India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will embark on a three-day official visit to Sri Lanka tomorrow (Nov. 01), the Indian government said in a statement.
During the visit, Minister Sitharaman will deliver the Keynote Address as the Guest of Honour at the ‘NAAM 200’ organised by the Sri Lankan government to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the arrival of India-origin Tamils (IOTs) to Sri Lanka, on November 02 at Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo.
The Indian finance minister will also give the keynote address at the India Sri Lanka Business Summit themed ‘Enhancing Connectivity: Partnering for Prosperity’. It is jointly organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the Indo-Lanka Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, on November 02, at Hotel Taj Samudra in Colombo.
As part of the official visit, Minister Sitharaman will engage in bilateral discussions with President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.
She will witness the exchange of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Solar Electrification of Religious Places in Sri Lanka wherein India will allocate INR 82.40 crores out of the Indian government grant assistance of INR 107.47 crores earmarked for the promotion of Buddhist ties.
Minister Sitharaman will also inaugurate SBI Branches at Trincomalee and Jaffna on November 02 and 03, respectively.
She will visit Sri Dalada Maligawa (The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic) in Kandy, Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, Thirukoneswaram Temple in Trincomalee and Nallur Kandaswamy Temple in Jaffna during the course of her visit to Sri Lanka.
Besides the above engagements, Minister Sitharaman is also slated to visit Lanka IOC Oil Tank Farms, Jaffna Cultural Centre and Jaffna Public Library during her visit.
Sri Lanka is set to award a multi-billion dollar oil refinery project to a Chinese state-owned company after a rival bidder pulled out, the energy minister said Tuesday.
Kanchana Wijesekera said the government would shortly enter into an investment agreement with Sinopec to build the refinery next to the Chinese-run port at the southern town of Hambantota.
There were only two bidders shortlisted and Vitol pulled out. That leaves only Sinopec and we will finalise an agreement with them in a couple of weeks,” Wijesekera told reporters in Colombo.
Sri Lanka had originally awarded the project, which has an estimated cost of $3.85 billion, to an Indian family-owned company based in Singapore in 2019.
After Silver Park International failed to start construction, the government terminated the agreement in August, repossessing 1,200 acres (485 hectares) of land allocated for the refinery.
The nearby Hambantota deep sea port was controversially leased to a Chinese state-owned firm in 2017 for 99 years after Sri Lanka was unable to service a $1.4 billion loan taken for the project.
Sri Lanka defaulted on its $46 billion external debt last year in an unprecedented economic crisis partly blamed on Chinese loans used to build several white-elephant infrastructure projects between 2005 and 2015.
China owns 52 percent of Sri Lanka’s bilateral debt, and Beijing’s approval is crucial for any efforts by Colombo to restructure its outstanding loans.
Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera’s allegorical little story Mahagedera” has within it the story of our present pathetic state, struggling in the grip of neo-liberalism, lacking in genuine patriotic leadership, intellectual guidance, civilisational consciousness, a national economy, unable to extricate from the imperialist web, plagued by self seeking pseudo intellectuals, we have been reduced to a vassal state and forced to sell our national assets for existence. Amarasekera has the nack of seeking the story within the story and making use of it to craft his tale in lyrical language that holds the reader’s interest. Amarasekera in his late nineties deserves plaudits for his creativity, ability to see through issues and most importantly his philosophical vission which this country need in its hour of great peril.
The protagonist of the story, Dasa, while doing postgraduate studies in the USA, hears that his ancestral home Mahagedera” has been sold to a foreigner. This news brings back memories of his village home, his own creative contributions to the construction of the house and its value and historical significance for it was built by his ancesters who had fled the Wellassa from the marauding British army. Dasa could remember that his father had been deeply conscious of his heritage and the nationalism that Anagarika Dharmapala propagated, he had a portrait of Dharmapala hung over the entrance to the sitting room of the Mahagedera”. These memories of his home and its loss to a foreigner makes Dasa delve deep into his own understanding of his country’s civilisation, the concept of Sinhala Buddhism, and its capacity to build a national civilisation.
Dasa’s professor in Sri Lanka had convinced him that Buddhism could not build a civilisation in Sri Lanka because Theravada is an idealist religion, a religion that caters to those who have given up natural lay life. Such a religion cannot build a civilisation. The so called Sinhala Buddhism has made the Sri Lankan nation a slave of its past. This professor had visited Mahagedera” and after seeing some of Dasa’s creations, which had been inspired by the rich heritage of ancient Anuradhapura, he had said it proves his theory that Sri Lankans dwell in the past. And this professor had placed Dasa under a supervisor in the US who has similar views on Buddhism and Sri Lankan civilisation. Dasa blindly had accepted his professor’s views and had gone along with those of his supervisor in the US also and was in the process of constructing the necessary philosophical basis for their treacherous theory.
A strong factor that makes Dasa think deeply about these matters is his memory of his elder brother, a product of the university, who obviously had not imbibed the ethos of his civilisation, whose ambition is to climb up in the social ladder, and for that purpose had married from a rich upcountry family. Dasa realises that their family had lost the possession of their Mahagedera” due to the folly of his brother who had used the premises for his political activity without a care for its historical and sentimental value. His wife, who did not care much for him, had sold the house soon after his death.. His professor is colluding with his US supervisor who has an agenda that supports American imperialism. And his brother a victim of his own misguided ambitions has inadvertantly paved the way for foreign encroachment. Isn’t it such people, who would sell their soul for personal benefit and glory, the bane of this country, the cause of all its ills, seems to be the question Amarasekera poses through his latest work.
Dasa’s cousin brother Senaka is another important character that Amarasekera has created. Senaka, though educated, has remained in the village and has not lost his roots, he in his letters to Dasa appears to be more affected by the loss of Mahagedera” than the death of the elder brother. His selfless attitude is revealed in the care he shows towards Dasa’s mother, and his loyalty to his civilisation and history is shown by the effort he makes to find out about the history of Mahagedera” and his attempt to make Dasa buy back Mahagedera”.
Dasa after a long contemplation had realised his mistake in endorsing the views of his professor and his US supervisor. He writes a thesis, to counter his professor’s views, which attempts to prove that Buddhism is applicable to lay life and is not a religion that is detached from the life of ordinary people. His professor reads his paper and says that Dasa has not accepted Max Weber’s views on this matter. Dasa says those views are acceptable but the Buddhism that was brought to Sri Lanka under the auspices of King Dharmasoka could be moulded by the Sinhalese so that it becomes the guiding light of their life and such a religion could form the basis for a civilisation. His supervisor says it may not be possible for Dasa to continue to work with him and Dasa says he has already decided to leave as soon as possible.
In the background the separatist war rages, and the treacherous role of the local opportunist politicians is revealed which influences Dasa’s thinking. He realises the US role and its motives for helping to perpetuate the war and how his supervisor and also his professor back at home are aiding and abetting in the despicable act. At a meeting held to propogate the Tamil separatist agenda and their war effort, which was addressed by his supervisor and several Tamil Diaspora people, Dasa’s wife Nalini, unable to bear the fabrication and false propaganda that was being dished out, gets up and retaliates with thunder in her voice. Dasa had to drag her out fearing physical harm to them. Next morning they see the notice pasted on their door which read Racist Go Home”. The character of Nalini, who is from a poor family but had entered the university, has been constructed with the characteristic skill of Amarasekera.
Dasa and Nalini come back to Sri Lanka and visit their Mahagedera” to find out whether they could buy it back as suggested by Senaka who had met the German owner who had been looking after the house carefully preserving all its features of historical importance and who apparently had promised to give back the house when he decides to leave Sri Lanka. They see that the German who had been running a centre for disabled, had given the house to a religious organisation. The new owners have completely changed the character of the house and defaced the sculpture that Dasa had got Buddha Rupa Bass” to make on a rock and a bench. The house is being used by a Christian cult for their proselatyzation work. They wait for the Pastor to return, to talk to him about their idea of buying the house. Dasa seated on the bench falls asleep and in a dream sees people carrying swords and poles running out of the house towards him. He tells others about the dream and concludes that the people who ran out of the house were the heirs of Mahagedera”. The Pastor doesn’t return and they come back realising that what has happened to their Mahagedera” has happened to their country.
Imperialist powers know from their past experience that it is the civilisational consciousness of a nation that holds it together and it is the power behind the struggle the people wage against imperialism. The Sri Lankan nation is held together by the Sinhala Buddhist consciousness and the civilisation it built on its foundation. It is this force that stood and fought against the marauding armies of South India and Europe from early times to the present, the same force that fought against Tamil separatism. This is the reason why the imperialists want to destroy Sinhala Buddhist consciousness. They support the LTTE separatists in their war which serves their agenda and in the academic sphere they get the self seeking pseudo-intellectuals to undermine the philosophical basis of Sinhala Buddhism. The two pronged attack is aimed at destabilising Sri Lanka in order to keep it in its hegemonic grip. Amarasekera has portrayed the ancestral home Mahagedera” with its significant history and culture as the symbol of Sinhala Buddhist civilisation. Losing Mahagedera” is symbolic of the fate that had befallen our country
The transformation of Dasa supplies the vitality of the story that Amarasekera weaves around the memories of the ancestral home Mahagedera”. Such transformations have been a feature of Amarasekera’s earlier works too which form the basis for captivating tales. The social relevance is always at the centre of this novel too and it is a good response to those writers who subscribe to the view that art is for art’s sake and literature need not have social relevance as its purpose.
In my endless travels in countries in three continents, the only country where wind turbines have been continuously sited in the coastal areas happens to be Sri Lanka. In Lanzorette in the Canaries, firstly the authorities built two turbines on the coast, but later they realized their mistake and built up dozens of turbines inland, on their hills. In Spain and in the USA where I frequently undertake road travel, I have seen them using the mountain power of the wind to turn their turbines. There are hundreds , even thousands of wind turbines located on mountains.
Sri Lanka are the losers. While countries like Spain have harnessed the mountain wind power and even sell power to France, Sri Lanka lags behind. Last year, being inquisitive, I purpously went to Kalpitiya to spend a night to assess the wind power there. It was nothing other than a coastal breeze. I have in the Administrative Service worked for long periods in Hambantota and Matara and know the power of the coastal breeze. It is nothing compared with what I have experienced at Ramboda, ,at Madugoda, at Kadugannawa in my almost weekly visits when I worked in Nuwara Eliya, Kegalla and Kandy. That was on the road side. In my irrigation inspections climbing hill and dale, I know that the wind has an enormous power at certain vantage points. We have had to crawl on all fours to avoid being blown off. When I stayed a night at the Ohio Forest Circuit bungalow I was worried that my car would be blown over. Yet we keep building turbines on the coast, and this time it is at Mannar! I gather that some foreign experts are sought to find our wind power. These days not only foreign experts, but even the infamous IMF acted clandestinely to make our countries indebted. The IMF told us to import freely, use foreign exchange freely when we did not have and fed us with loans to match, so that we became indebted. They even gave us loans at very low interest and also with long no payment grace periods to entice us and our then leaders jumped at getting loans as they would not be in office when repayment would haunt us. My latest book, How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development” on Kindle tells that sad story.
May our leaders find the time to read John Perkin’s book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, where he admits that his role as a foreign expert was to research, fabricate facts and figures to provide foreign aid to Ecuador for a plan that in some manner will send the aid funds back to the donor countries while at the same time leaving the host country indebted. AId now came to our countries to make us indebted so that we could forever be in debt, paying our loans. Someone is trying to prove that wind power is not worthwhile and that we cannot get power. Of course we cannot get power unless we harness the wind at the spots where the wind power is . And to find where the wind is most we now get foreign experts. Why can we not rely on our own government officers who sometimes get blown off on their circuits.
In wind turbines, we are made to grope in the dark. We turned wind power at some figure like twenty five rupees a kw/hr, when the USA gets wind power at between five cents and two and a half cents a kw/ hour.. When recently some wind power makers offered us power at fifteen rupees our mandarins were surprised.
Recently Power Expert, my friend Tilak Siyambalapitiya has said that we are heading for power cuts in 2017.
All what I have said on my wind power writings yet stand true These articles are in Lanka Web , the Daily News and Asian Tribune for anyone interested to read We need only a few hundred wind turbines sited at Ramboda, Madugoda, Ritigala, Batalgala in Kegalla District, at Kirigalpotta in Ratnapura and Hayes in Matara. We should set up a Land Development Department” once again and appoint an officer of the calibre of J.V.Fonseka, a classic hons. Civil servant and the task can be easily done in a year. That was the manner that our leaders, D.S. and Dudley worked then. At a Government Agents Conference a G.A. had requested for a jeep per District to speed up the Food Production Campaign. Dudley ordered three jeeps per district. Later I was a chief lieutenant under JVF at Agrarian Services and we constructed large stores in without the recent long delays seen in construction in the public sector at inflated prices. One engineer and Land Development Officer M.P.Jayasinghe recruited as Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services did that trick. We in the Districts went around with a hammer to hit at concrete to see whether the concrete mixture was right. One contractor had to redo all the foundations. It was a blow that made his business tremble but it did . This happened in Anuradhapura.
A few hundred wind turbines is the answer and I am sure there will be able officers in the Administrative and Engineering Services who can do that task. It will be a Program that offers employment to thousands. We can say goodbye to power cuts and see our workers at work on hillocks installing wind turbines. We will also save millions of dollars that we spend today for importing oil.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 22-28 October 2023
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The English ‘Governor’ Brownrigg & his translator, the ‘writer’ D’Oyly, usually star as ghosts at the Brutish Council’s misnamed Galle Literary Festivals. It should be called TheD’Oyly Literary Festival, for it is with his sort – forget Robert Knox – that the real English fiction begins in the land of Sinhale. The D’Oylys!
If 2022 was the new 1815, when’s the new 1818?
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‘His blood was attainted and could not be permitted to infect the race any further’– PE Pieris, Tri Sinhala: the Last Phase, 1796-1815
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‘One single instance of no distant date will be acknowledged
to include everything which is barbarous & unprincipled in public rule,
and to portray the last stage of individual depravity & wickedness,
the obliteration of every trace of conscience, & the complete extinction of human feeling.
In the deplorable fate of the wife & children of Eheylapola Adikar these assertions
are fully substantiated; in which was exhibited the savage scene of 4 infant children,
the youngest torn from the mother’s breast, cruelly butchered, & their heads bruised in a mortar
by the hands of their parent; succeeded by the execution of the woman herself
& 3 females more, whose limbs being bound, and a heavy stone tied round
the neck of each, they were thrown into a lake and drowned.’
– Sir Robert Brownrigg’s (the Governor) official declaration
‘after the taking of the Kandyan country’
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This last quote is from the Wikipedia entry on Madduma Bandara, one of those ‘4 infants.’ Many Sinhala researchers believe these atrocities never took place. Just as many now dismiss the media terrors hourly ascribed to the Palestinian people, while pointing speechless at the real ‘civilized’ perpetrators of horror, who are also behind the cameras, pressing buttons all the time.
So who says this 1815 ‘pounding’ episode happened, the year that Treaty of Vienna that supposedly brought peace to Europe for a 100 years (until their World War I), while bringing down further hell on the rest of us? Well, we can understand genocidaires (now there’s a sexy French bon mot!) such as governors F North, T Maitland & R Brownrigg.
English is the greatest language of the greatest mass-murder, plus plus enabling wholesale erasure of their deeds, with their BBC, their chief public mouth organ & foghorn & broom. We have to admire the English for their persistence in wholesale bloodsports, whether it’s of a matter 208 years ago in Sinhale, or hot off the press, as they say, from Palestine. Then again, 2022 was the latest 1815!
Look at Wikipedia’s entry on Brownrigg, who was made colonial governor in 1813:
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‘General Sir Robert Brownrigg, 1st Baronet, GCB (1758-1833)
was an Irish-born British statesman & soldier.
He brought the last part of Sri Lanka under British rule
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ee according to our very own English style guide, normally & mechanically always replaces ‘British’ with ‘English’ – for it is English they all lecture us & it is English that still misrules – not Latin or Gaelic or Celtic or Welsh – and it is English alone that can make sense or nonsense of such a word as ‘brought’.
‘Brought’ is of course a euphemism for the real terrorism demanded by Brownrigg in 1818. He not only brought. He took. The better-known of his thefts being the Golden Tara statue from Trincomalee, now parked at that ‘secular’ English museum in London, which religiously loots what the Bank of England forgets. And what he left is still the most underdeveloped regions of the country to this day – Uva, etc.
The bios of Brownrigg and Madduma Bandara above come from Wikipedia, which ee prefers to call Whiteypedofilia, cos they baldly push such innocent lies, making them so commonplace, multiplying their bunker blasts of honky honk. Then again, they do need to whiten that bloody wash that robs the world.
But what intrigues is that it’s not just the English who told & tell such tales. The English had waged several wars, overt & covert on Sinhale and had been defeated. Their last resort was to strike a deal, like the US salesman D Trump says. A deal they immediately reneged on, of course. The English claim that locals, as if in a daze, kept asking, ‘When are you leaving?’
Three years later, during the English war on Sinhale in 1818, and our first war for independence (from the English), the resistance killed 1,000 ‘Indian’ soldiers who were one-fifth of the entire English force deployed. Yet those tall tales are not repeated by ‘Indians’, necessarily. Again, we don’t know what kinda Indians those English troops were, for the King was also kinda Indian, though he ruled as a Sinhala Buddhist. The English also decimated the Veddha people, who protected the frontiers (the English now tag them indigenous!).
But yes, what intrigues is that such stories are still repeated and rewarded 200 years later by Sri Lankans themselves (who ee monikers as ‘Brownrigg’s Bastards’ even if they speak English or not). There are ‘radical’ ‘rock&roll’ ‘rebels’ who write songs repeating these assertions about the ‘pounding’, as do the politicians they may collectively hate:
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‘Former President R Premadasa erected a statue of Madduma Bandara
on 1986 March 29 at Ehelepola village, in honour of the child hero.’
– Nimal S Bogahawatta, Madduma Bandara Ehelepola
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The elder brother who was 11 years old was afraid;
his lips were quivering and his eyes were full of tears.
But, little Madduma Bandara was a brave boy.
He loved his family and his motherland.
He was not afraid to die. – Junior Observer, 2011
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‘Overwhelmed by his uncontrollable temptation,
he attempted to embrace [Ehelapola Kumarihamy].
She then had the audacity to blurt out calling the King
‘Wadugaya’ (Telangu Tamil), ‘get out.’
She also shouted, ‘Do you think that I am a Waduga woman,
I am a pure-hearted Sinhalese woman.’
– Stanley E Abeynayake, ‘Ehelapola Kumarihamy,
A symbol of chastity’, Sunday Observer, 2012
We will get to the different forces behind such yarns originally spun to justify the coup d’etat of 1815 and the consequent genocide in the highlands & Vellassa of 1818. The consequences of 1815 as of the coup d’etat of 2022 are yet to be revealed. Rest assured, elections have been shown the backseat and if 2022 ironically offers the way beyond elections, it will have to finds its way beyond the massive popular mandate given to a Sinhala Buddhist President, all duly thwarted by the old ghosts of 1818, who keep returning. & with a greater vengeance, each time.
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Slaughter every man, woman, and child (including babies suckling at the breast)
– Robert Brownrigg
In 2011 President Mahinda Rajapaksa had Parliament revoke Robert Brownrigg’s Gazette Notification that condemned the rebels of 1817-18 as ‘traitors’ and confiscated their properties. The then-President declared Brownrigg’s Gazette Notification null & void, and renamed all those ‘traitors’ to the English as ‘National Heroes’, with their descendants honored on Republic Day of Sri Lanka, 22 May. What he didn’t do was posthumously label Brownrigg as a terrorist. Ten years later, the Rajapakses themselves would face another very English coup d’etat, which they apparently could do nothing to prevent, except strategically withdraw to prevent further bloodshed. 2022 was the latest 1815 (see ee Random Notes).
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In Sri Lanka’s north & east, Uva & north central regions,
the UN & other agencies have funded local partners
to establish children’s educational & recreation centres.
These facilities are sparsely occupied and hardly maintained.
Yet, pictures from launch events often adorn presentations
to various stakeholders claiming continuous enrichment of less-privileged lives.
The European Union among others offers funding to dozens of agencies to empower
and uplift rights & livelihoods of women. Most of these funds are spent
on lavish lifestyles & entertainment of partner agencies, while the real impact
& assistance touching the lives & hands of women is barely marginal.
– Oshadee de Silva (see ee Focus)
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Where has all ‘the aid’ gone? – Nawaz Dawood’s 1980 book Tea & Poverty recalls that England had generously ‘given’ £80million in ‘aid’ throughout the 1960s to Sri Lanka. Whereas they, even more generously (to themselves), extracted £800mn out of Sri Lanka in the same years. Meanwhile, we had to buy their overpriced industrial goods & services to obtain their ‘aid’. How much of all that munificence is now part of our unpayable debt? Let’s set up a Corruption Bank for the IMF, and add this ‘aid’ to the deposits.
‘Where have millions of US$s invested in good governance & accountability projects all gone? asks The Island’s Shamindra Ferdinando (see ee Focus), adding, ‘$73mn down the drain?’ Fernando details the dollars poured into bribing ‘independent’ ‘civil society’ by USAID etc. Can you imagine if roubles & yuan were uncovered in English & US politicians’ ample offshore accounts? Fernando asks the US embassy about whether their dollars have improved parliamentary practices, and the US responds…
However, despite all this megaphone about government corruption, the real corruption – which isn’t corruption but good old capitalism – is the business-as-usual practices of the multinational corporations (MNCs) that rule us and are never named! The role that MNCs like Unilever play, controlling the media through advertising & their agencies, and worse, such as controlling labour through ‘subsidiaries’ and monopolizing the home market.
ee is reproducing Oshadee de Silva’s keen observations on: Global NGOs & local partners running amok under the guise of doing ‘good’? The headline sounds true enough, though ‘amok’ is very kind, and an insult to elephants, for the actual havoc these so-called NGOS have created is immeasurable. But about what kind of interference exactly is this Silva upset about?
The smooth way the article is written, we cannot tell whether it was written by a person or a bot, but the manner in which it is written, purportedly against foreign interference, wanders or makes a beeline to the new IMF-inspired Labour Act. Silva says: ‘Many local NGOs have taken up arms against the draft Labour Act, which ironically consists of terms insisted upon by western governments & partners. What then is their real cause?’
Indeed, we have often wondered why there are no ‘NGOs’ criticizing the terms under which workers are employed in textile- & garment-related industries still based in the imperialist countries.
We also wonder about the UN & various dubious US thinktanks who are so worried about women’s unpaid work while at the same time enabling ‘grandparents’ to immigrate, to look after children abroad who are all forced to go to work, or freeze their unhoused butts in winter.
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• ee continues to serialize Idirimagen Idiriyata, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka ‘s ‘Alternative Program’. The CPSL claims, ‘Sri Lanka has now been overtaken by a large number of middle-income countries that have successfully restructured and developed their education systems’. The CPSL therefore makes an urgent call for reform in all educational sectors by looking at current national policies for general education, higher education, skills development, vocational training and technology, and examining how a policy for the development of national resources could provide all citizens with suitable knowledge, skills and technology: ‘The only hope for the future generation…’ (see ee Focus)
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• Enduring the English media & associated glitterati in Sri Lanka is to recall the Barbadian memoir Growing up Stupid under the Union Jack by Austin Clarke, and Grenadian Bernard Coard’s How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System: the Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain. (Coard is more ‘famously’ known as being blamed for instigating a coup-detat in socialist Grenada that resulted in the US invasion of exactly 40 years ago)
England’s ESN – ‘Educationally Subnormal’ (ESN) schools, formerly ‘Schools for the Mentally Subnormal’, enrol rather large numbers of Black children, especially those from the Anglo-Caribbean community.
Sri Lanka’s media is however actually stupid and ‘educationally subnormal’. It is not a genetic condition, yet. It is not for a lack of talent or ability. We even export (if that’s a standard) English teachers, editors, and we boast ‘export-only’ poets, novelists & artistes who crave accolades named after English slave owners in the Caribbean (Booker, Tate, etc), or European missile sellers (Nobel). OK, it doesn’t matter who underwrites the cheque, though the IMF hints SL launder more unrecorded money than dirty linen.
Maybe it’s because, as Marx noted about his magnum opus Capital, written in German: Germans so infected with the petty mentalities of traders & merchants would simply not understand what was happening in the modern world of industrial machine capital. (see ee Random Notes, Haiti on the Edge of White Invasion Again)
The inconsiderate hike of electricity tariff by the CEB with the approval of the government is the unbearable burden on electricity consumers who are already battered by an unremittingly high cost of living. The Minister of Power has already obtained Cabinet approval to revise prices every three months. This means that there will be further tariff hikes in the near future.
In this horrible malfeasance by the authorities an explanation of the authorities is due. .
It is recalled that in introducing the Sri Lanka Electricity (amendment) bill in Parliament on 9 June 2022 Minister Kanchana Wijesekera revealed that there are renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 4000 MW where Energy Permits have been given BUT THE CEB HAS STILL NOT GRANTED POWER PURCHASE APPROVAL.” He gave details of the projects pending CEB PPA as follows:
1.Hydro power of 580 MW not approved for 6 years
2 Wind Power project of 769 MW
3 Solar power projects of 2538 MW
4. Biomass 136 MW
Total of 4000MW “
He also mentioned that the average cost of renewable energy is 16.90 per unit, whereas the cost of energy from thermal plants is over Rs 60. The Minster was critical of the bureaucracy in the CEB where they prefer to look for provisions in the law how to reject a proposal than to approve it.
It is estimated that the Islands requirement of power is around 2700 MW. It is noted that if the Power Purchase Agreements of even half the 4000 MW of projects already in the pipeline are approved there is no need to resort to expensive thermal power and no need to increase tariffs. It is also noted that there was over one year from the time of the Minister’s statement in Parliament to the date of the last price hike, to resolve any technical or legal issues involved in these projects.
There are some people who try to shift the blame on the IMF for electricity tariff hikes. The IMF recommendation on the pricing policy of all state enterprises is that they should be on a cost recovery” basis. There has been no serious effort to reduce costs in the CEB. The cost of overstaffing, over payments, excessive perks, corruption, and underhand deals have not been even looked at. Where in the world are the salaries of all employees are increased by 25% once in three years. This is equivalent to an increase of the salary bill of the CEB by double almost every 9 years. The present pricing policy of the CEB is not transparent and is not cost reflective but cost deflective.
The PUCSL is only a rubber stamp of the CEB. Before they approved the last tariff hike, they staged mock sessions of public hearing to which the information in this note was presented by email. There was not even an acknowledgement.
An element of judicial intervention in a bad executive decision was seen in the recent Courts of Appeal order on the retirement of nurses at 60 years of age. It is encouraging that the Courts have seen it necessary to intercede to ensure justice in executive excesses.
Any organization which is actively opposing the tariff hike and are engaged in road demonstrations should appeal to the Courts for redress. Although most opposition parties are instigating and participating in these demonstrations it is unlikely that they like the problem to disappear. These charlatans are aware that this burning issue which affects all voters would be a decisive factor in a future election. They like it to be aflame and fan the flames.
Playing with electricity is a dangerous game which could lead to electrocution.
The Bangabandhu Tunnel, the only tunnel in South Asia, was opened by Sheikh Hasina, the visionary behind Bangladesh’s transformation, the development wizard and architect of a brighter future for Bengalis. It spans 3.43 km from Patenga in Chittagong to Anwara end of Chittagong. Chittagong residents were celebrating the pleasure of creation because they are ecstatic at the prospect of ushering in a new era. Chittagong was experiencing a festival of joy and a joyous mood. With its earnestness and forward-thinking planning, Chittagong is embarking on a dream period. Millions of people waited on both sides of Karnaphuli to welcome Sheikh Hasina, the adored leader of Bengalis, to experience the wonders of growth and development, and to witness the moment of turning point. Chittagong ‘s residents greeted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with affection as she devoted her life to uplifting Bengal’s impoverished citizens’ lot.
Her growth took the world by surprise. Bangabandhu’s father, Sheikh Hasina, is a successful politician whose contributions have made Bangladesh’s progress via poverty reduction feasible. Bangabandhu emancipated the oppressed, destitute, and exploited Bengali people. The country of Bengal has seen a shift in fortunes thanks to his affluent daughter Sheikh Hasina. The globe is being guided by his imaginative leadership, prudent goal-achievement planning, boldness, and drive.
Bangladesh was the world’s second poorest nation on December 16, 1971, the day it gained independence. Bangladesh has succeeded in cutting poverty in half in only 51 years. According to a World Bank cover story, it was a significant success in turning people’s lives around. Everyone may now get a primary education. Millions of women are now able to enter the labour. Health care for mothers and children has advanced significantly. When it comes to responding to natural catastrophes and climate change, Bangladesh is currently quite effective. There are several factors contributing to Bangladesh’s prosperity. Among them, the significant expenditure on human resource development stands out.
Large investments have also been made in other areas, such as infrastructure, energy and fuel, industry, and services. Furthermore, Bangladesh is now far better equipped to handle the threat posed by climate change and other natural calamities. As a consequence, the economy of the nation is well-founded. There is now a tonne of options for job creation and economic expansion. The majority of these accomplishments may be attributed to Sheikh Hasina, Bangabandhu’s daughter.
In Chittagong, trade and commerce account for 60% of our entire income. Chittagong is the hub for almost 75% of the nation’s export commerce. In contrast, this figure is 80% in the case of import commerce. In other words, Chittagong is essential to the nation’s economic flow. Therefore, the development of Chittagong has been given top importance by Sheikh Hasina’s administration in terms of the general growth of the nation.
There will undoubtedly be more prime ministers who come and go as long as our nation survives, but it is unlikely that anybody will ever be as good as Sheikh Hasina. I asked the Prime Minister about any project as the head of the Chittagong Development Authority, but he never responded. With his help, Chittagong, which has been neglected, has blossomed into one of Bangladesh’s and South Asia’s most exquisite and rich cities. Greater Chittagong, not just the city, is seeing rapid growth.
The Bangabandhu Tunnel, which was constructed beneath Karnaphuli at a cost of Tk 10,374 crore and comprises two tubes, was officially opened. By rail, a project of 18 thousand 34 crore 47 million rupees is being built between Dohazari, Cox’s Bazar, and Ghumdhum. It is anticipated to be opened in November when the construction from Dohazari to Cox’s Bazar has been finished. The longest runway in the nation, located at Sagarchoa, was finished by Cox’s Bazar, and the international airport’s development is almost finished. This year may see the opening of the airport, which will serve as South Asia’s communication centre. At Matarbari, a deep-sea port is being constructed.
Two ‘Special Economic Zones’ have been established in Anwara and Mirsrai, while coal-based power plants have made headway in Gandamara and Matarbari in Banskhali. In addition, a number of initiatives have been, are, and will be carried out by a number of organisations, such as WASA, Chittagong Development Authority, and Chittagong City Corporation. The Chittagong growth Authority has overseen the majority of the city of Chittagong’s growth. Among the completed projects are the Muradpur-Lalkhan Bazar Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury and the Bahaddarhat MA Mannan Flyover. Flyovers: Patenga-Fouzdarhat Marine Drive Outer City Ring Road, Kadmatoli Flyover on Station Road, Dewan Hat Overpass, Modernization of Patenga Beach, Bayezid-Fouzdarhat Bypass Road.
There are also a lot of massive projects underway. The whole Greater Chittagong area is undergoing change as a result of the continuous communication and infrastructure development being carried out by the Roads and Bridges Department, SOAZ, LGERD, and other organisations. Under the direction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Chittagong metro rail project is now under construction. Thanks to his commitment, Chittagong is now on the growth highway. If he is in charge of governing the state, Chittagong.
he effective economic management of the Sheikh Hasina administration resulted in an average GDP growth of 6.45 percent between 2009 and 2018. Bangladesh’s GDP grew by an unprecedented 8.15 percent during the 2018–19 fiscal year. The global economy then came to a complete halt as the corona outbreak broke out. In the 2019–20 fiscal year, Bangladesh maintained a GDP growth of 5.24 percent despite the worldwide economic downturn. Bangladesh has prevented the collapse of economic development, despite the fact that the globe is once again experiencing a recession as a result of reciprocal sanctions resulting from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Bangladesh’s economy now ranks 35th in the world. Bangladesh’s consumer market is expected to exceed that of the UK, according to research titled “Asia’s Shoppers in 2030” by “The Flying Dutchman,” which was released by HSBC Global Research, one of the biggest banking and financial service providers in the world. Therefore, the people of Bangladesh now firmly think that Sheikh Hasina’s administration is always necessary. Bangladesh will not veer off course as long as Sheikh Hasina is in charge of the nation.
Mehjabin Bhanu is Bangladeshi culuminst, security and strategic affairs analyst, teacher.
Defence Secretary General Kamal Gunaratne graced the closing ceremony of the 14th Asian Criminology Conference 2023 held at the Faculty of Graduate Studies of General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) in Ratmalana today (Oct 29).
The Chief Guest, Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya PC and the Defence Secretary were received by the Vice Chancellor of the KDU Rear Admiral HGU Dammika Kumara.
The three-day conference that commenced on Friday (27) was jointly organized by the Asian Criminological Society (ACS) and the Faculty of Criminal Justice, KDU under the theme Crime and Criminal Justice: Sustainable Development, Peace and Security in Asia”.
The keynote address at the closing day’s session was delivered by the Chief Guest, Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya PC. The guest speech was made by Prof. Jianghong LIU of University of Macau, China.
During the ceremony Defence Secretary Gen. Gunaratne presented mementoes to the Chief Justice and Prof. LIU.
Winners of research presentations were also presented with awards during the ceremony.
A number of distinguished participants including President ACS, Prof. R. Thilagaraj, intellectuals and ACS and KDU officials were present at the occasion.
The Conference provided participants with a diverse range of presentation formats to showcase their research findings through individual paper presentations, panel discussions, round table discussions and poster presentations to disseminate their research findings, future collaborations and drive advancement in the sphere of Criminology and Criminal justice.
The 15th ACS conference is scheduled to be held from 4-6 July, 2024 in Manila, Philippines.
Lycamobile’s French companies were on Thursday fined 10mn euros by a Paris court for money laundering and value-added tax (VAT) fraud.
The group’s former chief executive officer Christopher Tooley also received a prison sentence and a heavy fine for complicity in the VAT fraud, agency reports said.
Lycamobile, owned by Subaskaran Allirajah, has said it disagreed with the decision and had appealed.
Four months after the trial ended, the court ruled that the companies had knowingly participated in a complex and elaborate system of money laundering” between 2014 and 2016, which involved 17mn euros.
This system involved a series of shell companies, two Lycamobile salespeople and resellers in the Parisian district of La Chapelle, the reports said. It operated for the benefit of construction companies demanding cash to illegally pay employees.
The companies were also found guilty of having deceived” the tax authorities in a misguided” legal regime allowing exemption from VAT, within the framework of a strategy” to be more competitive”.
The money laundering accusations concern the activities of two salespeople who were laid off and fired upon discovery of this parallel activity,” Lycamobile said. Lycamobile Services was fined 3mn euros and Lycamobile France 7mn euros.
Mr. Tooley was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and fined 250,000 euros. He is banned from managing a business for five years. The group’s other British leader, Andrew England, was released.
Lycamobile’s General Manager in France, Alain Jochimek, was sentenced in both parts of the case, to three years in prison, including eighteen months to be served under an electronic bracelet, with a fine of 120,000 euros. He was also prohibited from managing a business for five years.
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos Courtesy http://www.defenddemocracy.press/
If Russia had realised in time the depth and systemic nature of the aggression and intransigence of the Western capitalist-imperialist system, it would have acted more decisively by preventing or helping to suppress the coup d’état organised by the Americans in Kiev in 2014. And if it had chosen to intervene militarily, it would have done so before Ukraine (under the Trump presidency in particular) was armed to its teeth. We would not have had probably the current tragedy in Ukraine, nor would we be running the huge nuclear risks we are running today.
We are in a similar situation today. If democratic humanity exerts all its influence, cutting off all diplomatic and economic relations with Israel and putting pressure by various means on the countries that support it, then it can stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the further continuation of the western (and Israeli) totalitarian project that is ultimately leading us to world war. If not, it risks being forced to fight the battle in much worse circumstances, on much wider fronts and at much greater cost and risk.
What may still be preventable today may not be possible tomorrow. And if it is still possible to prevent it tomorrow, it will be at enormous cost.
This is not the first time this has happened. If the German Communists had given all their energies to stop Hitler and take power, with or without the Social Democrats, before 1933, the Soviet Communists would not have faced Hitler on the outskirts of Moscow and in Stalingrad. The same would probably have happened if the western democracies” and the Spanish communists had acted decisively against Franco’s Fascists in Spain during the civil war (1936-39) which was the prologue and general test for World War II.
The same is now happening with Palestine. If the extremist aggression of the current Israeli government supported wholeheartedly by the United States and the European NATO and EU members is not stopped now, if it is allowed to complete its plan of ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian population, or even to provoke a war with Iran tomorrow, as it has been seeking for many decades, then it will be much more difficult to prevent a much bigger catastrophe tomorrow. The entire Middle East will be in flames and beyond, and the very survival of the states in the region could be at risk.
A Black International” in action
The similarity between Palestine and Ukraine or pre-war Europe is not symptomatic. It is organic, ‘systemic’. President Biden himself admitted as much when he linked solidarity” with Ukraine to that with Israel. In both cases, the stakes are not so much or only about ‘local’ causes, but about the dominance of the collective West, led by the US and Israel, in Eurasia, the Middle East and the whole world.
We have in all these cases the action of a Western Party of Totalitarianism and War”, at the core of the Western capitalist-imperialist system, which is increasingly generalising war (against Russia, Palestinians, Iran, China…) as the main means of imposition and domination, both regional and global. The current Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Netanyahu, is not just a politician of a medium-sized country, but one of the most prominent and decisive representatives of this global party. He was the financier and the instigator of the elaboration of the Neoconservative plans that resulted in a dozen destructive wars in the Middle East and Africa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm). Donald Trump spoke with him before delivering his 2017 speech at the United Nations in which he explicitly threatened North Korea, a country of 25 million, with extinction and used, thus legitimizing, for the first time since 1945, direct nuclear threats. It is rather Mr Netanyahu who is imposing his Middle East policy on the US (and on all European states and the EU) than the other way round. As for the methods and aspirations of this current in the Middle East, they are inspired by the ideas of Haushofer’s geopolitics, those that inspired the German National Socialists, Yinon’s strategy (https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/A_strategy_for_Israel_in_the_Nineteen_Eighties.pdf) and Huntington’s ideas. They have nothing to envy from the methods of Nazism. For this wing, the motto is war is the father of all”, even if it is entirely doubtful that they understand the world the way Heraclitus understood it (which was, after all, a product of the deep democratic revolution of the ancient Greeks in the Ionian cities and not of the eastern priesthoods).
The alliance of Mr. Netanyahu with Jewish fundamentalism and his attacks against the General Secretary of the United Nations, betray also the totalitarian nature of this current. A large part of the Jewish people itself understand better than all of us this totalitarian character and what is capable of accomplishing, this is why we are witnessing a huge revolt against the Netanyahu’s government in Israel by a large part of Israeli citizens and even cadres of the Army and the Secret Services of this country.
War as the answer of Western Capitalism to its crisis
The tendency of today’s Western Capitalism to resort universally to war is explained by its own crisis, a crisis of economic and global domination, and it is not only manifested in the sphere of geopolitics, but also in the sphere of economy and society, as has happened with the destruction of entire social strata and countries, even countries that belong to NATO and the EU, such as Greece which was destroyed by the colonial bail – out programs” imposed to it by Germany, the EU and the IMF, as manifested also in the war it has declared against the climate and the natural environment that allow the very existence of humanity and the higher forms of life on the planet.
If this global party is not defeated now, if it is allowed to succeed in its attempted ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, we will see it intervening tomorrow throughout the Middle East, in Taiwan and in Korea. The problems will become increasingly difficult to deal with and the risk of nuclear ignition will inevitably grow, through error, through miscalculation or through trapping of the opposing sides in situations that make retreat unthinkable. Even if we avoid a nuclear holocaust, humanity will be lost by the ecological and other technogenic risks it faces, which are impossible to deal with in an atmosphere of Cold, let alone Hot, wars.
What to do?
And you will tell me now what is to be done? Should there be a military intervention in Palestine, on behalf of the Palestinians, as the one on behalf of Israel that Emmanuel Macron, the Rothschild banker ruling France and Biden’s ministers acting as employees of Netanyahu, are already thinking about?
Of course not. Precisely to rule out possibilities of wider military conflicts, conventional or even nuclear, the Arab and Muslim states, the BRICS and the supporters of a ‘multipolar world’ must act decisively now using the sum total of the very many non-military, diplomatic ones, political and economic instruments that they have at their disposal and have not yet used to compel Israel to stop the ethnic cleansing today, now, and enter into negotiations with the Palestinians, the only solution to the present dangerous impasse for the benefit of Palestinians and all Arab peoples, the Jews themselves and world peace and security.
The states which will act in such a way will derive a tremendous political benefit, becoming the protagonists of the exit of the Middle East from the present dangerous for all humanity crisis. The BRICS project will make great political advances, by becoming the peaceful global alternative to the Wars unleashed or provoked by the collective West”.
It is regrettable that the majority of Western parties and organisations that refer to the left betray their own base and ideology, siding, as in the Ukrainian case, with imperialism. And they do so because the majority of them are controlled, more and more directly, by world financial capital and the Zionist lobbies that are intertwined with it, with the result that they are unable to express a significant part of European and American public opinion, which, despite the pro-Israeli barrage from its media and politicians, is now revolting against the crime in Gaza, a crime that is horribly illuminating the future that the Totalitarian War Party” is preparing for all humanity if we do not stop it here and now.
The (co-ruling) leftist Podemos party in Spain is a courageous and very important exception, calling for sanctions to be imposed on Israel and for the leaders of that country to be brought before the International War Crimes Tribunal (https://twitter.com/ionebelarra/status/1717190578495017300).
ISIS thugs take a hammer to civilisation: Priceless 3,000-year-old artworks smashed to pieces in minutes
Generally, the main goal of terrorism is to attack the places most familiar to the public. It is working from the graveyard of the nation against it to the temples and monasteries. This is a matter that can be understood even by studying the past history of the world. Destroying the existence of the nation against them by the terrorist works in any way to destroy their sense of security. Not only the temples, Dagabs, and Vehera Viharas in our motherland, but also relics, are buried. Even places are gradually changing the law in some places, based on the above-mentioned terrorist mentality. To what extent do the powerful terrorist gangs of the world do these things? If they even burn down the museums of the past glory of the land they are going to swallow, they say that they are the root of their God. Targeting also includes buildings or other places that are important economic or political symbols, such as Rajya Mandiras, embassies, or military installations, to find the main targets of terrorists and their victims. Although the terrorist activities that have been carried out in this country since the past have been carried out subtly, and today they have gone to Tumpana not only in the North East but also in Tumpana, erasing even the raw graves of the Sinhalese, these terrorists with a war mentality are subtle in their politics and subtly through politics.
It is timely and wise for Buddhists and non-Buddhists to know that they are doing this. Attacking people in places they are most familiar with is an act of terror. It is also illegal and unconstitutional. –
(courtesy of cricinfo) Top Spin by Suni With thanks to: Shashank Kishore who is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo Oct. 27th 2023
“The entire Sri Lankan team stood together, their collective gaze fixed on the giant screen. The next moment, as the magic word “out”
flashed, euphoria broke out. Sadeera Samarawickrama broke out of the huddle and did his own imitation of the Imran Tahir sprint.
Before his team-mates could catch him, Samarawickrama had run some 25 yards, towards the cover boundary, punching the air in jubilation. He was so overjoyed he suddenly changed directions. He was so ecstatic that he didn’t know where to run or how to celebrate. His mates eventually caught up with him, giving him sweaty bear hugs.
It was a marginal call and it went in his favour for a brilliant catch and, just like that, we’d had another Peak Sri Lanka moment. One where they make scarcely believable stuff seem like child’s play. This episode involved putting the modern-day ODI behemoths in a tailspin in conditions England’s game was best suited to.
” Come on. If not in Bengaluru, where else could England have potentially Bazballed their way into the World Cup, albeit belatedly?
This was right up their alley. Flat deck, small ground, cooler air.
All served up on a platter. What’s more, they even won the toss. Jos Buttler didn’t conceal his glee when he said “bat first”.
The rub of the green was with them. How else could you explain Sri Lanka bailing out of a review they seemed dead sure about? It was the first ball of the match. Dilshan Madushanka had bowled the perfect inswinger, the late tail in so lethal that it sent Jonny Bairstow stumbling inside the crease as he tried to get bat to it. After a mid-pitch conference that made 15 seconds seem more like 15 minutes, Sri Lanka collectively decided against it.
Maybe they did not want to let the excitement and adrenaline get to them this early. They went back to their places half-heartedly. And then they saw, after the next ball, replays on the giant screen that laid bare a potentially costly mistake. The collective groan of “ayyyyo” told you a story. They had been so near to a perfect start.
Instead England were 3 for 0.
At mid-off, Angelo Mathews shook his head in disbelief. Maybe he was thinking the sprint he’d just made, chasing after the ball all the way to the long-on boundary, would’ve been worth it had they reviewed (Bairstow got a good chunk on the ball, but it was pad first). He didn’t just sprint, he even put in a dive after a few moments of “should I, shouldn’t I?”
Angelo Mathews and Kusal Mendis combined to run out Joe Root Angelo Mathews and Kusal Mendis combined to run out Joe Root•Getty Images
At 36, he’d just sauntered into his fourth World Cup. Barely believable considering he was at home 10 days ago, having made peace with his exclusion. This was another moment of Peak Sri Lanka. Out in the cold one day, but right back in contention the next. You’re never really out.
Ridiculous things continue to happen. Mathews last took an ODI wicket in March 2020. He hadn’t played too many ODIs over the past three years. He’d cheekily said he was ready to do anything, literally anything, the team needed. Surely that didn’t mean being summoned to bowl the seventh over?
What do we know? He comes on and strikes immediately, dismissing Dawid Malan with a beauty. The ball cuts sharply off the deck, cramps the batter for room and flicks the edge. Mathews extends both palms, exuding the “I’m back” look. You can’t keep him away.
You think surely that’s as eventful as it can get for Mathews. Nope, there’s more coming. He’s everywhere now. He’s beside the captain Kusal Mendis, imploring him to have a slip in place for the fast bowlers, offering words of advice to Kasun Rajitha, lurking at point like a hawk. And suddenly when Joe Root hits one his way, he swoops in quickly to fire a rocket throw to Mendis. The pressure had been creeping up on Root. He’s in a daze, the dive can’t save him, he’s gone. Mathews has woven magic again.
Breakthrough provided, run-out effected, spell completed. Or so you think. Surely that’s three overs more than he expected to bowl anyway.
But England are just beginning to build an inkling of a partnership.
Moeen Ali has just cut loose, Ben Stokes has reined himself in all this while waiting seemingly to explode a bit later. The scorecard seems less dire than it did at 85 for 5. Enter Mathews again.
He trundles in casually. Floats up a length ball. Moeen has decided he’s giving this a whack. But there’s no pace on it, instead he now looks to steer it square. The ball gets big on him just a touch. Boom.
Kusal Perara has gobbled it up at point. Mathews has his man. At 122 for 6, England have been slam dunked. Mathews has struck once again as soon as he’s brought on.
Sri Lanka were all pumped up in Bengaluru Sri Lanka were all pumped up in Bengaluru•Associated Press
Sri Lanka are switched on. So switched on that you wonder what’s changed in a week’s time. The chirp is back. There’s energy stemming from having the world champions on the rack. This wasn’t how it was supposed to pan out. Surely there was another “you cannot do that, Ben Stokes moment” waiting to unfold. He has been simmering underneath his helmet, waiting to burst open.
Until he picks out deep midwicket on 43 with 20 overs left. Dushan Hemantha, the substitute, took the catch with his palms facing upwards. Stokes throws his bat up as he walks off. This is a dream unfolding for Sri Lanka. And there’s one more moment of Peak Sri Lanka magic to unfold: the run-out of Adil Rashid.
There is a book called Blink by the Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell.
It is made up of anecdotes and psychological case studies on impulsive decision-making. What Mendis did to produce this wicket for Sri Lanka will fit very neatly in that book. He collected a delivery down leg and looked like he was about to just toss the ball back to the bowler and then he saw Rashid wandering out of the crease at the non-striker’s end. In a split-second, he took aim and hit the bull’s eye. Gone.
It summed up England’s day of horrors. Sri Lanka were now in a position to Bazball England out of the World Cup – or something close enough to that. It all seemed straight out of a fairy tale. Except it wasn’t. It was Sri Lanka doing Peak Sri Lanka things with.
Angelo Mathews at the helm and Angelo “welcome back to the squad”
Taking up the issue with the Centre, Chief Minister M K Stalin urged Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to initiate necessary steps to secure the release all the fishermen and their fishing boats.
Chennai:
As many as 37 Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested and five of their fishing trawlers were seized by the Sri Lankan navy after they allegedly strayed into Lankan territorial waters, a fisheries official in Chennai said on Sunday.
The men were arrested during an operation by the Lankan navy on Saturday night.
This month alone, 10 fishing boats and 64 fishermen from the state have been apprehended by the Sri Lankan navy.
Taking up the issue with the Centre, Chief Minister M K Stalin urged Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to initiate necessary steps to secure the release all the fishermen and their fishing boats.
Drawing the Central minister’s attention to the apprehension of the 37 fishermen along with their five fishing boats by the Sri Lankan navy on October 28, the Chief Minister said, “As you are aware, our fishermen are solely dependent on their fishing activity for livelihood and these frequent arrests are causing immense distress and suffering to the fishermen community.” In a letter to Jaishankar on Sunday, a copy of which was made available to the media here, Stalin said such acts of the Sri Lankan navy have put pressure on fishermen communities in the state, and instilled panic into their minds.
“I wish to state that Tamil Nadu fishermen feel that their voices are on the wane; and I feel that the Government of India should stand more vocally for our fishermen’s rights and speak for their safety,” he said.
The chief minister reiterated the demand to protect the traditional fishing rights of Indian fishermen in the Palk Bay region.
Despite the persistent demand to stop the arrests and seizure of boats, the Sri Lankan navy has continued to apprehend Indian fishermen, he said in the letter and called for “solid diplomatic initiatives without further delay to end the arrests.”
The Government is set to implement a new property tax starting from 2025, State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya disclosed.
This decision has come as a result of recommendations put forth by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to the State Minister.
“The new tax will primarily target individuals possessing substantial property assets. These individuals will be required to pay a tax based on the value of their properties,” the State Minister underscored.
“The motive behind this move is to address income inequality and finance development projects across the nation,” he added.
It is worth noting that the IMF, a key international financial organization, provided recommendations that pushed Sri Lanka towards crucial decisions including this tax imposition. Sheain Fernandopulle)
Sri Lanka Police have reportedly implemented a number of measures in order to systematically control, and eradicate the operation of organised crime syndicates in the country within the next six months.
Addressing an event in Colombo this afternoon (29 Oct.), Western Province Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Deshabandu Tennakoon noted that most activities related to organised crime are being led by criminal figures living abroad, and thereby vowed that Sri Lanka’s police force is on a mission to eradicate such crimes.
Speaking further in this regard, the Western Province SDIG also raised concerns over the fact that currently, a significant amount of publicity is being given to these activities within the Southern and Western Provinces, with various stories about shootings and other such killings being reported often.
All these activities are being led by criminals living in foreign countries. Therefore, we have currently implemented plans to systematically control and eradicate these organised criminal networks within the next six months”, the SDIG vowed.
He further urged the public to support the police by informing them of any person who attempts to threaten or extort money from them, and to also come forward with any information regarding such activities.
From 1969 to 2016 Tamil Nadu was mainly ruled by firebrand politicians including Karunanidhi, MGR and Jayalalitha. They had a tremendous impact not only on Tamil Nadu politics but by extension Tamil politics in Sri Lanka. Over 90% of Tamils in the world live in India; mostly in Tamil Nadu. Only 5% of world Tamils live in Sri Lanka and every aspect of their life is influenced by Tamil Nadu from cultural activities to politics, job preference to even their attire.
It is no accident that Tamil racism and terrorism reached unprecedented highs from 1969 to 2016 in Sri Lanka influenced by extremist politics of Tamil Nadu. According to the report produced by the Commission headed by Justice Sansoni, violence by Tamil groups started in 1972. Sri Lanka won the war in 2009 ending their reign of terror. It was a 37-year-old war that ended in 2009. However, despite losing the war, Tamil racist politics in Sri Lanka continued aggressively until 2016 when the last of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister trios lost power. The trio is now dead. Tamil Nadu is since ruled by moderates. However, it is uncertain how long moderates will remain in power and for how long sanity will prevail. Both can end at any time either due to Tamil Nadu politics or Indian central government reigniting extremism in Tamil Nadu to destabilize Sri Lanka.
Since 2017 there is a marked reduction of Tamil racist politics in Sri Lanka as their ideological sponsors across the Palk Strait have changed their approach.
Attributing weak Tamil racist politics in Sri Lanka lately to local Tamil politicians is foolhardy. They are not in control and all of them were once not so docile, to say the very least. These actors are the same from war time. TNA has involuntarily toned down its extremist Tamil views (as they don’t get ideological support from firebrand Tamil politicians from Tamil Nadu). ACTC and Wigneswaran have tried to fill the vacuum without much success.
Attributing weak Tamil racist politics in Sri Lanka lately to peace, reconciliation or harmony is even more foolish and displays the ‘frog in the well’ mentality. On the contrary, peace and harmony in Sri Lanka and Tamils were given some breathing space due to the end of firebrand politics in Tamil Nadu, for now.
Both these wrong attributes are dangerous as real levers are elsewhere and they can change at any time.
However, this lull in tribal politics is misleading. It will again ignite the moment Tamil Nadu loses its sense and plunges back into tribal extremes which it will. It has happened throughout history. Lankan rulers since 2017 to 2023 failed to capitalize on this very rare opportunity. That may be due to internal bickering. This opportunity came about after almost 50 years’ of firebrand extremist politics in Tamil Nadu. It is time for Sri Lanka to reverse undesirables it agreed to since 1969 and re-consolidate national sovereignty, unitary status and national security. Extremist politics is sweeping other parts of India, mostly North India, and it is a matter of time this new wave of extremism reached Tamil Nadu. It will plunge Sri Lanka into chaos once again, unless handled well and in advance.
Image courtesy CGIAR Research Programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)
chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca
According to newspaper reports (The Island 16 October [1]), an NGO carrying the acronym MONLAR has accused that the agricultural policies of successive governments have rendered millions of Lankans insecure”. It claims that as of today, 5.3 million people in Sri Lanka are food insecure. This proves that what the government has been doing for more than 70 years to this date to feed its people has failed”.
Doesn’t MONLAR know that Sri Lanka reached self-sufficiency in food several times during its 70-year journey [2]? This was thanks to its legendary rice scientists who came up with technological solutions that matched the increasing population of the country. It was their high-yield rice varieties and scientific agriculture that kept the nation fed, while the population tripled and the low life expectancy (at independence) nearly doubled.
MONLAR should know that the amateurish ideological interventions of pressure groups like itself, and their politicians have repeatedly destroyed the good work achieved over the years. The target for self-sufficiency is well within reach [3], even after the chaos created by Premadasa’s grama niladharis” (village officials – political henchmen) who displaced the agricultural extension services.
When Gotabhaya Rajapaksa banned the use of fertilizers, setting off agricultural destruction in April 2021, MONLAR was one of the first organizations to write to the President in acclaim [4]), aping the accolades to Rajapaksa at the Glasgow summit from the European eco-extremists [5]. They demand, not just sufficiency, but a choice in food, including a completely Toxin-Free” diet while the poor have to face famine.
Even after the failure of those programmes, and the dramatic exit of Gotabhaya [6], MONLAR admits no mistakes, forgets its approbation of Gotabhaya’s ban, and now ascribes failure to wrong method of switching” to organic! MONLAR says that the agricultural and food crisis in Sri Lanka, which was exacerbated by the wrong method of switching to organic agriculture in one day, however has been gradually escalating due to the wrong agricultural policies implemented for decades” [7]. MONLAR does not understand that even if 10 or 20 years were taken for the transformation” the same disaster would follow.
MONLAR, the movement for land and agrarian reform” (with hardly a thought for a Sinhala or Tamil name) was founded by the late Sarath Fernando, an engineer who knew little about the topic. He came to radicalize farmers for the Marxist-Maoist revolutionary movement. In effect, MONLAR wanted farmers out of the fields and on protest marches – first the revolution and then agriculture! This was no different from JVP’s Mahinda Wijesinghe (a future UNP minister) telling me that the Degree certificate” can wait for system change”, at a time when I was his Chemistry Professor.
Sarath Fernando’s ideology unreservedly opposed big agribusiness’. It landed MONLAR on the slippery path of alternative agriculture” and all its myths. False claims that the use of agrochemicals has led to an exponential rise” in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cancer and kidney diseases have been a fear-mongering dogma of these activists as well as fellow travellers like Ven. Ratana, Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya, Dr. Channa Jayasumana and Dr. Ranil Senanayake. The latter published a graph showing the exponential growth” of NCDs in Sri Lanka, without even realising that his data showed the expected (linear) growth in NCDs proportional to the increase in population [8]. The renowned environmentalist Rohan Pethiyagoda has released an excellent myth-busting video that every MONLAR fellow-traveller should watch, for their education [9].
The ex-ambassador to Myanmar and ex-Marxist chinthanaya guru, Dr. Nalin de Silva, not only agitated on all these fronts since 2011, but also established an occult justification for the validity of these agricultural myths through reference to communications from God Natha.
Nevertheless, the claims that dangerous amounts of pesticide residues are found on vegetables, and that vast amounts of cadmium or arsenic brought in via fertilisers have poisoned Sri Lanka’s agricultural soil as well as the rice crop turn outed to be false as shown by chemical analyses done even by Nalin’s own collaborators. Furthermore, Sri Lanka uses far less agrochemicals per hectare than New Zealand, Malaysia or India. Its soils can produce about 2 tonnes of rice/ha even without fertiliser; but not for long. That was why the ancients abandoned their plots to fallow and burnt out new chenas periodically. Those methods of traditional agriculture are environmentally unacceptable.
MONLAR has agitated for organic agriculture” which emphasises composting. Composting generates greenhouse gases (GHGs) like methane – 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in global warming. These emissions catch fire and cause explosions at garbage dumps such as at Meethotamulla. Neither MONLAR nor Dr. Priya Yapa (an advisor to Gotabhaya) seems to have understood that several tonnes of organic fertiliser are needed to effectively replace a few kilos of chemical fertiliser.
Certainly, excessive use of fertilisers produces environmental pollution but it is easily controlled by using modern slow-release fertilizers and no-till agriculture, etc. So, grama niladharis”, political henchmen or MONLAR-type ideologues should be replaced by knowledgeable agricultural technicians.
The Gotabaya debacle should have opened the eyes of MONLAR militants, but ideological shutters remain stuck. MONLAR leaders have admired and followed Vandana Shiva, the Indian pseudo-agriculturist who insists that Indians should use traditional seeds (bought from Nava Dhanya organisations linked to her), reject modern genetics and GMO products like Golden Rice – a rice crossed with the carrot gene and designed to prevent congenital blindness.
MONLAR and its fellow travellers, some monks and others with a misplaced nostalgia for the past, have pushed for traditional rice” instead of the modern hybrid seeds, as well as traditional methods of cultivation. Traditional seeds and methods produced low yields, requiring more water, more erosion, more labour and more encroachment into virgin land. Various myth, e.g., that traditional varieties are immensely healthier” had been fed to journalists who had not checked the actual (negligible) differences.
A key claim and aim of MONLAR and other activists are to phase out synthetic fertilizers, develop two million organic home gardens, open up two thousand abandoned village tanks, and turn to the production of biofertilizer, or even better, use biofilm-biofertilizers (BFBF) developed by scientists at the National Institute of Fundamental studies (NIFS). Documents from the Department of agriculture (DOA) and relevant ministries show that some four months prior to the 100% pitch for organic agriculture”, the DOA had been arm-twisted into approving this BFBF although it would substantially reduce harvests. Careful scientific reviews of the available data on these biofertilisers sponsored by the INFS shows that none of their claims for BFBF can be substantiated [10].
The idea of restoring small abandoned village tanks was already rejected during DS Senanayake’s era for very good reasons, and instead we have larger systems like Padaviya, Galoya, Victoria, etc. Maintaining small tanks with their high evaporation and silting is very expensive, but even the big modern reservoirs are said to be increasingly neglected, though easier to maintain.
Dr. Sarath Ranaweera (associated with Biofoods” in Sri Lanka) is reported to have exposed” the Tragedy of Modern agriculture [11]. He has claimed, There are farmers who overcame the challenge posed by the chemical fertilizer ban brought about suddenly by the 2021 government using environmentally friendly methods as seen in the Ampara district. Ampara farmers cultivated using eco-friendly methods for three main seasons and achieved a successful harvest. According to the Department of Agriculture, farmers were able to achieve a yield of 5800 kg per hectare from the 4660 hectares cultivated in Ampara district using biofertilisers. This is an increase of 27.6% compared to the average yield of 4,546 kg per hectare using chemical fertilizers in Ampara over the past five years. Some remain skeptical about the potential of organic farming to increase yields and it is unfortunate”.
Other writers like Neville Ladduwahetty had read the Ranaweera claims and naturally accepted them to be true [12]. Determining the veracity of such a report requires a significant effort and scientific knowledge. Those who sell biofertilisers claim that they can reduce the need for chemical fertilisers by 50% while boosting harvests by 30%. Our attempts to confirm the above from DOA officials, as well as our detailed scientific study, all established the above to be a false claim [10]. Ladduwahetty has argued (elsewhere) that even if the harvest were low, organics” will fetch much foreign exchange and that is argument enough! But these harvests do not qualify as organic” because the NIFS biofertilizers are ineffective without 50% chemical fertilisers!
So, that is the elitist false promise of feeding the rich, earning forex and then importing food to feed the poor?
[2] Food and Agriculture Organization, FAOSTAT database. http://faostat.fao.org/.
[3] Davis, K.F., Gephart, J.A. & Gunda, T. Sustaining food self-sufficiency of a nation: The case of Sri Lankan rice production and related water and fertiliser demands. Ambio 45, 302–312 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0720-2
[4] MONLAR’s approval of fertiliser ban, https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Chemical-Fertiliser-Ban-Explained/131-211327
[5] Mat Ridley, https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/eco-extremism-in-sri-lanka/
[8] Ranil Senanayake, The Island 10-10-2022: If one looks at the statistics of rural health, it is clearly seen that the appearance of non-communicable diseases (NCD’s) in the rural sector began in the early 70s and has been rising exponentially since.” https://island.lk/the-fiction-of-healthy-toxins/
[10] Investigation on the efficacy of biofertilizers. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373898971_A_critical_review_of_crop-yield_data_for_rice_Oryza_sativa_L_on_using_Sri_Lankan_biofilm_biofertilisers
The construction work of Dambulla Primary School proposed to be developed utilizing the financial allocation of the Provincial Education Ministry of the Central Province, began recently (Oct 23) under the auspices of the State Minister of Defence Hon. Premitha Bandara Tennakoon MP.
Venerable Maha Sangha, Hon. Janaka Bandara Tennakoon MP, State officials, students and a large number of residents participated in this event.
Dambulla Thiththawelgolla Care Centre declared open
Dambulla Thiththawelgolla Junior School developed as a Care Centre under the guidance of the State Minister of Defence Hon. Premitha Bandara Tennakoon MP was declared open recently (Oct 23) by the Matale District Parliamentarian Hon. Janaka Bandara Thennakone amidst religious blessings.
Technical and man power contribution was provided by the Civil Engineering Branch of the Sri Lanka Navy for the project carried out utilizing the financial allocation of the Disaster Management Centre.
Venerable Maha Sanga, the State Minister of Defence, state officials and residents were also present at the occasion.
KandalamaBellaneoya Bridge declares open
The Bellaneoya new Bridge in Section 6 of Kandalama in Dambulla built under the supervision of the State Minister of Defence, Hon. Premitha Bandara Tennakoon MP utilizing the financial allocation of the Disaster Management Centre was declared open recently (Oct 22) by Matale District Parliamentarian Hon. Janaka Bandara Tennakoon MP.
Venerable Maha Sanga, state officials and a large number of local residents participated in this event.
Colombo, October 26: The benefits of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy of neutrality was evident during the recent challenges faced on several fronts.
Although it was quite evident during the 30 years of conflict as many countries – Pakistan, China, Russia, United States, Israel and India – came to assist at different times, the success of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy became most prominent during the last three years of difficulties due to the pandemic and economic downturn.
In addition to government-to-government development assistance as well as investments, Sri Lanka is also receiving generous grants and development cooperation and investments in the second tier such as from the state governments of India and provincial governments of China.
Last week a high-level delegation headed by the Yunnan Provincial Federation of Industry & Commerce Chairman Gao Feng, who is also CPPCC Vice Chairman, held a discussion with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena on the follow-up plans on trade and investment proposals emanated during the Prime Minister’s visit to Yunnan two months ago.
During the meeting, the high-level delegation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry and leading entrepreneurs of Yunnan held a detailed discussion on how to enhance trade and investment between Yunnan and Sri Lanka.
Yunnan’s keenness to have closer relations became evident from the visit of the Chamber head Gao Feng who, as CPPCC Vice Chairman, is responsible for all economic and trade and investment affairs concerning Yunnan.
During the discussions, trade, tourism, agriculture, technology and investments in solar and wind power were identified as potential areas for collaboration.
The Prime Minister said that the visit of the delegation would be useful to take forward the agreements reached during his visit to Yunnan in August 2023.
The Prime Minister visited the Yunnan Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Kunming International Flower Trade Centre and Auction, Yunnan Solar Power Station, Gushen Village Experimental Paddy Field, Errhai Ecological Corridor, Xiaguan Tuocha Tea Experimental Center and Three- Pagoda Chongsheng Temple in Dali in Yunnan Province. It was decided to cooperate in tea, paddy, and other crops, gem and jewellery and tourism.
Recently, Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda announced that China pledged Rs.1500 million for the benefit of the fisheries sector in the North. This grant was given to mark the tenth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in which President Ranil Wickremesinghe was one of the heads of state to attend.
Minister Devananda said LKR 500 million will be for the construction of housing for fishermen and another LKR 500 million for the provision of fishing gear such as nets. The remaining LKR 500 million is meant for the provision of dry rations to the fisher families.
Another Chinese province helping Sri Lanka in the rural revitalization programme is Chongqing Province. In July this year Dr Yuan Jiajun, top official of the Chinese Communist Party in Chongqing, who is also a CPC Politbureau member, said that China would extend fullest cooperation by encouraging, large-scale investments in industrial and agricultural spheres.
He also agreed to provide experts on hybrid rice varieties and other food crops to Sri Lanka of which expertise has been developed by Chongqing-rich researchers.
You have vast flat lands all over the country suitable for rice and other crops and we will extend assistance to increase harvest by several folds,” he said during his meeting with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.
The Prime Minister, pointing out that China is a great friend of Sri Lanka, thanked the Chinese side for providing strong support for the country’s economic and social development over the years.
The Prime Minister requested the delegation to share Chongqing’s experience of successfully alleviating poverty and ensuring food security by using hybrid rice and other food crops to increase production by several times.
Dr Yuan Jiajun assured every possible assistance to ensure speedy progress in poverty alleviation and food security. He said Chongqing could help Sri Lanka double its rice production by introducing hybrid rice varieties developed by China.
In addition to hybrid rice, Chongqing has also developed rice varieties that can be grown in dry zones with water shortages and also in saline lands near the seacoast, he said.
Earlier this week, Vice President of China Foundation for Rural Development Liu Wenkui offered his Foundation’s assistance to Sri Lanka’s poverty alleviation programme. He gave this assurance when he called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.
The Prime Minister said China’s success in eradicating poverty, rural uplift and ensuring food security has been exemplary.
I thank China for magnanimous contributions to the efforts of my country as well as other developing nations towards achieving food security,” he said.
He expressed appreciation for President Xi Jinping’s offer of continuous support to Sri Lanka when President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visited Beijing last week.
Mr Liu Wenkui said his Foundation has expertise in rural development and it could assist Sri Lanka in its drive to increase rural productivity for the multiple goals of self-sufficiency, uplift of rural low-income families and increase in exports.
President Wickremesinghe, during his visit to Beijing, reaffirmed Sri Lanka’s commitment to the One-China principle. He reiterated that Sri Lanka supports the efforts by the Chinese government to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and opposes any form of Taiwan independence”.
He hailed China for firmly supporting Sri Lanka in upholding its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supporting the independent choice of development path that suits its national conditions.
The President emphasized that Sri Lanka, as an island nation, has the potential to attain a higher standing in the international arena by adopting a nonaligned foreign policy. The close development partnership with China must be viewed in terms of neutrality which aims to avoid reliance on or alignment with any regional power or a global power bloc.
A gang made-up of former and serving army commandos had been hired to facilitate the escape of underworld leaders Harak Kata and Kudu Salindu from the CID custody and they were to be paid one billion rupees, police said.
Security has been beefed at the CID headquarters. It has been revealed that four serving commandos, too, were to take part in the attack.The two former army commandos already in custody in connection with the planned rescue operation have revealed details about the plan to the police.
Police have already informed the Army Commander of the serving commandos involved in the gang.Earlier it was revealed that an armed group led by former commandos would try to enter the CID headquarters, kill policemen on duty and rescue the two gangsters.
Two detachments of STF have been deployed at the CID headquarters. A previous attempt to free Harak Kata from the CID headquarters too, failed and a police constable who assisted the underworld figures is still missing.
It is reported that our President Ranil Wickremasinghe is seking th advise from foreign countries like Thailand to resurrect agricultural development in Sri Lanka. We need not go far. Lets go back to the Seventies when we did have a marvellous extension service that enabled us to become self sufficient in paddy, our staple crop.
I enclose one of my earlier writings that tell it all.
How our excellent agricultural extension system of the Sixties was sacrificed.
Posted on September 10th, 2020
By Garvin Karunaratne former G.A. Matara
In view of the attempts by our President to boost our agriculture, it may be worthwhile to ascertain what did happen to the excellent agricultural extension service we had in the Sixties- the effort of the combined Agriculture Department and Agrarian Services.
I enclose a chapter from my forthcoming publication: NuwaraKalaviya which details what happened..
I was stunned to read a news item stating that youths from schools in. Anuradhapura are very likely to be the cannon fodder for renal disease. Students in grades 10 to 12 in the North Central Province are prone to contact renal diseases…earlier it was people in the 30s and 40s.”(Daily Mirror (12/4)
My mind lingered to the 25,000 farmers of the North Central Province who have succumbed to the CDKu- the Kidney Disease. Some of them may have been the young farmers with whom I worked in the 296 cultivation committees I set up in 1962. Then there was a hive of activity- discussions and arguments going on for hours at times till late at night-the thrust of it was to use high yielding varieties and supplement with fertilizer. This was accomplished.
Sad to say, some two decades later certain administrative changes that were made did decimate the very effective agricultural extension system that we had. . In addition with the abolition of the Paddy Lands Act in the Eighties, the agrarian services with its overseers and the cultivation committee, the peoples’ organization at the village level ceased to exist. In around 1993, the trained agricultural overseers- the Krushikarma Vyapti Sewakas at the village level who formed the king pin that guided fertilizer and weedicde use at the village level were promoted as Grama Niladharis and till today no extension overseer with any training has taken their place. The farmers have no one to guide them. The closest trained officer is the Agricultural Instructor at the divisional level who has any number from 5000 to 14000 farmers to provide guidance.
Instead of being cheerleaders for globalisation being steered by one hegemonic power, the media became the drumbeaters and myth makers for America’s endless wars, particularly the ones after 9/11 which, by sheer repetition, were to impair and, over time, demolish the media’s credibility
The singular lack of hospitality experienced by Joe Biden in West Asia is all a part what the US, and Israel, must expect in the altered global order.
A look at trends from the beginning.
The global media which brought Operation Desert Storm live into our living room was sired by Peter Arnett of the CNN from the terrace of Al Rasheed hotel in January 1991. This media would amplify globalisation, riding on the back of the Sole Superpower.
The system cruised, with minor turbulence, until the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 signalled structural weakness in the capitalist design which was the base of US power and exceptionalism.
The post-Lehman Brothers world order could not be credibly described by a media which had in any case bartered away its credibility during the post-9/11 wars. My friend the late Philip Knightley’s book The First Casualty is a catalogue of the war correspondent as a myth maker. When wars break out, the first casualty is the truth.
Instead of being cheerleaders for globalisation being steered by one hegemonic power, the media became the drumbeaters and myth makers for America’s endless wars, particularly the ones after 9/11 which, by sheer repetition, were to impair and, over time, demolish the media’s credibility. Lyse Doucet, Nick Robertson, Christiane Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer were paraded on the screen with monotonous frequency, justifying America’s wars, leaving viewers none the wiser why the US needs 760 bases worldwide?
The disgraceful departure of the US from Afghanistan in August 2021, after 20 years of occupation, put its imprimatur quite indelibly an American decline. Rearguard action was attempted in Ukraine: the cast of characters from the media took up positions for their piece-to-camera at vantage points with the golden dome of the Kiev Cathedral as the backdrop.
Half-truths, always more pernicious than lies, became the staple in covering the story. The half-truth which defines the media’s coverage of the Hamas-Israel war is carbon copy of the media’s projection of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin, whose assassination was sought by Senator Lindsay Grahame as a solution and whom President Joe Biden called butcher, butcher, butcher”, in close range of the camera, spraying all over it — the blame for the war was placed on a brutal dictator cloistered in the Kremlin”.
Not a word about the repeated warnings by Putin and by eminent US strategic thinkers, that the expansion of Nato to the border of Russia in Ukraine was a red line that should never ever be attempted. It is for Russians an existential issue. But drum beating by the Western media became louder by the minute. Russian invasion is coming, Russia are coming”.
US political thinkers like Prof. John Mearsheimer of Chicago repeatedly warned that Russia was being provoked. It is war created by the West”, he said. Ironically, the US, which set out to change the regime in Moscow and thereby recover prestige is, yet again, bogged down in a war it cannot win.
The media will not tell you this bitter truth. Just as Putin alone is responsible for the brutal, inhuman war”, on the Hamas-Israel war, it has been true to form. All the sins have been piled onto one side which started this round on a scale which left Israel and their cohorts rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
Not a word about Nabka, and the flight of Palestinians as refugees, no attention to the caged ghetto totally at the mercy of Israel. Witness how water, food, electricity have all been cut off by a simple snapping of fingers. The jackboot of Israel was always been on the Palestinian neck.
Yes, Putin was provoked into a war the US thought it would win. Likewise, Palestinians live under constant provocation.
Why did Hamas choose this moment to launch an attack on Israel for which, there is now evidence, the militant group had been planning for years? This explains why the leader of Hamas military wing in Gaza, Mohammad Daif, disappeared after what was known in May 2021 as the sword of Jerusalem campaign. It shocked the Israeli army even then in its level of preparedness. In the eleven-day offensive by Israel on Gaza, 260 Palestinians were killed and 2,000 injured. The Palestinian resistance group fired rockets towards Jerusalem for the first time. Palestinians in Israel joined the resistance to protect Al Aqsa which was under constant IDF threat.
For intelligence agencies as smart as Israel’s, there was sufficient going on for these agencies to grasp. The allegation is that the security apparatus was much more focused on protecting the settlers on the West Bank and the anti-government protests with ever-swelling ranks.
Pundits have explained the timing of Hamas’s October 7 attack in various ways: it was timed to scuttle the Saudi-Israel rapprochement which Biden was so keen on. Was Saudi Arabia which had just made peace with Iran under Chinese auspices, being asked to embrace two implacable enemies – Iran and Israel?
It would be foolish to imagine that Riyadh clasped Iran’s hands only to unclasp like the trapeze artist at America’s bidding. This line of thinking completely misses the key point. Why did Riyadh break ranks and shake hands with the Ayatullahs. King Abdel Aziz al Saud developed a friendship with no limits” with President Roosevelt during a historic meeting on board the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal in February 1945, much before the Jewish state was born. Riyadh’s pivot to Tehran, a historic step by any yardstick, implied much more: Riyadh was snapping the apron strings to Washington, stepping out of the Western club into BRICS, the expanding group of the global South.
This one step must have caused great anxiety in Jerusalem. Of the two powerful regional states, US allies and partners, one had gravitated towards BRICS. This option is not available to Israel which President Carter described as an Apartheid state.
Riyadh would not have created this distance from Washington during the days of, say, George W Bush’s presidency when the US still wore its Sole Superpower hat. Today’s America is a much diminished power. The risen power is in the global south.
Israel’s existence depended on American power. US exceptionalism globally and Israeli exceptionalism regionally, were both a function of American power.
The US is not about to abandon Israel. Far from it, but it will not be able to cope with its routine tantrums. The need of the hour is that Israel works day and night to harmonise with the region and give the Palestinians what is rightfully theirs. The US has the difficult task of searching for peace on two fronts — Ukraine and Israel. With every week of delay, America weakens that much more and Israel becomes that much more vulnerable.
Finland ranks among the European Union’s most racially discriminatory countries, according to the findings of a survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
Finland takes third spot in the report, which investigates the challenges faced by people of African descent in Europe, encompassing issues of race-based discrimination, harassment, and violence. Austria and Germany were the only two countries to rank ahead of Finland.
Reporting on the Being Black in the EU survey, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat writes that the survey shows how discrimination has become more rampant in recent years, both in Finland and across the EU.
Some 54 percent of the respondents in Finland reported experiencing racial discrimination during the past year, with 63 percent having encountered such discrimination over the past five years.
“People of African descent are routinely met with unfair treatment and bias when seeking jobs or homes. Racial discrimination, harassment and violence continues to haunt their daily lives,” the report notes.
The surveyed countries include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland, Spain, and Sweden.
The FRA gathered data by interviewing individuals residing in these nations who either hailed from sub-Saharan Africa or had at least one parent from the region. The survey was conducted in 2022 and includes responses from more than 6,700 participants.
Express Your Opinion – Read What Others Say! The Independent Interactive Voice of Sri Lanka on the Internet.
EU-selvitys: Suomi koetaan yhdeksi rasistisimmista maista – Helsingin Sanomat
EU:n perusoikeusvirasto tutki afrikkalaistaustaisiin kohdistuvaa rasismia ja syrjintää 13 jäsenmaassa.
Google Translation
EU survey: Finland is perceived as one of the most racist countries The EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency investigated racism and discrimination against people of African descent in 13 member states.
Racism has been opposed in demonstrations. For example, in June 2020, thousands of people gathered in Helsinki’s Senate Square for the Black Lives Matter event, which started with the death of George Floyd in the United States. Racism has been opposed in demonstrations. For example, in June 2020, thousands of people gathered in Helsinki’s Senate Square for the Black Lives Matter event, which started with the death of George Floyd in the United States. PHOTO: ANTTI AIMO-KOIVISTO / MAGAZINE PHOTO
Anni Keski-Heikkilä HS 25.10. 7:00 | Updated on 25.10. 15:55 FINLAND is again at the questionable top of the survey in which the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency asked Europeans of African descent about racism and discrimination.
Finland is considered to be one of the most racist countries. The report “Dark-skinned in the EU” published by the Fundamental Rights Agency on Wednesday investigated racism and discrimination in a total of 13 EU countries.
43 percent of people of African descent interviewed in Finland said they had experienced racist harassment in the past year. The share is higher than in any of the studied countries.
The countries examined in the report were Finland, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland, France, Sweden, Germany and Denmark.
The Fundamental Rights Agency asked people living in these countries who were either from sub-Saharan Africa themselves or who had at least one parent from sub-Saharan Africa about racism. The survey was conducted in 2022, and more than 6,700 people responded to it.
NEAR Finland is Germany, where 42 percent had experienced racist harassment in the past year. When asked about racist harassment over the past five years, the proportion was 52 percent in Finland and 54 percent in Germany.
The averages of the surveyed EU countries were 24 percent for harassment experienced in the past year and 30 percent for harassment experienced in the past five years.
According to the report, young women, people with higher education and people wearing religious clothes are more likely to be victims of racist harassment.
WHEN people of African descent were asked about perceived discrimination, Finland ranked third after Austria and Germany.
In Finland, 54 percent of those interviewed said they had experienced racial discrimination in the year preceding the survey, and 63 percent in the five years.
The averages for all EU countries included in the report were 34 percent for one year and 45 percent for five years.
Most often, discrimination is experienced both in Finland and in all countries when looking for a job, working and looking for an apartment. The respondents especially felt that private landlords had not rented them an apartment because of racial discrimination.
Racist discrimination is experienced in the studied countries especially by the young and the highly educated. Of those who experienced discrimination, only less than one in ten had made a report about it.
The FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AGENCY last conducted a similar survey in 2016. The report published two years later received widespread attention, as Finland was perceived to be the most racist of the countries surveyed in its harassment issue.
In Finland, the amount of harassment experienced within five years has decreased from 63 percent to 52 percent. The average of all studied countries has remained the same, i.e. at 30 percent.
In terms of racial discrimination, the situation has worsened both in Finland and throughout Europe in recent years.
Most recently, 39 percent of all respondents had experienced racial discrimination in the past five years. Now the share increased to 45 percent. In Finland, the share increased from 60 percent to 63 percent.
Michael O’Flaherty, director of the Fundamental Rights Agency, describes the results as shocking in the press release.
“Racism and discrimination should have no place in our communities. The EU and its member states should take advantage of these results to better target their efforts and ensure that people of African descent can live according to their rights freely without racism and discrimination,” he says in the press release.
Correction 25.10. 10:59 a.m.: Contrary to what was erroneously reported earlier in the story, the average of racist discrimination in the studied EU countries when asked about the previous year was 34 percent, not 24 percent. In the graphics, the proportion was correct.
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s cash-strapped government is breathing slightly easier after a week that brought an agreement on more support from the International Monetary Fund and a promise of “no strings” help from China.
But the country still must climb out of bankruptcy, and President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s administration must prepare a budget presentation for Nov. 13 that will likely highlight the difficulty of balancing financial constraints with public welfare. This crucial test comes ahead of elections next year and as a weary population grows frustrated with tough IMF bailout conditions.
A case in point: The government last week approved an 18% hike in electricity tariffs, the second in eight months, following a 66% increase in February.
This is making life harder for citizens like Ashogan Kandiah, a 54-year-old tuk-tuk driver on the outskirts of Colombo. His monthly earnings of up to 65,000 rupees ($198) barely cover essentials for his family. His power bill, which used to be around 600 rupees, has soared to over 2,000. “I hope the government will consider reducing the prices of food and electricity,” he said.
Doing so, however, could put it at odds with the IMF, which has stressed the importance of shoring up government revenue with tariffs and taxes.
After the IMF announced a staff-level agreement to release a $330 million tranche late last week, Senior Mission Chief Peter Breuer said Sri Lanka’s low tax rates had contributed to its crisis, exacerbated when taxes were further reduced in 2019. When “shocks hit, the country couldn’t handle it,” he said. “The program is all about addressing the root causes of the crisis.”
Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves dried up during the tenure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, forcing the country to default on foreign debt and leading to Rajapaksa’s resignation amid massive protests.
His successor, Wickremesinghe, is tasked with picking up the pieces, including dealing with the IMF and hammering out debt treatment with major creditors such as China. Beijing has been criticized for dragging its feet throughout the crisis — a charge it denies — but the China Export-Import Bank recently struck a deal to restructure about $4.2 billion of the island nation’s outstanding debt. That was seen as a key step to unlocking the IMF cash.
Chinese President Xi Jinping last week met with Wickremesinghe, who was in Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum, and vowed to “continue to provide assistance to Sri Lanka with no political strings attached,” according to a Chinese readout.
What that means in practice remains to be seen. Back in Sri Lanka, the focus is on tension between IMF imperatives and public needs.
Speaking to the media on Monday, Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera warned of more tariff increases next year. “Due to IMF conditions, the state-owned Ceylon Electricity Board is no longer able to rely on treasury funds as it did in the past,” he said. “Hence these price hikes are necessary for the CEB to avoid incurring losses.”
Colombo economist Rehana Thowfeek stressed that IMF interventions were essential to address Sri Lanka’s fiscal and trade deficits.
“If the IMF had not intervened, the situation would have deteriorated further — fuel queues, power cuts and shortages. … It’s a misconception that it is the IMF that is increasing tariffs and imposing taxes. Of course, the IMF has recommended these policy changes, as these were what was causing the macroeconomic imbalances.”
Thowfeek said that “whether the IMF told us or not, we would have had to do these [steps] anyway.”
Professor Sirimal Abeyratne, chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, also emphasized the IMF’s critical role in restoring stability and investor confidence. The $330 million tranche, still pending IMF board approval, may not directly benefit the people but will enhance the country’s overall economic situation, he said.
“We expect further progress with some tough reforms and new laws in the coming months. Even if they are not for the IMF, the country needs them.”
However, some critics argue that the middle and lower classes are bearing the brunt, while the IMF is too lenient on the government and state-level expenditure. Prices remain elevated although inflation has come down significantly, with the statistics department this week reporting a 0.8% on-year rise in September versus 2.1% in August.
Colombo-based activist Prasad Welikumbura accuses the IMF of favoring governments and prioritizing debt repayment over individuals. “The IMF is not a people-centric institution,” he said. “Its power is concentrated unevenly among financially strong economies, and its key figures are often heavily influenced by lobbyists from global financial firms. It is improbable for such an institution to propose a people-centric solution.”
Welikumbura argued that the IMF should focus on guiding reform of state-owned enterprises, saying it acts more as a “debt collector” in the Global South than an “adviser.”
Based on an approved bill for appropriations, total government expenditure for 2024 is expected to exceed 3.86 trillion rupees, against estimated revenue of around 1.65 trillion rupees. The recurrent budget for last year was 5.8 trillion rupees, while revenue was estimated at around 3.4 trillion rupees.
The largest allocations are earmarked for the defense, health, transport and public administration ministries, some of which are due to receive modest increases as the government vows to spend where it is needed most.
Thowfeek, the economist, warned the government may be tempted to depart from necessary reforms to secure votes in next year’s elections. “But this time, it’s harder, as the government does not have the discretion to borrow indiscriminately to fund these budget promises, and it has to meet [IMF] targets.”
Political analyst Dinidu de Alwis says Sri Lanka’s real problems are rooted in inefficiency, corruption and flawed policies. “We have a civil service and military that’s bloated, inefficient and corrupt,” he said. “Our subsidies and price controls are basically paying one group to dig holes and another to fill those up.”
The IMF’s conditions, he argued, are a needed dose of rationality.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe in Beijing on Oct. 20. © Reuters