S. J. V. Chelvanayakam

Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam (March 31, 1898 - April 27, 1977) was a SriLnkan politician and leader of the Tamil community.

Early life Chelvanayakam was born in Ipoh, Malaysia, but returned to Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) at the age of four. He studied at Union College, Tellippalai, and St. Thomas' College. At age 19, he had a bachelor's degree, and by 25, was called to the bar. He married Emily Grace Barr Kumuarakulasinghe two years later.

Political career Chelvanayakam became active in the All Ceylon Tamil Congress during the drive for independence, becoming the party's deputy leader. He was elected to Parliament in the 1947 elections.

The ACTC was torn between Chelvanayakam and G.G. Ponnambalam, who pushed for greater cooperation with the United National Party government. Chelvanayakam broke with Ponnambalam in protest over the latter's support for the denial of citizenship to the estate Tamils in 1949. He went on to found a new, more aggressive party, the Federal Party.

In the 1956 election, the Federal Party emerged as the leading party in the Tamil regions, but the new prime minister, Solomon Bandaranaike, pushed through the Sinhala Only Act, which met with stiff opposition from the Tamils.

Chelvanayakam led a satyagraha protest against the new law. The campaign succeeded at first in swaying the government, which negotiated the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact which agreed to provide government services in Tamil and devolve powers to a set of provincial councils. Bandaranaike abandoned the pact after stiff opposition from Buddhist monks.

After his fruitless experience dealing with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party governments of 1956-65, Chelvanayakam turned to the UNP. After that party's victory in the 1965 election, the Federal Party joined the government of Dudly Senanayake. He signed the Senanayake-Chelvanayakam Pact which also provided for Tamil services and district councils.

Senanayake's regime failed to implement the Pact and as a result, Chelvanayakam and the FP left the government in 1968.

By the 1970s, Chelvanayakam had grown bitter over his failure to win any meaningful concessions from the Sinhalese, and became sympathetic to the cause of Tamil separatism. The FP and other parties merged into the Tamil United Liberation Front towards that end, with Chelvanayakam as their leader.

Death His health was increasingly poor; he had suffered from Parkinson's disease and growing deafness since the 1950s. In 1961, Chelva underwent surgery in Edinburgh to relieve the stress from Parkinson disease at the hands of a neurosurgeon, Francis John Gillingham and the operation "proved successful." Despite the success of this operation, he died in 1977 at his home and was buried in Jaffna.

Profile

Leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front In office1972–1977

Leader of the Federal Party In office1949–1972

Deputy Leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress In office1944–1949

Member of the Sri Lanka Parliamentfor Kankesanthurai In office1947–1952 Succeeded by Subaiya Nadesan, UNP

In office1956–1977 Preceded by Subaiya Nadesan, UNP

Born March 31, 1898(1898-03-31)Ipoh, Malaysia

Died April 27, 1977 (aged 79)Jaffna, Sri Lanka

Political party Tamil United Liberation Front

Spouse(s) Emily Grace Barr Chelvanayakam

Alma mater Union CollegeSt. Thomas College

Profession Lawyer

#1 Quantitty Surveyor

Ten years later, bronze 'special' for U.S. gymnast Dominique Dawes

It may be 10 years since she competed in the Olympics, but gymnast Dominique Dawes is thrilled about the new medal she will soon add to her collection. Dawes and her teammates were given the bronze after China was stripped of their 2000 Olympic bronze medals because they fielded an underage competitor, Dong Fangxiao.

Dawes, who has worked with Yahoo! Sports for the past two Olympics, heard the good news from another reporter.

"I got calls from fellow reporters before receiving an email from the [Gymnastics International] Federation," Dawes told Fourth-Place Medal. "I also got a call by my coach, Kelli Hill, to congratulate me on the medal."

She said that getting the medal puts a positive ending on an Olympics that had been disappointing for Team USA, which had been shut out of medals.

"It was very difficult not just for the gymnasts, but the coaches as well. When we got to Sydney, we didn't have gold medal on our minds, but we knew there was a possibility for us to get on the podium. It is good to know that now, 10 years later, we did achieve the goal that we had set out to do."

In 2000, though there had been whispers about Fangxiao's age, Dawes avoided the gossip to focus on her performances.

"As an athlete, when you're competing, you're not focused on the things you can't control," Dawes said. "Of course, I heard about the speculation of the athletes being underage. However, once I heard it, I quickly forgot about it. It was really something I didn't want to affect my performance in a negative way."

Dawes contacted teammate Elise Ray immediately after hearing about the medal, and though both women are ecstatic, Dawes can't help but find it bittersweet.

"When I look at it, there are two things that bother me. One, my teammates. This is their first medal and they didn't get to stand on the podium and have those medals put around our necks and have America watching on TV and be so proud of them, and number two, it's the Chinese gymnasts. The one thing that everyone's ignoring in this situation is that these gymnasts don't have a voice. They don't have a say. They're told that they're going to compete, and they're supposed to say they're a certain age, and it's sad. They are stripping these athletes, and they don't have a voice."

Still, Dawes said that this win will hold a special place for her among her other accomplishments in gymnastics, which includes an Olympic gold, three Olympic bronzes and three world silver medals.

"It does definitely add something different and special. I had taken a year off prior to those Olympics, and I came back after just training for four months, and I really did it for the fans because they had been such strong supporters of me throughout my Olympic career. It really is a sweet moment for me, because I was 23, I was over-the-hill, I was done, and I was really saying farewell to the fans."

Insights On Year End Bonuses

Upper Saddle River, NJ - February 2, 2010 - 2009 was a tough year for many businesses. For those who were able to survive and, in some cases, turn a profit, many were faced with another problem - how to distribute bonuses.

Year-end bonuses allow a company to share in the profitability and successes that it achieved during the year. Unfortunately, since the bonus determination is an after-the-fact process, it is very similar to the biblical "manna from heaven"; we don't fully understand where it came from, but we're not going to give it back. The problem with bonuses is two-fold: there is little or no linkage between the payout and performance, and it tends to become an expectation, and, therefore, an entitlement.

Incentives, on the other hand, have a clearly identified cause and effect relationship. By setting the expectations up front, not only is there a much greater probability of achieving those goals, but the rationale for the payments is understood. On the other hand, if the desired performance is not met, the lack of results supports the lack of any rewards.

One issue with implementing incentive plans over after-the-fact bonuses is that the organization must determine performance goals up front. Without identifying specific performance measures and targets, there is no way of defining when success is
achieved. It would be like playing football without any of the field markers, lines, or goals. It may be an exciting game, but there is certainly going to be a lot of bickering on what happened. Surprisingly, many organizations don't establish their "goal lines",
but still expect their employees to know what they are supposed to do. However, once
a company has determined its expectations and communicated these to its management and employees, it is much easier to develop the reward mechanism which will pay for performance. In very simplistic terms, this is how incentive plans work.

Since we have organized through 2009 and are now starting a new year, companies
should now finalize their 2010 objectives and convert their year-end bonus programs
into much more effective incentive plans. Call a member of our consulting staff to
discuss how we can assist your company to eliminate entitlements, and introduce real
pay-for-performance programs.

Setting Floor Tiles Is Not So Hard

To lay floor tiles in a room you need some specific tools. You will need floor tiles like ceramic tiles, tile spacers, adhesive, chalk or a chalk line, a tile cutter, a notched spreader, a grout float, a sponge to dampen and wipe the grout, and a clean cloth.

How to Begin
To start take some time to lay out the floor tiles. This step is important it is known as setting out or laying out the floor tiles. Mark the mid-point of the walls in an intersecting line onto the floor with chalk. Begin laying out the floor tiles and spacers and making adjustments so as to not have cut tiles nearest the wall that is seen as you walk into the room are that are clearly visible. Try and use as many whole floor tiles as possible.

The next step is to lift the floor tiles and begin applying adhesive starting in one corner of the room using the notched spreader. Start laying the floor tiles beginning in the centre where you had marked the chalk lines and work your way towards the walls. Walls are rarely straight and should never be used as guides.

As the floor tiles are laid use spacers in between the tiles, continuing outwards. Follow this method until all of the whole floor tiles are laid throughout the room, leaving only the cut floor tiles needed to fill the gaps. Using the tile cutter, cut the floor tiles and make sure to allow for the grout spacing in all your cuts. Once all of the gaps have been filled the adhesive needs to set over night.

Grouting
After about 12 hours or so depending on the adhesives instructions, you will be ready to grout the seams of all of your floor tiles. Mix your grout accordingly, and apply liberally using your grout float ensuring to get even amounts inside all of your floor tile seams. The excess grout can be wiped away with a damp sponge and the floor tiles can be cleaned in the same manner and wiped with a clean cloth. In the end you should
have a beautifully laid and professional looking tiled floor.

Inexpensive and Long Lasting

Do it your-selfers love saving money and take pride in their own work. Tile flooring
comes in so many colors textures and styles that it is hard to imagine not finding
something to suit your taste. As well there are always good prices in tile flooring that
makes it such a great deal.

Why Use A Web Presenter For Your Site

There are over 1,733,000,000 Internet users around the globe and over 235 million
searches done on Google a day. The Internet has become rich pickings for companies wishing to market there products, services or ideas to a global audience. With so many businesses now online, it is a critical decision for the company, to be first found, and
second to keep the user on the site long enough to capture there attention and get them to carry out a call to action, whether that be buy a product, sign up for a
newsletter, or join a forum.

One of the most influential ways to capture a user, is through video and especially a web presenter. It has been proven that visitors to a website, normally have a very short attention span. Seven seconds to be exact. This means the website owner, has seven seconds to captivate there audience before they leave, or worse leave and purchase from a competitor. By the use of video on a site, the customer is naturally
drawn to the image, and will pick up more than 30% more information than if they just
read just content on a site.

Web Presenters Capture The Attention

One way to capture the customer is by the use of a walk on web presenter. Walk on
web presenters are usually professional actors/actresses or for a special touch some webmaster will take the role of web presenter themselves. Usually all that is needed is for the web presenter to walk on from either the left or right hand of the screen and deliver a short welcome message and brief introduction of the site pointing out the key features.

Web Presenter Video Tour

Another idea is to use video as a marketing tool for a companies products and services. This can be either in the form of a direct advert about the company offering a walk through of the store, interviewing staff members and even the owner of the business or a instructional/how-to-video solving an every day problem, for example changing a car battery. This engages the user without it feeling like there forced into a sale.

This can be seen as a daunting and difficult task for the business owner, but it need not be. A video production company can outline the steps needed to product a successful video, and help with scripting, editing, filming, casting and more. Some will even distribute your video content.

STUPID QUESTIONS WITH THE SMART ANSWERS

BOY : May I hold your hand?

GIRL : No thanks, it isn't heavy.

GIRL : Say you love me! Say you love me!

BOY : You love me...

GIRL : If we become engaged will you give me a ring??

BOY : Sure, what's your phone number??

GIRL : I think the poorest people are the happiest.

BOY : Then marry me and we'll be the happiest couple

GIRL : Darling, I want to dance like this forever.

BOY : Don't you ever want to improve??

BOY : I love you and I could die for you!

GIRL : How soon??

BOY : I would go to the end of the world for you!

GIRL : Yes, but would you stay there??