to cut and paste with note pad into word and then into helawadane and/or Thibas? further into linux? Apple using the sinhala unicode or SLSI 1134
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Slim
Im really appreciate the work you people done to get sinhala into IT world but i just wanna get something clear what kinda market is there for sinhala Unicode and sinhala based softwares?
Sunday Leader
Sunday Leader will be carrying an article as to how notorious VKS sacked Dilanthe V and Manju H for his personal gains soon. Again, the article is based on the true facts found in this blog!!!!!! Poor Sam###### End is coming!!!!
Out of the 19 million people more than 70% use Langauge Sinhala.
Our Constitution specify that we have to do the work in Sinhala and Tamil Langusges
If you visit part 3 and read the contents around No 103 where we have discussed your issue with JC Ahangama.
Any way I will list again the areas where Computer is required to use the Sinhala language (incl Tamil ). The Text data has to be compatible across all platforms of operating system like the latin script. This cannot happen over here as the ISO or Unicode or SLSI is incorrect and incomplete.
1. The Government officers
2. The people in offices that have Internet connections
3. The educated people in SL who have Internet connections (elaborate?)
4. Student living abroad
5. Pali users world over
6. Those who are in the printing industry
7. Those who want to communicate with their relatives/friends abroad
8. Lawyers
9. Notaries
10. Scan documents for editable text (OCR)
11. Banks
12 Postal service
13. Radio Stations / TV (Text to Voice)
14. Data inputtung (Voice to text)
15.Digital music composing
16.GPS
17.Hanicapped people
18.Water and Harvest Management
19.Accurate Election results
20.Early detection of TAx evations (TAX dept filing of tax retuens using simple text format)
21.Medical industry (voice) warning systems
22. Toy industry
23. Robot
24.Issue of Certifiations
25.Distant education
26.Translations
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Serious
Someone should start a string to discuss issues uncovered in this article I think….
ICTA myths and tender frauds
By Dilrukshi Handunnetti
Overt manipulation and awarding of a tender to a Korean company with the Procurement Board of the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) choosing the highest bidder and paying Rs. 80 million extra for an e development programme has come to light.
The story dates back to year 2003 when Minister Milinda Moragoda wished to undertake a massive e-Sri Lanka drive. The Korean government also wished to make a contribution towards the initiative but with the change of governments, the process hibernated for a while.
Loan from Korea
However, invitation for bids (IFB) was called when the government of Sri Lanka received a loan from the Export-Import Bank of Korea from the resources available at the Economic Development Co-operation (EDCF) of Korea.
The specific amount received for this purpose was US$15 million (approx. Rs. 1,500,000,000) to finance Lanka Government Network (LGN) project of the e-Sri Lanka Development programme. At this point, the ICTA was selected as the implementing agency and the Cabinet Appointed Tender Board (CATB) on November 1, 2005 called for bids for the design, supply, installation and operation of Lanka Government Network (LGN).
It was stated that LGN was a highly available, secure and reliable underlying information infrastructure backbone that would connect all the government organisations of the GOSL in a cost effective and secure manner. Initially, 350 locations were identified for connectivity in three phases.
It was next announced that bidding would be according to International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures specified in the “Guidelines for Procurement Under the EDCF Loan, March 2005″ and Government Procurement Guidelines. It was open to all bidders from the Republic of Korea.
Minimum qualifications
It was announced that bidders should fulfil the minimum qualification criteria. This meant, the Management Service Provider (MSP) having a minimum of five years experience in the implementation and management of large-scale Wide Area Network (WAN) projects.
Further, the MSP was to have experience in successful implementation of large scale managed network infrastructure projects with a project value exceeding US$ 10 million, experience in managing and co-originating various stakeholders and enjoying a total annual revenue of minimum US$60 million to establish financial credibility.
A significant stipulation was the fact that the foreign MSP should have a local alliance/partnership so that the MSP will have legal liabilities for the project.
Also, it was specified that the MSP should have a registered Sri Lankan business presence or have partners or consortium, operational with adequate staff for a minimum period of five years or more with a proven track record of providing respective managed services.
For the two stage bidding process, a pre bid meeting was called on November 16, 2005 at the ICTA itself. Bids closed on November 30.
At this point, a full-fledged consortium, Korean Telecom Network (KTN) submitted its bid for US$ 13.93 million, Samsung Networks Inc. for US 14. 82 million. The other bidder was Korea Exchange Banking Technologies (KEBT).
According to ICTA sources, it was KTN that submitted a technically convenient bid complete with customers’ sites and survey preparations to the ICTA.
Then Request For Proposal (RFP) was made and KTN submitted a comprehensive proposal with experts being flown in to the island to assist in mastering the technical aspects of the same.
Manipulation
Inside sources say that it was at this level, when evaluation of proposals commenced that serious manipulation began within the ICTA in stark violation of the tender procedures.
In February last year, when a procurement clarification was sought from the ICTA, Procurement Advisor Christy Perera sent an e-mail response to Samsung titled “Inquiry about the second stage technical proposal format.”
Samsung had first questioned whether a partnership and a joint venture would be considered one and the same, and next the difference between partners and sub contractors. “Are they the same or do they have different function/relationship?” the company queried, and Perera replied, “No, they are not the same.”
Further, the clarifying mail sent by ICTA’s Procurement Advisor Perera stated that sub contractors were not involved in signing the contract but should be declared when the proposal is submitted.
It has now transpired that despite the strong backing received, Samsung Networks did not even fulfil the minimum eligibility criteria specified by ICTA.
According to the invitation for bids (IFB) of the e-Sri Lanka Development Project (IFBA; ICTA/GOODS/18) it was mandatory for the foreign Manage Service Provider (MSP) to have a local alliance or partnership to ensure that such MSP will have legal liabilities for the project.
Criteria
Similarly, the said MSP according to stipulated criteria should have a registered Sri Lankan business presence, or have partners or consortium operational with adequate staff for a minimum period of five years or more with a proven track record of providing respective managed services. Samsung did not possess the above two pre-qualifications, though they were able to go to the next level without being disqualified at the very outset.
Other bidders now claim that the technical evaluations on both bidding stages were inaccurate and were full of malpractices which were geared towards granting the contract to an already selected company.
It has now transpired that as per the technical evaluation criteria listed in the tender document, 12 marks were given to experience and expertise of ‘the local partner of the bidder’ whereas Samsung did not actually have a local partner.
The Sunday Leader has reliably learned that in the case of Samsung Networks bid, the 12 marks have been given to subcontractors and not the local partners. (See document)
Not only that, there were other misrepresentations at the technical evaluation. The ineligible company had also received two marks given to the bidders’ experience in implementing Economic Development and Co-operation Fund of Korea (EDCF) projects though Samsung Networks has not implemented any EDCF funded projects. Nevertheless Samsung managed to secure full marks.
There were other issues clouding technical evaluation.
Investigations
Our investigations have revealed that KTN had initially objected to the appointment and formation of a technical evaluation committee (TEC) in violation of government stipulated tender guidelines which fell on deaf ears. KTN had objected on the basis of a public finance circular issued by Treasury Secretary P. B. Jayasundera.
The objection was that according to clause 33.1 of the Procurement Guidelines (as amended by the Public Finance Circular No. 352/10), there was a defect in appointing Chairman, ICTA Prof. V. K. Samaranayake to participate/represent technical evaluation committee of the ICTA itself.
Jayasundera’s public finance circular issued to all secretaries of ministries, heads of government departments, corporations and statutory boards cautioned them against the inclusion of chief executive officers of such organisations in TEC, as it would undermine the role of other TEC members.
Referring o Chapter 111 of the Guidelines of Government Tender Procedures (revised edition August 197) regarding the appointment of TEC members, Jayasundera instructed that, “the members of the TEC should feel free to express their independent views and make recommendations to the Tender Board. In this context, the inclusion of chief executive officers (managing director, general manager, chairman etc.) of organisations in TEC tend to undermine the role of other members of TEC drawn from the same organisation. Therefore, you are kindly requested to refrain from nominating or appointing such officers to TEC.” (See document )
Samsung secures bid
What is more, it has now transpired that Samsung has managed to secure the bid despite furnishing misleading information for technical evaluation purposes. This despite tender documents specifying ‘misrepresentation of information’ being a fraudulent practice which could disqualify a bidder.
According to instructions issued to bidders, what is termed a ‘fraudulent practice’ is “a misrepresentation of facts in order to influence a procurement process or the execution of a contract to the detriment of the borrower and includes collusive practices among bidders (prior to or after submission of bids) designed to establish bid prices at artificial, noncompetitive levels and to deprive the borrower of the benefits of free and open competition.”
Under this stipulation however, it is possible to reject a proposal or to declare ineligibility, either indefinitely or for a stated period of time. However, none of the above occurred in respect of Samsung Networks despite the gross misrepresentations.
Accordingly, Samsung Networks in their answers to clarifications raised by the ICTA at the first stage of LGN bid evaluation, brazenly declared Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) as their ‘local partner.’ Interestingly enough, the TEC had given full marks for the local partner acting on the basis that SLT was indeed a local partner of Samsung whereas it was only a subcontractor.
When questioned on the nature of the local presence of Samsung Networks, the company response was in fact a laugh. In a written clarification Samsung said, “once we are awarded this project, we will set up our office and our staff from Korea will be based in Colombo office. Our office in Colombo, local partners and sub contractors will collaborate for the successful implementation and operation of LGN.”
Local partner
Having stated that, Samsung added, “our principle partner is Sri Lanka Telecom. MIT, Metropolitan, Softlogic and Advantage Technology will be involved in implementation and operation in some degree.”
When the bidding process reached second stage whereupon bidders are required to produce their partnership agreements and financial reports, Samsung Networks also managed to alter their original position and declared that they in fact do not have any local partner fearing disqualification at this stage.
What baffles ICTA insiders themselves is as to why the TEC chose to ignore all the gross misrepresentations, misleading statements and tender procedure violations in this manner. While bidders may try, as they often do, all the tricks in their books, ICTA officials themselves are baffled by the fact that the TEC did not outrightly reject the Samsung bid, but instead lent every possible support for the company to secure the bid.
When subsequent objections were raised against SLT being principal local partner of Samsung and a subcontractor with another, SLT quickly disassociated itself from the Samsung partnership claim. Instead, it wrote to Chairman, CATB, stating its position.
In a letter dated November 28, 2005, Chief Marketing Officer, Sri Lanka Telecom, Kapila Chandrasena announced a partnership with Enterprise Technology (Pvt) Ltd.
More problems
The Samsung bid however encountered more problems than the above. The two stage procurement guidelines were not properly implemented and followed by the ICTA itself. Other competitors allege that if the bidders were acting according to the tender guidelines of the government, the price bid should have been opened only after the completion of the technical evaluations.
At this point, ICTA, it is learned had requested the bidders to include the total price in their technical proposals for Stage 2 bidding purposes.
However, such treatment was not meted out to other competitors. When KTN made representations seeking clarifications from ICTA, not even minutes of the meeting were released to KTN. What is more, the company was also requested to alter their technical solution at this point, according to ICTA insiders.
Naturally, when the matter reached the next stage — it led to the more technically advanced and superior solutions proposed by KT Networks to be rejected without any valid reasons being provided.
KTN’s proposal was a state of the art satellite solution to connect all the 350 government-building locations. Considering the fact that most of the locations happened to be in remote areas, the company’s belief was that satellite communication facility was the most viable and suitable method for deploying high bandwidth connections.
Rejected
What was more, ICTA was to gain the additional benefit of coming to own the equipment. However, for no apparent reason, the solution was rejected and was told to work out a ‘land line’ solution. ICTA inside sources associated with the process confirmed that Samsung Networks Inc. had proposed only a landline solution.
When the final marks were announced, KTN objected and sought a revision in the marks. The grouse the company has is that if the revision was done according to the stipulated marking system, KTN should have secured the highest marks and naturally become the more eligible bidder to win the contract for the project. What is more, marks were verbally announced and were not in writing.
In this highly questionable backdrop, CATB approved Samsung’s proposal and rejected the other two. Following representations made to higher authorities, on May 17, 2006, President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga wrote to KT Networks announcing the disqualification of the company to secure the tender. However, it allowed an opening for the company to make representations to the Procurement Appeal Board (PAB).
On May 20 this year, Manager, NI Business Marketing Division, Overseas Business Development Department, KT Networks, Yong Jin Kim formally submitting an appeal drew the PAB’s attention to the irregularities in the tender evaluations and even the fraudulent practices.
Irregularities
Kim whilst highlighting several major irregularities also questioned the eligibility of Samsung Networks, alleging that if the evaluation was just and impartial, KT Networks was of firm belief that the contract should have been awarded to them.
“If the evaluation had been just and impartial, we believe that we should have obtained the highest marks for the technical evaluation. Further, our price bid was substantially less than that of Samsung Networks. If the evaluation has been accurate and impartial, we would have got the recommendation which eventually would save a significant amount of money for the Government of Sri Lanka.
We earnestly request your fair and just evaluation of the representations we are making against the award and recommend our bid which we believe is the technically most compliant and lowest in price.”
Having charged processing fee of Rs. 50,000, PAB did not offer a valid explanation for such rejection, according to angry ICTA insiders.
After such a fiasco of manipulating marks and violating tender procedures to ensure success for one bidder, to this date, the tender remains un-awarded, a fact a source from the CATB confirmed. What is more, the ICTA also agrees that though Samsung secured the bid, contract is yet to be granted and says no more.
The loss to the state is in the range of Rs. 80 million with the selection made, but no matter. KTN and KETB have been unfairly evaluated only to award the tender to the highest bidder. It really must be a sign of a wealthy state, albeit the expenses of war.
Then again, here is a topic that comes directly under President Mahinda Rajapakse himself.
ICTA says…
Speaking to The Sunday Leader, a top ICTA official said that the contract was not awarded to any company yet.
He said that there were no irregularities in deciding to issue the contract and admitted that the tender process had ended.
“The cabinet has decided to give the contract to Samsung Networks, but it has not been awarded yet. Some parties allege that there are irregularities in deciding as to whom the contract should have been awarded to. But the procedure adopted was perfectly fine and there was no irregularity as alleged,” he said.
He said that Samsung Networks had in fact quoted a lesser price than the other company, Korean Telecom Networks (KTN).
“The amount quoted by the company is not known at the moment, but the amount was certainly less than the amount bid by Korean Telecom Network,” he added.
HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
Sunday Leader should be commended for bravely exposing this fraud, which other media would not have dared. However, this is only a part of the story – the tip of the ice berg. There is more to this.
The Korean firm, Samsung has taken an interest in the Sri Lankan computer market at least for 5-6 years, even before e-Sri Lanka program was launched. However, they became active only during the last 3 years.
There first contact was a key politician from the then UNP government. (Now crossed over to other side) This contact was of not much use to Samsung, as even after generous bribes the politician could not deliver any results.
After the e-Sri Lanka was launched and ICTA established, Samsung repeatedly tried to bait high officials. They tried to build contacts with both Mr. Lalith Weeratunge and Mr. Wasantha Deshapriya but being honest government officials, both these did not fall to Samsung’s trap.
That was when somebody brought Prof. Samaranayake to the picture. Samaranayake was then trying his best to be the ICTA Chairman and Samsung saw a good opportunity in building a good business relationship with him. They had several business lunches at some of the posh Korean restaurants in Colombo. Then a deal was struck.
To cut a long story short, it was Samaranayake who introduced Samsung to a then not so powerful, but still important VIP politician. Interestingly, the close family members of this politician later locally represented Samsung in this infamous deal.
Some things are better remain unsaid, so let me cut the story here. Sorry. My job is more important to me.
What is important is that Samaranayake is only a small fish (hal messa) in this game. His job was to ensure that Samsung gets the deal. As a return, he was given the assurance to retain current position at ICTA for few more years. Without anything to lose, Samaranayake has agreed to play this role. It suits his plans. His son is still studying in US and a tuition fee is not low.
What needs to be done now is to find the big fish (thoras and moras) behind this fraud, leaving poor old Samaranayake alone.
In any democratic society, that is the job of the opposition too. However, in our country we have such a weak opposition that the entire responsibility falls in the shoulders of media. Let us hope they do a good job, without yielding to the influences of the VIPs.
Sympathy
Are you trying to say that prof is very innocent hal messa here. With his proven track record I think he is the BIGGEST FISH in this game.
Today we are unable to use Sinhala correctly across all platforms of Operating systems registering an incomplete and incorrect set of Sinhala characters in the SLSI or ISO or Unicode , the legal problems regarding the DOT LK, DOT LK , are done by this individual and his group.
Even though these problems have been taken up by the media several times all fell into the deaf ears of the public.
The problem in Sri Lanka is the public never take national issues as their own ones. They expects someone else to fight and solve it. This is an attitude problem.
There are many people with better knowledge in the IT but nobody consult them. They too live in a nut shell and scared to leave this shell.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Pied Piper of Hamelin
Nursery Rhymes of our times
ONE
Samsung, Samsung
Have you any Won*
Yes Sir, Yes Sir
Three bags full
One for the master
One for his dame
The last one for Prof. Sam
Who took all the pain
TWO
Are you sleeping – Are you sleeping
Kabir Hashim – Kabir Hashim**
We need action – We need action
Tick tuck tick – Tick tuck tick
———————————-
* – Currency used in South Korea
* – Somebody who made a big fuss about 92, but so far keeping silence about 1,500.
There advice is to publish more on news papers other than Sunday Leader.
Like in Island and Wijaya Group
Since there are many segments in ICT — all are affected by the Dino
why not publish it on these News papers too
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
concerned
Donald, your frends are right. Dino has already convinced the authorities that the article published was “part of Lasana W’s propaganda against Mahinda Chinthanaya” and Dino is to get another raise in his carreer after this.
WHat a wonderful country.
concerned
should be corrected as,
“part of Lasantha W’s propaganda against Mahinda Chinthanaya”
To remove the false skin and show the real skin of Dino, these articles should go to Sinhalese and English national newspapers.
Magazines like Pariganaka made this guy a hero some time ago. Hope those mags have the courage to tell the truth to their readership now.
Hem and Haw
I think you will understand that it is not wise to rate every innocent selfish and liar into this label but “in some specific cases” this is the only key to understand.
This blog has moved to the 4th page and its all politics.
Here’s a simple calculation:
A standard static web site: 55 MB 15% transit overhead = 64MB
DS1 (2-pairs copper wire) line bandwidth of ISDN-BRI: 128 kbps
Time taken to travel using full bandwidth: 512 seconds = 8.5 minutes
The bid fisaco is interesting. But what is this Government Network for? What is it going to do? You have FAST connections between 300 odd places and what is going to fly so fast among these places? It seems as if there’s so much data needing exchange. I could not get replies to email messages from companies or government agencies including ICTA for years. (The messages are still with me to show to posterity).
Don’t you think we need to know what we are going to do with such a vast high-tech network? The speed at which people respond, you could have a nice courier service between the government offices. (Reminds me of the best network of delivery I saw anywhere in the world which was the bicycle lunch delivery service of the eighties. Please give Lankans the freedom to innovate).
Who is going to write the applications? What languages? Sinhala / Tamil / English. At the rate Unicode is implemented world over, UTF-16 Sinhala would languish in the island for years to come. The guys are still groping in the IT darkness. I know, I know, the World bank said it is necessary. That report predates World bank president Paul Wolfowitz. The new person in charge of Sri Lanka was just appointed. She would have to revise all these if Paul is the guy I think he is.
My humble opinion is that if the government wants a network it should use the services of the local ISPs. Even the US government uses the public network. Use VPN if security is required. Let the local companies sell the connections to the government. Again may I ask, why a private network for the government? This is unheard of in the rest of the world.
We still have the failed mentality of yesteryear when we built massive paper factories because the communists said that’s the way for self sufficiency. Why can’t we do things in humble practical ways? Leasing private lines is a past thing in the west because you can have guaranteed bandwidth service on the public network. Let the government pay a higher rate to buy guaranteed speed. the ISP’s can configure networks to give priority to the government traffic if there’s anything that needs split second transmission.
Who is going to write the applications? What languages? Sinhala / Tamil / English.
This is a good question JC.
When we are unable to send a Sinhala E mail across all platforms on OS’s
the Sinhala unicode is lacking codepoints for all sinhala characters
like the Pied Piper of Hamelin on 9
These guys are interested only on funding and spending.
I met a person yesterday.
I gave my presentation.
Lets see the outcome
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Sampath
JC says:
[Reminds me of the best network of delivery I saw anywhere in the world which was the bicycle lunch delivery service of the eighties. Please give Lankans the freedom to innovate.]
JC,
I agree with you. The bicycle lunch delivery service of the 70s and 80s is not only one of our own innovations but it was extremely efficient and relaiable as well.
Why?
Because it was something developed to meet a market demand without any regulation. Imagine whether it would have been possible if govt. decided to plan and implement such a thing?
I do not know whether anyone has observed, but a similar operation is happening in case of school vans. The vans swap/exchange students in the mid way, just like the lunch carriers exchanged lunch packets.
All this have become possible because they have left to grown on themselves. The school van services still operate efficiently and successfully, because govt. has not put its hands to it. (eg. transport, petroleum, education, banking etc)
In Sri Lanka, the moment the govt. puts its hand to something , that will be the end of it.
e-Sri Lanka was supposed to be a model to which all players, i.e. the public sector, private sector and civil society was supposed to contribute. However it has ended up as another pure-government model without any sufficient contribution from the other two players. Now it has become another People’s Bank or CEB.
VGKs were supposed to work on the franchise mode. Now it operates in the charity mode. Govt. gives equipment to operators on charity. Nothing new. Something Sarvodaya has been doing for ages.
e-Sri Lanka was also supposed to create an environment for the private sector to grow. It never did. Now ICTA has lost the credibility of private sector.
In short, whatever its initial objectives ICTA has ended up as another CINTEC. Perhaps the only difference is the extension of the scope. Other than that, ICTA has failed to introduce even a single new business model. It is no more private sector or market friendly than CINTEC was.
P. S. I agree there were other external factors which was the reason behind.(like the change of a market friendly govt. to a statist one) However we want a program like e-Sri Lanka to something new. Not to do the things in the same traditional manner, any government office does.
Pariganaka
Concerned says IT magazines like Pariganaka did lots of work to make Dino a hero. I totally agree with him. Pariganaka magazine ran so many articles eulogizing this guy as if Dino was the grand father of the Pariganaka editor.
In addition to Pariganaka magazine, ‘Antharjalaya Obe Gedarata’ rupavahini program and Vidusara science newspaper were the reasons for the rise and rise of Dino. Otherwise he is nobody. His computer knowledge is limited to using word, email and PowerPoint. Even he cannot make a decent presentation using PowerPoint.
Dino’s principle for hierarchy is very simple. The oldest and the senior most ones gets to the top whether they are competent or not. The young has to wait till they get old for their turn. This is the system followed in the Sri Lankan Universities and government departments. Dino too is fully used to this system. He thinks it is his utmost duty to prevent anything happens beyond this golden system, he is so used to.
We are very luck we did not have somebody like Dino is Telecom Malaysia. Had there been a guy like Dino there, Dr. Hans Wijesuriya would never have been able to become the Dialog CEO at the young age of 28 years. Dino would have definitely appointed somebody more than 55 years old for the post.
When Dr. Lalaith Gamage started the SLIIT, Dino did his best to block it, because according to Dino’s books appointing somebody less than 50 years to lead an organization is nothing short of a criminal offence. They have to given opportunity to senior and older people and wait for their turn.
For the journalists at Pariganaka and Vidusara Dino was somebody more important than Vinton Cerf, Tim Beneres Lee and William Shockley. Given half the chance they would have established it was Dino who invented the Internet. Their stupid reader would even have believed it.
Finally I will be very surprised if anyone less than 50 years becomes the CEO of ICTA.
Sumangala could be installed in *Windows 2000* and *Windows XP* all versions. So, you can pay me the money you saved to buy Windows Vista. Save it for me, my friends. (By the way, did you see the prices of Vista?)
Sumangala does not need Complex script support files or any beta software — the font is the only thing that’s incomplete. It is a test font that we invite you to use and help develop nice orthographic models of the different applications of this grand old language of ours. This is a PUBLIC effort. Janaþaa vyaapaarayak (scary Sinhala, eh?)
The WorldPad (
JC Ahangama
Well, something happened and half of my message got chopped off.
“Try and try again boy, you will win at last”:
The balance:
WorldPad word processor by SIL International shows Sinhala perfectly. You can type Sinhala and English intermixed in a document by simply changing the font. No need to remember completely different keyboard layouts. We have a special romanized Sinhala keyboard definition for speed-typing Sinhala which is still useable for English. (I know some of you guys don’t need Sinhala having arrived up there and kicked the ladder off).
Well, try it out and rip me apart!
JC Ahangama
Sampath,
Glad to know you, my child. Try the font and tell me what you think of a totally private effort that defies bureaucratic thinking (including corporate thinking).
james bond
Article 17 says ” ….Pariganaka magazine ran so many articles eulogizing this guy as if Dino was the grand father of the Pariganaka editor.”
It is apperent that the Pariganaka Editor also is a staffer in LirneAsia. Hope we can hear some explanaition from him regarding why he made a false figure a national hero making a reputed magazine a third class rag.
samarajiva
It appears that James Bond needs his license revoked.
None of LIRNEasia’s full-time or part-time personnel (we are not a conventional organization with “staffers”) are involved in editing Pariganaka. I occasionally assist the magazine when they ask, and will continue to do so.
Srimal
Wasn’t Chanuka Wattegame an editor of Pariganaka during the time refered in the two mails.???? Has he got anything to say on this?
Lunch delivery sevice in India is called “Dabbawalas”. They have an association in Bombay and do have about 5000 lunch deliverymen. They have a web site and text messaging system to take orders……you can get more by searching the web for the word “Dabbawalas”
Where are we today? Before JCA went to USA even in Lanka had this delivery system. I do not think today we have more than one or two. Or may be none.
Sampath talks about Children are swap like DHL parcels in Vans. When the children live within two mile range from schools why do we need so many Vans to carry them. This is another hypocrisy in Lanka.
Sri Lanka is a land of double standards. None of the foreigners will be able to understand. We have a Dino at every corner on every subject. Society makes them grow but when they are out grown the same society is terrified to chop them down.
Hope you will answer the 1 and 18
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Nenasala
This is a Nenasala centre in a main city. There are few other more expensive cybercaafe’s too.
Same story here too.
Just two PCs for Internet! Internet link seems regularly shut down as people come here only for typesetting , etc……
Virus guards are not updated and the PC is full of viruses. Aho Mahinda Chinthanya, sorry, VK Chinthanaya… or Moragda chinthanaya….
Nenasala
No messnger programs installed. PCs look like never been used as they are in good conditions.
How many other deserving projects in Sri Lanka without having any access to Internet???? This is government money going into waste.
Nenasala
Tried to download Yahoo but it doesnt work. Staff doesnt know anything about Yahoo messenger!!!
JC Ahangama
Pardon my ignorance, but what is this Nenasala?
Is it:
nenasala = [Rom. Sinhala] neenasæla
= [English] the place to which you should not go / the place that doesn’t come(?)
or
nenasala = [Rom Sinhala] µænasæla
=[English] the place of knowledge.
A person who still uses Sinhala would see how much we care about the language when we go and Anglicize Sinhala. There’s a way to respect your grand parents by at least adopting a romanizing scheme that respects the Sinhala sound set.
JC Ahangama
Reading the messages again it seems like Nenasala is a chain of Cyber cafés.
message 27 is very evealing. The Internet access is very slow — must be a dialup connection. These places should get DSL access. DSL is cheap to implement. Somebody setup a business to implement this (and get me down if you have no clue. I’ll show how easy it is). You need only regular (existing) telephone lines for this blessed thing.
Nanasala are places similar to a cyber cafe done with the ICTA funding.
They have one in Fort railway station I have not been: wanted to go but the prevaling situvation bars me to travel to places like that. I do not want to do research and lose a limb or eye sight.
They do all these activity without correct & proper Sinhala!!!
If we had correct sinhala the development will be a chain reaction they are scared of this.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
samarajiva
JCA, Must have been some time since you moved to Texas. Only SLTL has copper loops (the obsolete condition limiting Suntel and Lanka Bell to wireless local loops has not yet been removed); around 900,000, mostly in Western Province. That’s the precondition for ADSL. Another precondition is adequate backhaul.
ADSL was first offered in Sri Lanka in 2003. But patchy even in the Western Province. As late as 2005, factories in the Biyagama Zone could not get ADSL because the exchanges were not so equipped.
Just recently, SLTL started offering ADSL along the southern coastline; this is after the new optical fiber was commissioned. But even in Colombo, they cannot give the speeds they promise because of inadequate attention paid to dimensioning the network.
So your prescription is unlikely to work in most places where ICTA is putting its Nenasalas.
On the first round I missed the ADSL connection and was given only March 2006 had to wait until new optical fiber cable was commissioned & upgrade the exchange.
Speed supposed to be 512 but yet very slow.
As you are in US seems like you have not heard about nenasala which is a ICTA initiative. However, they have a website now http://www.nenasala.lk/
I dont know whether this is a success or a faliure however I found something extremly interesting which is related to topic in discussion.
What I found out recently after going through this site is that there is plethora of local language content. Goto http://www.nenasala.lk and click the Icon Open Enrich and you can see various content hubs. Go to one of the hubs and select Sinhala language you will see many content. However they are all in Sinhala Unicode. Further these content seems to be develped by respective nenasala’s. I manage to read a very interesting story never heard before about ANDARE “රජ වාසලේ කවටයා නොහොත් අන්දරේ”, over here.
Further all this local content is accessible irrespective of platform/OS as long as you have Sinhala Unicode.
Another best way to see content now is to do a google search in Sinhala Unicode you will see so many sinhala content pages popping up.
So things are progressing when people still speculate the myth that sinhala unicode is incomplete and sinhala is destroyed.
Harsha
Dharma Gamage
Harsha,
[quote]
What I found out recently after going through this site is that there is plethora of local language content.[unquote]
I find some English content and some Tamil content, but no Sinhala content at all. When I select ‘Sinhala’ all I see is lots of garbage. (Some squares) I see the same squares in your posts too in third paragraph.
Since when we started using squares as Sinhala characters?
The following are the ONLY sites with Sinhala content I have seen so far:
You will see text boxes till you switch to Vista with LIP enabled, as you are not keen to install anything downloaded. If you download and install the Sinhala Unicode pack in your XP you will be able to read all the Sinhala Unicode content. The sites you highlighted use embedded font technologies to ensure irrespective of fonts, the viewers see the content.
Donald,
As per ANDARE Story, it’s quite pity how you manipulate my post as you have not read it clearly. You need to goto nenasala.lk and then click Open Enrich Icon which appears and go to one of the content hubs which are content created by various nenasala’s. You can read ANDARE to many more and you will be surprised to see so much of local language content created by various regions.
Dharma Gamage
Harsha,
So many sites claim they offer Sinhala content. The latest is Prof. Nalin De Silva’s http://www.kalaya.org.
All of them want me to download different sets of fonts and install them in my PC. So at the end I will have to download more than 10 types of proprietary fonts including Unicode fonts.
No, thanks. I will wait till there is a single standard.
By the way there are many like me, who do not want any of these proprietary fonts.
I talk of the basic index page
Kindly answer why it get listed as “Coming Soon”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Delan
Harsha Puraasinghe
I downloaded the sinhala pack and went to the website referred to by you,
“You need to go to nenasala.lk and then click Open Enrich Icon which appears and go to one of the content hubs which are content created by various nenasala’s. ”
Web was sinhala characters.
But when I copy the text from the web to Adobe illustrator it doesn’t show sinhala characters even though I have down loaded the sinhala pack.
Can you tell me the reason?
Quote from 37
then click Open Enrich Icon which appears
unquote
The Sinhala is restricted to a certain OS only. The content is not compatible with all operating systems and it is contradicting the basic of Unicode
Quote from unicode
What is Unicode?
Unicode provides a unique number for every character,
no matter what the platform,
no matter what the program,
no matter what the language.
Unquote
Your “Sinhala unicode” is incorrect and incomplete system.
Your http://www.nansala.lk is just a site to fool the public like an ad for a screen film “Coming SOON”
The public can now decide who is the modern “Andare”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
JC Ahangama
Samarajiva;
Thank you for explaining.
But then running fibre lines from the Telco to the subscriber is prohibitively expensive. They gave it up here years ago. Besides DSL, cable, satellite together are delivering pretty well on the last mile. (Not all places can have DSL because we still have 26 guage copper on the network that the Telcos are supposed to upgrade — at least in Texas. They do it only if we complain to Public Utilities Commision which does magic).
I thought Sri Lanka pretty much has all data grade copper all over the country since the upgrade in the 1970s.
What do you know about that?
JC Ahangama
I think I should start writing some juicy stuff in romanized Sinhala for you guys to start thinking that way.
Then I can ask you to try the font that shows Sinhala with no manging of the computer.
JC Ahangama
I meant to say ‘no mangling’
JC Ahangama
Romanized Sinhala:
mama iÐagena inna þæna janeelayen peenavaa paare gæænu ada niruvaþen ðuvanavaa. ekiyak..(to be continued)
samarajiva
JCA,
I did not say anything about FTTH. There is no copper in most of the country. There is no fiber in the backbone.
Upgrade in the 1970s? What upgrade?
The Department of Posts and Telecommunications was one of the most inept and corrupt organizations known to man. In 1991, when it was converted to Sri Lanka Telecom, it had 125,000 lines in the entire country. Now there are around over one million fixed lines, with around 900,000 being copper.
When you see the “”contents””” it has two groups one Crimson logic and open world (open enrich)
Open world could have develop the sinhala standard. Then implement the content development
Any way all these work could have done by the Kothmale radio group as they were the leading gruop that have done the index page.
After doing all this why they have not developed the Sinhala and the Tamil pages?
How much funds were wasted by (Open eNRICH v4.0 developed by National Informatics Centre, Government of India in collaboration with UNESCO and OneWorld International Foundation.) doing web sites that cannot be accessed by all operating system and on a concept byond the basics of Unicode Inc and Internet.
Read Mawbima’s ICT Adawiya supplement. This has got some more revelations regarding how ICTA was formed and what went wrong (and right.) Hope Dino will have his own place in this supplement as well.
Thoppi Velenda
We think Dino is so powerful and everybody in Sri Lanka knows him. But it is not so.
There are some people in Sri Lanka who does not know Dino. Surprisingly, one such person is the web master of the Computer Society in Sri Lanka.
What happened Harsha de Silva’s TV show offer????? Harsha is a so called ‘economic advisor’ who run to TV stations to say all government mesures are wrong and he is right. Can any of you here tell me any productive thing this guy did to any field in Sri Lanka rather than boasting????
24 hrs have gone after the posting of No 50
Yet it has not been corrected
CSSL !!!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Revy
Sri Lankan Chosen for ICANN
A Sri Lankan, Mr. Jayantha Fernando has been selected by the ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to serve as a member of a panel of experts reviewing registry services. I believe this is a great honour for our fellow Sri Lankans. Who know may he’d help me set up my own domain. :)
Here’s more about the dude : Taken off ICTA (Oh yes he’s a member of the ICTA too)
Jayantha Fernando
Legal Advisor
Jayantha Fernando is an Attorney by Profession and holds a specialized Masters Degree in IT & Communications Law from the University of London, which he completed on a British Chevening Scholarship of the UK Government (2001-2003)
He has extensive ICT Legal experience which spreads across Government and Private sector (both local and overseas), with exposure to several areas such as ICT Policy and Legal reforms, negotiating and drafting contracts for large ICT Projects, DNS, IP addressing & Internet resource management. As head of the eLaws program he played an active role in the formulation of the Electronic Transactions Bill, which was enacted by Parliament on 7th March 2006 and also helped in the preparation of the Computer Crimes Bill and addresses law enforcement requirements from 1996 todate. He is presently advising the adoption of a Data Protection Code of Practice.
Jayantha leads several ICT Legal and professional development programs and has overseas experience lecturing and training policy makers and government officials on ICT Legal and regulatory issues. He is also a lecturer at Sri Lanka Law College, the University of Moratuwa and University of Colombo School of computing (UCSC).
In 2005, he was selected to function as the Associate Chairman of the ICANN Nominating Committee and was invited to serve as a member for 2006. Recently he was selected to serve as a Member of the ICANN’s Standing Panel of Experts for the review of gTLD Registry services. Jayantha is a Board member of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution and also serves on the board of LK Domain Registry.
It is nice to see Jayantha Fernando Legal Advisor being nominated
What he could not solve in Sri Lanka how can he solve in other countries.
ICTA has done an very unethical act by taking my Domain “AKURU” When I pointed this to Jayantha Fernando Legal Advisor in a public meeting he admitted that it is an unethical step but this problem cannot be solved in Sri Lanka as we have no laws yet. Everyting is partially done laws and work.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Domain
Donald,
Talk of the town is that you can get a .lk domain you crave for, “for an exchange”. Like Dino, Gihan D also said to be taking “little favors.”
As far as I know, LK Domain Registry is a non-government PRIVATE organisation operated by few PRIVATE individuals. It does not report to any ministry or any other government agency.
The directors of this PRIVATE FIRM are,
Gihan V. Dias
T. Ashok Peiris
Rohith Udalagama
G. Harsha Wijewardhana
V.K. Samaranayake
Jayantha T. Fernando
L.M. Chandana Weerasinghe
3) To whom the money paid for domain names goes? Does it go to the government or to an account of a PRIVATE individual? Are the NIC accounts audited by the government auditor or any auditing company?
Can any of the above gentlemen please answer these two questions?
Sandhaya Herath
Advise to Donald:
No need to worry. You can obtain the domain name http://www.e-akuru.lk (e hyphen akuru dot lk)
a) It reflects your concept best (even better than akuru dot lk)
b) It is still available (I just checked.)
c) You have the same advantages of having http://www.akuru.lk (eg. Anyone who searches for the term akuru will still get your site as a hit.)
Now, run fast and register this name. Otherwise ICTA will register that too.
Donald,
Why do you always rant over these minor matters? If they block you in one way, think and find an alternative way. Of course, people will block you in this country. The positive response will be not complaining but finding another way.
Nobody can really blame ICTA for reserving http://www.akuru.lk, but reserving the sub domains too is taking things too far.
As we all know, ICTA is not an NGO, association, commercial organization and definitely not a Hotel.
So if tomorrow Simon Appuhamy mudalali of Akuressa wants to have a hotel called HOTEL AKURU, he will not be able to have a dot lk web site, because ICTA has reserved the domain name the mudalali rightly deserves.
For a government organization I find this is a very unethical thing to do.
It looks like the sole purpose of ICTA blocking these domain and sub domain names is blocking Donald from getting one. (Unless of course, Prof. V. K. Samaranayake wants to open a hotel called Akuru Hotel, perhaps next to an ICTA Nanesala)
This is a very cheap act, and I suggest ICTA release this domain name asap, for anyone who wants to use it. (ICTA does not use it now. I do not think it has ever used it.)
ICTA is a government organization and it should not waste public money like this (even if it is Rs. 5,000) to fight with individuals.
Quote
“Why do you always rant over these minor matters? ”
Unquote
These are not minor matters Rights of the public is violated by a group of people.
I voice but others just give up
In another country this group will be in jail.
They do charge VAT but the VAT number is not published in the site — this is also a clear violation of TAX laws in Lanka.
I wonder whether they ever filed a VAT return??
Since ICTA have not paid the dues to akuru.lk domain I did asked Manju and the lawyer Jayantha to transfer the Domain but it went unanswered. I applied it to nic.lk but this request was never acknowledged or refused.
This is why I say “There is no equal access to justice in Sri Lanka”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Thoppi Velenda
Donald,
Now you have applied for the post of ICTA CEO, you should not tell things like that.
Instead you should sing the praises of Dino, Gihan D and the rest of the gang. You should tell about the good work these people have done to the country, and where we would have been without them.
Otherwise, do not blame us if you do not become the CEO.
I applied for the job to do some work for the society.
Also I should clear the confilcts of interests- Akuru Domain, my copyrights and my pending patent and thought of IT for rural economy.
If you read Daily Mirror page A3 of Todays issue Sept 15,2006
“Public sector to go bi-lingual” written by Yohan Perera
“Children to be taught Sinhala and Tamil in Schools”
When we are unable to use Sinhala in a computer across all platforms. all the Sinhala characters are not registered in the Unicode.
They talk of 3T’s in teaching languages
T Teaching
T Text books
T Technology – this is a total flop as we are unable to use bilingual (Sinhala & Tamil) across all platforms.
Donald Gainitillake
Colombo
HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
It is good that we have come to this subject because there are myriad of issues involved with the dot lk domain name registry.
As Ms. Sandhya Herath correctly points out, all these are because the domain registry maintenance is under the name of one private individual. Although the name of University of Moratuwa appears in the http://www.nic.lk site, university of Moratuwa has nothing to do with dot lk domain registry. The day Dr. Gihan Dias leaves University of Moratuwa dot lk domain registry goes with him. Basically that is controlled by only two individuals. One is Dr. Dias and the other is Prof. V. K. Samaranayake. Both do this in their personal capacity.
Domain name, like a telephone, a vehicle or a share of a company a commodity. It is not anything like an identity card. There is no rule that one should have only one domain name and that should be related to the business one does. One can purchase any number of telephones and similarly, any number of domain names. That is what happens at international level and in most of the other countries.
The advantage of making domain names commodities is that itself becomes a business. One buys shares of an unknown company speculating that share price might rise one day and that pays for his investment. In a similar manner speculators usually register domain names of famous organisations with the idea of selling that to the respective companies in future. These speculators purchase hundreds and thousands of domain names, and that itself becomes a big business.
However, our friends Dr. Dias and Prof. Samaranayake either do not have an iota of business sense or they purposely want to restrict the expansion of dot lk domain names.
So they have put a condition that [quote] All applications must be forwarded with a clear justification for the reason of selecting the domain name. It should be accompanied with a declaration that the applicant is entitled to the name. [unquote] This obviously prevents all speculators.
The money that the country loses, by the stupid action of these two IT-dictators is enormous. For example, if the policies are relaxed and if there is a proper procedure to register dot lk domain names the government can earn about Rs. 50 million for a year. (assuming 10,000 name registrations)
If I were to use a common term used in this forum these IT-Dinosaurs are bane to the IT industry and bane to the nation. We can never develop the IT industry in Sri Lanka as long as we have such people in the top. There is a strong and immediate need to free the IT industry from this type of dinosaurs and give the responsibilities to young and dynamic players who have at least some sort of business sense.
So Sandhya my ranting has given a another area where Dino is active.
There are lots of Basic IT affairs has to put into correct path.
I am raising my voice in these areas. Looks minor but grave issues
The public has to voice more and more
I am trying get some of these issues to raise with the babies in “Diyawanna oya”.
Starting with Sinhala
I have not taken this path but I will have to use to protect the language.
Since the problem is at very elementary level it is very difficult to convince.
The content differ
Both sites are hosted by the Government of Sri Lanka
When I check the gov.lk in the NIC
Top Level Domain
gov.lk is registered to LK Domain Registry
Payment Due Date: 2005-01-01
Second Level Domains
gov.assn.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.com.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.edu.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.grp.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.hotel.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.ltd.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.ngo.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.org.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.soc.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.web.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
Domain priu.gov.lk is registered in the Sri Lankan Domain Registry for Presidential Secratariat
Registration Agent: LKNIC
Why should our president need a domain http://www.presidentsl.org/data/
He can use the Domain priu.gov.lk registered to Presidential Secratariat
Presidential Secratariat can have an archive for all ex presidents in Sri Lanka
We did a research project using the Standard Sinhala Unicode as our final year project Our project goal was to display sinhala in RSS feeds.
What we did was we read the news paper web sites such as lankadeepa site through a web spider and trnaslated the ASCII values to Unicode accroding to the Unicode table for sinhala.
To do the translation we developed an mapping algorithm using c# and from that algorithm we converted ASCII to Unicode.
We used http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0D80.pdf to do our convertion.
To view the RSS feeds in Sinhala we used Malithi web font which can be downloaded from http://www.fonts.lk
Dharma Gamage
Pasan,
Can you please let us know from where I can get more information about this research? Are you a student of Moratuwa or Colombo University?
I read Lankadeepa and Lankaenews sites frequently. Those sites do not need anybody to download fonts. One key issue I faced was the inability to cut and paste from those sites. I thought it was an inherent drawback of the system they use. Please educate us how that can be done.
Dharma Gamage
Is Lanka Bell using Unicode?
SMALL TALK
18 September 2006 15:27:48
Lanka Bell re-brands SMS for Sinhalese, Tamil audiences
Sept 18 (LBO) –Telco operator Lanka Bell said Monday it was re-branding its short message service through fixed line phones, to appeal to a wider audience.
Users can send short messages over its fixed line phones using CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology, now called ‘Keti Katha’ for Sinhalese users, at a cost of 75 cents a message, Lanka Bell said in a statement.
“The objective is to differentiate from the generic term. The short message service will be called Keti Katha for Sinhalese users and ‘kurum pechchu’ in Tamil for the Tamil community,” a spokesperson for the company, said.
“We have a lot of users in the rural areas and the re-invented names will make them feel more at home when they use it.”
Lanka Bell also has an email service over its fixed line phones. Customers can get an email address and an account set up on registration.
Last year, the telecom operator rolled out an expansion plan to connect rural Sri Lanka using low cost CDMA technology on the 800 Mhz band.
The investment has paid off rich dividends, with Lanka Bell’s customer base soaring by more than 90,000. A company official said subscriber base had now topped 300,000 following new investments of around 65 million dollars.
Hi Dharma,
I am a SLIIT Malabe student.
Our project goal was to give Sinhala News paper site news in RSS feeds in sinhala language.I don’t think that any news paper site provide sinhala rss feeds.
Our project supervisor was Mr.Nuwan Kodagoda.You can contact him or me for further details.
Dear Donald,
Yes I agree with you.We couldn’t display all the sinhala characters from that table.
This was a reserach project that we did for our final year. We got successfull may be 80%.
What nonsense is this!!! Is this Sinhala or any other language which alieans speak!!! Mr Donald is right it seems. All these guys spend time on research and some Dinos spend millions of government rupees and come with a very inferior solutions like this. Why can’t a single character be displayed as a single character. In all these bloddy solutions a charactor shows in 3-4 letters!!! What a joke is this!!!
You can’t read lankadeep or lankaenews if you already don;t have their fonts. You had it already installed or some other font like kaputa helps those two e-papers. I challenge u to see those sites well with a brand new/formatted PC without any pre-installed SInhala charactor.
Please do not waste your valuble time in researches that produce stuff similar to “Kandak Wilila Mee Petiyek Weduwa Wagey.” This is a shame!!! We have 100s of computer experts in this country but none can produce a perfect solution for Sinhala. The only guy who claims capable of doing this, Donald, unfortunately, is cracy.
Since you are from Malabe Mr Dimuth (now in Canada) was a person who understood my project and helped me with the public lecture under the nose of the Dino at the Uni of Colombo
I always appricaiate the work of Malabe but still none of the students other than Pasan told that Unicode Sinhala is incomplete.
Quote from 73
Yes I agree with you.We couldn’t display all the sinhala characters from that table.
This was a reserach project that we did for our final year. We got successfull may be 80%.
Unqote
Thank you again for the truth
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
samarajiva
I too had the same question JCA had re the Lanka Bell story. Here’s the answer I got from a knowledgeable person which may be of interest to this group:
“I think in this case they use English to type the Sinhala message as the CDMA handsets which they are marketing don’t have the language capabilities nor application installation capabilities. So they are sending Sinhala & Tamil messages in English. Ex: If you want to say something like “Kohomoda Sepa Saneepa?” You type the message in English and send the message.
In order to put native sinhala & tamil to the handsets either the handset manufacturers should do that in firmware level or we have to use bit high end CDMA handset which is capable of running Java Application which then can support our software. We discussed this with both Suntel & Lanka Bell but the issue is the other handsets are expensive and manufacturers want volume commitments.”
Quote
Your main request of supporting the QWERTY keyboard layout for Sinhala and Tamil is not at all an unreasonable request. Users the world over have graduated from traditional typesetting systems, and there are strong legacy reasons for which it is sometimes prudent to support multiple keyboard layouts for any language.
Unquote
First we got to accept the present Sinhala unicode is incorrrect
Accept the need of full individual characters for Sinhala (only Donald has published such idea and comment)
Accept the fact we need a proper IME type of application (Donald will develop the basic one)
When we line up this and develop it the language problems using SInhala and Tamil will be eliminated.
Once I do for the PC converting it to suit the SMS system is not a problem.
I am not given the credentials to perform this task. It is all because Dino’s group missed my thinking of Individual characters and just went ahead with the type writer technology.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Newspapaers
Most of the Sinhalese newspapers like Lankadeepa, Mawbima, Rivira cannot be read with Netscape and Mozilla browsers even with the downloaded fonts. Over to you donalnd.
The Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections is having a IT Work shop Please register directly with the Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections
Details given below
Donald Gaminitillake
Secretary, Rotary Club of Colombo Central
***************
Workshops on IT Literacy
The Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections
September 2006
The Rotary club of Colombo Reconnections will celebrate the New Generations month of September 2006 with 2 workshops on IT Literacy. This will be held on Tuesday, 26th of September 2006 at the Galle Face Hotel, Lotus Lounge.
“Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software : How to become a Smart Player in the Knowledge Revolution” – by Dr Shahani Markus Weerawarana, Chief Technology Officer, ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
The details of the 2 workshops are as follows;
Workshop one – starting at 5pm
This will be aimed to provide the younger generation with new/latest technological/business information, career guidance and inspirational role models, that would enable them in today’s marketplace.
This program will be followed by a workshop for Rotarians
Workshop two (the business community) – starting at 6.30pm
What we need to know about our corporate website, the internet and email as leaders in the business community and professionals.
The above workshops will briefly cover:
– An introduction to Free & Open Source Software (FOSS)
– The FOSS model of operation
– FOSS initiatives across the world and in Sri Lanka
– How to become part of FOSS community
The entrance fee per person is a only Rs 300/=
We looking forward to welcoming you to experience and be inspired, together with members of your club, organization, family and friends. Please email us at timalta@sltnet.lk and confirm your attendance so that we can cater for you.
We meet every Thursday at 6.30pm at Galle Face Hotel.
Please pass this on to others who can benefit.
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
As I have told you umpteenth times before you do not need any credentials to develop a new system, if you think the present one is wrong.
Nobody gave credentials for Wright brothers to invent the air plane. They did on their own. Nobody gave credentials to Bill Gates to develop Microsoft Windows. Neither Michael Dell nor Steve Woznaik got any credentials to develop Dell and Apple PCs. That is how things happen.
If you are so passionate about it, you can always develop your own system. If it is worth buying phone companies will buy it. It is up to you to sell it.
You go on repeating the same stupid arguments like a broken gramophone, as somebody rightly said. You never answer the key questions.
1. Even if your system is 100% correct, how are you so sure major OS developers will buy it? There were so many excellent systems did not see the light of the day, because nobody wanted to buy them. What is your marketing plan?
2. Even if your system is 100% correct, why do you think any phone manufacturer will include that in their phones, when the market is so small? Why should they bother?
If you can answer those two questions successfully, you do not need any taxpayers money to introduce your system. You can do it right away.
Unfortunately, all you have done is to cut and paste something that appears in the back of any hodi potha, and claim it is yours.
All I can see is you are an alternate Dino, who wants to kick Dino away and waste the tax payers money on useless projects.
I am glad that the students of SLIIT have gone far ahead of you. You should learn from them.
204 Comments
Donald Gaminitillake
Has any one even try….
to cut and paste with note pad into word and then into helawadane and/or Thibas? further into linux? Apple using the sinhala unicode or SLSI 1134
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Slim
Im really appreciate the work you people done to get sinhala into IT world but i just wanna get something clear what kinda market is there for sinhala Unicode and sinhala based softwares?
Sunday Leader
Sunday Leader will be carrying an article as to how notorious VKS sacked Dilanthe V and Manju H for his personal gains soon. Again, the article is based on the true facts found in this blog!!!!!! Poor Sam###### End is coming!!!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Dear Slim
Out of the 19 million people more than 70% use Langauge Sinhala.
Our Constitution specify that we have to do the work in Sinhala and Tamil Langusges
If you visit part 3 and read the contents around No 103 where we have discussed your issue with JC Ahangama.
Any way I will list again the areas where Computer is required to use the Sinhala language (incl Tamil ). The Text data has to be compatible across all platforms of operating system like the latin script. This cannot happen over here as the ISO or Unicode or SLSI is incorrect and incomplete.
1. The Government officers
2. The people in offices that have Internet connections
3. The educated people in SL who have Internet connections (elaborate?)
4. Student living abroad
5. Pali users world over
6. Those who are in the printing industry
7. Those who want to communicate with their relatives/friends abroad
8. Lawyers
9. Notaries
10. Scan documents for editable text (OCR)
11. Banks
12 Postal service
13. Radio Stations / TV (Text to Voice)
14. Data inputtung (Voice to text)
15.Digital music composing
16.GPS
17.Hanicapped people
18.Water and Harvest Management
19.Accurate Election results
20.Early detection of TAx evations (TAX dept filing of tax retuens using simple text format)
21.Medical industry (voice) warning systems
22. Toy industry
23. Robot
24.Issue of Certifiations
25.Distant education
26.Translations
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Serious
Someone should start a string to discuss issues uncovered in this article I think….
ICTA myths and tender frauds
By Dilrukshi Handunnetti
Overt manipulation and awarding of a tender to a Korean company with the Procurement Board of the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) choosing the highest bidder and paying Rs. 80 million extra for an e development programme has come to light.
The story dates back to year 2003 when Minister Milinda Moragoda wished to undertake a massive e-Sri Lanka drive. The Korean government also wished to make a contribution towards the initiative but with the change of governments, the process hibernated for a while.
Loan from Korea
However, invitation for bids (IFB) was called when the government of Sri Lanka received a loan from the Export-Import Bank of Korea from the resources available at the Economic Development Co-operation (EDCF) of Korea.
The specific amount received for this purpose was US$15 million (approx. Rs. 1,500,000,000) to finance Lanka Government Network (LGN) project of the e-Sri Lanka Development programme. At this point, the ICTA was selected as the implementing agency and the Cabinet Appointed Tender Board (CATB) on November 1, 2005 called for bids for the design, supply, installation and operation of Lanka Government Network (LGN).
It was stated that LGN was a highly available, secure and reliable underlying information infrastructure backbone that would connect all the government organisations of the GOSL in a cost effective and secure manner. Initially, 350 locations were identified for connectivity in three phases.
It was next announced that bidding would be according to International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures specified in the “Guidelines for Procurement Under the EDCF Loan, March 2005″ and Government Procurement Guidelines. It was open to all bidders from the Republic of Korea.
Minimum qualifications
It was announced that bidders should fulfil the minimum qualification criteria. This meant, the Management Service Provider (MSP) having a minimum of five years experience in the implementation and management of large-scale Wide Area Network (WAN) projects.
Further, the MSP was to have experience in successful implementation of large scale managed network infrastructure projects with a project value exceeding US$ 10 million, experience in managing and co-originating various stakeholders and enjoying a total annual revenue of minimum US$60 million to establish financial credibility.
A significant stipulation was the fact that the foreign MSP should have a local alliance/partnership so that the MSP will have legal liabilities for the project.
Also, it was specified that the MSP should have a registered Sri Lankan business presence or have partners or consortium, operational with adequate staff for a minimum period of five years or more with a proven track record of providing respective managed services.
For the two stage bidding process, a pre bid meeting was called on November 16, 2005 at the ICTA itself. Bids closed on November 30.
At this point, a full-fledged consortium, Korean Telecom Network (KTN) submitted its bid for US$ 13.93 million, Samsung Networks Inc. for US 14. 82 million. The other bidder was Korea Exchange Banking Technologies (KEBT).
According to ICTA sources, it was KTN that submitted a technically convenient bid complete with customers’ sites and survey preparations to the ICTA.
Then Request For Proposal (RFP) was made and KTN submitted a comprehensive proposal with experts being flown in to the island to assist in mastering the technical aspects of the same.
Manipulation
Inside sources say that it was at this level, when evaluation of proposals commenced that serious manipulation began within the ICTA in stark violation of the tender procedures.
In February last year, when a procurement clarification was sought from the ICTA, Procurement Advisor Christy Perera sent an e-mail response to Samsung titled “Inquiry about the second stage technical proposal format.”
Samsung had first questioned whether a partnership and a joint venture would be considered one and the same, and next the difference between partners and sub contractors. “Are they the same or do they have different function/relationship?” the company queried, and Perera replied, “No, they are not the same.”
Further, the clarifying mail sent by ICTA’s Procurement Advisor Perera stated that sub contractors were not involved in signing the contract but should be declared when the proposal is submitted.
It has now transpired that despite the strong backing received, Samsung Networks did not even fulfil the minimum eligibility criteria specified by ICTA.
According to the invitation for bids (IFB) of the e-Sri Lanka Development Project (IFBA; ICTA/GOODS/18) it was mandatory for the foreign Manage Service Provider (MSP) to have a local alliance or partnership to ensure that such MSP will have legal liabilities for the project.
Criteria
Similarly, the said MSP according to stipulated criteria should have a registered Sri Lankan business presence, or have partners or consortium operational with adequate staff for a minimum period of five years or more with a proven track record of providing respective managed services. Samsung did not possess the above two pre-qualifications, though they were able to go to the next level without being disqualified at the very outset.
Other bidders now claim that the technical evaluations on both bidding stages were inaccurate and were full of malpractices which were geared towards granting the contract to an already selected company.
It has now transpired that as per the technical evaluation criteria listed in the tender document, 12 marks were given to experience and expertise of ‘the local partner of the bidder’ whereas Samsung did not actually have a local partner.
The Sunday Leader has reliably learned that in the case of Samsung Networks bid, the 12 marks have been given to subcontractors and not the local partners. (See document)
Not only that, there were other misrepresentations at the technical evaluation. The ineligible company had also received two marks given to the bidders’ experience in implementing Economic Development and Co-operation Fund of Korea (EDCF) projects though Samsung Networks has not implemented any EDCF funded projects. Nevertheless Samsung managed to secure full marks.
There were other issues clouding technical evaluation.
Investigations
Our investigations have revealed that KTN had initially objected to the appointment and formation of a technical evaluation committee (TEC) in violation of government stipulated tender guidelines which fell on deaf ears. KTN had objected on the basis of a public finance circular issued by Treasury Secretary P. B. Jayasundera.
The objection was that according to clause 33.1 of the Procurement Guidelines (as amended by the Public Finance Circular No. 352/10), there was a defect in appointing Chairman, ICTA Prof. V. K. Samaranayake to participate/represent technical evaluation committee of the ICTA itself.
Jayasundera’s public finance circular issued to all secretaries of ministries, heads of government departments, corporations and statutory boards cautioned them against the inclusion of chief executive officers of such organisations in TEC, as it would undermine the role of other TEC members.
Referring o Chapter 111 of the Guidelines of Government Tender Procedures (revised edition August 197) regarding the appointment of TEC members, Jayasundera instructed that, “the members of the TEC should feel free to express their independent views and make recommendations to the Tender Board. In this context, the inclusion of chief executive officers (managing director, general manager, chairman etc.) of organisations in TEC tend to undermine the role of other members of TEC drawn from the same organisation. Therefore, you are kindly requested to refrain from nominating or appointing such officers to TEC.” (See document )
Samsung secures bid
What is more, it has now transpired that Samsung has managed to secure the bid despite furnishing misleading information for technical evaluation purposes. This despite tender documents specifying ‘misrepresentation of information’ being a fraudulent practice which could disqualify a bidder.
According to instructions issued to bidders, what is termed a ‘fraudulent practice’ is “a misrepresentation of facts in order to influence a procurement process or the execution of a contract to the detriment of the borrower and includes collusive practices among bidders (prior to or after submission of bids) designed to establish bid prices at artificial, noncompetitive levels and to deprive the borrower of the benefits of free and open competition.”
Under this stipulation however, it is possible to reject a proposal or to declare ineligibility, either indefinitely or for a stated period of time. However, none of the above occurred in respect of Samsung Networks despite the gross misrepresentations.
Accordingly, Samsung Networks in their answers to clarifications raised by the ICTA at the first stage of LGN bid evaluation, brazenly declared Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) as their ‘local partner.’ Interestingly enough, the TEC had given full marks for the local partner acting on the basis that SLT was indeed a local partner of Samsung whereas it was only a subcontractor.
When questioned on the nature of the local presence of Samsung Networks, the company response was in fact a laugh. In a written clarification Samsung said, “once we are awarded this project, we will set up our office and our staff from Korea will be based in Colombo office. Our office in Colombo, local partners and sub contractors will collaborate for the successful implementation and operation of LGN.”
Local partner
Having stated that, Samsung added, “our principle partner is Sri Lanka Telecom. MIT, Metropolitan, Softlogic and Advantage Technology will be involved in implementation and operation in some degree.”
When the bidding process reached second stage whereupon bidders are required to produce their partnership agreements and financial reports, Samsung Networks also managed to alter their original position and declared that they in fact do not have any local partner fearing disqualification at this stage.
What baffles ICTA insiders themselves is as to why the TEC chose to ignore all the gross misrepresentations, misleading statements and tender procedure violations in this manner. While bidders may try, as they often do, all the tricks in their books, ICTA officials themselves are baffled by the fact that the TEC did not outrightly reject the Samsung bid, but instead lent every possible support for the company to secure the bid.
When subsequent objections were raised against SLT being principal local partner of Samsung and a subcontractor with another, SLT quickly disassociated itself from the Samsung partnership claim. Instead, it wrote to Chairman, CATB, stating its position.
In a letter dated November 28, 2005, Chief Marketing Officer, Sri Lanka Telecom, Kapila Chandrasena announced a partnership with Enterprise Technology (Pvt) Ltd.
More problems
The Samsung bid however encountered more problems than the above. The two stage procurement guidelines were not properly implemented and followed by the ICTA itself. Other competitors allege that if the bidders were acting according to the tender guidelines of the government, the price bid should have been opened only after the completion of the technical evaluations.
At this point, ICTA, it is learned had requested the bidders to include the total price in their technical proposals for Stage 2 bidding purposes.
However, such treatment was not meted out to other competitors. When KTN made representations seeking clarifications from ICTA, not even minutes of the meeting were released to KTN. What is more, the company was also requested to alter their technical solution at this point, according to ICTA insiders.
Naturally, when the matter reached the next stage — it led to the more technically advanced and superior solutions proposed by KT Networks to be rejected without any valid reasons being provided.
KTN’s proposal was a state of the art satellite solution to connect all the 350 government-building locations. Considering the fact that most of the locations happened to be in remote areas, the company’s belief was that satellite communication facility was the most viable and suitable method for deploying high bandwidth connections.
Rejected
What was more, ICTA was to gain the additional benefit of coming to own the equipment. However, for no apparent reason, the solution was rejected and was told to work out a ‘land line’ solution. ICTA inside sources associated with the process confirmed that Samsung Networks Inc. had proposed only a landline solution.
When the final marks were announced, KTN objected and sought a revision in the marks. The grouse the company has is that if the revision was done according to the stipulated marking system, KTN should have secured the highest marks and naturally become the more eligible bidder to win the contract for the project. What is more, marks were verbally announced and were not in writing.
In this highly questionable backdrop, CATB approved Samsung’s proposal and rejected the other two. Following representations made to higher authorities, on May 17, 2006, President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga wrote to KT Networks announcing the disqualification of the company to secure the tender. However, it allowed an opening for the company to make representations to the Procurement Appeal Board (PAB).
On May 20 this year, Manager, NI Business Marketing Division, Overseas Business Development Department, KT Networks, Yong Jin Kim formally submitting an appeal drew the PAB’s attention to the irregularities in the tender evaluations and even the fraudulent practices.
Irregularities
Kim whilst highlighting several major irregularities also questioned the eligibility of Samsung Networks, alleging that if the evaluation was just and impartial, KT Networks was of firm belief that the contract should have been awarded to them.
“If the evaluation had been just and impartial, we believe that we should have obtained the highest marks for the technical evaluation. Further, our price bid was substantially less than that of Samsung Networks. If the evaluation has been accurate and impartial, we would have got the recommendation which eventually would save a significant amount of money for the Government of Sri Lanka.
We earnestly request your fair and just evaluation of the representations we are making against the award and recommend our bid which we believe is the technically most compliant and lowest in price.”
Having charged processing fee of Rs. 50,000, PAB did not offer a valid explanation for such rejection, according to angry ICTA insiders.
After such a fiasco of manipulating marks and violating tender procedures to ensure success for one bidder, to this date, the tender remains un-awarded, a fact a source from the CATB confirmed. What is more, the ICTA also agrees that though Samsung secured the bid, contract is yet to be granted and says no more.
The loss to the state is in the range of Rs. 80 million with the selection made, but no matter. KTN and KETB have been unfairly evaluated only to award the tender to the highest bidder. It really must be a sign of a wealthy state, albeit the expenses of war.
Then again, here is a topic that comes directly under President Mahinda Rajapakse himself.
ICTA says…
Speaking to The Sunday Leader, a top ICTA official said that the contract was not awarded to any company yet.
He said that there were no irregularities in deciding to issue the contract and admitted that the tender process had ended.
“The cabinet has decided to give the contract to Samsung Networks, but it has not been awarded yet. Some parties allege that there are irregularities in deciding as to whom the contract should have been awarded to. But the procedure adopted was perfectly fine and there was no irregularity as alleged,” he said.
He said that Samsung Networks had in fact quoted a lesser price than the other company, Korean Telecom Networks (KTN).
“The amount quoted by the company is not known at the moment, but the amount was certainly less than the amount bid by Korean Telecom Network,” he added.
HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
Sunday Leader should be commended for bravely exposing this fraud, which other media would not have dared. However, this is only a part of the story – the tip of the ice berg. There is more to this.
The Korean firm, Samsung has taken an interest in the Sri Lankan computer market at least for 5-6 years, even before e-Sri Lanka program was launched. However, they became active only during the last 3 years.
There first contact was a key politician from the then UNP government. (Now crossed over to other side) This contact was of not much use to Samsung, as even after generous bribes the politician could not deliver any results.
After the e-Sri Lanka was launched and ICTA established, Samsung repeatedly tried to bait high officials. They tried to build contacts with both Mr. Lalith Weeratunge and Mr. Wasantha Deshapriya but being honest government officials, both these did not fall to Samsung’s trap.
That was when somebody brought Prof. Samaranayake to the picture. Samaranayake was then trying his best to be the ICTA Chairman and Samsung saw a good opportunity in building a good business relationship with him. They had several business lunches at some of the posh Korean restaurants in Colombo. Then a deal was struck.
To cut a long story short, it was Samaranayake who introduced Samsung to a then not so powerful, but still important VIP politician. Interestingly, the close family members of this politician later locally represented Samsung in this infamous deal.
Some things are better remain unsaid, so let me cut the story here. Sorry. My job is more important to me.
What is important is that Samaranayake is only a small fish (hal messa) in this game. His job was to ensure that Samsung gets the deal. As a return, he was given the assurance to retain current position at ICTA for few more years. Without anything to lose, Samaranayake has agreed to play this role. It suits his plans. His son is still studying in US and a tuition fee is not low.
What needs to be done now is to find the big fish (thoras and moras) behind this fraud, leaving poor old Samaranayake alone.
In any democratic society, that is the job of the opposition too. However, in our country we have such a weak opposition that the entire responsibility falls in the shoulders of media. Let us hope they do a good job, without yielding to the influences of the VIPs.
Sympathy
Are you trying to say that prof is very innocent hal messa here. With his proven track record I think he is the BIGGEST FISH in this game.
You are trying to save the prof it seems.
Donald Gaminitillake
Today we are unable to use Sinhala correctly across all platforms of Operating systems registering an incomplete and incorrect set of Sinhala characters in the SLSI or ISO or Unicode , the legal problems regarding the DOT LK, DOT LK , are done by this individual and his group.
Even though these problems have been taken up by the media several times all fell into the deaf ears of the public.
The problem in Sri Lanka is the public never take national issues as their own ones. They expects someone else to fight and solve it. This is an attitude problem.
There are many people with better knowledge in the IT but nobody consult them. They too live in a nut shell and scared to leave this shell.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Pied Piper of Hamelin
Nursery Rhymes of our times
ONE
Samsung, Samsung
Have you any Won*
Yes Sir, Yes Sir
Three bags full
One for the master
One for his dame
The last one for Prof. Sam
Who took all the pain
TWO
Are you sleeping – Are you sleeping
Kabir Hashim – Kabir Hashim**
We need action – We need action
Tick tuck tick – Tick tuck tick
———————————-
* – Currency used in South Korea
* – Somebody who made a big fuss about 92, but so far keeping silence about 1,500.
Donald Gaminitillake
Today I met few friends
Some do read this blog
There advice is to publish more on news papers other than Sunday Leader.
Like in Island and Wijaya Group
Since there are many segments in ICT — all are affected by the Dino
why not publish it on these News papers too
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
concerned
Donald, your frends are right. Dino has already convinced the authorities that the article published was “part of Lasana W’s propaganda against Mahinda Chinthanaya” and Dino is to get another raise in his carreer after this.
WHat a wonderful country.
concerned
should be corrected as,
“part of Lasantha W’s propaganda against Mahinda Chinthanaya”
To remove the false skin and show the real skin of Dino, these articles should go to Sinhalese and English national newspapers.
Magazines like Pariganaka made this guy a hero some time ago. Hope those mags have the courage to tell the truth to their readership now.
Hem and Haw
I think you will understand that it is not wise to rate every innocent selfish and liar into this label but “in some specific cases” this is the only key to understand.
http://groups.msn.com/NARCISSISTICPERSONALITYDISORDER/20traitsofmalignantnarcissism.msnw
JC Ahangama
Wow!
This blog has moved to the 4th page and its all politics.
Here’s a simple calculation:
A standard static web site: 55 MB 15% transit overhead = 64MB
DS1 (2-pairs copper wire) line bandwidth of ISDN-BRI: 128 kbps
Time taken to travel using full bandwidth: 512 seconds = 8.5 minutes
The bid fisaco is interesting. But what is this Government Network for? What is it going to do? You have FAST connections between 300 odd places and what is going to fly so fast among these places? It seems as if there’s so much data needing exchange. I could not get replies to email messages from companies or government agencies including ICTA for years. (The messages are still with me to show to posterity).
Don’t you think we need to know what we are going to do with such a vast high-tech network? The speed at which people respond, you could have a nice courier service between the government offices. (Reminds me of the best network of delivery I saw anywhere in the world which was the bicycle lunch delivery service of the eighties. Please give Lankans the freedom to innovate).
Who is going to write the applications? What languages? Sinhala / Tamil / English. At the rate Unicode is implemented world over, UTF-16 Sinhala would languish in the island for years to come. The guys are still groping in the IT darkness. I know, I know, the World bank said it is necessary. That report predates World bank president Paul Wolfowitz. The new person in charge of Sri Lanka was just appointed. She would have to revise all these if Paul is the guy I think he is.
My humble opinion is that if the government wants a network it should use the services of the local ISPs. Even the US government uses the public network. Use VPN if security is required. Let the local companies sell the connections to the government. Again may I ask, why a private network for the government? This is unheard of in the rest of the world.
We still have the failed mentality of yesteryear when we built massive paper factories because the communists said that’s the way for self sufficiency. Why can’t we do things in humble practical ways? Leasing private lines is a past thing in the west because you can have guaranteed bandwidth service on the public network. Let the government pay a higher rate to buy guaranteed speed. the ISP’s can configure networks to give priority to the government traffic if there’s anything that needs split second transmission.
Donald Gaminitillake
Who is going to write the applications? What languages? Sinhala / Tamil / English.
This is a good question JC.
When we are unable to send a Sinhala E mail across all platforms on OS’s
the Sinhala unicode is lacking codepoints for all sinhala characters
like the Pied Piper of Hamelin on 9
These guys are interested only on funding and spending.
I met a person yesterday.
I gave my presentation.
Lets see the outcome
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Sampath
JC says:
[Reminds me of the best network of delivery I saw anywhere in the world which was the bicycle lunch delivery service of the eighties. Please give Lankans the freedom to innovate.]
JC,
I agree with you. The bicycle lunch delivery service of the 70s and 80s is not only one of our own innovations but it was extremely efficient and relaiable as well.
Why?
Because it was something developed to meet a market demand without any regulation. Imagine whether it would have been possible if govt. decided to plan and implement such a thing?
I do not know whether anyone has observed, but a similar operation is happening in case of school vans. The vans swap/exchange students in the mid way, just like the lunch carriers exchanged lunch packets.
All this have become possible because they have left to grown on themselves. The school van services still operate efficiently and successfully, because govt. has not put its hands to it. (eg. transport, petroleum, education, banking etc)
In Sri Lanka, the moment the govt. puts its hand to something , that will be the end of it.
e-Sri Lanka was supposed to be a model to which all players, i.e. the public sector, private sector and civil society was supposed to contribute. However it has ended up as another pure-government model without any sufficient contribution from the other two players. Now it has become another People’s Bank or CEB.
VGKs were supposed to work on the franchise mode. Now it operates in the charity mode. Govt. gives equipment to operators on charity. Nothing new. Something Sarvodaya has been doing for ages.
e-Sri Lanka was also supposed to create an environment for the private sector to grow. It never did. Now ICTA has lost the credibility of private sector.
In short, whatever its initial objectives ICTA has ended up as another CINTEC. Perhaps the only difference is the extension of the scope. Other than that, ICTA has failed to introduce even a single new business model. It is no more private sector or market friendly than CINTEC was.
P. S. I agree there were other external factors which was the reason behind.(like the change of a market friendly govt. to a statist one) However we want a program like e-Sri Lanka to something new. Not to do the things in the same traditional manner, any government office does.
Pariganaka
Concerned says IT magazines like Pariganaka did lots of work to make Dino a hero. I totally agree with him. Pariganaka magazine ran so many articles eulogizing this guy as if Dino was the grand father of the Pariganaka editor.
In addition to Pariganaka magazine, ‘Antharjalaya Obe Gedarata’ rupavahini program and Vidusara science newspaper were the reasons for the rise and rise of Dino. Otherwise he is nobody. His computer knowledge is limited to using word, email and PowerPoint. Even he cannot make a decent presentation using PowerPoint.
Dino’s principle for hierarchy is very simple. The oldest and the senior most ones gets to the top whether they are competent or not. The young has to wait till they get old for their turn. This is the system followed in the Sri Lankan Universities and government departments. Dino too is fully used to this system. He thinks it is his utmost duty to prevent anything happens beyond this golden system, he is so used to.
We are very luck we did not have somebody like Dino is Telecom Malaysia. Had there been a guy like Dino there, Dr. Hans Wijesuriya would never have been able to become the Dialog CEO at the young age of 28 years. Dino would have definitely appointed somebody more than 55 years old for the post.
When Dr. Lalaith Gamage started the SLIIT, Dino did his best to block it, because according to Dino’s books appointing somebody less than 50 years to lead an organization is nothing short of a criminal offence. They have to given opportunity to senior and older people and wait for their turn.
For the journalists at Pariganaka and Vidusara Dino was somebody more important than Vinton Cerf, Tim Beneres Lee and William Shockley. Given half the chance they would have established it was Dino who invented the Internet. Their stupid reader would even have believed it.
Finally I will be very surprised if anyone less than 50 years becomes the CEO of ICTA.
JC Ahangama
Talk. talk, talk talk. Guys, I am back!
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Sinhla Smart Font Sumangala.ttf is available for download at:
http://www.lanandwan.com/smartfonts/
Sumangala could be installed in *Windows 2000* and *Windows XP* all versions. So, you can pay me the money you saved to buy Windows Vista. Save it for me, my friends. (By the way, did you see the prices of Vista?)
Sumangala does not need Complex script support files or any beta software — the font is the only thing that’s incomplete. It is a test font that we invite you to use and help develop nice orthographic models of the different applications of this grand old language of ours. This is a PUBLIC effort. Janaþaa vyaapaarayak (scary Sinhala, eh?)
The WorldPad (
JC Ahangama
Well, something happened and half of my message got chopped off.
“Try and try again boy, you will win at last”:
The balance:
WorldPad word processor by SIL International shows Sinhala perfectly. You can type Sinhala and English intermixed in a document by simply changing the font. No need to remember completely different keyboard layouts. We have a special romanized Sinhala keyboard definition for speed-typing Sinhala which is still useable for English. (I know some of you guys don’t need Sinhala having arrived up there and kicked the ladder off).
Well, try it out and rip me apart!
JC Ahangama
Sampath,
Glad to know you, my child. Try the font and tell me what you think of a totally private effort that defies bureaucratic thinking (including corporate thinking).
james bond
Article 17 says ” ….Pariganaka magazine ran so many articles eulogizing this guy as if Dino was the grand father of the Pariganaka editor.”
It is apperent that the Pariganaka Editor also is a staffer in LirneAsia. Hope we can hear some explanaition from him regarding why he made a false figure a national hero making a reputed magazine a third class rag.
samarajiva
It appears that James Bond needs his license revoked.
None of LIRNEasia’s full-time or part-time personnel (we are not a conventional organization with “staffers”) are involved in editing Pariganaka. I occasionally assist the magazine when they ask, and will continue to do so.
Srimal
Wasn’t Chanuka Wattegame an editor of Pariganaka during the time refered in the two mails.???? Has he got anything to say on this?
Donald Gaminitillake
Lunch delivery sevice in India is called “Dabbawalas”. They have an association in Bombay and do have about 5000 lunch deliverymen. They have a web site and text messaging system to take orders……you can get more by searching the web for the word “Dabbawalas”
Where are we today? Before JCA went to USA even in Lanka had this delivery system. I do not think today we have more than one or two. Or may be none.
Sampath talks about Children are swap like DHL parcels in Vans. When the children live within two mile range from schools why do we need so many Vans to carry them. This is another hypocrisy in Lanka.
Sri Lanka is a land of double standards. None of the foreigners will be able to understand. We have a Dino at every corner on every subject. Society makes them grow but when they are out grown the same society is terrified to chop them down.
Hope you will answer the 1 and 18
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Nenasala
This is a Nenasala centre in a main city. There are few other more expensive cybercaafe’s too.
Same story here too.
Just two PCs for Internet! Internet link seems regularly shut down as people come here only for typesetting , etc……
Virus guards are not updated and the PC is full of viruses. Aho Mahinda Chinthanya, sorry, VK Chinthanaya… or Moragda chinthanaya….
Nenasala
No messnger programs installed. PCs look like never been used as they are in good conditions.
How many other deserving projects in Sri Lanka without having any access to Internet???? This is government money going into waste.
Nenasala
Tried to download Yahoo but it doesnt work. Staff doesnt know anything about Yahoo messenger!!!
JC Ahangama
Pardon my ignorance, but what is this Nenasala?
Is it:
nenasala = [Rom. Sinhala] neenasæla
= [English] the place to which you should not go / the place that doesn’t come(?)
or
nenasala = [Rom Sinhala] µænasæla
=[English] the place of knowledge.
A person who still uses Sinhala would see how much we care about the language when we go and Anglicize Sinhala. There’s a way to respect your grand parents by at least adopting a romanizing scheme that respects the Sinhala sound set.
JC Ahangama
Reading the messages again it seems like Nenasala is a chain of Cyber cafés.
message 27 is very evealing. The Internet access is very slow — must be a dialup connection. These places should get DSL access. DSL is cheap to implement. Somebody setup a business to implement this (and get me down if you have no clue. I’ll show how easy it is). You need only regular (existing) telephone lines for this blessed thing.
JC
Texas, USA
Donald Gaminitillake
Dear JCA
Nanasala are places similar to a cyber cafe done with the ICTA funding.
They have one in Fort railway station I have not been: wanted to go but the prevaling situvation bars me to travel to places like that. I do not want to do research and lose a limb or eye sight.
They do all these activity without correct & proper Sinhala!!!
If we had correct sinhala the development will be a chain reaction they are scared of this.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
samarajiva
JCA, Must have been some time since you moved to Texas. Only SLTL has copper loops (the obsolete condition limiting Suntel and Lanka Bell to wireless local loops has not yet been removed); around 900,000, mostly in Western Province. That’s the precondition for ADSL. Another precondition is adequate backhaul.
ADSL was first offered in Sri Lanka in 2003. But patchy even in the Western Province. As late as 2005, factories in the Biyagama Zone could not get ADSL because the exchanges were not so equipped.
Just recently, SLTL started offering ADSL along the southern coastline; this is after the new optical fiber was commissioned. But even in Colombo, they cannot give the speeds they promise because of inadequate attention paid to dimensioning the network.
So your prescription is unlikely to work in most places where ICTA is putting its Nenasalas.
Doanld Gaminitillake
On the first round I missed the ADSL connection and was given only March 2006 had to wait until new optical fiber cable was commissioned & upgrade the exchange.
Speed supposed to be 512 but yet very slow.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Harsha Puraasinghe
JC,
As you are in US seems like you have not heard about nenasala which is a ICTA initiative. However, they have a website now http://www.nenasala.lk/
I dont know whether this is a success or a faliure however I found something extremly interesting which is related to topic in discussion.
What I found out recently after going through this site is that there is plethora of local language content. Goto http://www.nenasala.lk and click the Icon Open Enrich and you can see various content hubs. Go to one of the hubs and select Sinhala language you will see many content. However they are all in Sinhala Unicode. Further these content seems to be develped by respective nenasala’s. I manage to read a very interesting story never heard before about ANDARE “රජ වාසලේ කවටයා නොහොත් අන්දරේ”, over here.
Further all this local content is accessible irrespective of platform/OS as long as you have Sinhala Unicode.
Another best way to see content now is to do a google search in Sinhala Unicode you will see so many sinhala content pages popping up.
So things are progressing when people still speculate the myth that sinhala unicode is incomplete and sinhala is destroyed.
Harsha
Dharma Gamage
Harsha,
[quote]
What I found out recently after going through this site is that there is plethora of local language content.[unquote]
I find some English content and some Tamil content, but no Sinhala content at all. When I select ‘Sinhala’ all I see is lots of garbage. (Some squares) I see the same squares in your posts too in third paragraph.
Since when we started using squares as Sinhala characters?
The following are the ONLY sites with Sinhala content I have seen so far:
http://www.lankadeepa.lk
http://www.lankaenews.com
http://www.sricolama.com
Donald Gaminitillake
Quote
So things are progressing when people still speculate the myth that sinhala unicode is incomplete and sinhala is destroyed.
Unquote
There is no myth just go to
http://www.unicode.org/charts
Download the Sinhala pdf file and see yourself
Where is “DU” “KU” “GU” etc
Give the codepoints in unicode for these
What Sri Lanka registered with unicode is incorrect and incomplete set of Sinhala Characters
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
quote
රජ වාසලේ කවටයා නොහොත් අන්දරේ translasion “Joker in the Palace alias Andare”
unquote
Above quoted from 33 “about ANDARE”
When you go to http://www.nenasala.lk select the language Sinhala or Tamil you get “”COMING SOON” as of Sept 4, 2006
You can now see who is the joker in the palace or the joker in the office of the president
Please do not fool the public
Donald Gaminitillkae
Colombo
Harsha Puraasinghe
Dharma,
You will see text boxes till you switch to Vista with LIP enabled, as you are not keen to install anything downloaded. If you download and install the Sinhala Unicode pack in your XP you will be able to read all the Sinhala Unicode content. The sites you highlighted use embedded font technologies to ensure irrespective of fonts, the viewers see the content.
Donald,
As per ANDARE Story, it’s quite pity how you manipulate my post as you have not read it clearly. You need to goto nenasala.lk and then click Open Enrich Icon which appears and go to one of the content hubs which are content created by various nenasala’s. You can read ANDARE to many more and you will be surprised to see so much of local language content created by various regions.
Dharma Gamage
Harsha,
So many sites claim they offer Sinhala content. The latest is Prof. Nalin De Silva’s http://www.kalaya.org.
All of them want me to download different sets of fonts and install them in my PC. So at the end I will have to download more than 10 types of proprietary fonts including Unicode fonts.
No, thanks. I will wait till there is a single standard.
By the way there are many like me, who do not want any of these proprietary fonts.
Some write in roman characters. eg http://technobatta.blogspot.com/2006/09/varsity-kavi-part-ii.html
Others convert their writings to jpeg. eg http://www.bodhini.s5.com/
Both these are not 100% perfect, but better than looking at set of empty squares.
Donald Gammnitillake
I talk of the basic index page
Kindly answer why it get listed as “Coming Soon”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Delan
Harsha Puraasinghe
I downloaded the sinhala pack and went to the website referred to by you,
“You need to go to nenasala.lk and then click Open Enrich Icon which appears and go to one of the content hubs which are content created by various nenasala’s. ”
Web was sinhala characters.
But when I copy the text from the web to Adobe illustrator it doesn’t show sinhala characters even though I have down loaded the sinhala pack.
Can you tell me the reason?
Donald Gaminitillake
Quote from 37
then click Open Enrich Icon which appears
unquote
The Sinhala is restricted to a certain OS only. The content is not compatible with all operating systems and it is contradicting the basic of Unicode
Quote from unicode
What is Unicode?
Unicode provides a unique number for every character,
no matter what the platform,
no matter what the program,
no matter what the language.
Unquote
Your “Sinhala unicode” is incorrect and incomplete system.
Your http://www.nansala.lk is just a site to fool the public like an ad for a screen film “Coming SOON”
The public can now decide who is the modern “Andare”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
JC Ahangama
Samarajiva;
Thank you for explaining.
But then running fibre lines from the Telco to the subscriber is prohibitively expensive. They gave it up here years ago. Besides DSL, cable, satellite together are delivering pretty well on the last mile. (Not all places can have DSL because we still have 26 guage copper on the network that the Telcos are supposed to upgrade — at least in Texas. They do it only if we complain to Public Utilities Commision which does magic).
I thought Sri Lanka pretty much has all data grade copper all over the country since the upgrade in the 1970s.
What do you know about that?
JC Ahangama
I think I should start writing some juicy stuff in romanized Sinhala for you guys to start thinking that way.
Then I can ask you to try the font that shows Sinhala with no manging of the computer.
JC Ahangama
I meant to say ‘no mangling’
JC Ahangama
Romanized Sinhala:
mama iÐagena inna þæna janeelayen peenavaa paare gæænu ada niruvaþen ðuvanavaa. ekiyak..(to be continued)
samarajiva
JCA,
I did not say anything about FTTH. There is no copper in most of the country. There is no fiber in the backbone.
Upgrade in the 1970s? What upgrade?
The Department of Posts and Telecommunications was one of the most inept and corrupt organizations known to man. In 1991, when it was converted to Sri Lanka Telecom, it had 125,000 lines in the entire country. Now there are around over one million fixed lines, with around 900,000 being copper.
65% of these lines are in the Western Province.
It sure ain\’t like it\’s in Texas, is it? For data, google should help, but one of my recent columns in LBO had some provincial breakdowns (http://www.lbo.lk/insight_fullstory.php?newsID=222878524&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=24). Or go to one of the sources: the TRC (http://www.trc.gov.lk/statistics.htm).
Donald Gaminitillake
http://www.nanasala.lk index page has been developed by Kothmale radio group
When you see the “”contents””” it has two groups one Crimson logic and open world (open enrich)
Open world could have develop the sinhala standard. Then implement the content development
Any way all these work could have done by the Kothmale radio group as they were the leading gruop that have done the index page.
After doing all this why they have not developed the Sinhala and the Tamil pages?
How much funds were wasted by (Open eNRICH v4.0 developed by National Informatics Centre, Government of India in collaboration with UNESCO and OneWorld International Foundation.) doing web sites that cannot be accessed by all operating system and on a concept byond the basics of Unicode Inc and Internet.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
Good news for software developers
ICT Research and innovation grants
Please address your queries to
Project Director or Project Manager
icta.icbp@lk.pwc.com
Telephone 471-9838
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Mawbima ICT Adawiya
Read Mawbima’s ICT Adawiya supplement. This has got some more revelations regarding how ICTA was formed and what went wrong (and right.) Hope Dino will have his own place in this supplement as well.
Thoppi Velenda
We think Dino is so powerful and everybody in Sri Lanka knows him. But it is not so.
There are some people in Sri Lanka who does not know Dino. Surprisingly, one such person is the web master of the Computer Society in Sri Lanka.
See http://www.cssl.lk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=66&Itemid=84
You will see Dino’s photo mis-captioned.
Alas! Poor old Dino!!
Concerned
What happened Harsha de Silva’s TV show offer????? Harsha is a so called ‘economic advisor’ who run to TV stations to say all government mesures are wrong and he is right. Can any of you here tell me any productive thing this guy did to any field in Sri Lanka rather than boasting????
Donald Gaminitillake
I wrote an E mail to ICT Research and innovation grants on Sept 8th
They have not even acknowledge the E mail I sent
What more one can expect
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
24 hrs have gone after the posting of No 50
Yet it has not been corrected
CSSL !!!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Revy
Sri Lankan Chosen for ICANN
A Sri Lankan, Mr. Jayantha Fernando has been selected by the ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to serve as a member of a panel of experts reviewing registry services. I believe this is a great honour for our fellow Sri Lankans. Who know may he’d help me set up my own domain. :)
Here’s more about the dude : Taken off ICTA (Oh yes he’s a member of the ICTA too)
Jayantha Fernando
Legal Advisor
Jayantha Fernando is an Attorney by Profession and holds a specialized Masters Degree in IT & Communications Law from the University of London, which he completed on a British Chevening Scholarship of the UK Government (2001-2003)
He has extensive ICT Legal experience which spreads across Government and Private sector (both local and overseas), with exposure to several areas such as ICT Policy and Legal reforms, negotiating and drafting contracts for large ICT Projects, DNS, IP addressing & Internet resource management. As head of the eLaws program he played an active role in the formulation of the Electronic Transactions Bill, which was enacted by Parliament on 7th March 2006 and also helped in the preparation of the Computer Crimes Bill and addresses law enforcement requirements from 1996 todate. He is presently advising the adoption of a Data Protection Code of Practice.
Jayantha leads several ICT Legal and professional development programs and has overseas experience lecturing and training policy makers and government officials on ICT Legal and regulatory issues. He is also a lecturer at Sri Lanka Law College, the University of Moratuwa and University of Colombo School of computing (UCSC).
In 2005, he was selected to function as the Associate Chairman of the ICANN Nominating Committee and was invited to serve as a member for 2006. Recently he was selected to serve as a Member of the ICANN’s Standing Panel of Experts for the review of gTLD Registry services. Jayantha is a Board member of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution and also serves on the board of LK Domain Registry.
Donald Gaminitillake
It is nice to see Jayantha Fernando Legal Advisor being nominated
What he could not solve in Sri Lanka how can he solve in other countries.
ICTA has done an very unethical act by taking my Domain “AKURU” When I pointed this to Jayantha Fernando Legal Advisor in a public meeting he admitted that it is an unethical step but this problem cannot be solved in Sri Lanka as we have no laws yet. Everyting is partially done laws and work.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Domain
Donald,
Talk of the town is that you can get a .lk domain you crave for, “for an exchange”. Like Dino, Gihan D also said to be taking “little favors.”
Donald Gaminitillake
from http://www.nic.lk
akuru.lk is registered to ICTA- Information & Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka
Payment Due Date: 2005-01-01
So it is an expired Domain
ICTA have no right to own it as ICTA have not paid the dues
This is why I say “There is no equal access to justice in Sri Lanka”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
“for an exchange”.“little favors.”
What are these? be specific!!!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Sandhya Herath
As far as I know, LK Domain Registry is a non-government PRIVATE organisation operated by few PRIVATE individuals. It does not report to any ministry or any other government agency.
The directors of this PRIVATE FIRM are,
Gihan V. Dias
T. Ashok Peiris
Rohith Udalagama
G. Harsha Wijewardhana
V.K. Samaranayake
Jayantha T. Fernando
L.M. Chandana Weerasinghe
(Source http://www.nic.lk)
I have few questions.
1) How come a national domain registry is maintained by a PRIVATE FIRM / set of PRIVATE individuals?
2) How come the NIC breaks its own policies?
Eg. NIC domain policies clearly say that a generic term cannot be a domain name.
So how come the domains like http://www.island.lk, http://www.shop.lk, http://www.chamber.lk, http://www.garments.lk, http://www.climate.lk, http://www.microfinance.lk, http://www.access.lk, http://www.foss.lk, were given to non-governmental organisations? Does NIC think these terms are not generic?
(I do not question the generic term domains given to govt. organisations such as http://www.army.lk, http://www.navy.lk and http://www.news.lk, which is understandable.)
3) To whom the money paid for domain names goes? Does it go to the government or to an account of a PRIVATE individual? Are the NIC accounts audited by the government auditor or any auditing company?
Can any of the above gentlemen please answer these two questions?
Sandhaya Herath
Advise to Donald:
No need to worry. You can obtain the domain name http://www.e-akuru.lk (e hyphen akuru dot lk)
a) It reflects your concept best (even better than akuru dot lk)
b) It is still available (I just checked.)
c) You have the same advantages of having http://www.akuru.lk (eg. Anyone who searches for the term akuru will still get your site as a hit.)
Now, run fast and register this name. Otherwise ICTA will register that too.
Donald,
Why do you always rant over these minor matters? If they block you in one way, think and find an alternative way. Of course, people will block you in this country. The positive response will be not complaining but finding another way.
Sandhya
I just checked NIC site and found that in addition to http://www.akuru.lk, ICTA has also reserved its all sub domains including http://www.akuru.ngo.lk, http://www.akuru.com.lk, http://www.akuru.assn.lk and http://www.akuru.hotel.lk.
Nobody can really blame ICTA for reserving http://www.akuru.lk, but reserving the sub domains too is taking things too far.
As we all know, ICTA is not an NGO, association, commercial organization and definitely not a Hotel.
So if tomorrow Simon Appuhamy mudalali of Akuressa wants to have a hotel called HOTEL AKURU, he will not be able to have a dot lk web site, because ICTA has reserved the domain name the mudalali rightly deserves.
For a government organization I find this is a very unethical thing to do.
It looks like the sole purpose of ICTA blocking these domain and sub domain names is blocking Donald from getting one. (Unless of course, Prof. V. K. Samaranayake wants to open a hotel called Akuru Hotel, perhaps next to an ICTA Nanesala)
This is a very cheap act, and I suggest ICTA release this domain name asap, for anyone who wants to use it. (ICTA does not use it now. I do not think it has ever used it.)
ICTA is a government organization and it should not waste public money like this (even if it is Rs. 5,000) to fight with individuals.
Donald Gaminitillake
Thank you Sangana for positive response
Quote
“Why do you always rant over these minor matters? ”
Unquote
These are not minor matters Rights of the public is violated by a group of people.
I voice but others just give up
In another country this group will be in jail.
They do charge VAT but the VAT number is not published in the site — this is also a clear violation of TAX laws in Lanka.
I wonder whether they ever filed a VAT return??
Since ICTA have not paid the dues to akuru.lk domain I did asked Manju and the lawyer Jayantha to transfer the Domain but it went unanswered. I applied it to nic.lk but this request was never acknowledged or refused.
This is why I say “There is no equal access to justice in Sri Lanka”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Thoppi Velenda
Donald,
Now you have applied for the post of ICTA CEO, you should not tell things like that.
Instead you should sing the praises of Dino, Gihan D and the rest of the gang. You should tell about the good work these people have done to the country, and where we would have been without them.
Otherwise, do not blame us if you do not become the CEO.
Donald Gaminitillake
I applied for the job to do some work for the society.
Also I should clear the confilcts of interests- Akuru Domain, my copyrights and my pending patent and thought of IT for rural economy.
If you read Daily Mirror page A3 of Todays issue Sept 15,2006
“Public sector to go bi-lingual” written by Yohan Perera
“Children to be taught Sinhala and Tamil in Schools”
When we are unable to use Sinhala in a computer across all platforms. all the Sinhala characters are not registered in the Unicode.
They talk of 3T’s in teaching languages
T Teaching
T Text books
T Technology – this is a total flop as we are unable to use bilingual (Sinhala & Tamil) across all platforms.
Donald Gainitillake
Colombo
HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
It is good that we have come to this subject because there are myriad of issues involved with the dot lk domain name registry.
As Ms. Sandhya Herath correctly points out, all these are because the domain registry maintenance is under the name of one private individual. Although the name of University of Moratuwa appears in the http://www.nic.lk site, university of Moratuwa has nothing to do with dot lk domain registry. The day Dr. Gihan Dias leaves University of Moratuwa dot lk domain registry goes with him. Basically that is controlled by only two individuals. One is Dr. Dias and the other is Prof. V. K. Samaranayake. Both do this in their personal capacity.
Domain name, like a telephone, a vehicle or a share of a company a commodity. It is not anything like an identity card. There is no rule that one should have only one domain name and that should be related to the business one does. One can purchase any number of telephones and similarly, any number of domain names. That is what happens at international level and in most of the other countries.
The advantage of making domain names commodities is that itself becomes a business. One buys shares of an unknown company speculating that share price might rise one day and that pays for his investment. In a similar manner speculators usually register domain names of famous organisations with the idea of selling that to the respective companies in future. These speculators purchase hundreds and thousands of domain names, and that itself becomes a big business.
However, our friends Dr. Dias and Prof. Samaranayake either do not have an iota of business sense or they purposely want to restrict the expansion of dot lk domain names.
So they have put a condition that [quote] All applications must be forwarded with a clear justification for the reason of selecting the domain name. It should be accompanied with a declaration that the applicant is entitled to the name. [unquote] This obviously prevents all speculators.
The money that the country loses, by the stupid action of these two IT-dictators is enormous. For example, if the policies are relaxed and if there is a proper procedure to register dot lk domain names the government can earn about Rs. 50 million for a year. (assuming 10,000 name registrations)
If I were to use a common term used in this forum these IT-Dinosaurs are bane to the IT industry and bane to the nation. We can never develop the IT industry in Sri Lanka as long as we have such people in the top. There is a strong and immediate need to free the IT industry from this type of dinosaurs and give the responsibilities to young and dynamic players who have at least some sort of business sense.
Donald Gaminitillake
So Sandhya my ranting has given a another area where Dino is active.
There are lots of Basic IT affairs has to put into correct path.
I am raising my voice in these areas. Looks minor but grave issues
The public has to voice more and more
I am trying get some of these issues to raise with the babies in “Diyawanna oya”.
Starting with Sinhala
I have not taken this path but I will have to use to protect the language.
Since the problem is at very elementary level it is very difficult to convince.
Lets see the outcome
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
Which is Which
Go to
http://www.gov.lk/index.asp?xl=3
and click President
It will link to
http://www.presidentsl.org/data/
But again we have another site
http://www.priu.gov.lk/execpres/Indexep.html
The content differ
Both sites are hosted by the Government of Sri Lanka
When I check the gov.lk in the NIC
Top Level Domain
gov.lk is registered to LK Domain Registry
Payment Due Date: 2005-01-01
Second Level Domains
gov.assn.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.com.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.edu.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.grp.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.hotel.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.ltd.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.ngo.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.org.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.soc.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
gov.web.lk registered to ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
Domain priu.gov.lk is registered in the Sri Lankan Domain Registry for Presidential Secratariat
Registration Agent: LKNIC
Why should our president need a domain http://www.presidentsl.org/data/
He can use the Domain priu.gov.lk registered to Presidential Secratariat
Presidential Secratariat can have an archive for all ex presidents in Sri Lanka
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Pasan
We did a research project using the Standard Sinhala Unicode as our final year project Our project goal was to display sinhala in RSS feeds.
What we did was we read the news paper web sites such as lankadeepa site through a web spider and trnaslated the ASCII values to Unicode accroding to the Unicode table for sinhala.
To do the translation we developed an mapping algorithm using c# and from that algorithm we converted ASCII to Unicode.
We used http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0D80.pdf to do our convertion.
To view the RSS feeds in Sinhala we used Malithi web font which can be downloaded from http://www.fonts.lk
Dharma Gamage
Pasan,
Can you please let us know from where I can get more information about this research? Are you a student of Moratuwa or Colombo University?
I read Lankadeepa and Lankaenews sites frequently. Those sites do not need anybody to download fonts. One key issue I faced was the inability to cut and paste from those sites. I thought it was an inherent drawback of the system they use. Please educate us how that can be done.
Dharma Gamage
Is Lanka Bell using Unicode?
SMALL TALK
18 September 2006 15:27:48
Lanka Bell re-brands SMS for Sinhalese, Tamil audiences
Sept 18 (LBO) –Telco operator Lanka Bell said Monday it was re-branding its short message service through fixed line phones, to appeal to a wider audience.
Users can send short messages over its fixed line phones using CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology, now called ‘Keti Katha’ for Sinhalese users, at a cost of 75 cents a message, Lanka Bell said in a statement.
“The objective is to differentiate from the generic term. The short message service will be called Keti Katha for Sinhalese users and ‘kurum pechchu’ in Tamil for the Tamil community,” a spokesperson for the company, said.
“We have a lot of users in the rural areas and the re-invented names will make them feel more at home when they use it.”
Lanka Bell also has an email service over its fixed line phones. Customers can get an email address and an account set up on registration.
Last year, the telecom operator rolled out an expansion plan to connect rural Sri Lanka using low cost CDMA technology on the 800 Mhz band.
The investment has paid off rich dividends, with Lanka Bell’s customer base soaring by more than 90,000. A company official said subscriber base had now topped 300,000 following new investments of around 65 million dollars.
Updated 19 Sept
Donald Gaminitillake
Dear Pasan
The topic here is the Sinhala characters registered in unicode (what you had given)
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0D80.pdf
is incomplete and incorrect
Therefore all Sinhala characters are not represented in the Sinhala Unicode or SLSI1134
If you know how to read Sinhala
Please see the character “DU” in “Malithi ” and see whether that character is registered in the unicode
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Pasan
Hi Dharma,
I am a SLIIT Malabe student.
Our project goal was to give Sinhala News paper site news in RSS feeds in sinhala language.I don’t think that any news paper site provide sinhala rss feeds.
Our project supervisor was Mr.Nuwan Kodagoda.You can contact him or me for further details.
http://www.sliit.lk/Staff/Malabe_Academics.htm
Pasan
Dear Donald,
Yes I agree with you.We couldn’t display all the sinhala characters from that table.
This was a reserach project that we did for our final year. We got successfull may be 80%.
Pasan
Below is a sample rss feeds generated by our project.
News update at Sinhala news papers
http://www.sinhalarss.com/
Sinhala News updations
ෙපාලිස් අත්අඩංගුෙවී සිටි සැකකරැ අබිරහස් ෙලස මරැට ෙපාලීසිය ඇවිත් පහර දී මල්ලිව අරන් ගියා ෙසායුරිය පෑලියෙගාඩ ෙපාලීසිෙය් සිද්ධිය ගැන පරීෂණයක් – නි.ෙපාලිස්පති
ගයාන් කුමාර වීරසිංහ, භක්ති ධර්මපුිය ෙමන්ඩිස්, අජිත් පුෂ්පකුමාර – කැලණිය නිෙවස්වල භාවිතා කරන රැහැන් සහිත දුරකථනයක් ෙසාරකමී කිරීම සමීබන්ධෙයන් පෑලියෙගාඩ ෙපාලීසිය මගින් අත්අඩංගුවට ගන්නා ලද සැකකරැවකු ෙපාලිස් අත්අඩංගුෙවීදී අබිරහස් ෙලස ඊෙය් (14) මියෙගාස් ඇත ෙමාහුට ෙපාලිස් අත්අඩංගුෙවී දී පහරදීමක් සිදුවී දැයි සැකයක් මතුවී ඇත ෙපාලිස් අත්අඩංගුෙවීදී සැකකරැවකු ම
http://www.lakbima.lk/articles/news1.htm
සුනාමි සහන මණ්ඩලයට ලැෙබන විෙද්ශ ආධාර මැතිසෙබී වගකීමට – මුදල් ඇමැති
කමල් ලියනාරචීචි සුනාමි සහන මණ්ඩල කලාපීය අරමුදලට ලැෙබන විෙද්ශ ආධාර පාර්ලිෙමීන්තුෙවී වගකීමට ෙමන්ම විගණකාධිපතිවරයාෙග් අධීෂණයට යටත් වන බව මුදල් හා කුම සමීපාදන ඇමැති ආචාර්ය සරත් අමුණුගම මහතා පුකාශ කෙළ්ය. රජය එ් සමීබන්ධෙයන් ෙපෙර්දා (14 දා) අධිකරණයට කරැණු ඉදිරිපත් කළ බව ෙහෙතම පැවසීය. කැබිනටි තී
http://www.lakbima.lk/articles/news2.htm
හමුදා බස්වලට පහර දීමට සැකසු කි. 7 ක ක්ෙල්ෙමා් ෙබා්මීබයක් ෙසායා ගනී මරාෙගන මැෙරන ඇඳුමී කටිටලයක් ෙමන් සකස් කරලා
තිස්ස රවීන්දු ෙපෙර්රා හමුදා ෙසබථන් නිවාඩු යන අවස්ථාවලදී ගමන් කරන හමුදා බස් රථ (“ලිබර්ටි”) වලට පහර දීෙමී සුදානමින් ෙගන ආ බවට සැකකරන මරාෙගන මැෙරන ඇඳුමී කටිටල ෙමන් සකස් කළ කිෙලා්ගුෑමී හතක ක්ෙල්ෙමා් ෙබා්මීබයක් මඩකලපුව, තිමිලතිවී පුෙද්ශෙය්දී හමුදා භට පිරිස් විසින් ෙපෙර්දා (14) රාතුී 8.00 ට පමණ ෙසායාෙගන ඇත. ෙමම ෙබා්මීබය විනාඩි 10 සහ ව
http://www.lakbima.lk/articles/news3.htm
යාන්තුණෙය් ජාතික කමිටුෙවී රජෙය් නිෙයා්ජිතයා ඩිවී
කමල් ලියනාරචීචි සුනාමි සහන මණ්ඩල ජාතික කමිටුෙවී රජෙය් නිෙයා්ජිතයා ෙලස ව වස්ථා කටයුතු ඇමැති ඩිවී ගුණෙස්කර මහතා පත් කිරමට රජය තීරණය කළ බව කැබිනටි පුකාශක ෙඍඛ ෙපා්ෂණ හා ඌව ෙවල්ලස්ස සංවර්ධන ඇමැති නිමල් සිරිපාල ද සිල්වා මහතා පුකාශ කෙළ්ය. කැබිනටි තීරණ දැනුමී දීම සඳහා නාරාෙහ
http://www.lakbima.lk/articles/news4.htm
ෙමී වසෙර් ජනපතිවරණය රනිල් දකින සිහිනයක් – ෛමතුීපාල සිරිෙස්න
කමණි ෙහටිටිආරචීචි ෙමී වසෙර් ජනාධිපති වරණයක් පැවැත්වීමට රනිල් විකුමසිංහ මහතා දකින සිහිනය කිසිෙස්ත් සැබෑ ෙනාවන බවත්, 2006 පැවැත්ෙවන ජනාධිපති වරණය සඳහා වාමාංශික පුගතිශීලී බලෙවීගවල ෙපාදු අෙප්කෂකෙයක් ඉදිරිපත් කරන බවත් ශුී ලංකා නිදහස් පෂෙය් පුධාන ෙල්කමී මහවැලි, ගංගාධාර හා රජරට සංවර්ධන ඇ
http://www.lakbima.lk/articles/news5.htm
NoNonsense
What nonsense is this!!! Is this Sinhala or any other language which alieans speak!!! Mr Donald is right it seems. All these guys spend time on research and some Dinos spend millions of government rupees and come with a very inferior solutions like this. Why can’t a single character be displayed as a single character. In all these bloddy solutions a charactor shows in 3-4 letters!!! What a joke is this!!!
You can’t read lankadeep or lankaenews if you already don;t have their fonts. You had it already installed or some other font like kaputa helps those two e-papers. I challenge u to see those sites well with a brand new/formatted PC without any pre-installed SInhala charactor.
Please do not waste your valuble time in researches that produce stuff similar to “Kandak Wilila Mee Petiyek Weduwa Wagey.” This is a shame!!! We have 100s of computer experts in this country but none can produce a perfect solution for Sinhala. The only guy who claims capable of doing this, Donald, unfortunately, is cracy.
Doandl Gaminitillake
Pasan Thanks for the comments
Since you are from Malabe Mr Dimuth (now in Canada) was a person who understood my project and helped me with the public lecture under the nose of the Dino at the Uni of Colombo
I always appricaiate the work of Malabe but still none of the students other than Pasan told that Unicode Sinhala is incomplete.
Quote from 73
Yes I agree with you.We couldn’t display all the sinhala characters from that table.
This was a reserach project that we did for our final year. We got successfull may be 80%.
Unqote
Thank you again for the truth
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
samarajiva
I too had the same question JCA had re the Lanka Bell story. Here’s the answer I got from a knowledgeable person which may be of interest to this group:
“I think in this case they use English to type the Sinhala message as the CDMA handsets which they are marketing don’t have the language capabilities nor application installation capabilities. So they are sending Sinhala & Tamil messages in English. Ex: If you want to say something like “Kohomoda Sepa Saneepa?” You type the message in English and send the message.
In order to put native sinhala & tamil to the handsets either the handset manufacturers should do that in firmware level or we have to use bit high end CDMA handset which is capable of running Java Application which then can support our software. We discussed this with both Suntel & Lanka Bell but the issue is the other handsets are expensive and manufacturers want volume commitments.”
Donald Gaminitillake
I quote again from No24 of http://www.lirneasia.net/2006/07/standardizing-sinhala-for-it-part-3/
(Part3)
Quote
Your main request of supporting the QWERTY keyboard layout for Sinhala and Tamil is not at all an unreasonable request. Users the world over have graduated from traditional typesetting systems, and there are strong legacy reasons for which it is sometimes prudent to support multiple keyboard layouts for any language.
Unquote
First we got to accept the present Sinhala unicode is incorrrect
Accept the need of full individual characters for Sinhala (only Donald has published such idea and comment)
Accept the fact we need a proper IME type of application (Donald will develop the basic one)
When we line up this and develop it the language problems using SInhala and Tamil will be eliminated.
Once I do for the PC converting it to suit the SMS system is not a problem.
I am not given the credentials to perform this task. It is all because Dino’s group missed my thinking of Individual characters and just went ahead with the type writer technology.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Newspapaers
Most of the Sinhalese newspapers like Lankadeepa, Mawbima, Rivira cannot be read with Netscape and Mozilla browsers even with the downloaded fonts. Over to you donalnd.
Donald Gaminitillake
That is why I am asking you all to give me the credentials
Donald
Donald Gaminitillake
The Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections is having a IT Work shop Please register directly with the Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections
Details given below
Donald Gaminitillake
Secretary, Rotary Club of Colombo Central
***************
Workshops on IT Literacy
The Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections
September 2006
The Rotary club of Colombo Reconnections will celebrate the New Generations month of September 2006 with 2 workshops on IT Literacy. This will be held on Tuesday, 26th of September 2006 at the Galle Face Hotel, Lotus Lounge.
“Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software : How to become a Smart Player in the Knowledge Revolution” – by Dr Shahani Markus Weerawarana, Chief Technology Officer, ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
The details of the 2 workshops are as follows;
Workshop one – starting at 5pm
This will be aimed to provide the younger generation with new/latest technological/business information, career guidance and inspirational role models, that would enable them in today’s marketplace.
This program will be followed by a workshop for Rotarians
Workshop two (the business community) – starting at 6.30pm
What we need to know about our corporate website, the internet and email as leaders in the business community and professionals.
The above workshops will briefly cover:
– An introduction to Free & Open Source Software (FOSS)
– The FOSS model of operation
– FOSS initiatives across the world and in Sri Lanka
– How to become part of FOSS community
The entrance fee per person is a only Rs 300/=
We looking forward to welcoming you to experience and be inspired, together with members of your club, organization, family and friends. Please email us at timalta@sltnet.lk and confirm your attendance so that we can cater for you.
We meet every Thursday at 6.30pm at Galle Face Hotel.
Please pass this on to others who can benefit.
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
As I have told you umpteenth times before you do not need any credentials to develop a new system, if you think the present one is wrong.
Nobody gave credentials for Wright brothers to invent the air plane. They did on their own. Nobody gave credentials to Bill Gates to develop Microsoft Windows. Neither Michael Dell nor Steve Woznaik got any credentials to develop Dell and Apple PCs. That is how things happen.
If you are so passionate about it, you can always develop your own system. If it is worth buying phone companies will buy it. It is up to you to sell it.
You go on repeating the same stupid arguments like a broken gramophone, as somebody rightly said. You never answer the key questions.
1. Even if your system is 100% correct, how are you so sure major OS developers will buy it? There were so many excellent systems did not see the light of the day, because nobody wanted to buy them. What is your marketing plan?
2. Even if your system is 100% correct, why do you think any phone manufacturer will include that in their phones, when the market is so small? Why should they bother?
If you can answer those two questions successfully, you do not need any taxpayers money to introduce your system. You can do it right away.
Unfortunately, all you have done is to cut and paste something that appears in the back of any hodi potha, and claim it is yours.
All I can see is you are an alternate Dino, who wants to kick Dino away and waste the tax payers money on useless projects.
I am glad that the students of SLIIT have gone far ahead of you. You should learn from them.