Category Archives: sri lankan society

January 9, 2015 · 1:23 pm

The Election Process & Laws in Lanka and Elsewhere: Q and A with Damaso Magbual

Kelum Bandara, courtesy of the Daily Mirror,….. 9 January 2015

Damaso Guerroro Magbual, an international election observer from the Asian Network of Free and Fair Elections (ANFREL) stressed the need to enact a strong election campaign finance law in Sri Lanka. In an interview with the  he said the organisations concerned did not have parameters to define ‘electoral violence’.  – See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/60769/the-government-machinery-falls-under-purview-of-the-election-commissioner#sthash.8iF35Bw7.dpuf
 Your group has monitored the election for more than one week now. How do you analyse the situation in terms of violence and violations of election law?
It seems to be a little bit more calm and peaceful compared to previous elections, according to the reports from the ground. That is the impression we get actually. In the past, there were complaints of violence.  We have to define what we mean by violence. I can appreciate what the police have done. I met the Inspector General of Police (IGP) yesterday (January 6) and he said that the figures had been exaggerated. There were varying reports about the cases, but, the police said there were 344 odd cases, and 278 of them were mentioned as minor incidents.  Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, governance, heritage, legal issues, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom, Rajapaksa regime, security, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, world events & processes

January 9, 2015 · 1:09 pm

Deshapriya is One Winner at Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election

DESHAPRIYA

නීතියට පන දුන් පිරිසිදු මිනිසා……..මහින්ද දේශප්‍රිය.….. that is the Election Commissioner

News Item by Ishara Mudugamuwa, Daily News, 10 January 2015

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya yesterday while officially declaring Maithripala Sirisena as the new President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka thanked all representatives of political parties and executive directors of polls observation teams for the support extended by them for the holding a free and fair election.

Making the official declaration in terms of the powers vested in the Elections Commissioner by the Presidential Elections Act No.15 of 1981, (50), the Elections Commissioner said Maithripala Sirisena, the Presidential Election candidate of the New Democratic Front obtained 6,217,162 votes with a percentage of 51.28 percent, at the Presidential Election 2015.

Addressing the candidates, ministers and parliamentarians at the Elections Department, the Elections Commissioner thanked all for supporting him to hold a free and fair election. He also thanked the outgoing President for ensuring a peaceful election and a transfer of power thereafter.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, sri lankan society

January 9, 2015 · 2:06 am

Appreciating Anne Abayasekara: The Keeper of Our Conscience

Jayantha Somasundaram, in The Island, 9 January 2015, where the title is “Remembering The Lady With The Lamp”

Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” John Adams

ANNE ABEYAnne Abayasekara, the grand old lady of letters, left us last Sunday morning. She was 89 years old, and was physically, intellectually and emotionally robust to the end of her earthly days; as her post-Christmas email to me testifies. During this long, fruitful and productive life, she was many things to many people. To her family she was a home-maker and mother to seven children. To the literary world she was a writer, columnist and journalist for seventy years. Within the Christian church she was a mentor and role model. And to the community she was a professional counselor and friend. Those whom she has touched and influenced in these spheres of life will no doubt have much to say about her remarkable role and contribution, in both her personal and professional life. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under cultural transmission, life stories, literary achievements, meditations, performance, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, women in ethnic conflcits

January 8, 2015 · 10:14 am

Two Notes with Pertinent Literature for the Sally Debate

Muttukrishna-Saravananthan--e1399314919935A Note From Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, 6 January 2015

I am almost entirely in agreement with Razeen Sally’s article in Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com

Unfortunately, I do not have time to respond in detail but the following op-eds of mine written during 2014 AS WELLAS one each by journalist Namini Wijedasa and Prof. Amal Kumarage as well complement Razeen Sally’s analysis of the state of the Sri Lankan economy and polity under the Rajapakse regime.

* Road building or rip-off? Prof. Amal Kumarage (University of Moratuwa) (December 2014) …. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/141221/news/road-building-or-rip-off-128259.html

* Hambantota a Heaven for Projects by Namini Wijedasa (December 2014) …. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/141130/news/hambantota-haven-for-projects-130139.html Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, economic processes, energy resources, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, Rajapaksa regime, sri lankan society, working class conditions, world events & processes

January 8, 2015 · 6:09 am

Sri Lanka moves into 2015 in the Vice of a Potential Foreign Debt Trap, says Sanderatne

nimal s 2 Nimal Sanderatne, courtesy of the Sunday Times, 4 January 2015,where the title is “Reduction of massive foreign debt burden imperative in 2015″

Irrespective of whether voters choose continuity or change on January 8, the economic challenges this year are formidable. Among the many economic challenges is the imperative to reduce the massive increasing foreign debt, whose servicing costs are a huge burden on the economy. About 25 per cent of export earnings are needed to service the foreign debt that constitutes 43 per cent of the public debt. And the debt servicing costs of the public debt are more than the government’s revenue.

The severity of the problem is such that the country is closing upon a foreign debt trap. If external finances deteriorate due to a reduction of exports, reduced tourist earnings and increased costs of imports, the problem would worsen. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under economic processes, historical interpretation, island economy, performance, politIcal discourse, Rajapaksa regime, sri lankan society, transport and communications, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

January 8, 2015 · 4:17 am

Sri Lanka on a Tightrope on Election Day

CALLICKRowan Callick, in The Australian, 8 January 2015. where the title is “A nation in the balance’

FIFTEEN million Sri Lankans today go to the polls to choose a president in an election that had appeared set up as a victory parade for Mahinda Rajapaksa, 69 and in his 10th year in the job. Rajapaksa, who is credited with ending his country’s catastrophic 26-year civil war, had sought to capitalise on strong economic growth of 7 per cent a year, with official unemployment at just 4 per cent, when in November he called an election two years early.

MR -AFP Callick Pic from AFP SIRISENA + MR SIRISENA 11 from dbsjeyaraj.com

But just six weeks ago, Maithripala Sirisena, who was Rajapaksa’s health minister and general secretary of his ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party, broke ranks and became a candidate. This posed an immediate threat because Sirisena, a 63-year-old veteran parliamentarian with 25 years’ experience, took several other ministers with him among 21 MPs, and is set to win the support of a substantial minority of SLFP voters. He has also gained the backing of the major opposition group, the United National Party, as well as of the Tamil National Alliance. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, australian media, authoritarian regimes, democratic measures, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

January 7, 2015 · 3:02 pm

Kumar Sangakkara celebrates Lanka’s Diversity in speaking to Sri Lankan Youth via a Young Indian

 

sanga with clayton kids

LISTEN & SEE https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=568469333253317&video_source=pages_finch_main_video
My message to Sri Lankan Youth, Beautiful day with Sri Lanka Unites, 6 December 2014 Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under cricket for amity, cultural transmission, life stories, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, unusual people, world events & processes

January 5, 2015 · 3:17 am

Gerald Peiris in Slashing Critique of Sally’s Evaluation of Sri Lanka’s Political Economy

gerald peirisGerald Peiris, 18 and 20 December 2014

Michael,

This is unadulterated ‘Common Opposition’ propaganda and wishful thinking.

My prognosis is that things are proceeding much better for MR than initially expected, and he will win with a comfortable, (but smaller than in 2010) margin. It is the hotchpotch of parties behind the Maithreepala nomination that is disintegrating. Moreover, while the Joint Opposition has been able to buy a few high profile defectors from the MR camp, there are numerically large defections of the local government politicians from parties of the JO to the government side. They are the people who really understand their own grass-root situations.  Even the SLMC which was expected to join the JO is now having second thoughts, a large segment of its politburo wanting to remain in the ranks of the government. (Their leader Rauf Hakim has a record of being thoroughly unreliable, but has always displayed a good understanding of what is good for him.). The JO will undoubtedly stage a massive campaign, with the funds it gets from some of the US-led embassies. But the government also has funds and other resources to match. Some highly damaging disclosures are also been made by Attanayake, the former General Secy. of the UNP, against key leaders of the JO like Ranil, Mangala and Chandrika .…..

Best regards, Gerry Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under centre-periphery relations, disparagement, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

January 5, 2015 · 3:07 am

Engaging Razeen Sally’s Review of Sri Lanka’s Economic and Political Scenario

Michael Roberts

razeen sallyRazeen Sally is an acquaintance and a reputed scholar attached to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. When I spotted his review of the Sri Lankan economy and its political setting in the prestigious Wall Street Journal in mid-December, I immediately inserted it in THUPPAHI with a feisty title of my own coinage. This was in part because I had reservations about some of his evaluations. These thoughts arose in part from some of the economic indicators emphasised by one Jon Springer of the prestigious Forbes agency in USA.

In part my queries arose from my readings of the political economy of Sri Lanka in spatio-economic terms on the basis of my historical and political researches. Several themes associated with this peculiar respective had already been presented in my review of the issues surrounding the construction of a cricket stadium at Sooriyawewa as one pillar in the Rajapaksa family’s “cultivation” of their “home garden,” viz., Hambantota District — an essay that had earned me a reprimand (private email) from a good friend in Jayantha Dhanapala and attracted sarcastic comments in transcurrents. Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, elephant tales, governance, growth pole, historical interpretation, island economy, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

January 3, 2015 · 1:18 am

Dhanapala evaluates the Lead-up to Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election and Its Main Issues

jayantha_dhanapala 22Jayantha Dhanapala, courtesy of IDN or In-Depth news, 1 January 2014, at http://www.eurasiareview.com/01012015-sri-lanka-presidential-election-third-term-fresh-start-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s proclamation on November 20 last year decreeing a Presidential Election two years before the expiry of his second term of office has provided the voters of Sri Lanka with an unexpected opportunity to make a unique democratic choice on January 8, 2015. With the Sri Lankan voter enjoying universal adult franchise from 1931 – even when the country was a colony of Britain – this island nation has, since gaining independence in 1948, changed its rulers through the peaceful use of the ballot a total of nine times. The choice has been between the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) or coalitions led by each of them.

MR 22Since 1978, under a Republican Constitution, the elections, with admirably high voter out-turns, have been for both Parliament and the Executive Presidency (EP). The electoral choices hitherto has resulted in a series of false dawns for the citizens of the country with extravagant promises only being implemented with more of the same – corruption in high places; jobs for the boys and girls; high costs of living; lumpen development and widening inequalities. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, press freedom & censorship, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes