King Dutugemunu had sisters

Recent archaeological studies have found evidence proving that King Kavantissa had a daughter who was a sister to King Dutu Gemunu, Media Spokesman of the Ministry of Education Kalpa Gunaratne told yesterday.

Gunaratne said that a stone inscription on a potsherd unearthed from Tissamaharama has a reference to a daughter of King Kavantissa. The potsherd had been a part of a begging bowl. It has a reference in Brahmi inscriptions which read Aya Thisha Ha Kandhitha A’.

Sri Lanka ranks top in health indicators

Sri Lanka enjoys impressive health indicators with a life expectancy for males and females standing at 72 years and 80 years respectively, Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said.

As per WHO Global Report 2016, the incidence of tuberculosis in Sri Lanka is estimated at 65 per 100,000 population while prevalence and mortality stood at 99 and 5.6 per 100,000 population, the Minister said.

The Pulmonary TB notifications, which showed an increase till 2011, has remained steady since then at little over 10,000 detections annually. Of all the cases reported, nearly 45 percent cases were from the Western Province, Minister Rajitha said.

The Minister was addressing the Ministerial Meeting Towards Ending TB in the South-East Asian Region in New Delhi, India recently.

The Minister said according to WHO statistics, deaths due to chronic pulmonary airways diseases reached 6,127 or 4.84 percent of all deaths in 2014, while the age adjusted Death Rate stood at 29.4 per 100,000 of population, ranking at 38 in the global index.

This is in spite of the fact that Sri Lanka is ranked 11th out of 34 Asian countries surveyed by the 2015 mid-year `Numbeo Pollution Index’, which estimates overall pollution, with the biggest weight given to air pollution.

Nearly 70 percent of the hospital deaths in Sri Lanka are due to major non communicable diseases such as cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases.

The probability of dying prematurely from NCDs is 18 percent. Government target is to reduce this by two percent annually, the Minister said.

Bitter gourd seeds cure cancer

A research conducted by the Peradeniya University has revealed the potentiality of bitter-gourd seeds in destroying cancer cells.

Prof. Jayantha Rajapaksa of the Veterinary Faculty engaged in the research said during his one-year research it was possible to discover the Alpha Steric Fatty Acid (ASFA) contained in bitter-gourd seeds which was capable of suppressing cancer cells.

There is a general belief among people that bitter gourd has medicinal value for diabetes but they do not take its seed as food which is a medicine in whole also capable of the lowering sugar levels he assessed.

One kg of pesticide-free bitter gourd seeds costs about Rs.8,000 and eight seeds are necessary to produce one capsule of bitter gourd medicine he said. He also said this medication has no side effects and it is now being administered to patients at the Kandy General Hospital Cancer Unit and had proved success.

This innovative medicine will soon be presented to the Medical Faculty of the Peradeniya University, he added

Ancient Lankans offered their wives as slaves to temples

A recent study on ancient Sri Lankan epigraphy dating back to the 5th and 7th centuries AD have uncovered a peculiar practice in vogue during that time of laymen offering their wives and family members as slaves to temples and then pay for their release to accrue merits.

The study carried out on special type of inscriptions commonly known as Vaharala inscriptions found that kings, ministers, rich as well as those engaged in artisan professions offering various persons including their beloved family members as slaves to the temples and thereafter paying for their redemption.

The monies given so are meant to be used for the expenses of those temples or for the maintenance of the slaves who could not be freed, said Mangalika Rajapakshe, Research Officer of Abahaygiriya Stupa Project of the Central Cultural Fund.

"This specific type of inscriptions are known as Vaharala epigraphy among researchers but it is not established as a different genre scientifically. Those inscriptions are commonly known so because each of them have the word vaharala or its synonyms such as viharala, veherila, viharalaya, veheralaya along with another Brahmi term known as Chithavi. Several scholars starting from Dr Senarat Paranavitana to modern times have studied them and posited various opinions. According to Dr Paranavitana, those epigraphs had been meant to announce the donating of slaves to temples and thereafter freeing them by settling their dues," Rajapkshe who carried out the study told The Island yesterday.

"An analysis of this type of inscriptions indicates that all of them have five common information in each of them. They are the name of the donor who offers slaves to the temple, his village, his position or social status, what he offered, the amount he paid for the redemption of the slave and a blessing," she said.

"There are names of kings, ministers, generals, teachers as well as tile makers who donating slaves to the temples and thereafter buying their freedom. In most occasions 100 kahavanu (kahapana) had been paid to secure the freedom of one slave. There are cases of paying more than that amount," Rajapskshe said.

Senior Lecturer Chandima Ambanwala of the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Management of the University of Rajarata said that most of those inscriptions known as Vaharala epigraphy were found in the lowest rung of staircases or nearby the Sanadkadapahana (the moonstone) and it could be surmised as an indication of ascribing lower status for the slaves.

"The slavery in practice during those times could in no way be compared to the slavery in ancient Rome or black slaves in the US in later times. The period of serving the temple by those slaves had been vary some have served only several hours before they were freed, according to literary sources. Offering slaves for temple service had been considered a meritorious act and setting them free had been considered more meritorious," he said adding that the end of those inscriptions there is a dedication of merits.

"Some of them ends with a prayer wishing that the merits acquired by freeing the slaves should help the donor to achieving nibbana or attain buddhahood. Such wishes show more of a mahayana tendency.

Ambanwala said that the script of those inscriptions were not neat and refined as in the case of those found in the Anuradhapura period by various kings. It could be surmised that these inscriptions were inscribed by those who have no such training in script.

Ambanwala said there were diverse opinions postulated by various archaeologists on Vaharala inscriptions but the theory posited by Dr Paranaviatana in this regard still stood strong.

Major breakthrough in abductions, killings

ECONOMYNEXT -Sri Lanka’s police made a major breakthrough Saturday in their investigations in to the abduction of news editor Keith Noyahr as well as a string of other attacks, disappearances and killings of journalists by arresting at least three military personnel attached to a hit squad which operated from Kohuwela.

Police headquarters in a statement said the three military personnel were arrested in connection with the May 2008 abduction of Noyahr, a then deputy editor of the Nation weekly, but official sources said they were also suspected to be involved in many other acts of violence between 2006 and 2010.

The three men, all serving military personnel, were being questioned by the police and they were due to be taken before the Mount Lavinia magistrate later Saturday, the statement said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Roshan Seneviratne confirmed that the trio were still in the service.

The authorities have identified a white coloured van used by the abductors of Noyahr and established that the same vehicle operating out of an army camp in Kohuwela was used for a several other crimes. Several army units which operated in the north and the east had used the Kohuwela base to station some of their staff

to coordinate with army headquarters. This made it easier for clandestine operations to be organised from Kohuwela.

Despite pressure from the then regime to go easy on the investigations, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) had preserved evidence and protected case files, a source close to the probe said.

He said some of the local police stations involved in the investigations had suppressed evidence, but the CID had carried out a fresh investigation to fill in the gaps and disciplinary action was being proposed against some of the senior officers at the time.

A former Inspector General and a retired Deputy-Inspector-General who was based in Mirihana are likely to join retired Deputy Inspector General Anura Senanayake in custody for allegedly destroying evidence in the Thajudeen murder.

Noyahr was abducted as he drove home after work. His car was found abandoned at Waidya Road, Dehiwala just outside his house. After intense diplomatic and political pressure on the then government, a badly bruised Noyahr was set free although investigators have now established that the intention of the abductors was to kill him.

Krishantha Cooray, the then Chief Executive of the Nation group of newspapers, led an intense campaign to pressure police as well as mobile phone companies to trace where Noyahr was being held. However, Cooray himself ended up being a target for assassination and was forced to seek refuge abroad.

Colleagues believed that Noyahr had been beaten up to get at his sources of a story which was critical of the then army chief Sarath Fonseka who has denied involvement in a string of attacks on journalists.

In January, police questioned Fonseka, a minister in President Maithripala Sirisena’s cabinet, in connection with the January 2009 assassination of Sunday Leader chief editor Lasantha Wickrematunga.

Investigators are convinced that most of the abductions and attacks on journalists, including the disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, were carried out by members of the military intelligence.

The then head of the military intelligence Major General Kapila Hendavitharana had been questioned by police in connection with another high profile case and sources close to the investigation said several arrests of former top brass will also follow shortly in addition to Saturday’s arrest of three junior level individuals.

Since his assault, Noyahr has sought refuge in Australia and it is learnt that he had recently made his first formal statement to the authorities about his ordeal leaving to the reopening of the case.

Police investigations have shown that a military intelligence unit which was involved in the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunga was responsible for a spate of other attacks too.

"The involvement of the military intelligence has been established, now it is a question of gathering evidence on command responsibility," a source close to the investigation said adding that the government spent millions of rupees to obtain foreign technical expertise to retrieve telephone records and analyse them.

A key suspect who tried to kill the editor of the Rivira newspaper, Upali Tennakoon, has also been identified as a military intelligence operative and a court case is now pending.

Lankan scientist makes major breakthrough in Physics

Sri Lankan young scientist Ranga Dias a postdoctoral fellow, Lyman Laboratory of Physics, Department of Physics, Harvard University has contributed to a major scientific breakthrough in Physics.

Isaac Silvera, Cabot professor of the natural sciences and Ranga Dias have produced metallic hydrogen, which has been just a theory for more than eight decades.

Scientists have been working on metallic hydrogen for decades.According to Harvard Gazette, nearly a century after it was theorized, Harvard scientists report they have succeeded in creating the rarest material on the planet, which could eventually develop into one of its most valuable.

In their experiments, Silvera and Dias squeezed a tiny hydrogen sample at 495 gigapascal (GPa), or more than 71.7 million pounds per square inch, which is greater than the pressure at the center of the Earth. Professor of the Natural Sciences Isaac Silvera, who has been working on metallic hydrogen for 45 years, disclosed to Harvard Gazette that their work creates an important window into understanding the general properties of hydrogen, it also offers tantalizing hints at potentially revolutionary new materials. Sri Lankan scientist Ranaga Dias pointed out that a room temperature superconductor, could change our transportation system, making magnetic levitation of high-speed trains possible, as well as making electric cars more efficient and improving the performance of many electronic devices.

Ranga Dias , who born in Sri Lanka , did his undergraduate studies at University of Colombo , Faculty of Science and graduated in 2006. In 2007, he moved to Washington State University for graduate studies and he completed his Ph.D in the field of extreme condensed matter physics. - Mendaka Abeysekera in New York