October 10, 2011 · 7:02 am

The World Bank – does it cash in on the deprived?

Michael O’Leary, Courtesy of Lanka Monthly Digest, 11 October 2011 edn … also see http://lmd.lk/

The World Bank’s (WB) official goal is the reduction of poverty and its function is to provide loans to developing countries for capital programmes. In the 1940s and ’50s, the bank adopted a conservative approach and its level of lending was low. From 1968, its President Robert McNamara shifted policy towards measures like building schools and hospitals, improving literacy and agricultural reform. Keynesianism was the ideology of the lender’s bureaucrat-economists, whose ideals echoed the domestic policies of the US governments of the time – LBJ’s Great Society, with its emphasis on growth and redistribution as a remedy for poverty.

McNamara’s Treasurer Eugene Rotberg acquired capital from the global bond market. Ironically, Swiss banks (many of which hoard much of the money looted by dictators from developing nations) contributed a substantial share of these funds. Unfortunately, from 1976 to 1980, debt levels in developing nations rose at an average annual rate of 20 per cent. Continue reading →

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October 10, 2011 · 1:23 am

Saman Dias, Sri Lankan American and serial entrepreneur

Eve Mitchell, in Contra Costa Times, 10 Sept 2011

As is true for many technology-trained immigrants who come to theUnited States, opportunity beckoned for Saman Dias. She arrived in the Bay Area in 1984 when she was 24 to start a training program for a software program under development.She learned the project was in danger of running out of funding after she had arrived. Dias took matters into her own hands, drawing on her experience four years ago in her native Sri Lanka of teaching children and adults how to use computers.”I ended up making cold calls and getting training and consulting opportunities and contracts through other training companies,” she said. “I had to be proactive and not just wait and expect somebody to save us.” Continue reading →

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October 10, 2011 · 1:00 am

Sam Prince and his multi-talented ventures– the way to go

Chris Kimball, Updated December 08, 2010 12:28:00

 Pic by Alex Ellinghausen

Sam Prince is a doctor, Mexican food entrepreneur and philanthropist – and now he aims to eradicate one disease at a time. All this at just 26.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-03/sam-prince/2363320 — Source: 7.30 ACT | Duration: 19min 51sec

  *****

 Healing the World a Step at a Time

Mark Metherell,  in Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/national/healing-the-world-a-step-at-a-time-20110401-1crbh.html

Sam Prince is a prodigy in a hurry. Lunch with him is conducted standing at the counter of one of his restaurants, eating a burrito out of a foil wrap. At age 27, Prince has achieved more than most do in a lifetime. While still a medical student, he launched his own Zambrero ”fresh mex” restaurant chain which now numbers 17 outlets aroundAustralia. He graduated from medicine much earlier than most, at 22. The engaging young doctor has established and financed the E-magine Foundation, which has built and equipped 15 computer learning centres in rural areas of his parents’ birthplace,Sri Lanka, with a goal to build 100 schools by 2014. Continue reading →

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October 7, 2011 · 12:37 pm

Antiquated language teaching methods block goal of a trilingual police force

Olindhi Jayasundera, in the Daily Mirror, 6 October 2011: “People want a Trilingual Police force”

Presidential Advisor and Coordinator of the Presidential Initiative for a Trilingual Sri Lanka Sunimal Fernando said people had requested for the government to set up a trilingual police system at the earliest time possible. “They don’t want ethnic Tamil people in the North and Sinhala people in the South.” he said. The Presidential Secretariat said yesterday that when people were requested to send in their recommendations to be added in the country’s ten year trilingual national plan one of the suggestions that stood out was the people’s interest in changing the Sri Lankan Police Force into a strictly trilingual based one.

He said another recommendation was to change language teaching methods in the country. “We were informed that people find it difficult to learn Sinhala, Tamil and English due to the outdated methods practiced in the country as opposed to methods practiced abroad where language is taught through activities,” he said. He said that only 1.5% of the public sector receives training in the second language for a year. “To train the public service at the present rate of progress in bilingual training it would take about 100 years. This is the state of language use in Sri Lanka right now,” he said.  The Presidential Secretariat has called on the public to send their comments and suggestions to the council.

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October 6, 2011 · 5:04 am

Bikes for Basics: A Cross-country Ride for Tamils in Mankulam … and Beyond

Mankulam, a town in Northern Sri Lanka which was devastated by the recent civil war, lasting for three decades.  In 2011 the violence is now finally over, villagers are returning to repair their homes, tend their abandoned farms and gradually rebuild their lives. This task is an arduous and demanding one, with little access to water, food, electricity and public transportation, life is hard and children walk up to 10km daily to continue their education at the local school.

The bicycle has been an integral part of the landscape and a popular mode of transport for many years in Northern Sri Lanka.  Economically viable, requiring a third of the energy of walking and moving at four times the speed, the bicycle is a prized family possession shared by all. It enables women to access essential food and vegetables from the local market, allows men to seek employment far from their homes and assists community members in taking their home grown produce to the town market. Known as a “Veerayah” in the local Tamil dialogue, the sturdy bicycle often transports the entire family – a child on the cross bar and another on the back behind the rider.

Recognizing that bicycles are an expression of self freedom, a contributor to the alleviation of poverty and a symbol of empowerment to the whole society, three British volunteers are embarking on a ride from Seenigama to Mankulam to raise money for new bicycles for the northern communities. They start on October 21st from Seenigama, a village in the rural South, devastated by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and cycle over 400 km in less than 5 days to Mankulam in the rural North. Both of these rural towns have deep links with the charity, the Foundation of Goodness, headed by local entrepreneur and humanitarian, Kushil Gunasekera and international cricket star, Muthiah Muralidaran, the organization helped rebuild Continue reading →

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October 5, 2011 · 12:19 pm

Discovering Australia: Pulling Tourist Legs

These were posted on an Australian tourism website, and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a great sense of humor ……  ________________________________________________ 

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia ? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? ( UK).
A: We import all plants fully grown, and then just sit around watching them die.
  __________________________________________________

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? ( USA) 
A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking.
__________________________________________________

Q: I want to walk from   Perth to   Sydney – can I follow the railroad tracks? ( Sweden)
A: Sure, it’s only three thousand miles.  Take lots of water.
__________________________________________________ Continue reading →

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October 3, 2011 · 10:07 am

Raj Rajaratnam as a Kinda’ Tiger

David Rose in Vanity Fair at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/09/tamil-and-raj-201109… [and see additons at end re sentencing].

Pic courtesy of google

Earlier this year, Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund, was convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud in one of the biggest insider-trading cases in the history of Wall Street. But there was another reason the Federal Government was interested in Rajaratnam – his alleged financial support for Tamil separatists inSri Lanka, whose cause is spearheaded by the ferocious Tamil Tiger terrorists. Vanity Fair’s David Rose gets the untold story from a Tamil Tiger turned FBI informant.In November 2002, the Doubletree hotel in Somerset, New Jersey, hosted a daylong gala: lunch, speeches, dinner, more speeches and finally dancing. There were more than 400 guests, and they were all there to mark the 25th anniversary of the Ilankai Tamil Sangam, ostensibly a cultural and social organization. Many of its members supported the demand by Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority for an independent state, and although the Sangam was not avowedly militant, the flags and videos of the movement’s military wing, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), were on display throughout the hall. The Tamil Tigers, as the group is known, were then in the 19th year of a civil war against the Sri Lankan government. Designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 1997, the Tamil Tigers invented the suicide-bombing belt, a technology it exported to Hamas and Al-Qaeda. The Tigers were responsible for hundreds of suicide attacks on buses, temples, and shopping malls and for village massacres in which children were killed in front of their parents. In May 1991, the Tigers assassinated the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Two years later, they assassinated the Sri Lankan president, Ranasinghe Premadasa.

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October 3, 2011 · 10:02 am

The Three Terrors—that’s my cup of tea …. Jihad is sweet, Jihad is fun!

Ahmedido Domingo (aka Ahmadinejad), Erdogano Pavarotti (aka Erdogan) and Assad Carreras (aka Bashar Assad) singing about the benefits of terrorism.

SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IS-GWc0tk8

Based on Funiculi Funicula
Sung by the Three Terrors:
Erdogano Pavarotti, Assad Carreras and Ahmedido Domingo

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October 2, 2011 · 7:28 am

Being a Tamil under the LTTE: Teacher Murugesu speaks out

Courtesy of the Sunday Observer, 2 October 2011 where the title is  “Tamil, Sinhala or Muslims of Wanni long for Alternative Leadership”

Web Editor’s Note: While the appearance of this news rport in translation form the Thinakaran in a government-run newspaper may generate scepticism, I think this is ahighly significant representation from hard-earned expereince. I stress here that I have myself sought information on conditions in Thamililam in the period 1995-2009 inclusive of the ceasefire stages with an eye on the degree of support for the LTTE. My information garnered thus far is fragmentary, but Anoma Rajakruna was working  intermittently on the topic of female empowerment in LTTE land in the mid-2000s and indicated that the poltical sentiments of people were constrained by the degree to which their family networks depended on the LTTE dispensation for daily livelihood — precisely the message conveyed by Murgesu the teacher. One should also attend to the title of the book conveeing NBen Bavinck’s diary record, namely, Of Tamils and Tigers and the evidence that is presented on the years 1989-1992 in Volume One. Michael Roberts

Any Tamil who lived through the horrors and unimaginable human sufferings during the last battle at Mullivaikkal in Mullaitivu would never even dream of leading the Tamils in the path of another war. The bitter memory of it is indelibly registered in the minds of the people of the Vanni and it is they who directly encountered the dire consequences, burdens and untold sufferings caused by that last battle. Nor do they have any right to talk about the last stages of that bitter battle. Anyone who witnessed the happenings of May 19 will never think of forcing the Tamils into another war”– So said an emotionally-charged Vanni resident Ariyakutty Murugesu, one time teacher and the father of two former LTTE women cadres. He was one among those who suffered and experienced the heart-rending tragedies and miseries of the last battle. He is a man of an intellectual calibre. He was a teacher at several schools in the Northern peninsula and had also worked as a freelance journalist, including for the Lake House publication .

Speaking out his mind in a brief interview with Thinakaran, our Tamil language daily, he said that the war was forced on the people of Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Mannar and they had to Continue reading →

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October 2, 2011 · 4:08 am

Arun Thambimuttu steps out as a Tamil and Lankan Patriot — like Father like Son

Q and A Interview with Rohan Abewardena, in The Island, 25 & 26 September 2011 under title “Batti political family scion beckons Tamils”

Q: You have grand ideas, but you are yet relatively unknown here as a businessman and politician so can you tell us something about your self and your background.

I come from a famous political family in Batticaloa. My father was Sam Tambimuttu, a member of parliament. He was assassinated by the LTTE along with my mother in 1990. They were gunned down in front of the Canadian High Commission at Gregory’s Road. My mother passed away ten days after the shooting. At the time I was about 14 years of age. After the assassination of my parents I went to UKand did my secondary and higher education there. I obtained a degree in economics from theUniversity ofDurham. Then I got involved in investment fund management and I lived away for 20 years. I returned toSri Lanka three times after the assassination of my parents – all three times to renew my passport. I still hold a Sri Lankan passport. I never took a foreign citizenship. I never thought the day would arrive when I would come back to Sri Lanka and specifically to Batticaloa where we are hailing from. When I came back it struck me, it struck me a lot because I travelled the length and breadth of Eastern Province and Sri Lanka as a whole. I always knew our country is very beautiful and resourceful, but if you look at the past 60 years, since independence I feel we failed. We failed in many areas, but primarily our resources and what we have been given in this blessed island,

Sam Thambimuttu  but we have not achieved our full potential. So I had to ask questions, especially about Batticaloa, because I feel Batticaloa is immensely resource rich, but nothing has moved. People have not exploited the natural resources of the region. People are still quite poor with lot of unemployment. So I began to ask questions because my family members were part of the political process there. My mother’s father, Senator Manickckam was one of the founding leaders of the Federal Party along with H.A.V. Chelvanayakam. My father of course was a representative of TULF and my mother was an activist from the late 60s. My great granduncle was also a State Council member. He was more a Ceylonese nationalist and not a Tamil nationalist       … [For a note on the assassiantion of Sam Thambimuttu in Ben Bavinck’s diary see the end of this item in thuppahi].

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