Category Archives: economic processes

December 27, 2015 · 2:06 pm

Sri Lanka as an Investment Frontier — Mark Mobius

Mark Mobius, 18 December 2015, with title Sri Lanka could be the next big investment frontier …. http://mobius.blog.franklintempleton.com/2015/12/17/travels-in-sri-lanka-the-political-and-investment-climate/

My team and I recently traveled to Sri Lanka and saw firsthand its great appeal as a tourist draw. We crisscrossed the country by air and by automobile, visiting a few of its cultural attractions and speaking with officials there. Along the way we gained a better understanding of the people and the business climate. While my previous blog focused on our travel experiences as we visited a few historic sites, here my team and I further explore the country’s business and political climate as we seek out potential investment opportunities.

Ranil plus mobius 11Meeting with Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Continue reading →

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December 27, 2015 · 1:53 pm

Sri Lanka as a Travel Destination Today – Mark Mobius

Mark Mobius, 16 December 2015, at http://mobius.blog.franklintempleton.com/2015/12/16/travels-in-sri-lanka-the-tourist-trade/

Sri Lanka has a fascinating history with one of the first written references to the island made in the ancient Indian epic Ramayana, which mentions how Lanka was created by the divine sculptor for the Lord of Wealth. The first recorded kingdom, the Anuradhapura Kingdom, was established in 380 BC. Buddhism arrived in the country around 250 BC and continues to be the dominant religion, affecting many areas of life in Sri Lanka today. I recently visited the country again and, as always, was impressed with its beauty, its dedication to the environment and its friendly people. I encourage travelers to check out Sri Lanka, which has much to offer tourists including warm weather, expansive beaches, and an interesting heritage with many cultural attractions. My team and I weren’t there to simply soak up the sun and sights—we toured the country with an eye on potential investment opportunities. In this first part of a two-part blog, I explore the country, examine the infrastructure and talk to people on the ground—and in the air.

mOBIUS 22 Continue reading →

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December 22, 2015 · 12:30 am

Featuring Sujit Suvisundaram’s ISLANDED and Other Works

Radhika Coomaraswamy, in The Daily News, 22 December 2015, where the title reads “Original interpretation of historical fact, backed by detailed evidence, perceptive insights”

Let me say that ISLANDED by Sujit Sivasunderam is a seminal work. It is an original interpretation of historical fact, backed by detailed evidence and perceptive insights. It also questions received wisdom, entrenched narratives and the way we think about our country and ourselves. For over a century now, colonialism for Sri Lankans has always been seen as a terrible period of subjugation and oppression. As Frantz Fanon so forcefully argued, the psychological disempowerment coming from colonial exploitation and racism had not only submerged aspects of our culture, denigrated our self-respect but also destroyed our sense of being.

ISLANDED SUJIT 22 Sujit Suvisundaram…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRokQbarKzM

This has therefore always led to a black and white narrative on colonialism accompanied with a great deal of anger- and perhaps rightfully so. As a result, we were never ready to look at the possible intricacies and nuances of the colonial experience. I wonder even today whether we have found the self-confidence to do it thoughtfully and without rancour.

Sujit Sivasunderam in this book ISLANDED is perhaps the first to make this attempt. He does so, not only by presenting new theories of colonial interaction, but by analyzing in detail the political and non political aspects of the colonial encounter- from the mixing of peoples, trade, archaeology, land, science and what he terms the “publics”.

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December 19, 2015 · 1:29 am

Messages from Ranil. Razeen and Rohan

ONE: “A Constituional Court required,” says Ranil …. http://www.chatter.lk/constitutional-court-needed-to-uphold-credibility-of-judicial-system-pm/

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said today a separate Constitutional Court should be established to uphold the confidence of the people in the judicial system as politicization of the judiciary in the last decade had led to a loss of public confidence in the judicial system. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe expressed these views while delivering the 12th Sujata Jayawardena memorial oration organised by the Alumni Association of the Colombo University on “Strengthening Democratic Institutions” at the BMICH in Colombo. The Premier said politicization of the judiciary had been an obstacle to enshrining the Constitution as the supreme law and declaring all other laws which are inconsistent with the Constitution as invalid. “When establishing a separate Constitutional Court, we have to consider two issues. The first is the tenure of the Judges. Should it be decreed by an age limit or a time period? The second would be a possible method of ensuring the independence of the Constitutional Court,’ he said.

Ranil at SUja Continue reading →

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December 17, 2015 · 12:32 pm

USA in Praise of Sri Lanka: Under-Secretary of State Thomas Shannon’s Address

Remarks at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies, 16 December 2015

Good morning, and to all of you Ayubowan, Vanakkam. Thank you for being here. It’s a tremendous honor and a great pleasure to be here today.

sSHANNON SPEAKINGThank you, Mr. Minister, for your very kind introduction.  To be at this respected institute, named in honor of the late and great Lakshman Kadirgamar, and an institute dedicated to the study of Sri Lanka’s strategic interests, is the right place to be today to talk to all of you, about the partnership between the United States and Sri Lanka. Few understood the strategic interests of Sri Lanka better than Kadirgamar, who was an accomplished international civil servant, and an unparalleled expert on foreign affairs – appointed three times as foreign minister.  It has been nearly 10 years since his assassination, but his vision of a united, inclusive, and peaceful Sri Lanka is becoming more real by the day. Continue reading →

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December 11, 2015 · 1:52 pm

Goodness Gracious Me! How Siri-Ranil-Paalam has boxed itself into a Corner

N. A. De S. Amaratunga in The Island, 3 December 2015, where the title is “Government’ Dilemma” …. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=136400

1364002696fea9-4The government seems caught up in a quandary of its own making. In both the economy and the security spheres, the Government seems to be perplexed as to what it should do on its own will rather than on the bidding of its Western “friends”. It appears the Government has got into an intransigent alignment with the West, with all the benefits accruing to the latter. In the economic sphere, the alignment is designed to drain our wealth, as clearly shown by the gradual devaluation of the rupee, which amounts to about 8% since January 8th 2015.

Several Western leaders and officials have visited Sri Lanka but none had pledged meaningful economic assistance, other than money for the North and the East, which is part of their political game in Sri Lanka. IMF officials came and laid down their conditions which have never helped any poor country to rise above poverty. IMF, World Bank and the ADB are the tools of the West, which make sure the passage of wealth is in one direction. Continue reading →

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December 6, 2015 · 2:12 pm

Incisive Thoughts on Constitutional Reform for Sri Lanka — Here & Now

Jayampathy Wickramaratne in Q and A with Manjula Fernando… in Sunday Observer, 6 December 2015

Q: Is there a necessity for a new Constitution for Sri Lanka. India’s Constitution was drafted in 1950 and even after 100 amendments, no government thought of replacing it?

A: In India, according to the Supreme Court, the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be changed. But in our case, the 1978 Constitution was modeled on a presidential form of government with a strong executive at the centre. Today there is a mandate for the abolition of the Executive Presidency. It calls for fundamental changes to the present constitutional structure. No new Constitution can be built on the existing structure, that is the reason why we need a new Constitution.

jayampathy-wikramaratna-J Pic from athavaneng.com Continue reading →

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November 25, 2015 · 2:02 am

From Raqqa to Paris with Hate: The Modernist Cyber-Caliphate as a Virtual Community

Carl-Ungerer_gallerylargeCarl Ungerer, courtesy of The Australian, 25 November 2015, where the title is “Paris attacks: Islamists exploit West’s open societies” … and where there already are 26 blog-comments

As the Paris attacks demonstrate, the modern cosmopolitan city is now the preferred operating environment for the thousands of jihadists returning from conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and west Asia. Six of the terrorists in Paris previously had fought in Syria. Like the Madrid, London and Boston bombings before it, significant elements of this “protean enemy” have devised a clear strategy to move from the periphery of failing states in the Middle East and North Africa to operate in Western cosmopolitan cities. Just as Western security agencies grapple with the issue of trying to prevent the flow of foreign fighters to the conflict in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has already devised a plan to send many of these fighters back to the West, including through the irregular immigration flows that cross daily into Europe. Continue reading →

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November 17, 2015 · 11:48 pm

Introducing Book on Buddhist Poetry in Portuguese Ceilao

BUDDHIST POETRY AND PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM IN EARLY MODERN SRI LANKA by Stephen C. Berkwitz, Oxford
University Press: Oxford, 2013, xv + 308pp. ISBN-13: 978 019 993578 5, US $99.00 (hardback); ISBN-13: 978 019993578 9, US$45.00 (paperback)

BUDDHIST POETRY-www.amazon.comABSTRACT: Many researchers have explored the impact of British and French Orientalism in the reinterpretations of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Less noticed, however, and infrequently discussed is the impact of Portuguese colonialists and missionaries upon Buddhist communities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries across Asia. Stephen C. Berkwitz addresses this theme by examining five poetic works by Alagiyavanna Mukaveti (b.1552), a renowned Sinhala poet who participated directly in the convergence of local and trans-local cultures in early modern Sri Lanka. Berkwitz follows the written works of the poet from his position in the court of a Sinhala king, through the cultural upheavals of warfare and the expansion of colonial rule, and finally to his eventual conversion to Catholicism and employment under the Portuguese Crown. In so doing, Berkwitz explores the transformations in religion and literature rendered by what was arguably the earliest sustained encounter between Asian Buddhists and European colonialists in world history. Continue reading →

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October 19, 2015 · 3:46 pm

About-About: Clarifying the Work on Jeronis Pieris and His Times

Michael Roberts

This account is a clarification of the circumstances inspiring and surrounding the preparation of the book Facets of Ceylon History through the Letters of Jeronis Pieris (1975) in the light of Ian Goonetileke’s review article of 1976 (which I saw for the first time this October). The elucidation does not address Ian’s criticisms of the chapters on British waste lands policy or the role of buffaloes in up country paddy cultivation — for the simple reason that it would require a complex and lengthy exposition . The focus here is on the letters themselves and colonial politics.

1_Alfred House_exterior_Capper-500LR Alfred House during the heyday of the Warusahännädigē de Soysas in the mid-19th century

This book was drafted in 1969/70, but its appearance in print was delayed till 1975 because I took up a Fulbright Fellowship in USA in 1970/71 and we then had production problems with Hansa Publishers. The writing was informed by the British empiricist heritage in historical research that was integral to the Department of History, Peradeniya University where I was teaching in the Sinhala medium from March 1966 after returning from England following my doctoral dissertation. The book is in fact dedicated to Mr. WJF Labrooy who was Head of Department in my time.[1]

While teaching and exam-marking duties were heavy during the late 1960s, the semester-break system provided me with time to pursue my researches in agrarian history. This involved regular visits to the National Archives at Gangodawila where an old University pal Haris de Silva was Deputy Director and an asset in all my endeavours. At this stage these historical labours had been extended by the continuation of my oral history project interviewing and tape-recording Sri Lankan administrators as well as politicians on their life’s work.[2] Continue reading →

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