India Proposed Intervention In Off-Shore FX Market
By Hema Senanayake -September 2, 2013
Hema Senanayake
This article is not directly related to matters of Sri Lanka but it addresses a question that is grappled by all nations – developing and developed. It is about the weakness of macroeconomics.
On August 31, 2013 Reuters reported that India wants to make a joint intervention in off-shore Foreign Exchange market (FX market). The proposal came from Dipak Dasgupta, the Indian finance ministry’s principal economic adviser. Recently India appointed Dr. Raghuram Rajan to be the next Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with effect from September 04th. Dr. Rajan who was formally the chief economist of IMF, is hailed as a star-economist who perhaps can save dwindling Indian economy and its currency. India’s GDP has now shrank to 4.4% and its currency depreciated by 20% against U.S. dollar. I do not think that Dasgupta wanted to outperform Rajan by making this announcement of intervening in off-shore FX markets jointly with other developing nations especially with the participation of other BRIC countries. The proposal is the silliest one and already Brazil had rejected it. Hence there is nothing important to write an article on the proposal itself but it is important to understand the underlying reasons for making such a proposal.Read More
The UN High Commissioner’s Visit And Current Concerns
By Rajiva Wijesinha -September 2, 2013
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP
The focus of the recent interview I had with Ceylon Today was supposed to be the forthcoming visit of Navenethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In fact there was a wide range of questions, my full answers to which have been reproduced, since some of what I said had to be edited out for reasons of space. In general though the paper had done a good job, and with regard to the main focus they had omitted hardly anything. Still, it may be useful to reproduce those sections here for the record.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay , is due to arrive in a few weeks. Do you view her arrival as an opportunity for the government or a signal of caution to the government?
I think this could be a great opportunity for the government but some elements in it may treat it as something to worry about, which could have unfortunate consequences.
The High Commissioner and the UN are still pushing for SL to investigate alleged war crimes that occurred during the latter stages of the armed conflict and address issues of accountability in relation to the armed forces and their conduct. Do you think this is going to be a key message of Pillay to the Government?
This element, which has been grossly exaggerated, will come up but I believe there are more important things which she will concentrate on.
The Government has obviously not been able to convince the international community of its genuine commitment to addressing accountability issues even four years after the conflict. Why has the government been ineffective in doing so? Read More
