Sri Lanka Navy today (Nov. 05) intercepted two Indian trawlers with 15 Indian fishermen poaching in the Sri Lanka waters.
The interception was made during an operation mounted in the sea areas north of Talaimannar.
The operation was conducted by the North Central Naval Command this evening, having spotted a cluster of Indian poaching trawlers in Sri Lankan waters, in seas north of Talaimannar.
Accordingly, 02 Fast Attack Craft of the 4th Fast Attack Flotilla (4 FAF) attached to the Northern Naval Command were deployed for this operation, leading to the seizure of 02 Indian poaching trawlers continued to remain in island’s waters, with 15 Indian fishers.
The seized trawlers together with Indian fishermen are being brought to Talaimannar. They will be handed over to the Mannar Fisheries officials for onward legal proceedings.
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, together with the Iranian Red Crescent, donated an urgently required consignment of essential medicines and other medical supplies to Sri Lanka at a ceremony held at the Red Crescent Office in Tehran on November 03.
The total value of the medicine consignment is over SLR 108,123,522 which is equivalent to US Dollars 294,743.
The donation, consisting 119 essential medical items, was handed over to the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Iran G.M.V. Wishwanath Aponsu by the Government of Iran in the presence of senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Red Crescent of Iran.
Accepting the consignment, the Sri Lankan envoy conveyed profound gratitude on behalf of the Government and the people of Sri Lanka to the Islamic Republic of Iran for their timely generous contribution.
Further, the Sri Lankan Ambassador pointed out Iran’s continued support to Sri Lanka in difficult times and emphasized the importance of maintaining good relations and cooperation.
The donation of medical utilities was a result of a request made by Ambassador Wishwanath Aponsu during his meeting with Deputy Minister of Health Dr. Mohammed Hossein Niknam, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for West Asia Dr. Seyed Rasoul Mousavi, Head of Red Crescent of Iran Dr. Pir Hossein Kolivand and Senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Month of June 2022 to brief about the developments in Sri Lanka.
The Embassy of Sri Lanka in Tehran made immediate arrangement with the support of, Managing Director Alireza Bardaei of Pankeh Tea Pvt. Ltd. in Iran to dispatch the medical consignment from Iran to Sri Lanka. The shipment is due to arrive at the Colombo Port by mid-November 2022.
China will allow greater market access and share opportunities with all countries, President Xi Jinping said on Friday, following a sharp slowdown of external trade and ongoing tensions with major economies.
In an address via video to open the China International Import Expo in Shanghai, Xi called on the world to commit to openness amid what he deemed accelerated changes unseen in a century.”
We will share with every country China’s vast market opportunities [while] we step up efforts to cultivate a robust domestic market,” Xi said.
China will urge all countries and parties to share opportunities for deepening international cooperation, fully and deeply participate in the reform of the World Trade Organization, and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation,” he added.
The Chinese leader, who has begun a third term following the Communist Party’s national congress last month, reiterated the country’s readiness to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes Japan among its 11 member countries.
At the same venue last year, Xi said China was open to negotiations on industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises in order to join the trade pact.
The six-day annual expo, touted by local media as showcasing China’s commitment to opening up to the world, is being held amid the country’s trade slowdown.
In the first nine months of the year, exports and imports grew by 12.5% and 4.1%, respectively in U.S. dollar terms, down from 33% in the same period last year for both sectors.
The drag was blamed on weak domestic demand as well as rising global recession risk aggravated by Beijing’s zero-COVID policy that enforces strict lockdowns.
China’s potential growth has been declining visibly,” Citi Research said in a report Thursday. Looking ahead, we believe the slowing trend of potential growth will continue,” the report continued, citing a declining labor force and sluggish demand for housing among the reasons.
L’Oreal, Siemens and Uniqlo are among the foreign brands from 127 countries peddling their latest wares at the expo.
But contrary to Xi’s message of openess, business executives from abroad and within China are subject to pandemic restrictions. Overseas visitors are mandated to undergo a 10-day hotel quarantine, while those who are already in the country are required to take daily PCR tests.
At the national congress last month, Xi signaled a policy direction that would weigh more on politics and security rather than economic growth.
Meanwhile, relations with major economies led by the U.S. remain cooled over ongoing disputes involving trade and technology cooperation.
The Chinese economy grew by 3.9% in the third quarter, rebounding from a 0.4% rise in the second quarter.
However, the support for the economy does not appear to be solid with the presence of obvious structural defects,” said He Jun, an economist at independent think tank Anbound in Beijing.
Most worryingly, consumption is sluggish, market confidence is seriously lacking, and private investment continues to decline,” He added.
Sri Lanka has received another 500 metric tonnes (50,000 packs) of rice donated by China.
The rice consignment was handed over to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Education on Friday (Nov. 04).
The Chinese Embassy in Colombo stated that this batch would be distributed to needy students in the Eastern Province.
Including the delivery of this rice consignment, China has provided a total of 6,000 MT of rice (600,000 packs) to schools in Sri Lanka since June this year.
On October 26, China delivered another 500 metric tonnes of rice to Sri Lanka to be distributed to needy students in the country.
Hotline 1905 was introduced for the Public to lodge complaints in all three languages against bribery and corruption activities of government officials by the Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils, and Local Government.
There are rain clouds, not too dark and not threatening. It might rain later. There was rain last night. Tomorrow, there will be other clouds of similar shade. Non-threatening for a while. There might be rain. The city pulsated in rhythms acquired over the years. In some village in the Dry Zone, there are children at play. The potter is at his wheel. Someone, somewhere is listening to music. The country called Sri Lanka in determination and resilience, hope and foreboding, meanders through the hills and vales of joy and sorrow at a pace that suits her people. Sounds of yesterday are heard now and will be heard tomorrow. And through it all a silence that is strangely also a song. A sad song. Amaradeva is no more.
Pundit W.D. Amaradeva, known in an earlier avatar as Wannakuwatta Waduge Don Albert Perera, born in Moratuwa on the fifth day of December in the year 1927. Don Girinoris Perera and Maggie Veslina Mendis may never have imagined that their sixth and youngest child would, almost 89 years later, make music so silent and so poignant that it matched and in many ways surpassed everything he did with voice. Amaradeva breathed his last a few hours ago. The nation skipped a heartbeat. Breaths drawn were held for a moment longer than usual and then released as a collective sigh.
How can one speak of an incomparable voice that will not sing again? What do we say of a man who left us speechless with his songs? Those who want appropriate words to articulate their respective sorrows, their gratitude and sense of loss can of course delve into the lyrics. Song titles alone would yield enough lines to pick from. But that’s not him. That’s his friends, as gifted with word as he was with voice: Mahagama Sekera, Madawala S Ratnayake, Dalton Alwis, Chandraratne Manawasinghe, Ajantha Ranasinghe, Arisen Ahubudu, K.D.K. Dharmawardena, all of whom have passed on as has Prof Nandadasa Kodagoda (one of several one-lyric contributors), and among the living the highly accomplished but most infrequently recognized Sunil Sarath Perera, not forgetting Ratna Sri Wijesinghe and the more ‘present’ Prof Sunil Ariyaratne.
He will no doubt be remembered for offering his amazing voice to equally amazing lyrics, but what singles him out will always be the voice. And as he often said, the music was only carried by the voice — it was born and nurtured in heart and mind. Every word, every syllable and the spaces between were heart-made and mind-nurtured and that what sets him apart. His heart and mind were made of this nation in all its glory, all its inadequacies, and it held everyone cutting across every conceivable distinction. Amaradeva cleared the high noted of our multiple histories and held the integrity of the deep foundations of our cultural ethos. That’s how he became and for a long time will remain the voice of our nation.
Time will pass and his name will pass into the many names among the forgotten in the birth-decay-death of our common human condition, but there will be days, now and for a long time to come, when Amaradeva will be present and ready for renewal and rediscovery, endowed with history and heritage giving us in his own indescribable ways the forgotten yesterdays and inhabitable tomorrows.
There can be no short tribute. And no long tribute will be long enough. It is tempting to draw from one of the hundreds of songs that many of us grew up with, many of us were consoled by in times of grief, many of us were lifted by for countless reasons, but that would be disservice to both singer and lyricist.
For this reason, I choose the words scripted for a TV show on Amaradeva. They were written by Bandula Nanayakkarawasam who, interestingly, had just one ‘Amaradeva Song’ to his credit, never recorded but sung by the maestro on May 18, 1989 when Amaradeva’s classic book ‘Nada Sittam’ was launched.
This is what Bandula wrote:
ගම අමතක වීද ඔහුගෙන් විමසන්න
නගරය මග හැරුනිද ඔහු සොයා යන්න
රට අමතක වීද ඔහු ඇති බව අදහන්න
ගහ-කොළ, ඉර-හඳ, ඇළ-දොළ, සමුදුර, කුරුළු-ගී
ඈ නෙක දියදම් අරුම නොපෙනී නොඇසී ගියේද
ඔහු ඇසි දිසි මානයේ රැඳෙන්න
මේ පුංචි කොදෙව්වේ, මව් දෙරණේ
මේ සියල්ල ඔහුය
‘If you’ve forgotten the village, ask him
If you are lost in a city, go find him
If you forgot the nation, believe that he lives
The trees, the sun and moon, the ocean, bird song…
These and other enchanting things……..
should you not see them, should you not hear
Go stand before him, stay within the circle of his gaze.
In this tiny island, in our motherland
He alone is all these things.”
My friend Nishad Handunpathirana who knows much more about music than those who make knowing-claims and therefore, perhaps, says little, said a few words: ‘He was our Tagore’. Perhaps that’s one way of putting it. Another way is possible, Bandula has shown. He was Amaradeva. Ours.
There is silence amid the clutter of sound. It’s the silence of a singular passing. The voice of the nation has gone silent. And strangely, in this world made of transience, it would probably linger. More tenderly. Yes, softer still.
This article was first published in the ‘Daily Mirror’ (November 4, 2016).
There are differences in playing to a full and captive audience in a magnificent theatre, engaging in a light rehearsal at home with table and hand-pumped harmonium or a full rehearsal with an entire orchestra and sophisticated sound system, and in responding to a simple request by an admirer. The place, moment, ambience, sense of occasion and size and character of the audience naturally make for difference in setting and context. For Pundit W.D. Amaradeva however what matters is music and its appreciation, the opportunity to do what he knows and loves best, to experience and make for appreciation.
‘Amaradeva: yesterday, today and tomorrow’ was a show held at the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Performing Arts Theater. It was a grand 85th birthday party for the maestro and his wife who shares his birthday, even though the latter as she always has been was in his shadow. Before the show, there were rehearsals, light and heavy both. Years before, I had the honor of interviewing him, once for the Sunday Island and once for the ‘P.O. Box’ a magazine published by Phoenix-Ogilvy Advertising. On both occasions, he kindly and readily obliged when I requested that he sing.
Pundit Amaradeva does not require request or invitation. One talks with him and as he explains or describes he would break into song. Indeed, his mastery of Sinhala and English, as well as his long and deep association with the classics, was such that his words pour out like music, not one note out of place, not one missing.
His son, Ranjana, observed during a short break at a light rehearsal at his father’s house, ‘this is what makes him happy; to sing, to have people around him who he can sing to.’ At home, like on stage, in practice as in performance, Amaradeva indulges in a heady narrative mix of song and commentary. That night, a few days before the performance, he was explaining how he composed the melody for what is known as ‘The Unofficial National Anthem,’ Ratnadeepa Janmabhoomi:
‘When Sekara (that’s Mahagama Sekera his friend and principal lyricist referred to as the ‘Gee potha’ or ‘Book of Songs/Verse’ to which he, Amaradeva, was ‘Mee Vitha’ or wine, following the song-title ‘Gee pothai mee vithai’ or ‘The book of verse and the [glass of] wine’) sent me the lines, I was teaching a raga to some students. It was perfect.’
He mentioned the name of the raag but not being a student of music it did not register. He was at that point surrounded by family and students, both young and old. Ranjana played the table, Subhani, his daughter, was by his side prompting him if he missed a line or word. Sunil Edirisinghe, Rohona Bulegoda and Krishantha Eranda were there to pick him up when necessary. He didn’t stop smiling.
It was the same a couple of days before that when he practices with a full orchestra under the gentle direction of that perfectionist, Rohana Weerasinghe. That was the first practice session in years. Age takes things away. There were lines that were missed and verses that got jumbled. The voice faded on the lower notes. The nuance of melody, however, was a life-twin and the other beat of a heartbeat. He had not been abandoned.
The ‘big day’, therefore, was just another day, just another show, but as always a moment to be happy, to experience fully the exercise of singing and in singing to entertain. To those in the audience, though, it was not just another show, another day. This was moment for renewal and rediscovery, not with and of Amaradeva alone, but with being, with history and heritage, forgotten yesterdays and inhabitable tomorrows.
It was nothing like the ‘Amara Gee Sara’ shows of a different era. No one expected it to be. When the curtain was raised, the artist seemed older than I could remember, even though I had seen him just two days before. When he sang the Sarasvathi AbhinandanaGeethaya his age showed. And yet, imperceptibly, song by song, minute by minute, he warmed to the task, reveling in the moment, each prefaced by Jackson Anthony, at times laboriously and at times with wit and commentary that was less insufferable.
It was not the typical Amaradeva show, as I said. It was a national commendation of sorts, the kind reserved for the best teachers and the most exalted of citizens. He put it best, alluding to the analogy of the fish and water. He was in his elemental liquid, his rasika kela, the admiring listeners. He had his students, the best of them in fact, around him, accompanying him now as chorus and paying tribute with voice and word.
He once said ‘one sings not with vocal chords but with heart’ and said that of all the voices he’s heard, only Nanda Malini’s was heart-made. She demonstrated, both with Udangu Liyan (Proud Women) and with Galana Gangaki Jeevithe (with Amaradeva). In all the duets, the younger voices were stronger, naturally, but when it came to ‘feeling’, Amaradeva was without doubt supreme.
Sanath Nandasiri located the Master in the musical firmament: ‘geyuma meyai’ (this is what singing is), he said, was what Amaradeva taught. True. He set the standard and he set it high, so high that few reached it even on occasion, so high that aspiring to reach it made everyone better.
Apart from Nanda Malini and Sanath Nandasiri, there was Victor Ratnayake, whose rendering of ‘Obe Namin Saeya Bandimi’ was probably the most exquisite piece of the evening. There was also Sunil Edirisinghe, Edward Jayakody, Neela Wickramasinghe, Latha Walpola, Nimal Mendis and Nalin and the Marians, and of course the less visible but as enthusiastic, capable and devoted chorus. They all spoke of teacher and teaching and he responded with anecdote, affection and humility.
The father-son and father-daughter items were not usual. Ranajan, self-effacing, modest and consciously out-of-shadow, did a wonderful rendition of Aradhana, letting the father seal the song with last-line signature. Subhani’s duet was Chando Ma Bilinde, a lullaby that was apt. She had the stronger voice-presence that night.
There were two men missing from the show, one alive and one, sadly, no more. The first, Bandula Nanayakkarawasam ought to have scripted the program, but the script that played contained a clip of the Master done by ITN. It was a 4-5 capture-all that he had written.
Gama amathaka veeda…ohugen vimasanna
Nagaraya maha herunida…ohu soyaa yanna Rata amathaka veeda…ohu ethi bava adahanna Gaha-kola, ira-handa, ela-dola, samudura, kurulu-gee Aee neka diya dam aruma nopenee no-asee giyeda Ohu esi disi maanaye raendenna… Me punchi kodevve, ape mau derane Me siyallama ohuya
‘If you’ve forgotten the village, ask him
If you are lost in a city, go find him If you forgot the nation, believe that he lives The trees, the sun and moon, the ocean, bird song… These and other enchanting things……..should you not see them, should you not hear Go stand before him, stay within the circle of his gaze. In this tiny island, in our motherland He alone is all these things. ‘
Amaradeva, then, is not just marker of singing standard. He personifies for many reasons and many ways who we are as Sri Lankans, what in this country gives pride, where we stand; he defines the horizons we can aspire to travel to and tells us the geographies we cannot leave behind.
This is why, quite early in the program, Amaradeva not just sang Sasara Vasana Thuru but affirmed and underlined his personal wish to be re-born again and again in this land, a wish that Jackson correctly pointed out is the quintessential Jathika Pethuma or National Wish of all Sri Lankans who have any root that has sought and obtained nourishment from the deepest and most fertile of the country’s cultural and historical soil.
The other ‘absentee’ was of course Mahagama Sekara. He was referred to many times, by many people. Amaradeva, as he often does, referred to him as the gee potha and himself as the companion, mee vitha, deftly dodging Jackson’s attempt to establish that the reverse was also true. Sekara was the Book of Verse, Amaradeva the (glass of) wine.
With song, accompaniment, the forgetfulness at times, with lucidity too and of course anecdote, he would have drawn many a tear to many an eye that night. It was not a ‘finale’, and perhaps nothing demonstrated this than his forceful interruption or rather voice-add to a Marians’ rendition of Shantha Me Rae Yaame. He said, without saying it, ‘geyuma meyai!’ To his credit, Nalin acknowledged and expressed regret that they hadn’t met Amaradeva earlier, for had that happened their path may have been different, he said. But he wished him long life, as did everyone else, who in the gratitude of adoration expressed the hope that their own years be added to what’s left of his.
At one point he sang the up-tempo Bindu Bindu Ran which ended with the line pirivara soyaa maa thanikara yanna epaa (Don’t abandon me as you go looking for an entourage). That pirivara never left him, perhaps most of all because he did not leave them, even though he never held them in a vice-like grip. He had, after all, only a voice, but that sufficed, for his is a voice that enters hearts and stays there, a voice that contain the echo of our past and the distinct score of our future, a voice that is undoubtedly the incomparable voice of our nation.
Bandula ended the script to that short docu-film with the lines from one of Amaradeva’s best loved songs, Nim him sevva maa sasare, favorite of lovers and those seeking love or waiting for love’s ‘someday’ return. It could be also about the ties and longings of lyricist and singer to listener/fan (and one another) and also to land.
Nim him sevva maa sasare
Hamuvee, yugayen baendi yugaye Lanvee venvee varin vare Oba ha maa ran huyakini baendune I’ve searched the limits of this sansaara We’ve met in lifetimes gone We’ve embraced and parted again and again (but) you and I are bound together by a single, golden thread.
There is no beginning and no end to timeless things. Like the voice of W.D. Amaradeva. We don’t know where it was born and which territories it has and will enrich. We can but wish this national icon, this incomparable Voice of our Nation, good health and long life. Chirang Jayathu….
A good hearted woman, Barbara Undershaft, devotes all energies to help the poor as a major in the Salvation Army. She sees Andrew, her millionaire father, an arms dealer, as someone who needs to be saved. At one point though, she is forced to accept a large contribution from the errant father to continue her work. In this story scripted by the playwright George Bernard Shaw, the woman who has to reexamine her moral assumptions started off with good intentions. Shaw, through her, brings to the fore the tensions between religion, wealth and power. It’s a story. Let’s have a couple more.
A rich wife-beater offers financial and other assistance to a women’s organization that runs a shelter for battered women. In fact it is he who sets it all up. The women, administrators and victims, know his history. They happily accept the cash, invite him for their events and celebrate him in this and other ways.
A rich drug lord sets up and funds a rehab facility for drug addicts. The administrators and the addicts know who he is and what he does. They don’t mind.
In both cases, there’s no room for examining moral assumptions for there are none. People know. No remorse.
Now let’s consider a racist with a genocidal history and a warmonger and thief to boot offering financial and other assistance to a group of people who, let’s say, claim to be against racism and dedicated to supporting inclusivity. The beneficiaries cannot really be forgiven for being ignorant. They ought to know. What of their moral assumptions, then?
How could a country or a collective of nations with a long yesterday of genocide and plunder and a very-much-alive present of slavery, warring, warmongering, racism, subjugation of other lands and peoples, exploitation and plunder within these countries and elsewhere as well, have any moral authority to talk of peace or inclusivity? How could anyone with any moral sense accept without question any help from such entities?
No, this is not a story. Neither is it the script of a well-informed and politically conscious playwright intent on using theatre as a site for transformational activism. This is the European Union. This is the European Union in Sri Lanka. And this is about Sri Lankans who dare not question or else are disingenuous themselves.
Now if anyone perceives injustice of any kind and resolves to address it, applause is warranted, provided of course that selectivity, tall claims and their exaggeration, suppression of truth etc., aren’t part of the story. If the corrector plays end-justifies-the-means, such a person’s morality calls for scrutiny.
The European Union. What a creature it is! Colonialism. Slavery. Persecution. Genocide. Outright plunder. All that and more. The European Union today is made of countries where racial discrimination and harassment is not only commonplace but becoming worse by the day. The European Union supports Nazis in Ukraine. The European Union supports, funds, arms and trains death-machines run by monarchies, military juntas and dictators all over the world. Racism, xenophobia, homo/transphobia are rampant in the European Union. And it’s not just extremists indulging in the odd attack we are talking about. It’s structure. It’s systemic. It is evident in institutions, law enforcement and the overall criminal justice system. And mind you, the European Union admits that nine in ten hate crimes and hate-motivated attacks in the region are not even reported and therefore not sanctioned.
And yet, the European Union thinks fit to conduct tuition classes in Sri Lanka to Sri Lankans about racism and exclusionary politics. And yet Sri Lankans, individuals and collectives, who benefit from the magnanimity of the European Union utter not one word about the irony of it all.
The European Union believes that Sri Lanka is a country that needs peace and inclusivity. Sure, why not? Sri Lanka is not paradise after all and there’s always room for improvement. However, if inclusivity is, say, about one race having one vote or one faith having one vote, that’s dodgy. If inclusivity and peace are about insisting that all Sri Lankans inhabit some European version of Sri Lankan reality, that’s dodgy too.
If it is about forcing the entire population to enact or abide by legislation based on wild claims made by terrorists, that’s also dodgy. If peace is about a system and situation that enables the continuous exploitation of a people by a particular class or the ceding of national interests to strategic designs of the USA and the EU, that’s warlike and should be read as such. If beneficiaries of this love, understanding and magnanimity of the European Union want to talk peace and inclusivity without questioning the credentials of the European Union on these matters, then they are either super-naive or absolute pawns of European and North American designs for Sri Lanka, the region and the world.
It is beautiful to be romantic about peace and inclusion. It is even necessary to be idealistic about such things. However if politics stops there, it is irresponsible and, as history has shown, even pernicious.
Let’s flip it. Let us hope the do-gooders who are wide-eyed about the European Union shed myopia and start a fund, poor though they may be, to support groups that work tirelessly to bring about peace and inclusivity in the member states of the European Union. Let’s hope those who represent the European Union stop navel-gazing and political clowning and offer free tuition classes to anyone interested about the past and present of those countries, especially with regard to peace (or rather war) and inclusivity (or rather exclusionist realities).
In a remarkable interfaith gesture, a coalition of Christian-Hindu-Buddhist faith leaders is seeking apology from singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for trivializing karma”, a serious and ancient religious doctrine of Hindus and Buddhists, calling it highly inappropriate.
Senior Episcopal priest in Connecticut Father Thomas W. Blake, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, renowned Buddhist priest Rev. Matthew T. Fisher, Senior United Methodist Pastor Rev. Dawn M. Blundell; in a joint statement today in USA, said that while Hindu and Buddhist seekers and devotees took the concept of karma very seriously; Swift seemed to have irreverently trivialized it in her Karma” song in newly released album Midnights”.
Swift handled karma” frivolously; equating karma with a boyfriend, cat purring on the lap, guy on the screen, breeze in hair, etc.; and included a lot of cursing in the Karma” song; Blake, Zed, Fisher, Blundell stressed.
Doctrine of karma had been pervasive in Hindu thought for thousands of years and found expression in ancient Hindu scriptures like Brhadaranyaka–Chandogya– Shvetashvatara and other Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita, Puranas, Dharmasastra, Shatapatha Brahmana; and various sages delved into it. Even Lord Krishna in ancient Bhagavad-Gita talked about karma yoga, the active path of selfless service. But Swift treated it very flippantly, without any regard to the feelings of devotees; Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated.
Rev. Fisher emphasizes that a 2,600-year-old faith should not be trivialized for profit, but Swift chose to debase and thus harm the entire Buddhist tradition with her ignorant cultural appropriation in this deeply careless and hurtful song. In the Pali sutra, “The Great Exposition of Karma”, Lord Buddha clearly shows that the Law of Karma is the most powerful natural law in the universe and sentient beings ignore it at their peril. Our actions plant seeds and those seeds bear fruit.
We welcome Swift’s belief in karma, which seems like having a colossal place in Swift’s cosmos; but she should have handled the concept more appropriately, responsibly and thoughtfully; giving due respect to the emotions of Hindus and Buddhists spread worldwide, who take karma very seriously; Christian, Hindu, Buddhist leaders note.
Singers-songwriters should not be in the business of trivializing serious spiritual concepts, religious appropriation and sacrilege. Insensitive handling of faith traditions sometimes resulted in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols, and thus hurting the devotees; Blake, Zed, Fisher, Blundell stated.
Rajan Zed further said that Hindus welcomed the entertainers to immerse in Hinduism and create projects about/around Hindu doctrines; but taking it seriously and respectfully and not for refashioning/redefining Hinduism concepts and symbols, as mentioned in the scriptures, for personal agendas. Moreover, any misrepresentation also created confusion among non-Hindus about Hinduism. He or other Hindu scholars would gladly help if industry needed any assistance in exploring Hinduism, Zed added.
Christian, Hindu, Buddhist leaders pointed out that they were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it displayed callousness towards the feelings of adherents.
Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.2 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. No faith, larger or smaller, should be mishandled, Zed added.
Lyrics of Karma” include: karma is my boyfriend”, karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend”, karma is a cat purring in my lap…flexing like a goddamn acrobat”, karma is the guy on the screen”, etc.
Karma” is track 11 on Midnights”, the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 21 via Republic Records. Her online store is selling “KARMA is my boyfriend” (Cropped Ringer t-shirts) for $40 each.
Germany has become an economic satellite of America’s New Cold War with Russia, China and the rest of Eurasia. Germany and other NATO countries have been told to impose trade and investment sanctions upon themselves that will outlast today’s proxy war in Ukraine. U.S. President Biden and his State Department spokesmen have explained that Ukraine is just the opening arena in a much broader dynamic that is splitting the world into two opposing sets of economic alliances. This global fracture promises to be a ten- or twenty-year struggle to determine whether the world economy will be a unipolar U.S.-centered dollarized economy, or a multipolar, multi-currency world centered on the Eurasian heartland with mixed public/private economies.
President Biden has characterized this split as being between democracies and autocracies. The terminology is typical Orwellian double-speak. By democracies” he means the U.S. and allied Western financial oligarchies. Their aim is to shift economic planning out of the hands of elected governments to Wall Street and other financial centers under U.S. control. U.S. diplomats use the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to demand privatization of the world’s infrastructure and dependency on U.S. technology, oil and food exports.
By autocracy,” Biden means countries resisting this financialization and privatization takeover. In practice, U.S. rhetoric accuses China of being autocratic in regulating its economy to promote its own economic growth and living standards, above all by keeping finance and banking as public utilities to promote the tangible production-and-consumption economy. What basically is at issue is whether economies will be planned by banking centers to create financial wealth – by privatizing basic infrastructure, public utilities and social services such as health care into monopolies – or by raising living standards and prosperity by keeping banking and money creation, public health, education, transportation and communications in public hands.
The country suffering the most collateral damage” in this global fracture is Germany. As Europe’s most advanced industrial economy, German steel, chemicals, machinery, automotives and other consumer goods are the most highly dependent on imports of Russian gas, oil and metals from aluminum to titanium and palladium. Yet despite two Nord Stream pipelines built to provide Germany with low-priced energy, Germany has been told to cut itself off from Russian gas and de-industrialize. This means the end of its economic preeminence. The key to GDP growth in Germany, as in other countries, is energy consumption per worker.
These anti-Russian sanctions make today’s New Cold War inherently anti-German. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said that Germany should replace low-priced Russian pipeline gas with high-priced U.S. LNG gas. To import this gas, Germany will have to spend over $5 billion quickly to build port capacity to handle LNG tankers. The effect will be to make German industry uncompetitive. Bankruptcies will spread, employment will decline, and Germany’s pro-NATO leaders will impose a chronic depression and falling living standards.
Most political theory assumes that nations will act in their own self-interest. Otherwise they are satellite countries, not in control of their own fate. Germany is subordinating its industry and living standards to the dictates of U.S. diplomacy and the self-interest of America’s oil and gas sector. It is doing this voluntarily – not because of military force but out of an ideological belief that the world economy should be run by U.S. Cold War planners.
Sometimes it is easier to understand today’s dynamics by stepping away from one’s own immediate situation to look at historical examples of the kind of political diplomacy that one sees splitting today’s world. The closest parallel that I can find is medieval Europe’s fight by the Roman papacy against German kings – the Holy Roman Emperors – in the 13th century. That conflict split Europe along lines much like those of today. A series of popes excommunicated Frederick II and other German kings and mobilized allies to fight against Germany and its control of southern Italy and Sicily.
Western antagonism against the East was incited by the Crusades (1095-1291), just as today’s Cold War is a crusade against economies threatening U.S. dominance of the world. The medieval war against Germany was over who should control Christian Europe: the papacy, with the popes becoming worldly emperors, or secular rulers of individual kingdoms by claiming the power to morally legitimize and accept them.
Medieval Europe’s analogue to America’s New Cold War against China and Russia was the Great Schism in 1054. Demanding unipolar control over Christendom, Leo IX excommunicated the Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and the entire Christian population that belonged to it. A single bishopric, Rome, cut itself off from the entire Christian world of the time, including the ancient Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem.
This break-away created a political problem for Roman diplomacy: How to hold all the Western European kingdoms under its control and claim the right for financial subsidy from them. That aim required subordinating secular kings to papal religious authority. In 1074, Gregory VII, Hildebrand, announced 27 Papal Dictates outlining the administrative strategy for Rome to lock in its power over Europe.
These papal demands are strikingly parallel to today’s U.S. diplomacy. In both cases military and worldly interests require a sublimation in the form of an ideological crusading spirit to cement the sense of solidarity that any system of imperial domination requires. The logic is timeless and universal.
The Papal Dictates were radical in two major ways. First of all, they elevated the bishop of Rome above all other bishoprics, creating the modern papacy. Clause 3 ruled that the pope alone had the power of investiture to appoint bishops or to depose or reinstate them. Reinforcing this, Clause 25 gave the right of appointing (or deposing) bishops to the pope, not to local rulers. And Clause 12 gave the pope the right to depose emperors, following Clause 9, obliging all princes to kiss the feet of the Pope alone” in order to be deemed legitimate rulers.
Likewise today, U.S. diplomats claim the right to name who should be recognized as a nation’s head of state. In 1953 they overthrew Iran’s elected leader and replaced him with the Shah’s military dictatorship. That principle gives U.S. diplomats the right to sponsor color revolutions” for regime-change, such as their sponsorship of Latin American military dictatorships creating client oligarchies to serve U.S. corporate and financial interests. The 2014 coup in Ukraine is just the latest exercise of this U.S. right to appoint and depose leaders.
More recently, U.S. diplomats have appointed Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s head of state instead of its elected president, and turned over that country’s gold reserves to him. President Biden has insisted that Russia must remove Putin and put a more pro-U.S. leader in his place. This right” to select heads of state has been a constant in U.S. policy spanning its long history of political meddling in European political affairs since World War II.
The second radical feature of the Papal Dictates was their exclusion of all ideology and policy that diverged from papal authority. Clause 2 stated that only the Pope could be called Universal.” Any disagreement was, by definition, heretical. Clause 17 stated that no chapter or book could be considered canonical without papal authority.
A similar demand as is being made by today’s U.S.-sponsored ideology of financialized and privatized free markets,” meaning deregulation of government power to shape economies in interests other than those of U.S.-centered financial and corporate elites.
The demand for universality in today’s New Cold War is cloaked in the language of democracy.” But the definition of democracy in today’s New Cold War is simply pro-U.S.,” and specifically neoliberal privatization as the U.S.-sponsored new economic religion. This ethic is deemed to be science,” as in the quasi-Nobel Memorial Prize in the Economic Sciences. That is the modern euphemism for neoliberal Chicago-School junk economics, IMF austerity programs and tax favoritism for the wealthy.
The Papal Dictates spelt out a strategy for locking in unipolar control over secular realms. They asserted papal precedence over worldly kings, above all over Germany’s Holy Roman Emperors. Clause 26 gave popes authority to excommunicate whomever was not at peace with the Roman Church.” That principle implied the concluding Claus 27, enabling the pope to absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men.” This encouraged the medieval version of color revolutions” to bring about regime change.
What united countries in this solidarity was an antagonism to societies not subject to centralized papal control – the Moslem Infidels who held Jerusalem, and also the French Cathars and anyone else deemed to be a heretic. Above all there was hostility toward regions strong enough to resist papal demands for financial tribute.
Today’s counterpart to such ideological power to excommunicate heretics resisting demands for obedience and tribute would be the World Trade Organization, World Bank and IMF dictating economic practices and setting conditionalities” for all member governments to follow, on pain of U.S. sanctions – the modern version of excommunication of countries not accepting U.S. suzerainty. Clause 19 of the Dictates ruled that the pope could be judged by no one – just as today, the United States refuses to subject its actions to rulings by the World Court. Likewise today, U.S. dictates via NATO and other arms (such as the IMF and World Bank) are expected to be followed by U.S. satellites without question. As Margaret Thatcher said of her neoliberal privatization that destroyed Britain’s public sector, There Is No Alternative (TINA).
My point is to emphasize the analogy with today’s U.S. sanctions against all countries not following its own diplomatic demands. Trade sanctions are a form of excommunication. They reverse the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia’s principle that made each country and its rulers independent from foreign meddling. President Biden characterizes U.S. interference as ensuring his new antithesis between democracy” and autocracy.” By democracy he means a client oligarchy under U.S. control, creating financial wealth by reducing living standards for labor, as opposed to mixed public/private economies aiming at promoting living standards and social solidarity.
As I have mentioned, by excommunicating the Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and its Christian population, the Great Schism created the fateful religious dividing line that has split the West” from the East for the past millennium. That split was so important that Vladimir Putin cited it as part of his September 30, 2022 speech describing today’s break away from the U.S. and NATO centered Western economies.
The 12th and 13th centuries saw Norman conquerors of England, France and other countries, along with German kings, protest repeatedly, be excommunicated repeatedly, yet ultimately succumb to papal demands. It took until the 16th century for Martin Luther, Zwingli and Henry VIII finally to create a Protestant alternative to Rome, making Western Christianity multi-polar.
Why did it take so long? The answer is that the Crusades provided an organizing ideological gravity. That was the medieval analogy to today’s New Cold War between East and West. The Crusades created a spiritual focus of moral reform” by mobilizing hatred against the other” – the Moslem East, and increasingly Jews and European Christian dissenters from Roman control. That was the medieval analogy to today’s neoliberal free market” doctrines of America’s financial oligarchy and its hostility to China, Russia and other nations not following that ideology. In today’s New Cold War, the West’s neoliberal ideology is mobilizing fear and hatred of the other,” demonizing nations that follow an independent path as autocratic regimes.” Outright racism is fostered toward entire peoples, as evident in the Russophobia and Cancel Culture currently sweeping the West.
Just as Western Christianity’s multi-polar transition required the 16th century’s Protestant alternative, the Eurasian heartland’s break from the bank-centered NATO West must be consolidated by an alternative ideology regarding how to organize mixed public/private economies and their financial infrastructure.
Medieval churches in the West were drained of their alms and endowments to contribute Peter’s Pence and other subsidy to the papacy for the wars it was fighting against rulers who resisted papal demands. England played the role of major victim that Germany plays today. Enormous English taxes were levied ostensibly to finance the Crusades were diverted to fight Frederick II, Conrad and Manfred in Sicily. That diversion was financed by papal bankers from northern Italy (Lombards and Cahorsins), and became royal debts passed down throughout the economy. England’s barons waged a civil war against Henry II in the 1260s, ending his complicity in sacrificing the economy to papal demands.
What ended the papacy’s power over other countries was the ending of its war against the East. When the Crusaders lost Acre, the capital of Jerusalem in 1291, the papacy lost its control over Christendom. There was no more evil” to fight, and the good” had lost its center of gravity and coherence. In 1307, France’s Philip IV (the Fair”) seized the Church’s great military banking order’s wealth, that of the Templars in the Paris Temple. Other rulers also nationalized the Templars, and monetary systems were taken out of the hands of the Church. Without a common enemy defined and mobilized by Rome, the papacy lost its unipolar ideological power over Western Europe.
The modern equivalent to the rejection of the Templars and papal finance would be for countries to withdraw from America’s New Cold War. They would reject the dollar standard and the U.S. banking and financial system. that is happening as more and more countries see Russia and China not as adversaries but as presenting great opportunities for mutual economic advantage.
The broken promise of mutual gain between Germany and Russia
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 promised an end to the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was disbanded, Germany was reunified, and American diplomats promised an end to NATO, because a Soviet military threat no longer existed. Russian leaders indulged in the hope that, as President Putin expressed it, a new pan-European economy would be created from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Germany in particular was expected to take the lead in investing in Russia and restructuring its industry along more efficient lines. Russia would pay for this technology transfer by supplying gas and oil, along with nickel, aluminum, titanium and palladium.
There was no anticipation that NATO would be expanded to threaten a New Cold War, much less that it would back Ukraine, recognized as the most corrupt kleptocracy in Europe, into being led by extremist parties identifying themselves by German Nazi insignia.
How do we explain why the seemingly logical potential of mutual gain between Western Europe and the former Soviet economies turned into a sponsorship of oligarchic kleptocracies. The Nord Stream pipeline’s destruction capsulizes the dynamics in a nutshell. For almost a decade a constant U.S. demand has been for Germany to reject its reliance on Russian energy. These demands were opposed by Gerhardt Schroeder, Angela Merkel and German business leaders. They pointed to the obvious economic logic of mutual trade of German manufactures for Russian raw materials.
The U.S. problem was how to stop Germany from approving the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Victoria Nuland, President Biden and other U.S. diplomats demonstrated that the way to do that was to incite a hatred of Russia. The New Cold War was framed as a new Crusade. That was how George W. Bush had described America’s attack on Iraq to seize its oil wells. The U.S.-sponsored 2014 coup created a puppet Ukrainian regime that has spent eight years bombing of the Russian-speaking Eastern provinces. NATO thus incited a Russian military response. The incitement was successful, and the desired Russian response was duly labeled an unprovoked atrocity. Its protection of civilians was depicted in the NATO-sponsored media as being so offensive as to deserve the trade and investment sanctions that have been imposed since February. That is what a Crusade means.
The result is that the world is splitting in two camps: the U.S.-centered NATO, and the emerging Eurasian coalition. One byproduct of this dynamic has been to leave Germany unable to pursue the economic policy of mutually advantageous trade and investment relations with Russia (and perhaps also China). German Chancellor Olaf Sholz is going to China this week to demand that it dismantle is public sector and stops subsidizing its economy, or else Germany and Europe will impose sanctions on trade with China. There is no way that China could meet this ridiculous demand, any more than the United States or any other industrial economy would stop subsidizing their own computer-chip and other key sectors.[1] The German Council on Foreign Relations is a neoliberal libertarian” arm of NATO demanding German de-industrialization and dependency on the United States for its trade, excluding China, Russia and their allies. This promises to be the final nail in Germany’s economic coffin.
Another byproduct of America’s New Cold War has been to end any international plan to stem global warming. A keystone of U.S. economic diplomacy is for its oil companies and those of its NATO allies to control the world’s oil and gas supply – that is, to oppose attempts reduce dependence on carbon-based fuels. The NATO war in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine was about the United States (and its French, British and Dutch allies) keeping control of oil. This is not as abstract as Democracies vs. Autocracies.” It is about the U.S. ability to harm other countries by disrupting their access to energy and other basic needs.
Without the New Cold War’s good vs. evil” narrative, U.S. sanctions will lose their raison d’etre in this U.S. attack on environmental protection, and on mutual trade between Western Europe and Russia and China. That is the context for today’s fight in Ukraine, which is to be merely the first step in the anticipated 20 year fight by the US to prevent the world from becoming multipolar. This process, will lock Germany and Europe into dependence on the U.S. supplies of LNG.
The trick is to try and convince Germany that it is dependent on the United States for its military security. What Germany really needs protection from is the U.S. war against China and Russia that is marginalizing and Ukrainianizing” Europe.
There have been no calls by Western governments for a negotiated end to this war, because no war has been declared in Ukraine. The United States does not declare war anywhere, because that would require a Congressional declaration under the U.S. Constitution. So U.S. and NATO armies bomb, organize color revolutions, meddle in domestic politics (rendering the 1648 Westphalia agreements obsolete), and impose the sanctions that are tearing Germany and its European neighbors apart.
How can negotiations end” a war that has no declaration of war, and is a long-term strategy of total unipolar world domination?
The answer is that no ending can come until an alternative to the present U.S.-centered set of international institutions is replaced. That requires the creation of new institutions reflecting an alternative to the neoliberal bank-centered view that economies should be privatized with central planning by financial centers. Rosa Luxemburg characterized the choice as being between socialism and barbarism. I have sketched out the political dynamics of an alternative in my recent book, The Destiny of Civilization.
This paper was presented on November 1, 2022. on the German e-site Brave New Europe. A video of my talk will be available on YouTube in about ten days.
Colombo, Nov 3 (AdaDerana) – Russia’s largest charter airline — Azur Air and the flag carrier of France — Air France, will resume flights to Sri Lanka starting from this week, according to Sri Lanka’s Tourism Ministry.
Azur Air will commence flights to Sri Lanka from tomorrow (November 03) while Air France is scheduled to resume flights from Friday (November 04).
Meanwhile in a twitter message today, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando announced that Switzerland’s national airline, Swiss International Air Lines, is now staring operations in Sri Lanka once again with weekly flights starting from November 10 to May2023.
He said this will further strengthen the European arrivals for the season.
Russian airlines have not been flying to Sri Lanka since early June, when an A330-300 operated by Aeroflot was briefly detained due to a dispute with lessor AerCap‘s special purpose vehicle Celestial Aviation Trading Limited.
Even though the court quickly released the aircraft and the Sri Lankan government guaranteed that no further seizures would be made in the country, Russian airlines had been reluctant to return to the island.
However, Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot last month resumed flights between Moscow and Colombo after a lapse of 4 months.
Meanwhile Minister Fernando had tweeted recently that Air France and KLM Airlines will resume flights to Colombo, and the said airlines will operate four flights a week to Sri Lanka.
Colombo, Nov 3 (NewsWire) – The Sri Lanka Tourism Ministry has launched a ‘FIFA Zone’ at Negombo Beach to coincide with the upcoming Football World Cup in Qatar.
Tourism Minister Harin Fernando officially launched the ‘FIFA Zone’ today, which includes 3 night and 4-day stay in Sri Lanka.
The ‘FIFA Zone’ package offers return air tickets, stays at three-star hotels, food stalls, and several other entertainments as part of the package
Colombo, November 2: High Commissioner Gopal Baglay held two separate meetings with Vidura Wickramanayaka, Sri Lankan Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs on the implementation of USD 15 million grant by the Government of India for the promotion of Buddhist ties and the functioning of the Jaffna Cultural Center (JCC) on Tuesday.
The Secretary, Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs Somarathna Vidanapathirana, First Secretary (Development Cooperation), Eldos Mathew Punnoose and other officials representing the Governments of India and Sri Lanka attended these meetings.
It may be recalled that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a special grant of USD 15 million for the promotion of bilateral Buddhist ties at the Virtual Bilateral Summit on 26 September 2020 and an MOU governing the grant was signed on 28 March 2022, during the visit of External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar to Colombo.
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The High Commissioner and Minister Wickramanayaka agreed to immediately undertake steps for the quick implementation of jointly-identified priority projects under the grant in numerous areas pertaining to Buddhism.
Specific action points regarding the installation of solar power facilities in places of worship and the Pirivenas spread across Sri Lanka were also identified.
The disccusions on the Jaffna Cultural Center focused on the establishment of an enabling joint framework to make the state-of-the-art facility available for regular use by the public. The JCC, a glowing example of an India-Sri Lanka development partnership, which had been constructed under a Government of India grant of more than USD 11 million, consists of multiple facilities such as a museum of two floors, the latest theatre style auditorium for more than 600 people, an 11-storeyed learning tower, and a public square which could also act as an amphitheater, among others.
The two meetings underscore the Government of India’s abiding commitment to bring about a palpable impact to the daily lives of the people of Sri Lanka through the implementation of people-centric grant projects. These projects are guided by the demands and needs of all sections of Sri Lankan society and the priorities of the Government of Sri Lanka.
Till date, India has been associated with the implementation of more than 85 grant projects in Sri Lanka. The latest endeavors include the Sri Lanka Unique Digital Identity Project.
Sri Lanka will miss the December deadline for securing an IMF loan as main bilateral debtor China was involved in 20th party congress and had little time for holding debt restructuring talks with Colombo. The next meeting of IMF executive board is in March 2023.
Sri Lanka is headed for major political turbulence ahead as it will not be able to secure the much-needed IMF loan in December for its main ally and debtor China was involved in the 20th party congress and is still to initiate a dialogue on debt restructuring with the Island nation.
According to financial analysts based in Washington, Sri Lanka likely will miss the December IMF deadline and will have to wait for March 2023 to secure a USD 2.9 billion loan from the lending institution in eight equal tranches. In the meantime, the Sri Lankan debt has increased further due to forex depreciation, deep recession, and burgeoning fiscal deficit. Since the end of 2021, inflation has considerably eroded the real value of domestic debt.
While debtors India and Japan have already initiated a dialogue with Colombo on debt reconciliation and restructuring, China is still to engage in the dialogue as Beijing was involved in the 20th National Party Congress and had little time for client state Sri Lanka. The total debt of the island nation was USD 36 billion at the end of 2021. Of this, Sri Lanka owes USD 7.1 billion to China or 20 percent of its debt. The total public debt, which was 115.3 per cent of the GDP at end-December 2021, has now gone up to 143.7 per cent of the GDP by end-June 2022. Of this the bilateral debt has climbed from 12.7 percent of the GDP to 20.4 percent of the GDP. On October 31, 2022, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe went on record stating: Now, this is the process, we had to move. If we can move and come to an agreement by December, which means coming to an agreement by mid-November, and going up to the IMF Board in mid-December, we will gain a big advantage. However, I don’t know whether we can do it for the simple reason that in China the focus has started now after the party conference. However, we must aim to have it by January.”
Behind this political jugglery of Wickremesinghe, who is a lone MP of his party and a close ally of the discredited Rajapaksa regime, is the fact that Sri Lanka will require a bridge gap funding of USD 850 million to survive till the next IMF board meeting in March. Or else there will be public protests as in the last July-August and the ultra-leftist parties will gain political traction as the Sri Lankan opposition does not have the clout to stand up on its own. The question is who will give the USD 850 million bridge funding to help Colombo survive till March 2023?
The economic crisis in Sri Lanka is due to misgovernance, poor fiscal discipline and corruption by the Rajapaksa regime, who secured a 900-megawatt Norochcholia Power Station with Chinese help after taking a loan from Beijing apparently at 11 percent interest. The white elephant projects undertaken by Sri Lanka with Chinese assistance have led the Island nation deep into an economic black hole with no signs of recovery at least in the next five years.
While China is still to come on board to restructure its debt, India has already had two rounds of talks with Colombo and is in discussion with another debtor Japan to ensure that Sri Lanka gets early relief. Colombo owes nearly USD 1.7 billion in bilateral debt to India with another USD four billion in emergency assistance as the Modi government has gone out of its way to keep the Island nation afloat. This is even though Sri Lanka is still playing around with India’s adversaries China and Pakistan in the Indian Ocean region. Perhaps, Sri Lanka is waiting for China to lift its zero Covid policy and allow Han Chinese tourists to spend money in the Island nation to revive its economy. The political and economic future of Sri Lanka is very bleak.
According to information published by the Russian MoD on November 3, 2022, a detachment of Pacific Fleet ships led by the flagship missile cruiser Varyag has entered the TOF area of responsibility south of Sri Lanka.
A detachment of Pacific Fleet ships led by the flagship of the Nakhimov Guards missile cruiser Varyag, the large anti-submarine ship Admiral Tributs and the large sea tanker Boris Butoma have entered the responsibility zone of the TOF south of Sri Lanka.
The detachment of ships is making an inter-fleet transition from the Mediterranean Sea to the point of permanent deployment in Vladivostok after completing tasks in the far maritime zone.
In the area of Sri Lanka Island, the Pacific Fleet took operational control of the ships’ detachment on the crossing from the Black Sea Fleet, whose area of responsibility they successfully traversed. The detachment of ships is currently making the crossing across the Indian Ocean.
About the destroyer
Admiral Tributs is a Project 1155 Large Anti-Submarine Ship (Большой Противолодочный Корабль, BPK) of the Russian Navy. The ship was laid down on 19 April 1980 and launched on 26 March 1983.
The vessel is 163 m (534.8 ft) long with a beam of 19.3 m (63.3 ft) and a draught of 7.8 m (25.6 ft). Displacement was 6,200 t (6,102 long tons) standard and 7,900 t (7,775 long tons) full load.
Power is provided by four 23,000 kW (31,000 hp) hp GTA M-9 propulsion complexes, each comprising a 6,300 kW (8,500 hp) M-62 and a 16,800 kW (22,500 hp) hp M-8KF powering two fixed pitch propellers. which gave a maximum speed of 29.5 knots (55 km/h; 34 mph).
To combat submarines, Admiral Tributs mounts two quadruple launchers for eight missiles in the Metel Anti-Ship Complex along with two RBU-6000 12-barrel rocket launchers for close in defence.
Sri Lanka, which is under an ongoing economic crisis, is headed for another major turbulence as the country will not be able to secure the much-needed IMF loan in December as its ally and debtor China is yet to initiate a dialogue on debt restructuring with Colombo.
A report in Hindustan Times quoting financial analysts based in Washington said that Sri Lanka will miss the IMF deadline and will have to wait till March next year to secure a loan of $2.9 billion.
The country was expecting the IMF to approve the $2.9 billion loan by the end of this year, officials from the country’s central bank told investors earlier in September.
While the debtors- India and Japan have already started a dialogue with Sri Lanka on debt reconciliation and restructuring, China is yet to engage in the dialogue as Beijing was involved in the 20th National Party Congress, which elected Xi Jinping for a third term and had little time for Sri Lanka.
It is struggling with its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades, which has led to shortages of essentials and the ouster of a president.
Meanwhile, the debt has increased further due to forex depreciation, deep recession and burgeoning fiscal deficit. Since the end of 2021, inflation has considerably eroded the real value of domestic debt.
The total debt of the nation was $36 billion at the end of 2021. Of this total debt, Colombo owes $7.1 billion to China or 20 percent.
Now, this is the process, we had to move. If we can move and come to an agreement by December, which means coming to an agreement by mid-November, and going up to the IMF Board in mid-December, we will gain a big advantage,” Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe said last week.
However, I don’t know whether we can do it for the simple reason that in China the focus has started now after the party conference. However, we must aim to have it by January,” he added.
It now requires a bridge gap funding of $850 million to survive till the next IMF meeting in March or there will be public protests like the one the country witnessed in July-August this year.
An urgent shipment of medical aid has arrived in Sri Lanka, and which has been provided by the Qatar Fund for Development to support the health sector in the country, QNA reported.
Qatar’s ambassador to Sri Lanka Jassim bin Jaber al-Sorour received the Qatari medical aid, which he handed over to Minister of Health Keheliya Rambukwella.
The ceremony was attended by the Diplomats in the Mission and the senior officials of the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka including Mr. Janaka Chandraguptha, Secretary – Ministry of Health, Dr. Asela Gunawardana, DGHS, Dr. Anver Hamdani, Coordinator In-Charge of Covid-19 and Health Care Donor Activities.
The Qatar Fund for Development said in a statement that urgent medical assistance will play a pivotal role in promoting health and will contribute to easing the burden on the medical sector in Sri Lanka.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Government of Russia to increase the number of flights between Russia and friendly states, according to the Russian Embassy in Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the first resuming flight of Russia’s largest charter airline, Azur Air has arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) this morning.
The first flight reportedly arrived with around 335 passengers onboard.
Russian airlines have not been flying to Sri Lanka since early June, when an A330-300 operated by Aeroflot was briefly detained due to a dispute with lessor AerCap’s special purpose vehicle Celestial Aviation Trading Limited.
Even though the court quickly released the aircraft and the Sri Lankan government guaranteed that no further seizures would be made in the country, Russian airlines had been reluctant to return to the island.
However, Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot last month resumed flights between Moscow and Colombo after a lapse of 4 months.
Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Tourism had announced that Azur Air would be re-commencing flights to Sri Lanka starting from today (November 03).
Russia has closed its airspace to airlines from 36 countries, including all 27 members of the European Union, in response to Ukraine-related sanctions targeting its aviation sector.
Punitive measures imposed by Western powers have also forced Western firms to terminate leasing contracts with Russian airlines for over 500 aircraft.
The sanctions also prevent Russian airlines from buying aircraft parts or maintenance services from Europe or the United States, adding to the pressure on the world’s 11th largest aviation market from a ban on using North American and European airspace.
Russia has since 2021 maintained and expanded a list of unfriendly” countries, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, EU members and their Western allies, in response to economic sanctions.
The clause on visa-free travel in the Kremlin’s decree does not contain mentions of friendly” or unfriendly” countries.
In a closely watched anti-Western speech last week, Putin hailed African, Latin American and certain Asian countries as friends of Russia.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry told state media Wednesday that it would prepare proposals on e-visas by the end of 2022.
The change in the British Prime Minister has become a question of whether Britain needs a new leader with dynamic abilities for economic policy innovation and conceivable to direct such policies to the world as happened in the past. In this environment, another question emerges, why is apocryphal thinking respected by British people has failed to innovate policies for their own country and relegate to a difficult situation? The economic history of the world indicates that British economists contributed many views to change the economic policies of the world. It may not be the way as George W. Southgate explained in his history book. This situation has been reflected since Adam Smith. The contribution of J.M Keynes and AC. Pigou was in minds of economics students at the beginning of economic studies. J.M Keynes was a policy leader of the British Treasury and constructed a strong bridge between classical economics and modernized economics through Keynesian economics which was based on protecting aggregate demand. Later, Neo Keynesians and Monetarists such as Milton Friedman came up with ideas of demand for money and motives for demanding money in an economy and they also believed taxation will control inflation.
The Keynesian beliefs base policies are still in many countries and no economist was born after Keynes was able to change the economic policy based, departing from the British-based economists and many countries tried to make reforms staying and supporting for ideological based on Keynesian concept. After the recession experienced ending the Cold war, many attempted to say Keynesian economics was staled and the world bank promoted spending cuts and disciplines in investment management
After the election of Rishi Sunak as the Prime Minister of the UK, people have an opportunity to compare the economic policies of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the vital hope of people is whether Rishi Sunak would be able to act like a policy innovator to attract the worship of people like J.M.Keynes. Washington Post published, in brief, the economic policies of both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Now independent analysts could critically look at policies that would be attracted by the world. Although Rishi Sunak genetically associated with Indian flock his experience associate with African values.
High-income earners in any country of the world (US, Australia, France, New Zealand and Canada) cry for the tax cut which means they have a motive of gaining more money in hand after the tax payment, and a major revenue source of government in the West concerns charging tax from personal income and goods and services, and the significant point associated with this aspect is, it might be a greater concern to people in western countries, and without giving incentives to the poor in the tax reform, could a country maintains aggregate demand at the required level?. There is a clear conflict between the motives of high-income earners and low-income earners. Practically, policymakers need to assess who will positively react to the expectations of the economy from tax cuts while maintaining the saving level consistent with consumption. It believes as Keynsians assumed savings equals investment. Practically, the team of Sunak need to decide after consultation with advisors whether the British economy should go consistent with Keynes or need to invent new thinking to strengthen the economy. If this decision would not be happened Sunak’s policy and popularity will be failed.
The motive of both lower-income earners and high-income earners in this tax debate would be vital because when mathematically calculating, the reaction of consumers may decide which group of consumers either low-income earners or high-income earners would positively react to the fiscal policy. The difficult task is making the right decision without practical data on which group’s reaction is beneficial to the country and what would be the quantum of benefits to the country from the reaction of each group. This is a mathematical analysis, which associate with practical matters that cannot be mathematically calculate.
The benefit to the country from a tax cut and how positively impacts the macroeconomic variables giving advantages to all types of people in the country vital in this debate because an economy cannot manage to ignore whichever group of people related to a tax cut. If this situation could be incurred and reconciled by the policies of Rishi Sunak, he would be a marvellous policy dictator to the world, and no one in Britain could defeat him and all English-speaking countries will follow Sunak’s Britain. Sunak will be a new Churchill to the Western world.
Another vital point that should evaluate in the modern world is the behaviour of consumption, investment and saving in the modern world. The consumption of the community seems to align more with goods and services of information technology era, however, consumption in the modern world associated with different items that were not in the society, and investors will choose shares in innovative companies that will produce goods and services attracting consumers, who associated with non-traditional products, and investments would be the companies that produce of goods and services attracted by modern technology. For investment, stocks of companies that are producing goods and services are demanded by logical people in modern society. When compared to many countries in the world, the demand from overseas would be important as it would support and strengthen the foreign assets base of the country.
Another significant point is the motives of both groups regard to spending the savings from the tax cut should be accurately identified by the policymakers, it could be done by research. The real behaviour of the current world displays a huge difference between lower-income earners and high-income earners, in practice, the use of savings by lower-income earners may turn to consumption and higher-income earners might be interested in investment despite savings, and the changes the attitudes in the modern world might have a contradicting reaction or results. The value of money radically declines and people get away from groups who has speculative motives in this depreciating currency value. Look at the British Pound how it has been changed during the past decade.
Economists believe that the use of savings from the tax cut would be utilized by lower-income earners for consumption while high-income earners are likely to use them for investment. However, the use of saving from the tax cut may use for a different purpose in the modern technological era.
As it gets information every day, people on both sides may have interested in investing in crypto currency such as an investment preference that has high risk, sometimes, such investment choice might lead to bankruptcy. Neither in the classical era nor the Keynesian era was a popular investment in cryptocurrency that generate positive returns and quite difficult to interpret how it happens. In such a situation, a traditional belief of how to use savings from a tax cut should be carefully considered by government policymakers and cryptocurrency investors might destroy the economy. Whilst considering these points, spending savings from tax cuts may go to illegal dangerous drug consumption and business. The quantum of spending for illegal drug consumption was negligible in the past. Current world it is betokening and policymakers cannot ignore it despite the lack of data for decision making. This is a high-risk factor that should be considered by policymakers. Despite this requirement, policymakers have no data that support decision-making on this matter and Rishi Sunak might be a refuge in policy gimmick.
Which action is better for the world? If high-income earners use the savings from the tax cut for investment or consumption, it would have a positive impact on the economy. The aggregate income of the economy would be higher from new investments if they are used by new investments. Lower-income earners use it for consumption and it would cause to create an unstable condition in a country. The results of dynamism could not be augured in the modern world.
Rishi Sunak worked in British Treasury and may have read much research about consumer behaviour and investment. He is not a politician with a sympathetic heart for poor people and like an Indian businessman, he likes to grow wealth. His wife and family also indicate they are wealth growers by working.
After the taxing issue, the most significant policy invention required by Britain as well as other countries in the world seems to solve the problem of cost of living. In fact, it could be explained as earning is not sufficient to consume and saving. This is a more complicated problem that needs urgent attention and it is an issue of labour voters. Tory voters also concern with higher expenses for living, which is concerned problem all over the world. Theoretically, it is related to the price theory and the equilibrium point may be in a higher price with abilities to buy a lower quantity. The fundamental problem is balancing the demand and supply to reach the new equilibrium point. The problem is also related to factors on the production side.
Prof. Chandana Jayaratne Chairman-Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies (ACCIMT)Head of the Department of Physics and Director, Astronomy and Space Science Unit, Department of Physics, University of Colombo,
eclipse on November 8th at moonrise
(A lunar eclipse on the 8thfull moonday)
On November 8, 2022 full moon day, there will be a total lunar eclipse that will be visible in Asia, Australia, America and part of Europe. However, this eclipse is visible to Sri Lanka as a partial lunar eclipse at the moon’s rise.
The total eclipse begins at 1.32 p.m., the maximum occurs at 4.29 p.m. and the eclipse ends up at 7.26 p. m., Sri Lanka Standard time. Sri Lankans can view only the latter part of this safe naked-eye event as a partial eclipse with the moon rise at 5.48 p.m. from the eastern horizon. The partial phase of the eclipse ends up at 6.19 p.m. said Prof. Chandana Jayaratne, the Director of the Astronomy and Space Science Unit, Department of Physics, Colombo University.
This is the second and final total lunar eclipse of 2022 and is famously known as the Beaver Blood Moon lunar eclipse. The true maximum point of this eclipse cannot be seen in Sri Lanka because the Moon is below the horizon at that time. Since the Moon is near the horizon at this time, it is better to select a high point or find an unobstructed area with free sight to the east-northeast for the best view of the eclipse, said Prof. Chandana Jayaratne.
The next total lunar eclipse won‘t take place untilMarch 14, 2025.
Why do we call it a Beaver Blood Moon Eclipse?
All the full moons have popular nicknames. If the full moon in November falls before November 7, it is called the Hunter’s Moon. Otherwise, like this year, it is called the full Beaver Moon. The name Beaver is given due to the time of year when beavers available in many countries in the northern parts of the world prepare their dens for the coming cold months and stock up on food.
Despite its nickname blood moon”, at the totally, eclipsed moon looks an orangey-copper reddish color and not a blood-red color.
During a total lunar eclipse, a full moon passes first into the penumbra or less dark outer shadow of the Earth and then enters into the Earth’s umbra or deep central shadow. At the totality, the only sunlight reaching the moon is light that passes through Earth’s atmosphere. Instead of expected black, it turns the lunar surface red because of Rayleigh scattering. The more the environmental pollution, dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon will appear.
Prof. Chandana Jayaratne
Director, Astronomy and Space Science Unit, University of Colombo
Head of the Department of Physics, Universityof Colombo
Immediate Past General President-Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science
Chairman, Arthur C ClarkeInstitute for Modern Technologies and
National Coordinator and Board Member-International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics
Interesting question, and in an ethnically divided society like ours, it is better to find answers and how some, if not all, of their methods, can be adopted by others as well.
One of the most successful business communities in the world for centuries has been the Jews.
What are the secrets of their success?
They are no longer secrets, and a few methods that they practice can be adopted and practised by others as well.
The first and foremost one is honesty in all dealings.
Many would disagree with me when I say this.
I do not want to deal with dissenters, but if honesty was missing in their dealing, they would not have been in business for this long.
Most of the practices are commandments and they follow them diligently.
One is that a father should teach his son how to make an honest living and, further, it goes to say, to teach him how to swim.
It should not be taken literally and what it means is to teach how to navigate in different and difficult conditions to survive.
The next one is to have a very positive relationship with money.
Money is yet another tool to be used for the betterment of oneself and others, and it is not as evil as some belief.
Never be too shy or proud to ask for help from your community.
If the person standing next to you in prayer would not help, do you think a total stranger would?
The same with giving.
Give back to your community first.
Make it a practice to give to charity.
Muslims recommend 3%, while Jews recommend 10%.
You can’t wipe out all evils by just giving to charity, but even if a few would get help, it is better than doing nothing.
Always aspire to be an owner rather than a worker.
This rings the entrepreneurial bell in most people, and it makes good sense too.
Further, never be envious of another’s success, but rather be happy as you can learn from their experience and incorporate their methods into your business too.
Another important thing is not to neglect your bread and butter.
When success knocks, many get distracted and tend to take their eyes off the ball to pay more attention to other matters and ventures.
Their success formula is to pay 90% of your attention to your bread and butter, 8% to any future projects, and the balance of 2% to your dreams.
Never do to others anything you would not want them to do to you.
In other words, to avoid karmic repercussions.
Their recommendation for wealth is to be segregated and hedged, so if one goes bad for a period, others will provide the necessary cushioning.
The ideal ratio is to have 1/3 of your wealth in cash, 1/3 in inventory, and the other 1/3 in real estate.
They are more risk-takers than others because of their strong belief in God.
If we try hard enough, God will make it happen, is what they believe
If we do not try hard and are ready to give up, then divine intervention will not come.
Finally, take a day off from your busy schedule each week to have time for yourself, to pay attention to family and others’ needs, and to be able to come back and resume your day fully charged for the next six days.
I do not think that any of them are non-adoptable practices, and therefore anyone can duplicate their success by simply following those steps.
Disclaimer: The goal of this post is not to elevate or denigrate any group in our society; rather, it is to highlight some simple, doable alternatives for those that struggle.
