The Issue Of Term Limits
By Charitha Ratwatte -September 17, 2013 |
Charitha Ratwatte
Recently the world famous author and investment advisor Ruchir Sharma was in Colombo to deliver the 63rd anniversary lecture of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Sharma is the Head of the Emerging Markets Equity Team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management USA, based in New York, and acclaimed author of the best seller ‘Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracle’. He has over US$ 25 billion assets under management.
Educated at Mumbai, Delhi and Singapore, Sharma completed his undergraduate studies at Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi and first joined a securities trading company. He was a columnist for the Observer and the Economic Times in India, the column entitled ‘For Ex’. His lucid writings on the Indian economy drew the attention of top executives of Morgan Stanley who hired him for their Mumbai office in 1996. In 2002 he was moved to New York and in 2003 was appointed co-head of the emerging markets team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. In 2006 he was appointed to head the team.
In his bestselling book ‘Breakout Nations,’ Sharma writes that he travels in emerging markets for roughly one week out of every month, in order to understand what is happening in the economy up close. He uses these travels as the basis for his monthly columns to the Economic Times. Later Sharma became a regular columnist for Newsweek International, as well as a contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Sharma’s articles have also appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Time magazine, Foreign Policy, Forbes and The Bloomberg View among others.
On Re-Reading “JR Jayewardene Of Sri Lanka (1977)”
Ravi Perera
“The more things change, the more they remain the same…” old proverb
In 1977 TDSA Dissanayake wrote a book titled “J R Jayewardene of Sri Lanka” which makes interesting reading even after thirty six tumultuous, if not disturbing years since. As the title suggests the book is dedicated to the astounding victory of the JR Jayewardene led United National Party (UNP) at the General Elections of 1977.Evidently the elections were held in a fair manner and the verdict of the voter was unambiguous. Developments that followed proved these elections to be a watershed event. The new government gave the economy of the country an entirely different orientation to the heavy State controlled economy of Srima Bandaranaike, which was more or less stagnant. The 1977 electoral victory also led to the 1978 Constitution, with far reaching and troubling consequences. It is noteworthy that the new Constitution named us a “democratic and socialist” country, in case anyone had a doubt about its true character! In the flush of that victory none could anticipate the inferno that was to follow from the simmering ethnic tensions of the time.
But this was all in the distant future when TDSA Dissanayake brought his book out. In 1977 the UNP was basking in the glory of a huge public mandate which even their stoutest supporters had dared not imagine possible. Since the landslide of 1956 it was the SLFP of the Bandaranayakes, with their left allies, who had obtained such sweeping mandates, the most stinging, being the 1970 victory of the Coalition. In 1977 the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and naturally all the honour went to the UNP and its then 71 year old leader. It was the UNP’s finest hour. Read More
