Tax revenue grows but govt. cuts public investment 

      January 21, 2014   

By Devan Daniel
 
Ceylon FT: Tax revenue inched upwards during the period January to September 2013 as capital expenditure or public investments were reduced to contain the budget deficit, latest data released by the Central Bank showed.
Tax revenue increased 4.22% year-on-year to Rs 706.7 billion during the first nine months of 2013, as the government continues to take a piece-meal approach to tax administration reforms. Non-tax revenue fell 10.15% to Rs 73.5 billion and grants fell 79.16% to Rs 3 billion.
 
Total revenue inclusive of grants grew a marginal 1.15% year-on-year to Rs 783.2 billion during the first nine months of 2013.
Recurrent expenditure increased by 3.81% during the nine-month period to Rs 920 billion.Capital expenditure or public investments fell 4.33% to Rs 355.1 billion. Economists have warned against slashing public investments in order to contain the fiscal deficit as it could curtail growth, inhibit much needed investments into the health and education sectors.
 
The budget deficit for the first nine months of 2013 amounted to Rs 491.9 billion, up 1.82% from a year ago. As a percentage of GDP, the deficit is 5.58% with the full year target set at 5.8%.
Economists believe the government could achieve the 2013 deficit target of 5.8% of GDP with tax revenues usually flowing in during the end of the year, but the worrying trend is that the government is sacrificing public investment as it did in 2012 in order to show an improved fiscal performance.
 
“There has to be improvements tax revenue and a significant reduction in recurrent expenditure, if the government is serious about meaningful fiscal reforms. The latest numbers show some improvement, but it is not enough, sacrificing public investment for recurrent expenditure is not satisfactory at all,” an economist said not wanting to be named.
 
Outstanding government debt stood at Rs 6,518.5 billion as at end June 2013, up 9.52% from Rs 5,951.6 billion from a year ago; domestic debt amounted to Rs 3,636.5 billion and foreign debt amounted to Rs 2,882 billion.
 
Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 12.8% in 2009 to an estimated 12.1% for 2013 Treasury data showed, and economists are concerned that the government has increased the tax burden on ordinary citizens.
Economists have pointed out that the implementation of the proposals of the Presidential Taxation Committee could increase tax revenue to 20% of GDP, with present piece-meal approach by the government failing to bring the desired results.
 
Former IMF Resident Representative Dr. Koshy Mathai expressed concern that the fiscal targets for 2014 were based on a higher growth rate between 7.5 – 8.0%.
 
“This over-projection can result in revenues falling below targets and then we may see the government having to curtail, or differ, expenditure so as to meet the deficit target,” Dr. Mathai pointed out at a recent forum in Colombo. He said the IMF projection for Sri Lanka’s economic growth was 6.5%.
 
In recent years, revenues have always been overestimated and expenditure targets under-estimated, leading to widening budget deficits, although in 2012 the government deferred certain expenditure items in order to reach the 6.4% of GDP target, down from 6.9% the previous year.
 
The 2014 deficit would be plugged by resorting to more foreign borrowings, up 34.15% to Rs 331.5 billion in 2014, while domestic borrowings would be reduced by 22% to Rs 280.6 billion.
 
The government’s heavy domestic borrowing programme last year has dented private sector credit growth and corporate earnings and economic growth slowed down over the first half of the year. Although economic growth picked up in the September quarter, corporate earnings were down, reflecting damp sentiments in the economy, analysts point out.
 
The Sri Lanka Economic Association (SLEA) in its 2014 budget proposals asked the government to reduce the budget deficit to sustainable levels so as to ensure equitable sustainable growth.
 
This can be achieved by adjusting the effective rate of income tax, widening tax coverage, reducing recurrent expenditure and decreasing the role of the State in the economy. The association also called for an independent Central Bank.
 
SLEA also asked the government to stop ‘crowding out’ of the private sector from the debt market by limiting the borrowing requirements of the government and preventing State-owned enterprises getting easy and automatic access to credit from the State-owned banks and stop the practice of giving loans and advances to the State and the public sector at lower rates of interest, as such subsidy entails higher rates of interest for the private sector.
 
Economists have also pointed out that the government was too dependent on indirect taxes, which accounted for more than 75% of total tax revenue, which was a burden on the poor and the middle class, with higher income earners not contributing enough through direct income and corporate taxes.

Video: Interview With Stanley Tambiah – 1983

Professor Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah-January 21, 2014 

Professor Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah passed away on the  January 20, 2014 at the 

age 84. Stanely J. Tambiah was the Esther and Sidney Rabb Research Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University (1954). Having served as a UNESCO technical assistance expert in Thailand from 1960 to 1963, he joined the faculty at the University of Cambridge, where he taught for ten years, and was a Fellow of King’s College. He went to the University of Chicago in 1973 as a tenured professor, and joined Harvard University in 1976. We publish below an interview of Stanley Tambiah by Alan Macfarlane. Filmed by Michael Madha at the A.S.A. Decenial Conference in Cambridge, 1983.

Professor S.J. Tambiah: A Humble And Passionate Intellectual

By Jude Fernando -January 21, 2014

Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, a world renowned social anthropologist, Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor(Emeritus) of Anthropology at Harvard University passed away on the January 19,  2014 at the age 84.  He was born in Sri Lanka and studied at University of Ceylon, Cornell and Harvard universities.  Having served as a UNESCO technical assistance expert in Thailand from 1960 to 1963, he joined the faculty at the University of Cambridge, and was a Fellow of King’s College. He went to the University of Chicago in 1973 as a tenured professor, and joined Harvard University in 1976. He was also the curator of South Asian Ethnology at the Peabody Museum.

Professor Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah

He specialized in studies of Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Tamils, as well as the anthropology of religion and politics.  His academic interests were in comparative analysis of the ways Western categories of magic, science and religion have been used by anthropologists to make sense of non-Western cultures.  He started his career by studying Buddhism in Thailand.  He brought in new dimension to study of religion in anthropology in particular and social sciences in general.  He His work also made a significant contribution to the study of state formation in colonial societies.  His commentary on Edmund Leach, the author ofPul Eliya, is still regarded s masterpiece in anthropology.

After 1983 riots in Sri Lanka, he focused on religious and ethnic identities and their role in violence in Sri Lanka.   His book “Buddhism Betrayed”, apparently banned in Sri Lanka, is still popular among those interested in role of religion ion ethnic conflict. In this book, Tambiah was critical of the essentialized notions “Buddhism in terms of its pristine teachings and viewed all subsequent developments, especially those of political kind as deviations from the canonical form.”  The controversy over the book has to do with how it seeks to provide a scholarly answer to “the question of how the Buddhist monks in today’s Sri Lanka—given Buddhism’s traditionally nonviolent philosophy—are able to participate in the fierce political violence of the Sinhalese against the Tamils.”   In this book, Tambiah was critical of the essentialized notions “Buddhism in terms of its pristine teachings and viewed all subsequent developments, especially those of political kind as deviations from the canonical form.” This book is misunderstood and misinterpreted by many of his critics.  As a pacifist who believed in Buddhist notions of non-violence, Tambiah was greatly disturbed by the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka and always hoped for a peaceful settlement.  His negative experience during the ethnic riots during 1950s and threats following his book prevented him from visiting Sri Lanka frequently.

In November 1997, Tambiah received the prestigious Balzan Prize for “penetrating social-anthropological analysis of the fundamental problems of ethnic violence in South East Asia and original studies on the dynamics of Buddhist societies [that] have opened the way to an innovative and rigorous social-anthropological approach to the internal dynamics of different civilizations”.  Later Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland awarded him the Huxley Memorial Medal and Lecture, the highest award by the institute.  In 1998, he was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize by the city of Fukuoka, Japan.  In 2000, he was inducted as a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy a title given to those who have “attained high international standing” in a discipline in the humanities or social sciences. He also served as the president of the Association for Asian Studies (1989-90) and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1984) and a member of the National Academy of Science (1994).

One-handed economists!

 January 22, 2014

“Give me a one-handed economist, all my economists say is ‘on the one hand …and on the other hand…” Harry Truman (US President 1945-53)

One can understand the frustration of the former US President when all the advice proffered by his economists was given with a cautionary alternate scenario. When grappling with urgent issues, rulers and administrators will much prefer to be given a clear course of action with predictable results as opposed to several options, the consequences of none being predictable.
But “on the other hand”, it is obvious that it is not easy, perhaps even impossible, to either define or predict all the complex and incalculable mixture of human activity which fall into the definition of economics. 

One Handed Economists! by nelvely

AGRICULTURE RESEARCH OFFICERS LAUNCH PROTEST...

January 20, 2014

A protest was launched by agriculture research officers which caused severe traffic congestion in Colombo today (January 20). A section of T.B. Jaya Mawatha (Darley Road) in Colombo, between Ibbanwala Junction and Fire Brigade headquarters, was temporarily closed for traffic due to the protest. (Pics by Eranga Perera)

Our Buddhist Sanga Are Spiritually Exhausted

By Shyamon Jayasinghe -January 21, 2014

Shyamon Jayasinghe

“All great truths are based on blasphemies”- Bernard Shaw

From the year 590 to 1517 the Roman Catholic Church had dominated the Western World.  Securely entrenched in power the pope and the priests had successfully brainwashed an ignorant population to accept everything the hierarchy did. Having got this power and hold over its followers the Church unleashed a regime of corruption that was designed to pamper the senses of the Holy Rulers. This was a period when the Catholic Church was absolutely sick. The eventual recovery came during the period of the reformation that saw revolt from the bungled and the botched below who couldn’t tolerate the developments any longer. Until that liberation the people did have a hard time. I begin to wonder if similar developments are now taking place in the Buddhasasana of Sri Lanka.

It may be instructive for us to recall the full scale of corruption in the Church of the Middle Ages. This will serve as an analogy for the contemporary Buddhist situation in Lanka and help us in properly modelling the possible size of the trend that’s on now over there.

The root of the corruption in the church was a conveniently enabling ideological theory concocted by the pope. In the 14^th century Pope Boniface the v11 declared: ”we declare, state define and pronounce that for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pope is altogether necessary for salvation (Caper, The Church in History). People followed suite on the theological basis that the Pope was God’s representative on earth. What more, but to do or die? Those who disobeyed were damned Salvation.

“Salvation, taken from the hands of God, fell into those of the priests, who set themselves in the place of our Lord. Souls thirsting for pardon were no more to look to heaven, but to the Church, and above all to its pretended head. To these blinded souls the Roman pontiff was God. Hence the greatness of the popes – hence unutterable abuses” (D’aubigne).

Among the myriad corrupt practices introduced was the system of indulgences that prevailed whereby the church could grant individual forgiveness for any sin by charging the offender a fee “Incest, if not detected, was to cost five groats; and six, if it was known. There was a stated price for murder, infanticide, adultery, perjury, burglary, etc. ‘O disgrace of Rome!’ exclaims Claude d’Espence, a Roman divine: and we may add, O disgrace of human nature! For we can utter no reproach against Rome that does not recoil on man himself. Rome is human nature exalted in some of its worst propensities” (D’aubigne  Read More

Are Mahanayake Theros busy filling spittoons until their ‘our samaneras’ terrorists plunge country into a holocaust ?

(Lanka-e-News- 21.Jan.2014, 11.00PM) The murderous Rajapakse regime which is most selfishly wallowing in the war victory , used the same official security forces to raze the Hindu places of worship to the ground during the war. Thereafter ‘crowning’ the sangha terrorist monks and exalting them as a paramilitary force unleashed violence and attacks on the mosques and Muslims who had been in the country from the very outset.

Not only were the laws not enforced against these individuals launching terror and horror on the minorities , even when the Muslim traders who were victims sought legal redress they were threatened and intimidated into withdrawing their legal action.

Even criminal cases that cannot be resolved through settlement lawfully according to legal enactments were dismissed as settled by courts as a result under evil pressures. 

Now these sangha terrorists have turned their terror and violence on the Christian clergy. A most grave incident of violence took place on the 12 th when the sangha terrorists and marauders attacked a religious place of the Christians and smashed it into smithereens while the police were idly watching and enjoying.

Later, in order to camouflage the whole scene of orchestrated violence , the police produced a report to the court and requested same to issue an order to arrest the culprits , when the court had to teach the police that a court directive is not necessary to arrest the wrongdoers at the scene of violence. In other words police pretended that they were infants who did not know their elementary police rights of arrest to cover up their crime of dereliction of duty towards the public. The courts by its directive clearly asked the police indirectly , why they did not arrest when they ought to be aware of their basic duty and the powers vested in them to do so?

The photographs herein and our face book video clearly reveal (See : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUHCQyxK3ps) the barbaric and brutal attack launched at Hikkaduwa recently by the Sangha monks and their marauders while the police on the scene were idle spectators enjoying the spectacle like a football match, and not taking any police action.

May we ask from these terror inflicting and spreading monks and marauders who while proclaiming that they are following the Buddhist tenets are selling Buddhism for personal gains and selfish ambitions , whether Lord Buddha when he preached Buddhism to the first five monks after his attainment , go on a rampage and attack people of other faiths who were also present in his midst and their places of worship causing destruction ? or are these marauding and hooligan monks following the Dhamma (tenets) of the devils and demons for selfish self advancement , and degrading Lord Buddha ?

During the latter part of 1970 and the early half of 1980 when the Tamil youths commenced their extremist actions , the Hindi community simply said ’ they are our boys’, thereby instigating them, and did not take crucial decisions against them . Finally , the Hindu community was led into disaster and destruction by the LTTE with hundreds of thousands of the community getting displaced , while the entire community was driven into absolute hopelessness and powerlessness.

Similarly when the Sinhala extremism began in 1980 , civilian parties like MEP added fuel to the fire. In the end , the leftists were mass murdered in cold blood , as well as leaders of the UNP and SLFP were assassinated. Moreover , those innocents who watched televisions violating the ‘curfew’ imposed by the so called terrorist ‘patriots’ at that time were also brutally killed . Until 60, 0000 of human lives perished most ruthlessly , nothing could be done.

Even today , because of the evil fallout of that period of violence and murder , a civil society of integrity and honesty is unable to raise its head . Those terrorist ‘patriots’ also killed a large number of civil activists of the villages at that time.

During those two periods , the terrorist extremists were finally destroyed, but not before inflicting immeasurable damage on the civilian society .

Today , what is taking place is a repetition of thatviolence and terror with much graver portents . The scoundrels who stoke the violence of these terrorist sangha monks are coming to a point where they are unable to control them . Perhaps , these monks may turn out to be a Frankenstein monster that devoured the creator. That is an inescapable verdict terrorist groups pass on their creators which include even those who gave support from behind the scenes. 

Of course to Mahinda Rajapakse who would compromise anything of national value including national harmony and unity if he could only achieve his selfish power perpetuation ambition , may find these terrorist Buddhist monks as a great and indispensable asset to him to win the Presidential elections. At the same time , these terrorist monks must be taking advantage of that selfish self seeking ambitions of the President , and exploiting the situation to make it the opportune moment for their criminal devastation and anti national activities . 

It is unfortunate neither the President nor these terrorist Buddhist monks understand that all the selfish craftiness and self centered ambitions of theirs are only putting the country and the nation on the road to a holocaust that can surpass even those faced by the country in 1970 and 1980. Sadly ,this catastrophe will be so monumental that the country will never ever be retrieved from it thereafter

Some monks should be chased out in their loincloth 

By Zahrah Imtiaz- January 21, 2014


Deepening the rift between him and some quarters of the Buddhist clergy, Prime Minister, D.M. Jayaratne, launched another attack at his detractors, and said, some cheewaradhariyas (men in robes) should be chased away in their loincloth.

"Ruthless people who have descended from nowhere seem to be wearing robes and making irrelevant statements. That is why I wanted to introduce laws to stop frauds from donning the robe. We need to remove their robes and make them sail along the Mahaweli River on a boat with their loincloths wrapped around them," Jayaratne said at a public meeting in the Central Province recently.

While talking of 'fake' monks, the Prime Minister had referred to, "an indecent man from Sinhapitiya, a cheewaradhariya, has five children, but I am not sure how many women he has. It would be certainly more than two."
Premier Jayaratne further said that when he wanted to develop Gampola town with new innovations, the monk who hailed from Sinhapitiya had said that the programme was being initiated by a heroin dealer.

"That cheewaradhariya who is a horayaka said this is a programme by heroin dealers. I have not seen heroin; perhaps he has, and he may even use it but I have no idea of what it is. The only poison I am aware of is arrack, whisky and brandy which I have seen, but not heroin," he said.

The Prime Minister ended his speech saying: "There are devils such as the one in Sinhapitiya but we cannot do anything as they hide behind their robes."

Obama’s Option: Lawlessness Or The Rule Of Law

| by Jack Clancey

(January 21, 2014, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) As Edward Snowden has continued to slowly release more information about the widespread intelligence gathering techniques of the National Security Agency (NSA), there have been more calls for him to be granted an amnesty and further calls for placing limits on intelligence gathering by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. 

Obama’s Option Lawlessness Or The Rule Of Law by nelvely

Syrian regime document trove shows evidence of ‘industrial scale’ killing of detainees

Read the Syria report in full

Senior war crimes prosecutors say photographs and documents provide 'clear evidence' of systematic killing of 11,000 detainees

Ian Black, Middle East editor

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Calls for Assad or other officials to face justice at the international criminal court in The Hague have foundered on the problem that Syria is not a member of the court. Photograph: Reuters

Syrian regime document trove shows evidence of ‘industrial scale’ killing of detainees by nelvely

India top court commutes 15 death sentences over 'delay'

Executions were rarely carried out in India, but in the last two years, India has carried out two hangings

21 January 2014

India's Supreme Court has commuted the sentences of 15 death row prisoners to life in jail on the grounds of delay.

Those affected include three men convicted of killing former PM Rajiv Gandhi, and four associates of the notorious bandit Veerappan.

Campaigners have welcomed the ruling, saying it will impose new conditions on the use of the death penalty.

India rarely carries out executions, which are often delayed indefinitely or commuted by the president.

A three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice Palanisamy Sathasivam ruled that "delay is a grounds for commuting death penalty to life sentence".

The panel said mental illness and solitary confinement could also be reasons for commuting sentences.

A total of 15 prisoners had challenged their death sentences because of the time taken by the president to answer their mercy petitions.

Although he was not a petitioner in the case, the ruling is expected to affect Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar from Punjab who has been on death row since August 2001 for a 1993 attack in Delhi which killed nine. His plea, filed in 2002, was denied by the president in 2011.

In April last year, the court rejected his petition to commute his sentence on the basis that there had been "an inordinate delay" in deciding his mercy plea.

Reports said Tuesday's judgement will affect more than 400 prisoners who are currently on death row in India.

Executions are rarely carried out in India, but in the last two years India has carried out two hangings.

Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November 2012 in a prison in the western city of Pune.

And in February 2013, a Kashmiri man, Afzal Guru, was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail for the 2001 attack on India's parliament.

Ukraine: Amendments Curtailing Fundamental Rights and Freedoms Passed Into Law

William Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com-Jan-21-2014

Immediately and unconditionally repeal Law no. 3879, as it curtails fundamental human rights and freedoms in the Ukraine- William Nicholas Gomes

William Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com

(WASHINGTON, DC) - On 17 January 2014, Ukraine's President Mr Viktor Yanukovych signed a set of amendments into law which will severely restrict human rights and fundamental freedoms in the country.

Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych

Ukraine Amendments Curtailing Fundamental Rights and Freedoms Passed Into Law by nelvely

President Rajapaksa’s Lies: Claims 12,000 Soldiers Left In The North But Reality Is More Than 150,000

January 20, 2014 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa lied publicly about troop presence in the Northern Province claiming the military had been scaled down to 12,000 men in the former conflict zone despite 16 out of 19 Sri Lanka Army Divisions still being stationed in the region.

Declaring open the Trail Tellipallai Cancer Hospital in Jaffna on Sunday, President Rajapaksa made the claim that only 12,000 soldiers remained in the North.

“There were between 60,000-75,000 troops in this area during the war. Today that number has come down to 12,000,” President Rajapaksa said.

On the contrary, Sri Lanka’s army has grown larger in size since the end of the war, with the military continuing to recruit personnel. From 200,000 troops at the end of the war in 2009, the number of soldiers has increased to over 250,000.

16 of the Sri Lanka Army’s Divisions and Task Forces – 19 in all – are situated in the Northern Province. (See list below). With a minimum of 10,000 soldiers per division, 16 divisions within the Northern Province would hold a total of at least 160,000 soldiers.

The country’s Defence budget is second only to the allocation for debt servicing and despite international and domestic calls for demobilisation and demilitarisation of the former war zones, the military continues to play a major role in civilian activities in the Northern Province.

Security Forces Headquarters – Jaffna (SFHQ-J)

51 Division, based in Jaffna

52 Division, based in the Jaffna Peninsula

55 Division, based in Elephant Pass, Jaffna Peninsula [3]

Security Forces Headquarters – Wanni (SFHQ-W) [3]

56 Division, operating in the Vavuniya District

61 Division, operating in the Vavuniya District

21 Division

Area Headquarters Mannar

Security Forces Headquarters – Kilinochchi (SFHQ-KLN)[3][6]

57 Division, operating in the Kilinochchi District

Task Force 3, operating in the Kilinochchi District

Task Force 7, operating in the Kilinochchi District

66 Division, operating in the Kilinochchi District

68 Division, operating in the Kilinochchi District

Security Forces Headquarters – Mullaittivu (SFHQ-MLT) [3]

59 Division, operating in the Mullaittivu District

Task Force 2, operating in the Mullaittivu District

64 Division, operating in the Mullaittivu District

65 Division, Thunukkai, Mullaittivu District Divisions

53 Division, based at Mankulam [3]

58 Division, based at Paranthan (formally referred to as the Task Force 1) [3]

A Star for Esther: On Sumathy’s “Ingirnithu”, Some Other Interventions and the Relevance of Education

IN LOVE WITH A WHALE

BY ADMIN JANUARY 11,2014

FIRST RISING HERMAN GUNARATNE HILL COUNTRY INGIRINTHU LANKA PLANTATION
 SOMACHANDRE WIJESURIYA SUICIDE CLUBSUMATHY

In a recent submission to “Raavaya”, Kumudu Kusum Kumara had attempted a reading of Sumathy’s Ingirinthu as a text of subaltern identity. As implied in that essay — and as it can be conjured from the text itself — the story of Esther Valli is the “silence” of a community that has been the subject of multiple oppression ever since the set up of the Colonial plantation economy. In fact, the very heart of the Hill Country Estate Tamil question was tied up with the case of “legitimacy” as a part of the citizen body: where, in the collective consciousness of Lanka, these marginalized communities were, at best, seen as the vassals of an export economy; while, at the worst, they were condemned to a sub-human status.

A Star for Esther On Sumathy’s “Ingirnithu”, Some Other Interventions and the Relevance of Education by nelvely