Garvin Karunaratne, former Government Agent, Matara, 19/9/2022 The present Government has already embarked on a programme of privatization, despite the fact that it has no mandate from the people. In the Presidential Election where over sixty percent of people voted and elected Gotabhaya as the President, as well as in the General Election where the […]

By Garvin Karunaratne In presenting the budget of 1978, the Finance Minister, Ronnie de Mel wrote: We cannot go round the world begging for Aid like international beggars for ever. We must get out of this vicious circle of no growth, stagnation and mounting international and external debt.” Then, in 1978, Sri Lanka had a […]

By Garvin Karunaratne, formerly of the SLAS The Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka happen to be interlocked into the rest of Sri Lanka economically and cannot sustain itself if separated. This fact is well illustrated in the working of government departments that deal with development. My life in the Administrative Service began in […]

Garvin Karunaratne, Phd Michigan State University I would request our leaders- the President, the Prime Minister and the Governor of the Central Bank  to please consider approving the implementation of a new programme to create employment and also create the production of all items that we imported. It could be on the lines of the […]

by Garvin Karunaratne I  write in  support  of Sudath Gunasekera’s Paper re completely disbanding the 13 th Amendment.  Sections from Two of my earlier Papers that prove the fact that the 13 th Amendment should be totally abolished are enclosed to remind patriots. Why the 13 th Amendment is inimical for our development and how […]

by Garvin Karunaratne  Import Substitution does not ring a bell with the IMF, The talk today is to privatize. However what we need today in order to tackle the economic meltdown is import substitution.   My mind travels to an older Paper of mine which offers the solution to provide the production that we need which […]

By Garvin Karunaratne It was four months ago in March 2022 that I suggested immediate action re our economic meltdown. I recall:The Way Out of the economic abyss besetting Sri Lanka” in the Lanka Web of March 11 th. It is months- four months have passed and yet as Bindu says we are only talking. […]

By Garvin Karunaratne If President Gotabhaya had taken action on the suggestions in my  Paper: The Way Out of the Economic Abyss besetting Sri Lanka published in the Lanka Web on 11 th March 2022, he would not be in the present plight. Our country would also have been saved from its present disastrous situation. […]

by Garvin Karunaratne I enclose one of my 2019 Papers which warned our fate which has come though today. It also contains what has to be done to get out of our economic woes. May this awaken our leaders to an immediate process of action. Bindu once said we are all following NATO principles. Lets […]

by Garvin Karunaratne With queues for fuel extending to miles at Petrol stations, with queues for cooking gas, essential industries like Sevanagala sugar closing down due to lack of fuel, scarcity of food and essential food getting beyond the reach of people due to the 80% devaluation of the rupee, Sri Lanka has a doomed […]

by Garvin Karunaratne News is just out that Sri lanka has been taken to the Courts in the USA by a bond holding company, Hamilton Reserve Bank Ltd, which owns $ 250 million of International Sovereign Bonds, requesting a Court Order for payment. This refers to a portion of the loan the payment of which […]

Garvin Karunaratne. former GA Matara Stray information on granting deeds of lands    in the news is fairly indicative of the fact that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has unofficially commenced implementing the MCC Project in Sri Lanka, which he stated he will sign if he, the UNP won the 2019 Presidential Election. At the election […]

by Garvin Karunaratne The sad news of a mother in Badulla who commited suicide unable to bear the sight of her three children who have not had a meal for three days is indicative of the future of our beloved motherland. Two weeks ago my writing that starvation and death to around half a million […]

Garvin Karunaratne, former GA Matara Dollars are sold to the highest bidder to keep on importing Luxury goods while refusing $ for food and medicines” reveals what is really happening today. In reality today dollars do come in to the banks and to the private currency dealers and the bank are charged with handing over […]

by Garvin Karunaratne These days when we have to live with hours of power cuts, and when we are really short of dollars- scraping the barrel, my theory that wind power offers the solution to our power requirements comes to the forefront. I enclose a write up by eesrilanka wordpress.com/2019/04/13/playing with history: __________________________________________________________ C2. Buying Power […]

By Garvin Karunaratne, former Government Agent, Matara Sri lanka my beloved motherland has descended to chaos. The causes are many, mainly by the country closely following the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme since it was imposed at the end of 1977 when President Jayawardena requested financial help and the ineptitude of our leaders. I have since […]

by Garvin Karunaratne It is sad that even today when we have to live with power cuts, we yet do not realize the wind power that Mother Nature has provided for us. We have been toying with the sea breeze in Hambantota and Mannar, merely a plan by our Coal and Oil Lobby to prove that […]

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. Michigan State University, Former G.A. Matara The experience of the Divisional Development Councils Programme(DDCP) of Sri Lanka(1970-1977) is currently of great importance in today’s situation of unemployment and also the inability to import goods due to the lack of foreign exchange.   This is because the DDCP is a programme that really creates […]

by Garvin Karunaratne I enclose a write up of my Youth Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh, written by me in 2016, which details  how the Programme came into being. It is hoped that this writing detailing  how Bangladesh succeeded in employment creation may offer ideas to our leaders to get out of the problems that […]

Bt Garvin Karunaratne It is good news that we have reached an input of $ 1 billion aid from India and that China is considering and very likely to give a 2.5 b. loan, but this can bring us out of the economic mess we are in if only we act in a prudent manner. […]

Bt Garvin Karunaratne It is good news that we have reached an input of $ 1 billion aid from India and that China is considering and very likely to give a 2.5 b. loan, but this can bring us out of the economic mess we are in if only we act in a prudent manner. […]

by Garvin Karunaratne  The IMF warns Sri Lanka of its unsustainable foreign debt. It is sad that the IMF forgets that it is the IMF itself that paved the path for the creation of this unsustainable debt. That happened in 1977 when the IMF imposed its Structural Adjustment Programme(SAP)on Sri Lanka. Till then Sri Lanka […]

by Garvin Karunaratne  Current visits by US administrators to Sri Lanka deserves special attention. The USA controls the IMF which has imposed neoliberal economics on all Third World countries since the Seventies. Sri Lanka today is the worst casualty, caught unawares. The MCC Programme is another carrot dangled at us. In this context my earlier […]

by Dr Garvin Karunaratne A depleted treasury- living on loans like a beggar on the streets, endless food queues-, is unfortunately Sri Lanka today. Today it is reported that the dollar has fetched over Rs 260  and unless one can imagine the cost of imports. A New Programme to make everything we import is mandatory […]

Garvin Karunaratne, Professor Susirith Mendis’s A Short Essay” and Sena Thoradeniya’s Where are Soul and Spirit of Peradeniya” (The Island.lk:18/2) took me back to my days at Peradeniya in the Fifties. Truly Professor Ediriweera Sarathchandra walked tall at Peradeniya. I happened to be in his first batch of Sinhala Hons students. His greater contribution was […]

by Dr. Garvin Karunaratne (Michigan State University)   In the words of Rene Dumont, a former French Minister, ‘We are first and foremost exploiters of the poor, because of an economic system based on dominance that has been cunningly devised by and for the rich nations’. (Stranglehold in Africa). This statement encapsulates the currently followed […]

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. Since the days of President Jayawardena we have got used to look for foreign goods and  following the IMF model of allowing imports without any control, spending our foreign exchange for luxury purposes even when we did not have sufficient funds, we have become an indebted country. The IMF advice was […]

by Garvin Karunaratne  I enclose a write up of my Youth Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh, written by me in 2016, which details  how the Programme came into being. It is hoped that this writing detailing  how Bangladesh succeeded in employment creation may offer ideas to our leaders to get out of the problems that […]

Garvin Karunaratne, former G.A.Matara  A Report from Reuters on 17/2: Shortage of Suzuki Car Mirrors reflect Sri Lanka’s growing economic crisis harks a re write of one of my early Papers: Old memories of development: A Youth I will never forget By Garvin KarunaratnePosted on October 15th, 2019 Seeing what is happening in Elpitiya my mind […]

Garvin Karunaratne Garvin Karunaratne recalls his experience of 18 years working in stations like Hambantota as well as in the hilly Districts of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. He chides the authorities for erecting wind turbines on the coast. He believes that the authorities seem to be working to prove that wind turbines are not suitable for […]