by Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch podcast, April 28, 2022 https://undispatch.com/category/podcast APPLE PODCASTS | GOOGLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | PODCAST ADDICT | STITCHER | RADIO PUBLIC Transcript lightly edited for clarity How Has Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis Affected Its Citizens? J.S. Tissainayagam [00:02:59] Sri Lanka’s problem today stems basically from a failure of accountability when wrong decisions are made. This has led to both… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Economy
Potential Impacts of Sea-Level Rise upon the Jaffna Peninsula
How Climate Change Can Adversely Affect the Coastal Zone by Tharani Gopalakrishnan, Lalit Kumar, Journal of Coastal Research, J. of Coastal Research, 36(5):951-960 (2020). May 26, 2020 Abstract Gopalakrishnan, T. and Kumar, L., 2020. Potential impacts of sea-level rise upon the Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka: How climate change can adversely affect the coastal zone. Journal of Coastal Research, 36(5),… Read more »
Sri Lanka Faces Worst-ever Economic Crisis
Triggering food and fuel shortages and protests by Neville Lazarus, Sky News, UK, March 29, 2022 In the past three months, fuel prices have increased three times, while essential food items have doubled. Sri Lanka is facing its worst-ever economic crisis, which has driven up prices and triggered food and fuel shortages across the country…. Read more »
BTF Exhibit in Geneva
by British Tamils Forum, March 2022 Exhibition & Demonstration at UN Human Rights Council in Geneva March 31 & April 1, 2022 Information displayed at exhibition –> Land Occupied by Government Department in North in Acres Land grab P 3 FINAL Land grab P 4 FINAL
How Britain Stole $45 Trillion from India
And lied about it by Jason Hickel, Al Jazeera, Dubai, December 19, 2018 There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India – as horrible as it may have been – was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to… Read more »
A Multispecies History of the Ceylon Pearl Fishery 1800–1925
Seeing like the sea by Tamara Fernando, Past & Present, Volume 254, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 127–160, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtab002 Published: 21 September 2021 PDF Abstract The pearl fishery of Ceylon was a lucrative source of pearls as well as a theatre of colonial power. But instead of narrating a story of abstracted governmentality, this paper dives below… Read more »
Sri Lanka on the Edge as Debt Burden Mounts
Explainer by Uditha Jayasinghe, Reuters, January 17, 2022 COLOMBO, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka is facing its most serious financial crisis in years, raising doubts about its ability to pay its creditors. On Tuesday, the island nation will repay $500 million towards an international sovereign bond, the first tranche… Read more »
SL Campaign: ‘Inhumane and Degrading’ Living and Working Conditions
In Sri Lanka: UN expert by Sri Lanka Campaign, London, December 16, 2021 Dec 16, 2021 On 3 December 2021, the UN’s expert on Contemporary forms of Slavery, Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata, published the preliminary findings from his recent visit to Sri Lanka. Whilst he acknowledged some of the progress that Sri Lanka had made regarding… Read more »
The Tragic and Needless Destruction of Raj Rajaratnam
Price-Giver Extraordinaire by Jim Tamney, Forbes, New York, December 8, 2021 Years ago, and while at a dinner in New York City, the subject of “insider trading” came up. A woman who had formerly worked in Royal Dutch Shell’s headquarters had an interesting anecdote to convey about trading on material non-public information (MNPI). She’d worked… Read more »
Management of the Tamil Diaspora 2006
LTTE’s Primary Function Abroad by Vipula Wanigasekera, Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria Virginia, March 2006 Building a CATR Research Agenda, Proceedings of the Third Bi-Annual International Symposium of the Center for Asian Terrorism Research (CATR) March 1-3, 2006, Colombo, Sri Lanka Proceedings_of_Center_for_Asian_Terrorism Research 2006 Management of the Tamil Diaspora–LTTE’s Primary Function Abroad … III-52 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… Read more »
Letter by FeTA-UK to Aid Agencies in 1996
by Federation of Tamil Associations in the UK, March 31, 1996 Fed Tamil Assoc UK 1996 Letter SL military budget 1996
Sea Cucumbers
Chinese sea cucumber farms back in operation in Kilinochchi by Dinasena Ratugamage, Sunday Island, Colombo, August 6, 2021 Two sea cucumber farms, managed by a Chinese company in Kilinochchi, recommenced its operations after fishermen’s associations in Jaffna and Kilinochchi said that they no longer opposed the farms. The operations of the two farms were stopped… Read more »
Oil and Gas Exploration in Mannar Basin Mapped
by Financial Times, Colombo, August 5, 2021 Energy Minister Udaya Gammampila in a gazette notification has published a map of blocks for joint exploration for oil and gas in the Mannar Basin. Titled ‘Hydrocarbon exploration block map of Sri Lanka,’ the map outlines the blocks for exploration licences, development licences and joint studies. The publication… Read more »
Sri Lanka Sliding Down a Dark and Slippery Slope
Daily Mirror editorial, Colombo, July 14, 2021 Somewhere after defeating separatist terrorism in 2009, Sri Lanka missed a glorious chance of turning a destructive era on its head. In the aftermath of the near 3-decade-long separatist war, instead of pursuing a cherished dream of reconcilliation, our political leaders acted like Don Quixote who went tilting… Read more »
Debt-hobbled Sri Lanka Risks Running Out of Options
by Tom Arnold, Marc Jones, Reuters, August 3, 2021 LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka paid a $1 billion bond last week, but the alarming state of its finances suggests it may have been just another step towards its first sovereign default. All the tell-tale crisis signs are there: bonds at nearly half their… Read more »
The Origins of the Great Divergence
A review of Peer Vries’ “Escaping poverty” by Branko Milanovic, his personal Substack, July 22, 2021 While the world is witnessing global convergence (essentially the catch up of Asia with the West), the debates about the origins of the Great Divergence—the take-off of the West and absence of growth in the Rest—are going strong. I… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa Dynasty is Not as Secure as It Appears
by Banyan, The Economist, London, July 17, 2021 The family that runs everything is running out of cash Since winning the presidency in a landslide nearly two years ago, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has worried not that he has too many relatives in government, but that he has too few. One of the 72-year-old’s elder brothers, Mahinda, himself… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Falling Economy & Failing Good Governance
by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 21, 2021 President Gotabaya acclaimed as un uncrowned king of Sri Lanka after defeating the Liberation of Tigers in the genocidal war with the assistance of 22 countries particularly from India, Pakistan and China as confirmed by his brother Mahinda… Read more »
Fears over Sri Lanka’s Rising Coronavirus cases and its Militarised response
‘We are bracing ourselves’ by Thusiyan Nandakumar, Tamil Guardian, London, May 4, 2021 Amidst a devastating wave of coronavirus in India, across the Palk Strait in Sri Lanka infections have also been rapidly rising, with newly diagnosed cases breaking records every day. Clusters are now appearing across the island, sparking fears not only of a… Read more »
Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India
Conceptual Framework of Repatriation Success by Miriam George, Anita Vaillancourt, and s. Irudaya Rajan, Refuge, Vol. 36, No.3, 2016 Sri Lankan Refugees in India Repatriation Success 2016 Abstract Repatriation to Sri Lanka has become a primary challenge to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Indian refugee camps, and a matter of significant public discussion in India… Read more »