Anti-Muslim campaign in Sri Lanka and responses of the Buddhists

Sri Lanka is a country where multi ethnic, multi language, multi religious people live. Buddhist is the predominant religious group in Sri Lanka, while the Muslims formed second biggest religious group, next to Tamils. The Buddhist-Muslim relationship has been prevailing and everlastingly for centuries, sbut for a couple of years, a disturbing trend has wide spread, between them. This conflictual nature has come to appear aftermath of the anti-Muslim campaign by few Buddhist Nationalist Groups (BNGs) in Sri Lanka. The basic purpose of the anti-Muslim campaign in Sri Lanka is to propagate bad image of Islam and the Muslims of Sri Lanka, to create a negative perspective among Buddhist public about Islam and Muslims and to distort the good relationship of Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka. In recent past years, few Buddhist Nationalist Groups, campaigned against Halal certification on consumer goods, Hijab of Muslim women, cattle slaughtering, worship places and prayer services in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, they have spread out the idea, that the latest Muslim developments within the country; especially in terms of religion; is a notable threat to Buddhism and to the Buddhist people. These wrong perceptions, ideas and point of views are major factors in Muslim-Buddhist bad relationship, in recent past years. This research attempts to analyze the point of views of few Buddhists, on recent campaigns, against the Muslims, undertaken by the BNGs, in recent past years, by conducting a semi structured interviews in 14 selected Buddhist majority districts of Sri Lanka. Based on the results, it is clearly affirmed that, the recent anti-Muslim campaign, by the BNGs, have created a suspicious nature Muslim stereotype among a group of Buddhists in the society, over a fact that a Buddhist-Muslim relationship in recent past years has damaged a lot. However, these campaigns have not changed the whole Buddhist’s mood and point of views, in terms of maintaining a good relationship with Muslims in Sri Lanka, without any break, as the majority know and respect Muslim citizens of Sri Lanka, because of the behavior and support of Muslims towards the Sri Lankan state, during the civil war (1984-2009) and pre-war time in Sri Lanka

Post-Tension Relationship between Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a multi religious, multi cultural, multi lingual and multi ethnic country and Buddhists are the predominant ethnic group, constitutes 70.19%  of total population and the Muslims are second largest minority in this country. There are enormous records in the history to prove well the cordial relationship, longer than 1200 years, between the Buddhists and the Muslims since historical times onward. However, in recent past years, particularly, during the aftermath of civil war (1983-2009) it could be observable a tension on the relationship between these two societies. This is because of campaigns undertaken by a few Buddhist nationalist groups with the purpose of making a division between the respective societies. So these groups have been carrying protests against the Muslims’ social, cultural and religious aspects such as issuing Halal certification, slaughtering animals for meals, worship places and prayer services and so on. Also, they have disseminated the misinterpretations about the Muslims and their religion-Islam with derogatory speeches among the Buddhist public. Based on the above backdrop, this paper attempts to find the post-tension Buddhists’ relationship with the Muslims through the Buddhists’ point of view with a measure social interaction. According to the result, there is not remarkable fluctuation on the relationship line between the Buddhists and the Muslims, and the Buddhists did not concern the number of social, cultural and religious practices of the Muslims as the barriers of maintaining a better interaction among them. However, almost all of the Buddhists have pointed out here that the animal slaughtering is a mere problematic factor from the Muslims side in maintaining a better interaction with them due to having prohibition according to Buddhism philosophy. Keywords: Post-tension, relationship, Buddhists, Muslims, Sri Lanka

Perlaksanaan etika kerja Islam: persepsi masyarakat terhadap kewartawanan Islam media arus perdana dan alternatif

Dalam suasana amalan kewartawanan hari ini, pelbagai tohmahan dan aduan mengenai reputasi wartawan sering menjadi topik persoalan. Kadangkala wartawan dianggap umpama boneka yang sering menjadi bahan permainan sesetengah pihak yang tidak bertanggungjawab. Perkara ini berlaku kerana sifat tamak untuk mengaut keuntungan dan kesenangan bagi sebelah pihak sahaja tanpa menghiraukan etika kerja yang sebenar. Justeru itu, kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti pemahaman perlaksanaan etika kerja Islam dan perlaksanaannya terhadap kepuasan kerja di kalangan wartawan Islam media arus perdana dan alternatif. Metodologi kajian menggunakan kaedah tinjauan yang menggunakan borang soal selidik di mana sampel yang diambil sebanyak 221 orang responden yang terdiri daripada masyarakat sekitar negeri Kedah. Hasil dapatan kajian berdasarkan persepsi masyarakat terhadap tahap pemahaman mengenai etika kerja Islam di kalangan wartawan media arus perdana dan alternatif tidak menunjukkan perbezaan di mana responden menyatakan tahap yang sederhana. Namun dari sudut tahap kepuasan responden terhadap wartawan media arus perdana dan alternatif menunjukkan responden menyatakan tahap kepuasan yang tinggi terhadap etika kerja di kalangan wartawan Islam media alternatif berbanding media arus perdana responden menyatakan tahap etika kerja di kalangan wartawan tersebut masih berada di tahap yang sederhana. Secara rumusannya dapatlah disimpulkan bahawa pihak atasan daripada media arus perdana dan alternatif haruslah peka dengan keadaan ini di mana dilihat kepada dapatan kajian menunjukkan tahap pemahaman terhadap perlaksanaan etika kerja Islam di kalangan wartawan Islam media arus perdana dan alternatif berada di tahap sederhana. Begitu juga tahap kepuasan responden terhadap wartawan Islam media arus perdana terutamanya menunjukkan tahap sederhana. Jika dibiarkan ianya akan menyebabkan kerugian kepada premis kerana amalan kerja amat penting dalam Islam untuk menarik pelanggan dan meningkatkan lagi kebolehpercayaan masyarakat terhadap maklumat yang disampaikan

History of Muslims in Monaragala (Wellassa) District, Sri Lanka: Empirical Evidences

Monaragala is one of the 25 administrative districts of Sri Lanka. This district was also named as Wellassa by its ancient inhabitants. It is located in the Uva Province in the South Eastern region of Sri Lanka.  In Monaragala the Sinhalese are the dominant ethnic group as they constitute 94.5% of the total population, the Tamils 3.3% and the Muslims 2.17%. The main objective of this study is to explore the history of the Muslims in Monaragala District. It is an unfilled gap and there is no more academic research on the history of Muslims of Monaragala. Thus, this study takes this gap to be bridged throughout an academic field survey as a qualitative nature of research. In order to carry out this research there has been used the folktales and utterances prevailed among the native public as well as the administrative records and census reports, the ancient tombs and daily used house wares and articles. Based on the finding of this study, the Muslims settled down in Monaragala or Wellassa area during the time of Portuguese rule (1505-1656) from the Central (Kandy) and Southern provinces of Sri Lanka and increased their settlements gradually during the Dutch (1656-1796) and British regimes (1796-1948). Keywords: History, Muslims, Monaragala District, Wellassa, Sri Lank

Effects of gradation on hydraulic conductivity properties of compacted laterite soil liner: a review

This paper presents the recent review on the effects of gradation on hydraulic conductivity properties of compacted laterite soil liner. The distribution of different grain sizes affects the engineering properties of soil such as compressibility, shear strength, and hydraulic conductivity . It is observed that there are variations in hydraulic conductivity values in laterite soils from various researches around tropical countries of the world . Hydraulic conductivity varies from 4.36×10 -3 m/s to 4.7×10 -11 m/s relative to fine contents ranging from 1.3% to 69% and coarse contents ranging from 31% to 98.7%. Generally, there is no clear trend established for effects of gradation on hydraulic conduc- tivity properties of compacted laterite soil liners. This is because laterite soils with less than 50 fines content cannot be used as liner or hydra ulic barriers because their hydraulic conductivities are less than the minimum requirement of 1 × 10 -9 m/s. It is anticipated that with logical understanding of the effects of gradation on hydraulic conductivity properties of compacted laterite soil it wil l serve as a guide in the design of hydraulic barriers for engineered sanitary landfills in tropical countries around the world

A facile thermal-treatment route to synthesize ZnO nanosheets and effect of calcination temperature.

A facile thermal-treatment route was successfully used to synthesize ZnO nanosheets. Morphological, structural, and optical properties of obtained nanoparticles at different calcination temperatures were studied using various techniques. The FTIR, XRD, EDX, SEM and TEM images confirmed the formation of ZnO nanosheets through calcination in the temperature between 500 to 650 °C. The SEM images showed a morphological structure of ZnO nanosheets, which inclined to crumble at higher calcination temperatures. The XRD and FTIR spectra revealed that the samples were amorphous at 30 °C but transformed into a crystalline structure during calcination process. The average particle size and degree of crystallinity increased with increasing calcination temperature. The estimated average particle sizes from TEM images were about 23 and 38 nm for the lowest and highest calcination temperature i.e. 500 and 650 °C, respectively. The optical properties were determined by UV-Vis reflection spectrophotometer and showed a decrease in the band gap with increasing calcination temperature

The method of extracting the band gaps of ZnO nanosheets calcined at different temperatures.

<p>The method of extracting the band gaps of ZnO nanosheets calcined at different temperatures.</p

The EDX spectrum of the ZnO nanosheets clacined at 500°C.

<p>The EDX spectrum of the ZnO nanosheets clacined at 500°C.</p

TEM images and particle size distribution of ZnO nanosheets at calcination temperature of (a) 500, (b) 550, (c) 600 and (d) 650°C.

<p>TEM images and particle size distribution of ZnO nanosheets at calcination temperature of (a) 500, (b) 550, (c) 600 and (d) 650°C.</p