Indian assistance for Nanasala project : Daily News


Posted on July 4, 2007  /  14 Comments

COLOMBO:Indian High Commissioner Alok Prasad inaugurated the first of the 20 Nanasala that the Indian Government is financing at a cost of SL Rs. 13 million. Irrigation, Water Management, Ports and Aviation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa was the Chief Guest. President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, also participated in the inauguration. The 20 Nanasalas have been carefully selected so that most of the districts in the Island will benefit from the project.

The financial assistance provided by India in establishing these Nanasalas underscores the India’s commitment to be a partner in the development of Sri Lanka. India has instituted various scholarship and training programmes to strengthen the Human Resource pool in Sri Lanka.

One Hundred Sri Lankan students who are studying “A” level were awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Scholarships last year. Another group of 100 students who joined “A” level in 2007 are being selected for this programme in association of the Education Ministry. The students were selected from all the 25 districts on means-cum-merit basis. The beneficiaries will receive

financial assistance of Rs. 1500/- per month for two years to pursue their ‘A’ level courses.

The High Commission also awards 75 Indian Councils for Cultural Relations Scholarships to Sri Lankans for pursuing under-graduate and post-graduate courses in various institutes and universities in India.

The Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo awards 12 scholarships to Lankan students to follow under 150 graduate courses in music, dance and fine arts. In addition India provides scholarships each year for pursuing professional short and medium courses in India through scheme of technical co-operation under the BIMSTEC and Colombo Plan.

To assist in capacity building in agriculture, there are training programmes, scholarships, research projects and exchange of visits of farmers.

Sixteen MSc and twenty one PhD Scholarships at Indian Agricultural Research Institutions have been made available to Sri Lankan students.

http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/07/04/news26.asp

14 Comments


  1. How sustainable are these Nanasalas? I saw one at the Dalada Maligawa. Did not look like a success. Any other reports from the field?

  2. දැනට වැඩියෙන් නැණසල භාවිතා කරන්නේ සිසුන්, ප්රජාව තවම ඒ දෙසට යොමුවී
    නැහැ.
    ඒ නිසා තමා ශිල්ප සයුර දර්ශනය ලෙස “ග්රාමීය සිසුවා සවිමත් කිරීම සහ
    නැණසල භාවිතය වැඩිකිරීම” තෝරාගත්තේ.

    විදුලි බිල, කාමර කුලිය බොහෝ නැණසලට තිබෙන ප්රශ්න, සමහර නැණසල රාත්රියේ
    පවා උගන්වනවා.
    මේ නිසා නැණසලට ආදායම් මාර්ග වැඩිකිරීම කෙරෙහි අප අවධානය යොමුවිය
    යුතුයි.

    අද ග්රාමීය තරුණ ප්රජාව ජංගම දුරකථන භාවිතා කලත්, අන්තර්ජාලයේ
    සන්නිවේදනයක් නැහැ, ඔවුන් phone card වලට කරන වියදම අන්තර්ජාලයට කළානම්,
    නැණසලට ආදායම් ප්රශ්නයක් නැහැ. සිසුන්ට සල්ලි නැති නිසා ඔවුනට නොමිලේ
    ඉගැන්වීම හොඳයි,

    තරුණ ප්රජාව නැණසලෙන් පරිගණක ක්ෂේත්රයේ අධ්යාපනයට හුරු කර, රැකියා
    සඳහා ඇති ධාරිතාවය වැඩි කිරීමේ වැඩ පිළිවෙලක් ගැන අප සිතනවා, එයට UCSC
    දායකත්වය ලැබෙනවා..

    වැඩිහිටි ප්රජාව නැණසලට යොමුකිරිමට වඩා, නැණසල ඔවුන් වෙත යායුතු බවයි
    මගේ හැඟීම, ඊට MMP හිඟවීම අඩුවක්, මේ නිසා නැණසලට ප්රජාවට පොදු ප්රහසන
    කිරීමට නොහැකියි. (කෘෂිකර්මය, සෞඛ්යය, අධ්යාපනය)

    මතකද ඉස්සර ගම්වලට ආපු සිනමා, අපි කොකු පණු රෝගය ගැන ඉගන ගත්තේ, ගමේ
    ඉස්කෝලේ පිට්ටනියේ බිම ඉඳගන, ඉස්සෙල්ලම කාටුන්, ඊට පසුව දැනුම,

    මාධ්යය වෙනස්, ඒත් දැනුම ලබාදීමට අදටත් ඒ ක්රම වලංගුයි

  3. http://www.akuru.org/images/Nanasala_1.jpg

    above is a screen image of part of the above text

    Is this Sinhala???

    Please do not destroy our language sinhala

    This error has been admitted by the unicode consortium.

    see

    http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html

    We have to correct the SLSI 1134 as soon as possible to save our language from these vultures who are only interested in sales of hardware and making a mockery of my language Sinhala

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  4. Dear Donald Gaminitillake,

    Unicode is Kaputa’s bread and butter. It is absurd to treat him as harsh as this. He cannot do much more than this. He wants to be village hero or Robin Hood by promoting Unicode. For those who have no say in English e-groups due to language problems Unicode provides ample opportunities. You can’t stop them enjoying what they have. Till a better solution comes Unicode will become the default solution. If you can’t beat them, join them. You will never win your case as long as blind guide the blind in the field.

  5. I do not know why you guys take Kaputa so seriously.

    He claims he is the father of Internet in Sri Lanka. Wow. Nice claim isn’t it? Some time back even Al Gore said things like that.

    Kaputa.com is not a big deal. It is another site like funlk.com, ananmanan.com, nagalanthaya.com etc. There is nothing special about kaputa.com. Only thing its chat room is famous as the top online cruising ground of homosexuals. That is all what Kaputa has contributed to the Internet.

    Just saying few things about Nenasala because he wants to be the ‘village champion’ now. Lets watch and see.

  6. Dear Damith

    I have publish a better solution. ISBN 955-98975-0-0
    Also I have given images in

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  7. Getting back to Kaputa’s comments, village youth are spending money on phone cards because that is what they want to do. Why should they or we outsiders care whether the Nanasala’s go bust or not?

    If all the money that is spent on government projects can be given as vouchers to young people, I am sure our communication center industry would provide the necessary Internet service. Everywhere one goes there is one or more communication centers doing brisk business. There is so much talk about vouchers and Internet access is one place where it could have been tested.

  8. Dear Coordinator,

    There are two approaches to rural telecentres.

    One approach will be ICTA to build Nenasalas at rural areas and provide free access to anyone who wants to use Internet facilities. We have seen this has not been much of success.

    The other approach, as you correctly say, is ICTA to issue free or subsidised vouchers for Internet access, which can be used at any cyber cafe telecentre of their choice.

    I guess the second approach is more practical and gives a better choice to the youth. That will also result in a boom in the cyber cafe industry.

    Now all ICTA sponsored Nenasala’s are provided communication links via CDMA dial-up links. (No more broadband, as earlier planned) That means these centers are no more in remote areas which does not have telecom facilities. So why not encourage the private entrepreneurs in these areas to build up cyber cafes and telecentres on their own cost and ICTA just subsidise them, instead of taking the entire burden?

  9. ග්රාමීය තරුණ ප්රජාව ඉන්නෙ නැණසල් රකින්න නෙවෙයිනෙ. නැණසල් බන්කොලොත් වෙනවනම් වෙන්නෙ ආණ්ඩුව කේන්දර කර ගත් වියාපුරුති නිසයි. ලමයි අතට වවුචර් දුන්නා නම් එයාල යසට ලගම තියෙන කොමිනිකේෂ්න් සෙන්ටරයට ගිහිල්ල තමන්ට ඕන ඉන්ට්නෙට් මගුලක් කර ගනීවිනෙ.

    (this is a test of http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/services/feconverter/t2.html)

  10. Are the vouchers practical though? We talk so much about vouchers but I don’t know any instance here or another country where they have worked except in the US they tried school vouchers with mixed results I think. (should try to catch up with that literature later.)

    Anybody knows any case studies?

  11. Have you seen this statement of Kaputa?

    සිසුන්ට සල්ලි නැති නිසා ඔවුනට නොමිලේ ඉගැන්වීම හොඳයි,

    He says since the students do not have money it is good to teach them for free.

    We can also extend the same argument that if anyone does not have money to buy food we should give them food for free, if anyone does not have money to buy a car we should give him a car for free and if anyone does not have to buy a house we should give him a house for free…So basically a penniless can have anything he/she wants simple he/she does not have money.

    I will be grateful if Kaputa tells us from where we can find this much money.

    Sorry, I do not have Sinhala fonts to reply in Sinhala.

  12. “සිසුන්ට සල්ලි නැති නිසා ඔවුනට නොමිලේ ඉගැන්වීම හොඳයි” More than for the students, it’s good for Kaputa himself. If Nenasalas stop his Shilpa Sayura suffers. Now he tries his best to promote Nenasala for his own survival. Unfortunately Kaputa is not as talented as his Baappa (VK) in that. What he writes directly shows his intentions. Kaputa has no ethical rights to talk about education because he spoils the youth in his filthy chat room which is open for the teenagers. This is how he caught the market. Now he tries to become a saint. Close down your chat room and see what happens to you within a month. Have you done any innovation than using this third party software in your chat room. Athana Kotanna Methana Kotanna type instructions haven’t done any difference. Even that bullshit is displayed in JPG images. Your own Unicode cannot simply display Methana Kotanna.

    Shilpa Sayura can be a good product. We haven’t seen it yet. If it is a good product it will catch up the market it deserves. Wait for that. Trying to be a cardboard hero is ridiculing yourself and your efforts. If you do good work, publicity will come to you automatically. This is how it happens with other people.

    Nobody wants to chase you away from ICT field. Everyone should survive and everyone should contribute to the development of the field and the country. Unfortunately you have become a cause to creat chaos of late due to your extreme good. Look what happened to VK. Do you want same thing to happen to you. We all will help you, appriciate you when you become a man.

  13. Correction: due to your extreme greed.

  14. First it was VGK (Vishwa Ganana Kendra) Then Nanasala then Silpasayura what ever the name we have to use Sinhala Tamil and English in the same computer platform. The text has to compatible across any Operating System. Until this is acheved the whole project is a mockery

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

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