a slim waist, the right makeup, good hair and being young. Real inner happiness is easy to measure, however. If you can sit by yourself, doing nothing to distract yourself, needing no one, and still feel happy, then you have achieved inner happiness. It is marked by feeling safe, knowing that you are enough, finding a core of peace and calm. I sometimes put all these factors into a single phrase: You are truly happy if being here is enough.
3. In place of consumerism, you can base everyday happiness on relationships.
Focus on relationships instead of consumerism. Today’s market is a consumer economy driven by insatiable appetites for whatever is bigger, better, newer and more expensive. You and I aren't going to change that fact, but we can see through the glossy promise that consumerism makes you happy. It doesn't. Nor do heaps of money.
Studies show that after a person has achieved enough money to cover life's necessities, the returns begin to diminish. The very rich are not happier than the rest of us, nor are winners of lotteries. In both cases, a huge surplus of money tends to bring out psychological flaws such as anxiety, greed and a fear of not having enough.
If you define yourself by what you own, trouble lies ahead, because you have left a hole where a self needs to be. It is far more important to have a secure, loving relationship that mirrors your true self. I know that this sounds much harder than buying a new computer or a faster car, because it is. But relationships can bring inner fullness; expensive things simply wear out.
4. Stop being distracted. In place of distractions, you can fill your time with activities that make your heart grow.
Distractions are nice for whiling away the time, but the more hours you spend bent over a video game or the Internet, the less time you have for things that matter.
All of us know that having a full heart is important, but it requires time and attention. As children, we counted on our parents to be warm-hearted. Secure in that knowledge, we could play and be carefree. But when you grow up, no one can replace your own heart and its needs.
By "heart," I mean emotional fulfillment, compassion, kindness, bonding—the whole emotional core of life. Distractions will never bring these things to you, and they are among the most necessary aspects of a happy life.
5. The place beyond fear. You can find a place beyond fear that crises and anxiety cannot touch.
Modern life is marked by instant communication and global outreach. These are good things, but they also make everyday life seem much more fearful. We live in a world where total strangers living far away can harm us.
There is no place safe from fear—except inside. You can't do much to reduce the causes of external worry; bad people and bad things have always been with us. But you can take care of your own tendencies to be afraid, worried and anxious. There is a place of safety inside, and if you can find it, you will find the kind of happiness that bad people and bad things cannot shake.
6. Peace instead of stress. You can find a place of peace that stress cannot wear out. We all know that life is stressful, but many people think of stress as an outside element such as bad traffic, pressure at work, kids who won't pay attention, etc.
Actually, stress is a response. How you react to the outside world is far more important than any outside stressor.
There is a stress-free zone inside you, a place of peace. When you find this inner core of the self and learn to know it, external stress will not make you its prey. I don't mean that you zone out and contemplate your navel, to use the old cliché about Buddhism (which was never navel-gazing to begin with). When you find your own peace, outside stimuli will still exist, but you will have a far different response to them. You will know what to fix, what to put up with, what to walk away from. Those are very basic decisions if you want to maintain your own happiness.
7. Wellness will make your body happy. A happy body based on wellness. As part of the modern way of life, people wait until they are sick before turning to fix-its, meaning drugs or surgery.
We ignore wellness and prevention after decades of being told how valuable they are. Their value hasn't diminished. In fact, your body wants you to be happy and is constantly sending signals of either contentment or distress.
By turning our backs on our bodies, we are depriving ourselves of a major ally in the campaign to find happiness.
This time poses huge challenges for those among us who have lost their jobs or feel financially insecure. Even if you don't fall into that category, the evening news brings worries on many fronts, from the deficit to terrorism. I'd like to propose that there is a common problem in all these things that you can turn into an opportunity.
The problem is how to be happy.
Right now, our modern way of life defines happiness along lines that are quickly being outmoded:
• You will be happy if you consume as much as possible.
• You will be happy if you have money, the more the better.
• You will be happy if you can distract yourself with gadget, video games, television, the Internet, movies etc
• You will be happy if you fall in love with "the right one" and raise a family in a house you own paid for by a secure job.
However, in reality many things are not as secured as they seem, many factors have affected all these. As a result, stress is rising in everyone's life.
Instead of ignoring these trends, why not go to the root of the problem, which is that we need a new way of being happy.
What do divorce, terrorism, unemployment and buying big-screen television sets have in common? They all show that happiness can be taken away, because when you depend on anything outside yourself to make you happy, your happiness is vulnerable.
A new way to be happy would be based on the following new principles:
1. Life has a purpose. When you live up to that purpose, inner happiness develops.
Because of a recent best-seller, the word "purpose" has acquired overtones. That is by no means necessary. Every life needs meaning, and the more inspiring that meaning, the better. What erodes happiness more than anything else is the loneliness and emptiness that results when you feel that your life has no meaning. Millions of people live by the slogan, "Family is everything," but it's not. Meaning and purpose are everything.
What kind of meaning should you seek? Here are the standard choices. Consider them as they apply to you.
|Work |Family |Love |Service |Giving |Personal Growth |Hobbies |Recreation |Education |Study |Creativity |Friendship
Most people select a few of these, primarily family, friends, hobbies and work, which they hope will be enough. But what about the higher values, which will bring far more lasting, secure happiness? Among these I'd select love, giving, service and personal growth. If you leave these out, your happiness can be snatched away by losing your job or your friends. You run the risk of becoming an empty nester as your family grows up and moves away.
Establish a higher purpose early in your life—preferably starting today—and your future won't be so vulnerable to change.
2. Inner happiness can't be taken away.
We hear this phrase a lot, to the point that it becomes meaningless. All those models on TV look as if they gained inner happiness from a slim waist, the right makeup, good hair and being young. Real inner happiness is easy to measure, however. If you can sit by yourself, doing nothing to distract yourself, needing no one, and still feel happy, then you have achieved inner happiness. It is marked by feeling safe, knowing that you are enough, finding a core of peace and calm. I sometimes put all these factors into a single phrase: You are truly happy if being here is enough.
3. In place of consumerism, you can base everyday happiness on relationships.
Focus on relationships instead of consumerism. Today’s market is a consumer economy driven by insatiable appetites for whatever is bigger, better, newer and more expensive. You and I aren't going to change that fact, but we can see through the glossy promise that consumerism makes you happy. It doesn't. Nor do heaps of money.
Studies show that after a person has achieved enough money to cover life's necessities, the returns begin to diminish. The very rich are not happier than the rest of us, nor are winners of lotteries. In both cases, a huge surplus of money tends to bring out psychological flaws such as anxiety, greed and a fear of not having enough.
If you define yourself by what you own, trouble lies ahead, because you have left a hole where a self needs to be. It is far more important to have a secure, loving relationship that mirrors your true self. I know that this sounds much harder than buying a new computer or a faster car, because it is. But relationships can bring inner fullness; expensive things simply wear out.
4. Stop being distracted. In place of distractions, you can fill your time with activities that make your heart grow.
Distractions are nice for whiling away the time, but the more hours you spend bent over a video game or the Internet, the less time you have for things that matter.
All of us know that having a full heart is important, but it requires time and attention. As children, we counted on our parents to be warm-hearted. Secure in that knowledge, we could play and be carefree. But when you grow up, no one can replace your own heart and its needs.
By "heart," I mean emotional fulfillment, compassion, kindness, bonding—the whole emotional core of life. Distractions will never bring these things to you, and they are among the most necessary aspects of a happy life.
5. The place beyond fear. You can find a place beyond fear that crises and anxiety cannot touch.
Modern life is marked by instant communication and global outreach. These are good things, but they also make everyday life seem much more fearful. We live in a world where total strangers living far away can harm us.
There is no place safe from fear—except inside. You can't do much to reduce the causes of external worry; bad people and bad things have always been with us. But you can take care of your own tendencies to be afraid, worried and anxious. There is a place of safety inside, and if you can find it, you will find the kind of happiness that bad people and bad things cannot shake.
6. Peace instead of stress. You can find a place of peace that stress cannot wear out. We all know that life is stressful, but many people think of stress as an outside element such as bad traffic, pressure at work, kids who won't pay attention, etc.
Actually, stress is a response. How you react to the outside world is far more important than any outside stressor.
There is a stress-free zone inside you, a place of peace. When you find this inner core of the self and learn to know it, external stress will not make you its prey. I don't mean that you zone out and contemplate your navel, to use the old cliché about Buddhism (which was never navel-gazing to begin with). When you find your own peace, outside stimuli will still exist, but you will have a far different response to them. You will know what to fix, what to put up with, what to walk away from. Those are very basic decisions if you want to maintain your own happiness.
7. Wellness will make your body happy. A happy body based on wellness. As part of the modern way of life, people wait until they are sick before turning to fix-its, meaning drugs or surgery.
We ignore wellness and prevention after decades of being told how valuable they are. Their value hasn't diminished. In fact, your body wants you to be happy and is constantly sending signals of either contentment or distress.
By turning our backs on our bodies, we are depriving ourselves of a major ally in the campaign to find happiness.
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