Views - 1811 Thursday, 17 November 2011 00:00

Once I did carry the title ‘Good Morning Sri Lanka!’ for this same column. Times have passed and I do not see any improvements along the lines that I advocated or expected to happen in mornings. Indeed sad, but in advocacy and especiall

Views - 1358 Thursday, 3 November 2011 00:00

When a little baby girl arrived into this world on the dawning of Monday 31 October, she received a little more attention than usual. She was one of the early members of the seven billion club, to which the human society has now grown. Demographers

Views - 1987 Thursday, 20 October 2011 00:22

On 24 and 25 October, the BMICH will see a market place with a difference and an important difference at that, considering current national needs. Hopefully this would spin a differ ence to the way we hope to develop our economy in the mindsets of

Views - 1513 Thursday, 6 October 2011 00:00

This may sound too religious! Yet the objective is to show the attitude and the direction needed in our words and deeds today in terms aligning ourselves to national economic development. The essence of the statement is that thoughts manifest as wo

Views - 1318 Thursday, 22 September 2011 00:00

Swami Vivekananda, the Vedanta thinker, once stated: “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just le

Views - 1425 Thursday, 8 September 2011 00:00

‘Remember your humanity’ is a phrase that was made famous by the Russel Einstein manifesto issued on 9 July 1955. This document is considered as the final major document that Albert Einstein signed before his death in 1955 and is quite a

Views - 1875 Thursday, 25 August 2011 00:00

We may have evolved with nature but as time passed and our human attitude turned into a more arrogant way towards conquering what we like, the desire for domination arose.To us Sri Lankans, respecting nature should not be an alien concept though toda

Views - 1146 Thursday, 11 August 2011 00:00

Paradigm shifts are not easy to achieve. Within one’s mindset, to shift a set of beliefs or an understanding to another direction, one needs to understand and understand well. The paradigm shift concept came from the writings of Thomas Kuhn,

Views - 2045 Thursday, 28 July 2011 00:00

It is no secret that if ever we had a continuing crisis, that is the energy crisis. Since the first oil price shock of 1973, we have been facing this in many ways. It is quite sad that we have been trying to deal with the issue in a prescriptive ma

Views - 1629 Friday, 15 July 2011 00:01

Jack Welch has stated among his many bytes of business wisdom that speed is an essential ingredient for an organisation to be competitive. By speed he was all about simplifying the organisation and instilling confidence, for creating the foundation f

Views - 1582 Thursday, 30 June 2011 01:02

I have stated before that within the general establishment in Sri Lanka, a prevalent view is that if everyone speaks in English and if private universities are started, our education system can take off, the country will prosper and paradise is withi

Views - 1812 Thursday, 16 June 2011 00:47

  ‘Big things come in small packages’ is an old adage and perhaps the word big may be interchanged with good or great and here I certainly am not referring to nano taxi cabs hitting the streets of Colombo! How true this statement is

Views - 1874 Thursday, 2 June 2011 00:00

It is really important to stress the need for rapid yet informed decision making and maximising the use of time in our organisations and perhaps even as individuals. It is well known that even for those who had gone to the moon, the time available is

Views - 1307 Thursday, 19 May 2011 00:00

Sri Lanka celebrated 2,600 years of birth of Lord Buddha with colour and purpose – an event of immense importance to all Sri Lankans. However, in this type of event and listening to the philosophy that is Buddhism, what is more important is u

Views - 1387 Thursday, 5 May 2011 00:00

Another May Day has passed and it is quite predictable what we may be doing on these days! We see the media carrying the most popular picture for the day across their front pages – lifting of heavy vegetable sacks by a man in the Pettah marke

Views - 1350 Thursday, 21 April 2011 00:56

The three wise monkeys of yesteryear were supposed to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. This expression stemming from Confucius’s code of conduct was articulated by a Japanese carving in a shrine where it originally appeared in the 1

Views - 1614 Thursday, 24 March 2011 00:35

When the LPG-based three-wheeler bearing number QS-7775 took off with biogas as the fuel derived from university canteen waste and gliricidia leaves, it was quite an important demonstration last Friday (18) at the University of Moratuwa premises. I

Views - 3467 Thursday, 10 March 2011 00:06

The accusations and counter accusations abound. Have we imported coconuts to the country? If ‘yes,’ then that would be for the first time in history... recent history anyway, as we can never say about the past. If ‘no’ is th

Views - 1440 Thursday, 24 February 2011 00:31

Having a foresight is definitely an advantage. Today events unfold at dizzying speed. In 1973, Pierre Wack, Head of Corporate Planning for Royal Dutch/Shell, showed the power of thinking of possible developments and accounting for them in planning, w

Views - 2132 Thursday, 10 February 2011 00:01

  Another Independence Day dawned on us and gave time for all of us to reflect. I do hope that it was not considered just as a long weekend only! The 63rd Independence celebrations came and in reflection one could consider where we are to where

Views - 2509 Thursday, 27 January 2011 00:11

“Opportunity – Every day is a fresh opportunity to continue the quest towards our mission” is a poster that I have hung on my wall – everybody needs inspiration! However, at times before I set my sight on this message on the

Views - 2064 Thursday, 13 January 2011 00:01

It is always energising to listen to a lecture when it has depth and breadth and is filled with some ‘funtoids’. It was felt when recently we had one of our advisors, Prof. A.P. de Silva from Queen’s University of Belfast (School of

Views - 2353 Thursday, 30 December 2010 00:01

A year-end perspective! It is indeed encouraging when one goes through the speech delivered by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of the World Bank. She has complimented a lot of the current achievements and developments and calls for inclus

Views - 2097 Thursday, 16 December 2010 00:01

These are tough times for leaders and their followers. This is applicable right across all countries and Sri Lanka is no exception. So many issues, opportunities and challenges and at times making any real progress appear quite a daunting task. Wh

Views - 1501 Thursday, 2 December 2010 01:48

The abbreviation S&T (Science and Technology) is widely known even if misunderstood by many to what it really stands for.  Today for this subject from a national perspective a new abbreviation has surfaced T&R – Technology and Rese

Views - 1694 Thursday, 18 November 2010 00:00

Even in the 21st century, food evokes heated discussion and debate in Sri Lanka. If one goes through any election related material, food on one’s plate would have figured in heavily. The discussions are usually the cost and the availability.

Views - 1454 Thursday, 4 November 2010 02:22

I do pass the following quote to my food process engineering student group.  They are encouraged to follow the dictum – ‘You must eat to live’ than ‘live to eat’.  I also say that for the latter category studyi

Views - 1356 Thursday, 21 October 2010 02:16

Helixes and helical structures became famous perhaps due to the discovery of modern science when unravelling of the DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid) took place in UK. This led to identification of the potential importance of this helical structure i

Views - 2633 Wednesday, 6 October 2010 21:22

I can trace the seed for this write up to my return journey to Sri Lanka in 1992. Having returned from a place of serious research and high repute and thirsty for action, I had to fulfil a role for our university research symposium. Having to organi