by Thiru Arumugam, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, January 28, 2017 Proposed Desalination Plant in Jaffna In 2010 the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a total loan facility of 130 million US dollars for the “Jaffna and Kilinochchi Water Supply and Sanitation Project”. The local costs of 26 million dollars were to be met by… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Economy
GSP+ forSri Lanka – Testing the EU’s Commitments
by Thambu Kanagasabai, Toronto, Canada, January 21, 2017 Under this scheme EU [European Union] grants additional tariff reductions to developing countries for imports eligible to qualify for these duty concessions. This scheme which was enjoyed by Sri Lanka until 2010 was suspended due to the ‘failure of Mahinda’s Government to address reported human rights violations… Read more »
Window for Economic Take-off Narrowing
by Economy Next, December 21, 2016 Sri Lanka is in a period of dangerous policy drift with mediocre governance which is inherently unstable with the danger of falling back to a ‘big man illiberal’ politics is getting nearer, a top economist and policy analyst has said. It is two years since the Rajapaksa regime was… Read more »
How To Enjoy Your Vacation To A Country
By Gowri Koneswaran, Split this Rock, Washington, DC, December 14, 2016 ★ While planning your journey, accept that ethics are not included in the price of your ticket; ★ Tell yourself your currency is helping the country; ★ Do not question government control of the tourism industry; ★ When researching… Read more »
When Travel Writing Becomes Propaganda
by Taylor Dibbert, ‘The Diplomat,’ Tokyo, December 14, 2016 A recent travel piece on the war-torn nation misses the mark badly. I was disappointed to read a recent Condé Nast article about Sri Lanka. Various parts of the piece read like the propaganda that comes straight from the Sri Lankan government. Let’s take a closer… Read more »
Only 5.2% of Sri Lankan Military Occupied Land has been Released to Tamils
by P.K. Balachandran, The New Indian Express, December 11, 2016 COLOMBO: The Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, C.V.Wigneswaran, has said that out of the 67,000 acres of private lands of the Tamils seized by the Sri Lankan armed forces during the war, only 3,500 acres have been returned so far. Since the war… Read more »
Clinton & the IMF
Clinton pressured IMF to not give loans to Sri Lanka: Min. Amunugama by LankaBusinessOnline, Colombo, December 7, 2016 Dec 07, 2016 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Special Assignments Minister Sarath Amunugama today revealed that Hillary Clinton forced IMF not to approve a loan facility to Sri Lanka when she was working as the US secretary of… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s War Cost US$ 200 Billion
by News.in Asia, Colombo, December 12, 2016 Colombo, December 13 (The New Indian Express): Sri Lanka’s internal war which ended in May 2009, had cost the country around US$ 200 billion according to India’s former National Security Adviser and Foreign Secretary, Shivshankar Menon. In his book Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy ,… Read more »
Devolution of Land Powers
by Verite Research, Colombo, October 2016 Devolution of Land Powers_A guide for decision-makers Executive Summary This is a practical guide for decision-makers on devolving land powers in Sri Lanka. It is meant to help comprehend the complex and sometimes contradictory provisions in relation to the devolution of powers over land. The guide is presented in… Read more »
Fighting For Fish
by Meera Srinivasan, ‘Caravan,’ India, November 2, 2016 EARLY IN DECEMBER LAST YEAR, Kadiramalai Loganathan’s father succumbed to a long illness. The funeral exacted a heavy price, and to recoup it the fisherman had little choice but to quickly return to sea. On the night of 16 December, barely a week after his loss, Loganathan… Read more »
Land Grabbing & Accountability
by South Asia Centre for Legal Studies, Colombo, September 27, 2016 Despite land grabbing being a common feature of many armed conflicts and an integral part of discriminatory policies against minority groups, it is insufficiently addressed in post-conflict or transitional justice accountability processes. While truth-commissions, in particular the Truth Commission in El Salvador, have highlighted… Read more »
Still Missing in Mullaitivu
by Meera Srinivasan, ‘The Hindu,’ Chennai, October 1, 2016 More than seven years after the brutal three-decade-long civil war ended in Sri Lanka, people are still picking up the pieces and searching for their loved ones. The last time Mary Sabamalai saw her son Mayuran was in 2008, when he came home for his 21st birthday…. Read more »
Political Justice is Not Enough to Rebuild Sri Lanka
by Timothy Ryan, Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO, Washington, DC, September 28, 2016 For Sri Lanka, gender equity will be fundamental to a stable, peaceful and equitable futureThe civil war that raged for 26 years in Sri Lanka was always about more than political grievances. The politics were rooted in economic and social disenfranchisement of the Tamil minority by the Sinhala… Read more »
Sirisena’s Mahaweli Ministry Spearheads Massive-scale Sinhala Colonisation in Batticaloa
In the first place, the Tamils were not even given the so-called ‘national ethnic ratio’ in the distribution of lands. Secondly, the Mahaweli Ministry was completely ignoring the Tamils in the allocation of lands. Thirdly, most of the lands being seized in the border areas of the three districts are pasturelands. The farming activities of… Read more »
Why are US-#SriLanka Economic/People Ties a BIG Deal?
by US Embassy, Colombo twitter feed, September 6, 2016
The Formula for a Richer World?
by Dierdre N. McCloskey, ‘The New York Times,’ September 2, 2016 Equality before the law and equality of social dignity are still the root of economic, as well as spiritual, flourishing — whatever tyrants may think to the contrary. The world is rich and will become still richer. Quit worrying. Not all of us are… Read more »
Deforestation Now Urgent Concern in Post-War Sri Lanka
By Johann Rebert, Asia Foundation, San Francisco, March 16, 2016 Following parliamentary elections in August 2015 and six years after the end of a bloody, decades-long civil war, Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena, has made the important decision to keep the Ministry of Environment directly under his wing. The move, which also positions the… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s National Policy Document on Rehabilitation
by P.K. Balachandran, ‘The New Indian Express,’ August 22, 2016 COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan Ministry of Rehabilitation has recommended, through its National Policy Document, the enactment of a comprehensive law that addresses all displaced persons and communities in order to be prepared for any eventuality in the future. The comprehensive policy document has recommended recognition… Read more »
Key Findings: Strategic Conflict Assessment
by Asia Foundation, January 30, 2006 SLkeyfindingsconflict On January 30, 2006, five sponsoring agencies — The World Bank, The Asia Foundation, and the Governments of the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — launched a study in Colombo, Sri Lanka, titled, The Strategic Conflict Assessment – Aid, Conflict, and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka, to guide… Read more »
Asia Foundation: Sri Lanka Strategic Assessment 2016
by Asia Foundation, San Francisco, March 2016 Asia Foundation Sri Lanka Strategic Assessment 2016 Sri Lanka underwent a major political transition in 2015 with the election of President Maithripala Sirisena and the establishment of a new coalition government between the United Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) and one faction of the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance… Read more »