{"id":71537,"date":"2017-11-12T21:45:26","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T03:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71537"},"modified":"2017-11-12T14:10:51","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T21:10:51","slug":"an-aiyoo-see-ioc-budget-that-pretends-to-be-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/12\/an-aiyoo-see-ioc-budget-that-pretends-to-be-green\/","title":{"rendered":"An \u201cAiyoo See\u201d (IOC) budget that pretends to be green."},"content":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

What caught my eye regarding the\u00a0 Mangala\u201d budget were the headiness claiming that it is an eco-green\u00a0 budget. On reading more about it, one can only say in Colombo English, Aiyoo!\u00a0 See\u201d, i.e.,\u00a0 Alas ! Look (at this scam)\u201d. But the Aiyoo-see\u201d can also be written as IOC, the Indian Oil Company! The IOC and its impact on Sri Lanka is a good iconic symbol for what the budget really stands for, while it masquerades as a green budget\u201d !<\/p>\n

The budget is green in its homage to the US dollar,\u00a0 also called Green\u201d after the greenbacks of the American civil\u00a0 war. The budget actually promises to bring in all the horrors of unregulated third-world industrialism, pollution and poverty as seen in weak\u00a0 countries colonized and cannibalized by multinationals while a few individuals become extremely rich. Pathetically, the budget even gets the technology behind the little bit of ecology\u201d it attempts to impose completely wrong,\u00a0 in promising to tax cell-phone towers and limiting the internet. This is probably driven by the unsubstantiated claims of modern-day Luddites that cell-phone radiation and Wi-Fi\u00a0 can cause brain cancer!<\/p>\n

An even better bit of green advice from the minster’s mouth is to drink beer instead of pop soda. The minster has said nothing about the need to import (and eat) three times the usual amount of Genetically modified US flour (abhorred by the Greens\u201d) than in previous years.\u00a0 The flour is needed to meet the total failure of harvests due to a drought whose effect has been made much worse after the short-sighted policies on fertilizers and herbicides.\u00a0 The most popular, most effective and least toxic herbicide, known as glyphosate, has been banned by the Ayatollahs and their acolytes, who have rallied from Athuraliya to take over agriculture and even\u00a0 the health department, with false claims that glyphosate causes kidney disease.<\/p>\n

Of course, the environmental issues of Sri Lanka needs to be fixed very soon, before it passes beyond no return and turn into a canker of a\u00a0 Calcutta. Sri Lanka\u00a0 is a country where mounds of garbage rot and periodically\u00a0 explode due to the build up of methane. The density of particulate matter in the streets and homes is some 2000 times the maximum advocated by the WHO. Coal-fired power stations are still being planned with manipulation of\u00a0 contracts to get the biggest commissions, while diesel is burnt to produce power.\u00a0 Leaded gasoline is still allowed in the country and widely used in small two-stroke farm equipment.\u00a0 Lead comes\u00a0 also from road markings and gray-paint\u00a0 anticorrosives. Mercury is emitted from the combustion of premium gasoline, and diesel vehicles exhaust arsenic among other things.\u00a0 Nickel,\u00a0 Cadmium and Zn are\u00a0 emitted from the constant abrasion of tire rubber. The incessant\u00a0 wear of asphalt roads\u00a0 release toxic nickel, vanadium and other stuff!\u00a0 These sources of toxins far over-weigh the minute amounts of toxins (parts per million) found in modern fertilizers. Scientists have documented these in great detail. The minister, a past master of modern political ecology, having turned from blue to green,\u00a0 has perhaps decided to solve\u201d road pollution by periodically importing duty-free electric cars that the MPs can sell to the public in the black market. Surely, President Trump will applaud the Green finance Minister’s ecological acumen and issue him a very Green Card. The constitution can be changed to allow dual citizens to become MPs and rob the people, while Singaporens can rob even central banks.<\/p>\n

Or is this electric-car stuff\u00a0 just a ploy to let all the MPs, tired of their BMWs and Benz cars,\u00a0 get the new highly touted high-end Tesla electric car worth over a million dollars\u00a0 each?<\/p>\n

But let us come back to the IOC which is the icon of the Ayioo-See\u201d\u00a0 budget. The IOC\u00a0 petrol\u201d that is sold even in the top-tier Colombo filling stations are adulterated with kerosene to different extents. The composition of petrol\u201d in remote areas may stump even a seasoned analytical chemist. The IOC may ship substandard but passable petroleum due to deals within deals at the source, in India. But more significantly, the IOC represents the hegemony of a foreign power over the sovereignty of Sri Lanka, and the crass consequences of an Indian corporation controlling not only the shipment of Gasoline, but also its local distribution. The Budget opens the door to the ready entry of not just IOC, but every manner of robber baron and syndicated mafia that can sell their wares under the radar or launder their ill-gotten money. The more they are, the more avenues for commissions for the local partner\u201d. What a boondoggle of a budget! Many will soon live in free\u201d\u00a0 penthouses.<\/p>\n

The Hon. Minster says Mr. Speaker \u2026The country needs to shift away from being more protectionist and inward-oriented. Sri Lanka\u2019s border measures need to see a complete revamp through well-targeted and time-bound trade reforms promoting growth. Our over dependence on non-tradable drivers challenges growth in the coming decade\u201d. This should warm the hearts of the CEOs of Wallmarts, Arab or Chinese conglomerates, sweatshops and multinationals. It fits into Ranil W’s vision of a bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka within the proposed Economic and Technical Cooperation agreement (ECTA)\u201d.\u00a0 Then Sri Lanka’s 22 million will be subsumed into a one-billion demographic with a ready supply of cheap labour and millions of unemployed “clerks”. Clive’s East-India company is being resurrected in modern Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Going even beyond JRJ’s Reaganite\u00a0 economics, Managla attempts to do the same complete abdication that he did with Foreign Policy where Pablo de Greiffs ,\u00a0 Zeid al-Husseins, and Atul Keshaps can legitimately come to Sri Lanka to set the framework for judging, devolving, dissolving\u00a0 and auctioning the country. When is Jared Kushner due in Sri Lanka? Or can he just order Sri Lanka\u00a0 online via the Mangala portal of\u00a0 Amazon.com?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, opening up all boarders via the budget goes parallel with\u00a0 the closing\u00a0 of borders between the so-called traditional homeland\u201d of the Tamils and the rest of the country. This exercise of devolution\u201d\u00a0 is demanded only by pro-Eelam ultra-conservative castiest\u00a0 Tamil\u201d leaders who traditionally live in Karuvakkaadu (Kurunduwatte or Colombo 7),\u00a0 and dared not even enter their homelands\u201d during the decades when a de facto Eelam existed, while also being their political proxy!<\/p>\n

The Northern Chief Minister\u201d has even called for racial purity in marriage, surely to be imposed\u00a0 under the radar\u00a0 once power is devolved into their hands. After all, according to a report\u00a0 by Ahilan Kadirgamar,\u00a0 even the unwritten Caste distinctions continue to thrive in the post-LTTE homeland\u201d.\u00a0 But the devolution of power is just from Diyawanna to Karuvakaddu! Since the TNA leaders vote with the government,\u00a0 helped to elect the president, and run a pretend opposition while supporting the government, it is clear that they get what they want, the big-money Maharajas get what they want,\u00a0 the multinationals get what they want, while the general public is given\u00a0 green ecological medicine replete with\u00a0 beer (if they can afford it) instead of cream soda\u201d, and\u00a0 electric cars instead of three-wheelers!<\/p>\n

However, as the Prime Minster explained, most MPs do not know treasury Bonds from James Bond. But they know that the Aya Vaeya Lekhanaya\u201d can always be superseded by a supplementary rush\u201d estimate for\u00a0 new comfort\u00a0 allowances or for new vehicles for the MPs who will vote YES\u201d in unison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada What caught my eye regarding the\u00a0 Mangala\u201d budget were the headiness claiming that it is an eco-green\u00a0 budget. On reading more about it, one can only say in Colombo English, Aiyoo!\u00a0 See\u201d, i.e.,\u00a0 Alas ! Look (at this scam)\u201d. But the Aiyoo-see\u201d can also be written as IOC, the Indian Oil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}