NEW DELHI — India’s national investigation agency on Friday dropped all terror-related charges against a female Hindu activist jailed in connection with a bomb explosion in a Muslim neighborhood in 2008.
The National Investigation Agency recommended that all charges be dropped against Pragya Singh — a self-styled Hindu holy woman — and three others because of lack of evidence.
The move overturns earlier police findings and closes a chapter in one of the mostcontentious terrorism cases in the past decade in India.
Singh and three others were arrested for being behind a September 2008 motorcycle bomb explosion in the town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra.
The blast, which occurred during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, killed six people and injured more than 100.
Singh’s arrest was controversial because it was the first time that Hindus had been namedin a terror case in India. It fueled a sharp political debate and angered many Hindus who accused the previous Congress Party-led coalition government of tarnishing the image of their community.
“The National Investigation Agency has said that there is no evidence to prosecute the four accused, including Pragya Singh,” her lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar told reporters in Mumbai. “There had been grave injustice done to them all these years.”
The agency also dropped the organized crime charge against one of the other prominent figures in the case, a Hindu army colonel, Srikant Purohit, who remains behind bars on charges he provided the explosives and training to the bombers.
Indian media at that time had called Singh and Purohit “the face of Hindu terror,” a phrase that many Hindus objected to.
“Those who called it ‘Hindu terror’ committed a great sin,” said Indresh Kumar, a member of India’s largest and most strident Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The group is closely affiliated with the political party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Randeep Singh Surjewala, the spokesman for the Congress Party, which was in power at the time of Singh’s arrest, said the overturning of the charges “has shocked the collective conscience of the nation” and accused the Modi government of “blatant disregard and misuse” of the investigation agency.
Investigators, however, denied charges of political interference.
“We have completed the investigation. Whatever evidence and questions came up in that process, we have presented today,” said Sharad Kumar, the director general of the National Investigation Agency.
In response to reporters’ questions, he denied he was undermining the earlier police investigation.
Police in 2008 had focused on Singh after forensic analysis revealed that the motorcycle used in the bombing had belonged to her. But her lawyer had argued that she had given it away many years ago.
In June last year, the case’s special public prosecutor, Rohini Salian, said that she was “under pressure” from the investigation agency to go easy in the case.
On Friday, senior Congress Party leader Digvijaya Singh said “it was a matter of shame” that Modi’s government was “trying to protect those who were clearly involved in terror related activities.”
Maharashtra's chief minister Devendra Fadnavis speaks during an interview with Reuters at his official residence in Mumbai, July 9, 2015.REUTERS/DANISH SIDDIQUI/FILES
BY RINA CHANDRAN-Fri May 13, 2016
MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Maharashtra has become the first state in the country to ban village councils from imposing "social boycotts" that ostracise individuals or families for defying tradition.
Women and lower caste Dalits often bear the brunt of such judgments, passed as punishment for perceived misdeeds such as marrying between castes or dressing immodestly.
The state last month passed the law against a decades-old practice of village panchayats, or councils, ordering social boycotts.
"The Act was required against the backdrop of atrocities inflicted on people in the name of tradition, caste and community," said Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
"It is necessary to prohibit social boycotts as a matter of social reform in the interest of public welfare," he said.
Under village council orders, individuals and families have been banished from the community, and denied access to temples, wells, markets and celebrations.
In some cases, panchayats have even branded women as witches, and ordered gang rapes or killings as punishment.
Maharashtra's new law declares social boycotts a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, a fine of 500,000 ($7,500), or both.
Human rights campaigners called for other states to follow Maharashtra's example.
"The law will help check caste crimes to some extent. It empowers lower-caste people and it empowers human rights organisations, as it gives us a tool with which to fight against village panchayats," said Irfan Engineer, director of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism in Mumbai.
"We need a similar law in the rest of the country, particularly in states where (unelected) khap panchayats are strong," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Khap panchayats are unelected village councils comprising men of a particular clan or caste. While their power has diminished since 1992, when elected village councils were made mandatory, they remain powerful in socially conservative states including Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and parts of Uttar Pradesh.
India's top court in 2011 described khap panchayats as "kangaroo courts" that are entirely illegal.
Maharashtra, home to several social reformers including B.R. Ambedkar who fought against caste discrimination, in 2013 passed legislation criminalising practices related to black magic, human sacrifices, and other superstitious beliefs.
The social boycott act is another step toward ending outdated customs, said Avinash Patil, executive president of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, which had campaigned for the bill, as well as the 2013 law.
"We are demanding that the central government enact similar laws in all states, so we can end this brutal practice," he said.
($1 = 66.83 rupees)
(Reporting by Rina Chandran, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)
THE Cambodian government has instructed all media outlets in the country to address its leader as “Lord” Prime Minister.
From August onwards, Cambodian media will either have to use the honorary title when mentioning Prime Minister Hun Sen’s name, or face the consequences.
The new rule appears to be aimed specifically at media viewed by the government as pro-opposition and pro-Western. Pro-government media generally highlights Hun Sen’s formal title.
Authorities have also issued a stern warning for failure to comply although it did not specify the punishment for doing so.
The Information Ministry said on Thursday that all media must use his full honorary title —”Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen” — in the opening lines of print articles, radio and TV stories about the leader.
Loosely translated, Hun Sen’s official six-word designation reads: “Lord Prime Minister and Supreme Military Commander.”
The rule also applies to several ruling party officials and first lady Bun Rany, who also holds formal honorary titles.
On Thursday, Hun Sen threatened legal action against a newspaper which was widely seen as critical of his administration.
He alleged The Cambodia Daily had “distorted” his remarks from a speech on Tuesday. He also told the newspaper’s journalists that he would prefer they no longer wrote articles about his speeches, the paper reported.
Over the past month, Hun Sen’s administration launched a clampdown on its critics and dissidents with the imprisonment of an opposition politician, four human rights workers, and a senior elections official.
The government also charged a U.N. official and dragged a political analyst to court over defamation allegations.
Stark photos of people arrested before and after becoming addicted to drugs have been released as a warning about the physical effects on users.
Rehabilitation group Rehabs compiled the photos to raise awareness of what can happen when addiction takes hold. In the US alone, more than 1.6 million Americans were arrested on drug charges in 2010.
Around 4.5 million people in the US were classified as abusing or being dependent on illicit drugs in 2012, according to a government survey.
The people in the photos are users of cocaine, heroin or oxycodone – a prescription opioid. All can change a person’s physical appearance – which is documented candidly through police mug shots.
Shocking news: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning that millions pounds of rat meat is being sold as “boneless chicken wings” in restaurants and grocery stores all over America.
According recent reports, concerns about public safety has been raised by FDA, after several illegal shipping containers containing rat meat that was intended to be shipped to different meat processing plants across America and resold as chicken, were seized by customs officers at the Port of San Francisco.
As FDA spokesman, Jenny Brookside reveals, consumers aren’t able to notice the difference:
“Unfortunately, it is too late for the produce that has already been sold on the market. It is up to consumers to try to identify the quality and source of the meat that is packaged, but there is no absolute way of determining for 100% if the meat in your plate is chicken or rat” she admits with honesty. “If you find that your chicken wings taste slightly different from usual, it is a good bet that they might be counterfeit meat, but this can be easily hidden through the use of different ingredients and spices,” she acknowledges as a warning.
FDA is making great efforts to remove the rat meat that is being sold as boneless chicken wings from the market, but FDA is still issuing warnings after it estimated additional 1, 000, 000 pounds of the counterfeit rat meat circulating on the market.
Each consumer should be acquainted with this interesting, yet disturbing information. A 2014 study by FDA, reported 36 million pounds of illegal counterfeit meat sold in the U.S every year.
Former Justice Ministry Secretary Dr Nihal Jayawickrema has strongly supported the engagement of international experts in the proposed war crimes investigations in accordance with a resolution adopted at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Dr Jayawickrema said that the government of Sri Lanka should accept international assistance.
The internationally recognised academic was delivering the Dr P. R. Anthonis Memorial Oration 2016 titled ‘Healing the Nation-A Question of Leadership’ at the Sasakawa Memorial Cultural Centre Auditorium on Wednesday (May 11).
Dr Jayawickrema underscored the responsibility on the part of the government to examine the possibility of effectively probing, prosecuting and trying war crimes accusations including crimes against humanity. However, the contentious issue was whether Sri Lanka had the capability to engage in such a task for want of resources, Dr. Jayawickrema said.
Sri Lanka’s accountability will be raised in Geneva next month. While referring to serious allegations mentioned in an OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) report on Sri Lanka which dealt with serious allegations, the former Justice Ministry Secretary during the United Front government of Mrs Bandaranaike, asserted that securing international assistance to inquire into war crimes allegations couldn’t be considered a weakness on the part of the Sri Lankan state.
UNSG Ban Ki-moon’s three-member Panel of Experts (PoE) in March, 2011 accused the Sri Lankan military of massacring over 40,000 Tamil civilians during the last phase of the war.
Dr. Jayawickrema suggested that Sri Lanka shouldn’t be reluctant to publicly acknowledge the country lacked the capacity to engage in the investigation.
Japanese Ambassador in Sri Lanka Kenichi Suganuma had been among the distinguished invitees at the event organized by Lanka-Japan Friendship Society.
Dismissing strong opposition to foreign intervention in post-war Sri Lanka, Dr. Jayawickrema emphasized that the government of Sri Lanka couldn’t ignore that its conduct with regard to Sri Lankans had to be in line with relevant international treaties.
Having declared that the government of Sri Lanka had accepted international jurisdiction way back in 1981, Dr. Jayawickrema asserted that a high profile inquiry undertaken by a three-member international panel into war crimes allegations was in accordance with Sri Lanka’s obligations.
Dr. Jayawickrema referred to information gathered by the three-member investigating team in respect of atrocious actions, including extrajudicial execution of identified LTTE cadres and unidentified individuals by the military at the very end of the fighting, enforced disappearances and denial of humanitarian assistance as well as execution of civilians by the military and para-military groups operating alongside government forces.
Dr. Jayawickrema, who taught law in Hong Kong later declared that legal and judicial system lacked the capacity to undertake investigations into war crimes. Referring to President Maithripala Sirisena’s repeated declarations that the local judiciary was capable of addressing the issue of accountability without foreign intervention, the former Justice Ministry Secretary stressed that legal and judicial system had failed ensure justice on many occasions during the past several decades. The internationally acclaimed expert declared that in the absence of required legal framework Sri Lanka couldn’t efficiently establish accountability for war crimes crimes and enforced disappearances. "The process of remedying that deficiency may benefit from expertise, whether international or otherwise."
Dr. Jayawickrema castigated the previous government for failing to address accountability issues with special focus on the disappearance of media personality Prageeth Ekneligoda on the eve of January 26, 2010 presidential polls. The expert claimed the number of political killings reported during 2005 at 300 and a staggering 700 extra judicial killings during 2006 and 2007.
Referring to several high profile killings taken place during the Rajapaksa administration, Dr. Jayawickrema declared that the circumstances under which the then Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar had been assassinated in Colombo were still a mystery.
Dr. Jayawickrema also dealt with the Attorney General’s Department, Supreme Court as well as various Presidential Commissions appointed by the previous administration. The former Justice Ministry Secretary strongly condemned the conduct of Presidential Commissions, particularly the Paranagama Commission for failing to fulfill its mandate.
Dr. Jayawickrema underscored the urgent need to take tangible measures to revamp the entire legal and judicial system. The former top official also pointed out that successive governments had failed to fully implement the UN Convention Against Corruption, thereby allowing waste, corruption and irregularities in both public and private sectors.
Committee after blue-ribbon committee has recommended that the majority Sinhalese, primarily Buddhists who immigrated from India centuries ago, relinquish some political power to the minority Tamils and Muslims, allowing them a measure of local self-governance.
And yet one president after another has failed to do so.
Now a president elected by an unlikely coalition of moderates from the country’s two main majority-Sinhalese parties, along with the Tamil and Muslim minorities, is trying yet again at what is widely considered the most opportune moment in Sri Lanka’s history.
President Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka in his office in Colombo, the capital. He has pledged to persuade his Sinhalese people to support a new Constitution that devolves the powers of the central government that they dominate. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
President Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka in his office in Colombo, the capital. He has pledged to persuade his Sinhalese people to support a new Constitution that devolves the powers of the central government that they dominate. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Long plagued by ethnic strife, Sri Lanka became embroiled in a civil war with the Tamils that lasted 26 years. The government finally crushed the secessionist group leading the fight in a brutal battle in 2009, in which tens of thousands were killed, most of them civilians. That government, accused of human rights abuses then and in the ensuing years, was toppled by the coalition that brought Maithripala Sirisena to power in January 2015.
Chosen by the coalition because he was so agreeable and self-effacing as to have offended practically nobody, Mr. Sirisena has pledged to persuade his Sinhalese people to support a new Constitution that devolves the powers of the central government that they dominate. A referendum is expected later this year.
But questions abound about whether this 64-year-old son of a paddy farmer, who spent his political life shunning the limelight despite holding top ministerial posts, could be the one finally to lead this country into an era of peace.
“We will devolve power to the people as a whole,” Mr. Sirisena said in an interview last week. “Nobody is trying to take something away from the Sinhalese to give it to the Tamils. What we are trying to do is to give something more to everyone.”
Nobody doubts Mr. Sirisena’s sincerity, but some fear the opportunity may be slipping away.
“The ruling coalition has proven unable to generate internal consensus on key issues of public policy,”
Verité Research, a Colombo think tank, said in a report last week, warning that the “moderate consensus remains deeply vulnerable.”
Mr. Sirisena, in the interview in his seaside office, where he keeps the air-conditioner off in the stifling summer heat, insisted he would not only get a Constitution adopted but also lead his country through the process of truth and reconciliation that his government committed to undertake in a United Nations resolution last year.
The United Nations estimates that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the last phase of the civil war in 2009. Families have reported more than 5,000 people missing, making Sri Lanka the country with the second-highest number of disappearances in the world, the world body said.
“I know it is a difficult task, and I decided to accept the challenge anyway,” Mr. Sirisena said, leaning back in a white upholstered chair, himself dressed, as always, in white, from his cotton lungi skirt to his white tunic top.
Fast Facts
Sri Lanka has a population of about 20.4 million.
About 74.9% of the population is ethnic Sinhalese, 15.3% is Tamil and 9.3% is Muslim.
A 26-year civil war ended in 2009.
A Tamil group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, fought the civil war to try to form a separate homeland.
The United Nations estimates as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final months of the war.
Sources: Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics and report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka 2011
“And when you take up the challenge, you mustn’t face it crying, you must smile through it,” he said, his normally serious demeanor lifted into a grin.
But Mr. Sirisena, speaking quietly and slowly, gesturing for emphasis, urged patience.
“I am not a man who rushes into things,” he said. “That is my policy.”
Mr. Sirisena came to power in a revolution at the polls early last year, when a coalition with him at the helm defeated the previous president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Revered by some for ending the country’s civil war, Mr. Rajapaksa was reviled by others because of allegations of corruption and human rights abuses.
When coalition members were deciding whom to put forward as their candidate against Mr. Rajapaksa, they chose Mr. Sirisena “because of the very simplicity of the man,” Mangala Samaraweera, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, said in an interview.
There were “more efficient, more iconic persons who may have been also able to do that job, but none of them would have been able to win the trust and confidence of so many different layers of Sri Lanka’s constituencies, the Tamils, the Muslims,” said Mr. Samaraweera, who joined Parliament in 1989, the same year as Mr. Sirisena. “I really personally believe Sirisena never ever had any ambitions” for the top job.
Mr. Sirisena, who was health minister under Mr. Rajapaksa before defecting to join the coalition against him, had also been his party’s general secretary for 13 years. He began his political life as a communist, and still reveres Karl Marx, with a picture of him prominently displayed in his home.
M. A. Sumanthiran, a leading constitutional lawyer and member of Parliament from the Tamil National Alliance, said that when he was asked to support Mr. Sirisena’s candidacy, he knew him only as “a man of few words who smiles and shies away.”
But as a member of a committee appointed to advise Parliament on a new Constitution, Mr. Sumanthiran said, he was impressed at how Mr. Sirisena finessed a divisive question of ethnicity in the preamble to the new Constitution.
Convinced that a new Constitution must begin its life with unanimous support in Parliament, Mr. Sirisena persuaded all sides to drop the preamble and instead support a simple resolution for a Constitution to be drafted. That garnered unanimous support.
“These are little steps compared to what we expect him to do,” Mr. Sumanthiran said, but “it’s giving us confidence in his methods.”
Mr. Sirisena, in the interview, said lobbying fellow legislators was his forte, and laughed as he described his efforts in humorous detail. In April last year, he got two-thirds of the 225-member Parliament to support a constitutional amendment reducing presidential powers, as he had pledged to do if elected.
“I went to the Parliament dining hall, sat with them and asked them to take away my powers. I put my arm around their shoulders, held them by their arms and rubbed their bellies to convince them to take away my powers,” he said, speaking softly, his shoulders rising and falling in jerks as he chuckled to himself.
Mr. Sirisena steered clear of committing to a timeline, saying, “I don’t think the drafting of a country’s constitution should be rushed. If we rush the process, the extremists could exploit that situation.”
But moving slowly has risks, too.
To maintain support within their ethnic communities, the moderates needed to demonstrate progress, said Verité, the think tank, but the results they must show are divergent.
“The change in government has renewed Tamil expectations that their immediate grievances as well as historical grievances — particularly over power sharing — will be meaningfully addressed,” Verité said in its report.
But Verité said proposals for greater power sharing and accountability for rights abuses and war crimes are likely to be strongly resisted because the government had “made no concerted effort” to shift Sinhala opinion “in favor of a more equitable power-sharing arrangement.”
Making it harder, Mr. Rajapaksa retains sway over a big portion of Mr. Sirisena’s political party, and at every opportunity loudly denounces him as selling out his own people.
That appears to have persuaded the government to back away from a resolution it co-sponsored at the United Nations in September to involve foreign judges in a special court to investigate and prosecute human rights abuses.
“The president is reflecting a kind of general view amongst the public about not having foreign judges,” said Mr. Samaraweera, the foreign minister.
The Tamil population, skeptical of a process led by the central government, had insisted on the involvement of foreign judges, and this apparent backtracking has worried some.
“Sirisena’s attitude is to try to be deft instead of bold,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo research and advocacy group. “We’re waiting for him to play the fullest possible role.”
Mr. Samaraweera said government leaders plan a major effort to build support in the coming months. The first step would be to raise awareness among the Sinhalese about what really happened in the civil war, something they have been largely shielded from.
“The Sinhalese, once they know the truth, are a pretty compassionate bunch of people,” he said, predicting they will come to support the process.
Mr. Sirisena said he, too, remained convinced that his Sinhalese majority would support a new Constitution.
“For the Sinhalese people to live happily in this country,” he said, repeating a line he has used often in speeches, “the minority communities also must be happy.”
2016-05-12 Accusations of human rights violations during the conflict in Sri Lanka must be addressed, ex-president and current Chairperson of the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga had said on Wednesday. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly under the theme “Leading by Example — Innovative Partnerships and Responses”, Ms. Kumaratunga said the country did not win peace because the Government did not undertake a peace building process. “After a change of Government, however, the two major political parties were brought together through a common vision. This makes things very easy. Military means are not sufficient to end a conflict. For those reasons, a reconciliation mechanism had been set up working very closely with United Nations agencies,” she said. According to a release published on the UN website, she had said creative programmes had been instituted to change attitudes and equal rights had been accorded to minorities and for that purpose a new Constitution was being drafted with the participation of the former opposition. “In schools, children of the four major communities were being brought together for the first time in their lives. Young professionals were being brought together in workshops and through arts festivals. Psycho-social support was being provided for those traumatized during the conflict. In districts damaged by conflict, including those dominated by minorities, five-year development plans were being implemented. In addition to United Nations agencies, bilateral partnerships were being developed to support these programmes,” she said.
For some time, top officials of the Bar Association have been working to get their professional partners to infiltrate the judiciary and takeover its control, and to get appointed to top positions in order to influence cases of lawyers who charge high legal fees. In return for their having backed the election of the ‘Yahapaalana’ government against the Rajapaksa regime, they are trying to get the support of the president and members of the Constitutional Council in this plan.
Also, they intend to gain control of high income earning state institutions that are useful to the legal profession. Accordingly, several officials of the BASL were appointed to top positions of such institutions after the present regime took office. They plan to get the president to appoint well-known lawyer Prasanna Jayawardena to the vacancy in the Supreme Court following the retirement of justice Chandra Ekanayake as a gratification for the BASL, and to sideline Deepani Wijesundara, an experienced judge who should have been appointed to the position, by citing her loyalty to the Rajapaksas and for having given the order to imprison Sarath Fonseka.
Lawyers having links with top BASL officials have been entrusted with the task of carrying out this plan. At a leading restaurant in Colombo recently, they have toasted to the success of their plan to enable them to control the judiciary. Junior lawyers who do not enjoy the BASL privileges despite being its members, say they are unaware of this plan.
Civil society activists who are committed to the appointment of independent commissions for the safeguarding of the independence of the judiciary and for a new administration in place of the executive presidency that took the law into its hands, all for the cause of good governance, have expressed concern over this situation. They noted that the president might have powers to appoint just anyone (even an uneducated person) to the Supreme Court, but that it would boomerang on them, if certain BASL seniors attempt to influence and bury principles of good governance by the appointment of persons without seniority or judicial experience, especially those who are bent on personal professional gains.
This particular appointment could be considered as a litmus test for the honesty of president Maithripala Sirisena, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Constitutional Council chairman and speaker Karu Jayasuriya and its other members with regard to their commitment for good governance and to safeguard the independence of the judiciary, a senior civil society activist told us.
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) said on Tuesday that the government is forced to have recourse to borrowings even for its day-to-day operations.
Mahinda Siriwardana, Director of Economic Research, Central Bank of Sri Lanka stated this at the Centre for Banking Studies at Rajagiriya yesterday while delivering a public lecture on the 'State of the Economy as reflected in the Central Bank Annual Report-2015'.
The Annual Report 2015 highlights several issues and challenges faced by the Sri Lankan economy, especially 'structural vulnerabilities' of the economy that had built up over time.
CBSL Governor Arjuna Mahendran, Deputy Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe and principal officers of the Central Bank were present on the occasion where numerous members of the general public had also assembled to learn what's in store for them under near and medium term Central Bank policy decisions. Siriwardana said the performance in government finances reflected 'serious structural weaknesses' in the government budget.
"As reflected in the sizable deficit in the revenue account, the country’s revenue is not sufficient even to finance the maintenance expenditure of the government," he told a surprised audience.
Speaking further he said,"This weakness in the structure of the budget lessens the channeling of adequate expenditure for development needs."
Outlining the way forward through these huge obstacles, he pointed out the measures taken by the government to address these issues.
Those measures include redrafting of tax laws with technical assistance from the IMF to simplify the tax laws, improvements in tax administration, automation of revenue agencies, the information system (RAMIS) at Inland Revenue Department, Single Window System at Sri Lanka Customs, Integrated Treasury Management Information System at the Ministry of Finance, the zero-based budgeting system by the Ministry of Finance and the setting up of a Budget Implementation and Monitoring Unit to ensure close monitoring of expenditure programmes.
"Total expenditure and net lending increased by 27.5% to Rs. 2,290 billion in 2015. Recurrent expenditure increased by 28.6% to Rs. 1,702 billion, exceeding the budgetary target of Rs.1, 552 billion. Expenditure overrun reflected the increased expenditure on salaries and wages, interest payments, current transfers and subsidies, he said.
Shifting to an optimistic note Siriwardana said,"Sri Lanka’s economy is projected to expand at a rate of 5.8% in 2016 and strengthen over the medium term to achieve a higher growth path of around 7%.Positive developments in the domestic and global economies with recent policy initiatives are expected to result in a favorable outlook for the external sector."
"With the strengthened fiscal consolidation process, the budget deficit is expected to be reduced to 3.5% of GDP by 2020, while the debt to GDP ratio is to be reduced to 60.0%. The conduct of monetary policy will focus on maintaining inflation in mid- single digit levels while facilitating the economy to realize its potential."
Pointing out the strong need for decisive steps to be taken, Siriwardana said, "Decisive steps are necessary to correct these vulnerabilities to ensure the country’s progress along a high growth- low inflation path. It is expected that with right policies, the economy will return to a high growth path in the medium term.
"Policy focus will need to be on Improving fiscal performance through essential reforms, reforms in State Owned Enterprises, Introduction of a robust pricing formula for petroleum products, attracting non-debt creating FDIs and long term financial flows, strengthening external sector sustainability through external trade, optimum utilization of trade agreements and arrangements, proactive policies for inclusive growth, meeting high quality human capital needs, evolution of the current education system into a demand driven one, addressing the issues in the agriculture sector and plantation sector, promotion of public–private partnerships and so on.
"Immediate improvements to public transport are needed to curb the economic loss caused by road traffic congestion. Ongoing changes in weather patterns and volatilities associated with fuel prices reiterate the need for strengthening of the national policy on renewable energy development.
"Introduction of market oriented pension and superannuation that ensure wider coverage of the labour force is needed. Financial deepening is needed to enable high growth momentum of the country, inclusive of the poor in the peripheral districts.
"The strategic position of the island of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean in the middle of the maritime Silk Route from China to Europe must be exploited to harness the potential of the country", Siriwardana noted.
The following points too surfaced at the Central Bank forum:
*Unemployment rate increased to 4.6% during 2015, compared to 4.3% recorded in 2014.
*Earnings from exports contracted by 5.6% in 2015, reflecting a decline across almost all major export categories.
*Overall expenditure on imports declined by 2.5% although expenditure on non-fuel imports increased significantly by 9.6%.
*Fuel import bill declined by US$ 1.9 billion to US$ 2.7 billion due to the significant decline in international oil prices, but higher expenditure on importation of personal motor vehicles and other consumer durables contributed to the increase in non-fuel exports.
*Earnings from tourism increased by 22.6% to US$ 2,981 million while worker remittances declined by 0.5% to US$ 6,980 million.
*Current account deficit amounted to US$ 2,009 million in 2015 compared to US$ 1,998 million recorded a year earlier. As a percentage of GDP, it narrowed slightly to 2.4% in 2015 compared to 2.5% in 2014.
*The BOP deteriorated in 2015 largely due to lower than expected financial inflows and higher capital outflows.
*In 2015, the BOP recorded an overall deficit of US$1.489 million in comparison to the surplus of US$1,369 million recorded in 2014.
*Modest performance of the current account together with the comparatively low level of inflows to the financial account and higher outflows contributed to the deterioration of the BOP.
Tamils of Indian origin numbering about 1.5 million or around 7 percent of the population have been living in this country for the past two hundred years and contributed enormously to the development of the country during this period. They were highly disadvantaged in education since their arrival but now things have improved that they have 20 1AB and 80 ! C schools and two teacher education institutes and a technical institute at Hatton , thanks to the efforts made by late leader S. Thondaman who negotiated with the then government which was waging war with the LTTE. We can witness remarkable progress in their socio-economic conditions, thanks to the intervention of the successive governments of Sri Lanka.
The development of university education during the post independent era in Sri Lanka witnessed the establishment of universities in the North and Eastern Provinces that the Tamils and Muslims in those areas are benefitted by this effort and they are able to establish faculties and centres to preserve and develop their cultures. In fact the universities are helping the socio-economic development of the areas and possess the potential to undertake such task for the well being of the people.
Although there are three universities operating in the plantation provinces the upcountry Tamils have no significant benefit as far as their cultural development is concerned. These universities do not reflect this community in terms of their identity and culture.
As a constituent member of the Sri Lankan multi-ethnic society and a community which continue to contribute to the Sri Lankan economy through its labour a demand has been put forward by few of its
Intellectuals for the establishment of a state university in a selected area in the Nuwara eliya district for them taking the examples of the state universities functioning in the North and Eastern provinces.
Suggestion
In view of the circumstances explained above very briefly it is requested from leaders of good governance to consider the establishment of a university of Highlands for the upcountry Tamils where students from all communities can study.
The proposed university will reflect the cultural ethos of the upcountry Tamils and it should be established at a suitable location in the Nuwara Eliya district. The university could be declared as a reward for this community for their contribution to the development of Sri Lanka during the past decades.
Favourable consideration of this request will go a long way as an attempt to expand state university education in Sri Lanka and accommodating a request made by a disadvantaged community which is also backward in higher education in terms of enrollment and output of graduates. It should be pointed out that whatever measures taken by the state to provide opportunities for disadvantaged sections of the Sri Lankan society, they did not reach this particular community in respect of school education and higher education substantially relative to other communities. For example, university admissions were changed drastically by giving up the principle of merit and it was claimed that the change would benefit the disadvantaged communities. But it is common knowledge that the plantation community was not a beneficiary of such changes and the policy makers at that time (in 1970s) were totally unmindful of this particular disadvantaged community.
Pragya Singh, accused in the 2008 Malegaon attacks, arrives in court in Nashik, India. (AP)
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