Wednesday, December 14, 2016

My Top 10 Personalities of the last 70 years

Where does Mr.Trump will fit in?

History will record it in posterity.

Only one Ceylonese in the list.

He was our third Prime Minister and held office once (Good on him).

He is one who quit politics very early saying that it is far better to do fox hunting in England than engaged in politics in Ceylon.


My Top 10 Personalities of the last 70 years
1. Nelson Mandela
2. Muhammad Ali
3 Martin Luther King, Jr.
4. Patrice Lumumba
5. Wangari Maathai
6. Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs
7. Linus Benedict Torvalds
8. John Fitzgerald Kennedy / Lyndon B Johnson
9. Sir John Kotalawala
10. Arthur Scargill


Failed to make the mark above the top 10 but considered welcome
Che Guerra
Fidel Castro
Sukarno of Indonesia,
Jawaharlal Nehru of India,
Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia,
Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.


Postscript;

Pepe, The People's PresidentUruguay's President Jose Mujica says he has been offered $1m (£630,000) for his vintage Volkswagen Beetle.

Mr Mujica, once dubbed "the poorest president in the world" because of his modest lifestyle, said the offer had come from an Arab sheikh.

He told the weekly Busqueda magazine that if he did accept the offer, the money would be used to help the poor.

President Mujica - popularly known as Pepe - lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay.

In 2010, his annual personal wealth declaration - mandatory for officials in Uruguay - was $1,800, the value of his blue 1987 Beetle.

Busqueda reported that the offer for the car was made at an international summit earlier this year in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

"They made me an offer," Mr Mujica, 79, told the magazine.

"I was a bit surprised, and at first I really didn't pay too much attention to it. But later, another offer came in, and I began to take it a little more seriously."

 Jose Mujica has lived in his wife's farmhouse rather than in the presidential palace

The president said he had "no commitment to cars" and would happily auction it.

He joked that he had not sold it so far because he needed it for his dog Manuela, famous for only having three legs.

Mr Mujica said that if he got $1m for the car, he would donate it to a programme he supports that provides housing for the homeless.

President Mujica is barred by the constitution from running for a second consecutive term and a presidential election held last month is to go to a second round.

A recent survey gave Mr Mujica an approval rating of nearly 60%.