New Constitution can attract foreign investment - US

‘UNHRC Resolution 30/1 operative’

Keshap shaking hands with Sumanthiran-July 5, 2018, 10:37 pm 

Outgoing US Ambassador Atul Keshap has told Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan that the new Constitution could help Sri Lanka attract foreign investment. A statement issued by Opposition Leader’s Office after Keshap met Sampanthan and Jaffna District TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran, quoted the US Ambassador as having said Sri Lanka would be able to attract more investors and more economic benefits if it adopted a new Constitution

The meeting took place at the office of the Leader of the Opposition in Colombo.

The TNA statement: "Expressing his views on the current state of affairs, Sampanthan pointed out that the Government is yet to accomplish most of its commitments to the International community. The expectations of the international community in the best interest of the people of Sri Lanka has not been fulfilled by the Government of Sri Lanka said Mr Sampanthan.

"Highlighting the commitments made by the Sri Lankan Government in the cosponsored resolution adopted at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2015, Mr Sampanthan said "the Office of the Missing Persons was established after a long delay, the Reparations bill is not yet passed, there had been no steps taken to address the Accountability issues, the commission on Truth Justice Reconciliation and non-Recurrence has not been constituted, the Constitutional process took a positive start but there seems to be delay in taking it forward".

Given the fact that there had been plenty of work done around the framing of a new Constitution for over 25 years, I don’t see any justifiable reasons for delay in this. Our primary interest is in the best interest of the country, and everyone in this country will benefit from a new Constitution said Mr Sampanthan. Mustering a two-third Majority in Parliament need not be that difficult to adopt a new Constitution said Mr Sampanthan.

Vast majority of the Tamil People who live all over the country including the North and the East want a solution within a united undivided Sri Lanka, there are sections of people not substantial but vocal who adopt a hardline view, but the only way to silence them and keep them away from negatively influencing the community is to deliver on the promises said Mr. Sampanthan. We have been absolutely reasonable in our demands said Mr Sampanthan, if the Government does not deliver the Tamil people are not going to be second-class citizens in this country.

The Ambassador pointed out that as far as the United States is concerned that the UNHRC Resolution remains operative and it is fundamental for several bilateral relationships. Further, he said the objectives of the country should remain positive in order to achieve peace and reconciliation. The positive image that the Government of Sri Lanka has in the international stage should not be taken for granted. He also highlighted that Sri Lanka will be able to attract more investors and will have more economic benefits if it adopts a new Constitution. Further, he said the United States of America will remain fully engaged with the progress made by the Sri Lankan government in the future. He also thanked Mr Sampanthan for his support during his tenure as the Ambassador.

Sampanthan appreciated the role played by the Ambassador and his team and the US state department in the past with regard to Sri Lanka and appealed that the same level of engagement should continue with all parties in the future.

Along with Mr Sampanthan TNA Spokesman and the Jaffna District parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran was also present at the meeting while the Ambassador was accompanied by Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Hilton and Joanna Pritchett, the Political Officer.

SAFMA condemns targeting of Lankan journalists

(Lanka e News -05.July.2018, 11.30PM) The Sri Lanka chapter of the South Asian Free Media Association is very concerned about the targeting by politicians of two Sri Lankan journalists involved in internationally reporting on Sri Lankan issues published recently in the New York Times newspaper of the USA. We are concerned that, due to this individual targeting, the professional sights of these journalists have been violated. We are also concerned that the targeting is being done by senior leaders of a political group that, when it was last in governmental power, presided over a regime that saw the collective intimidation and repression of the news media industry of by extreme violence.

Singling out and publicly targeting individual professionals for the work they perform for an employer, in this case, an internationally published newspaper, is only valid if those individuals at least appeared to have seriously violated the country’s laws in any manner. In the case of the detailed news report published by the ‘New York Times’ newspaper of the USA, headlined ‘How China got Sri Lanka to cough up a port’ on June 25, 2018, the two Sri Lankan journalists concerned were the local support reporters for the American journalist team belonging to the ‘New York Times’.

As an organisation of socially concerned journalists, SAFMA-SL upholds the right of anyone to respond to any news publication in terms of public criticism of the published item or even its publisher. In terms of the law as well as professional practice, both locally and internationally, the responsibility for publication of any news product is held by the publisher and not the employee professionals concerned.

Individual professionals are singly targeted for investigation only if there is a violation of law by the publisher that is formally considered by the authorities as serious enough to investigate and prosecute all the personnel seen as complicit. In the case of the said news report, so far, no legal authorities, either Sri Lankan or American, have thought fit to raise issues of wrong-doing, certainly not of an urgent nature that has immediate social repercussions.

The public naming of these two journalists last week remarkably echoed that period of repression and the behaviour of politicians that heralded such massive rights violations and violence. The fact that this political criticism has sparked off a wave of similar or even worse criticism of these two individual professionals via internet social media is indicative of an attempt to intimidate Sri Lanka’s news professional community as a whole.

SAFMA - Sri Lanka Chapter
107, Obeysekara Town
Rajagiriya
Sri Lanka

---------------------------
by     (2018-07-05 21:53:11)

From IRDP to Gamperaliya The one big lie Why rural development programmes always fail

2018-07-06 

We have had very healthy debates in the past and ended up late in the day in high spirits. We’ve wrestled with very many issues often with disagreements and learnt more than we thought we knew.

I cannot count even half-a-dozen politicians, who could sit through such long debates like you with patience and with interest.

I have that rare privilege of a gift from you, the book Dreams from My Father authored by Barak Obama- a result of one of those long-debates we had in May 2008.
Who would win the US Democratic Party Primaries and why? I stood with Obama. I do not know of a politician who walks into a bookshop in an airport to buy a book to be gifted in appreciation of a serious discussion he or she was involved in.

I believe you are still that. Yet, this is not for you Mangala, but for the Hon. Minister of Finance.

Today, the context is different from then. Today, I’m openly engaging with you on your popular campaign Gamperaliya for rural development.

As you know, I have had no formal education in the subject area of Economics. But I believe you are quite aware that I am also no fan of this Neoliberal Market Economy.

I have often argued that free market economies breed majoritarian extremism as a political necessity, are inherently corrupt and are exclusive “city centred” leaving out rural societies.

I, therefore, dig up a thing that relates to Rural Development in these free market economies and that was my interest in your much-hyped Gamperaliya Programme.
I Love that label of the programme, but not the programme as it is. Reading through media reports and your speeches I understand it has two segments running concurrently. One named Enterprise Sri Lanka and the other linked up with President Sirisena’s Grama Shakthi.

Such duplicity in development programmes also proves there is no seriousness in the actual development of rural society.

The Enterprise part of Gamperaliya is said to work towards having 100,000 entrepreneurs by 2020, which is when the UNP expects to run its own Presidential Candidate after skipping the two previous elections.

The strategy in creating those entrepreneurs is to offer 15 loan schemes under three categories to the business sector and rural society from agrarian based loans to women and youth.

It is common knowledge that selections for such State Patronage at the local level would be very much politically influenced and would remain so.

While it is said, State Banks would have a special PR desk to handle these loans, there is no mention of how ‘use of these loans’ would be regularly monitored and supported, when necessary.

Am I to presume therefore the year ahead would be when a 100, 000 families would be doled out money as “loans for business” before the expected 2020 Presidential Election?

The State would be left responsible for a substantial part of payback as you have said at the launch of Enterprise Sri Lanka.

The other segment of Gamperaliya that would be carried out with President Sirisena’s  Grama Shakthi is to focus on village infrastructure; development of water tanks, anicuts, green parks, free Wi-Fi, rehabilitation of small religious places, village roads and the like.

Your Gamperaliya is not about improving the quality of rural life but is about pumping money into rural society to help catch votes

It was also reported, the Moneragala District, from where the Gamperaliya began five days ago, was allocated Rs. 500 million for the construction of 25,000 toilets for families without such facility.

I doubt anyone has actually done a field survey to enumerate these numbers. If there had been any, could details of “would be recipients” be made public, before the money was doled out?

I bet it would not be done at any time and am I to believe this would also be another dole of Rs.20, 000 for each of these families before 2020 Presidential Elections?
Mr Minister, as you and I know quite well, these recipient numbers are almost always made up for very narrow politics of individuals.

You and I know that right down to the GS Niladhari, the whole district administration, as a rule, is corrupt, inefficient, lethargic and heavily politicised.

That said, can I ask you, how different is this total programme for all previous efforts made in developing rural life?

With the opening up of the economy without any restrictions on import and export trade, the first planned effort in rural development was through Integrated Rural Development Projects, the first, launched in 1978 in the Kurunegala District.

Thereafter, for over two decades, IRDPs were carried out in most Districts other than in the Western, Northern and Eastern Provinces.

All of them ran into double phases with at least eight consecutive years. They were all foreign assisted, with NORAD providing most funding.

And they included almost all that you have in your Gamperaliya Development Programme. Yet, all IRDPs were complete failures.

IRDPs not making any impact on poor rural life, more and more young rural women were seeking migrant employment as housemaids in the Middle East for a pittance.

Thus around 1998, IRDP was turned into Rural Enterprise Advancement Programme (REAP) that focussed on business efforts of rural society, not very different to your loan schemes for ‘entrepreneurs’.

REAP folded up with two district programmes; the first being in Matale. Designed and planned in Colombo and implemented through district State Administration, they all proved total failures.

I would suggest that you read a very comprehensive study on Sri Lanka’s IRDPs done by Norwegian ‘Specialist’ Reidar Dale, titled Organization of Regional Development Work published by Sarvodaya to familiarise yourself about issues on the ground and for some good reasons as to why they should not be done the way you have programmed.

Apart from Governments, there are many NGOs with foreign funds including ONUR that focus on livelihood development of rural societies.

For many decades they have organised microcredit programmes that mainly focused on women and youth, a social segment you have also stressed upon.

Most such NGOs have used ILO sponsored SIYB and GIZ (then GTZ) designed CEFE, two training programmes to develop rural entrepreneurship, with grants attached.

I believe these programmes would have trained many thousand micros and small business leaders in rural societies over the past many decades.

But hardly any had prospered to live profitably after funded projects concluded.

Proof of failure is the launch of direct poverty alleviation Programmes: Janasaviya, Samurdhi and now your Gamperaliya with Grama Shakthi, implemented to address decades-old issues with the same old approach and answers.

The fault is in how Rural Development is being understood and in how it is being approached within this free-market economy.

Mr Minister, to understand Rural Development one has to first define what Development at a holistic level is. Development is not just a growing economy.

That is how this Free market economy, with Neoliberal jargon, interprets development in an insanely competitive market economy.

But Development is all about improving the quality of life. Quality of life is not ONLY about money and income.

It is about earning enough income within 07 or 08 hours a day in a 05-day working week, to spend not only on adequate daily consumption, services and for saving, but also have a wallet that would allow recreation and cultural life both for his or her family and for him or herself.

This was not what was talked about as development since 1978 when IRDP/REAP were designed, planned and implemented. It isn’t even now.

Rural development needs planners who can speak the same language as villagers do, know the taste of what they eat, have sat through the night in a rural hospital without a bed and no medical doctor visiting, felt the heat of the sun and seen how they toil for a pittance.

What is also not being paid attention to is the fact that paddy cultivation, which is more cultural than economic, leaves a large percentage of rural agri-labour under-utilised for over six months of the year, with Maha Season being the most extensive paddy cultivation season of about four-months duration.

This under-utilised labour can only struggle through life. It is worse when most essential and efficient services the State is held responsible for, formal education, preventive health and hospital facilities, public commuting and cheap energy sources, apart from cultural and recreational facilities were totally absent in all rural development programmes and is no different in Gamperaliya as well.

How can there be a prosperous revolt in the village without any of them being given priority?

Sadly, your Gamperaliya too is not about improving the quality of rural life but is about pumping money into rural society, a political gimmick every Government politician think could help catch votes.

Forty years within this free market economy, whatever money pumped into rural society, has ended up getting accrued in the most economically patronised Colombo City. That Mr Minister needs serious changes to your Gamperaliya programme and in the free market economy too.

Wish you have the courage to initiate such radical change.

Vijayakala Should Resign

JUL 05 2018

A month after the July 1983 riots which put back Sri Lanka’s economic progress by decades, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) under the aegis of President J.R. Jayewardene, passed the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution in August 1983, proscribing separatism.

The relevant piece of legislation reads, ‘…(1) No person shall, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka. (2) No political party or other association or organization shall have as one of its aims or objects the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.

(3) Any person who acts in contravention of the provisions of paragraph (1) shall, on conviction by the Court of Appeal, after trial on indictment and according to such procedure as may be prescribed by law, (a) be subject to civic disability for such period not exceeding seven years as may be determined by such Court : (b) Forfeit his movable and immovable property other than such property as is determined by an order of such Court as being necessary for the sustenance of such person and his family ; (c) not be entitled to civic rights for such period not exceeding seven years as may be determined by such Court ; and (d) if he is a Member of Parliament or a person in such service or holding such office as is referred to in paragraph (l) of Article 165, cease to be such Member or to be in such service or to hold such office…’

Paragraph (I) of Article 165 deals with public officers, judicial officers and such other persons as required by the Constitution, to  make an oath of affirmation of the Constitution, including eschewing separatism.

In the context of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, the spotlight falls on UNP Jaffna District MP and Child Affairs State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran.
Maheswaran speaking at an official event at Janapathi Nila Mehewara, Jaffna on Monday is alleged to have had said, ‘…the aim was to rebuild the LTTE and that they should ‘remerge’ and be strengthened in the North and the East if the residents of those areas wished to remain alive, free of fear and suspicion and for their children to return home safely after attending school…’ (See yesterday’s ‘Ceylon Today’)

LTTE is a separatist organization and is proscribed by law. In that context, Maheswaran’s speech in support of the LTTE is a violation of the Sixth Amendment.

Her speech should also be taken in the context that only a few days earlier, on 22 June, Police at a checkpoint at Oddusuddan, Mullaitivu, discovered a 15 kilo claymore mine, two pressure mines, two hand grenades, 98 rounds of T-56 ammunition, four remote control devices, six electronic detonators, two LTTE military fatigues, three T-shirts embossed with the ‘tiger’ (LTTE) logo, two red and yellow LTTE flags and two large rolls of wire inside a three-wheeler. Police have taken into custody five persons in this connection, thus far. This shows that the LTTE, which was principally involved in starting the July ’83 conflagration after they ambushed and killed 13 soldiers at Thinnaveli, Jaffna on 23 July 1983, is far from being dead.

GoSL needs to beef up its intelligence and be in touch with its counterparts in the West, Australasia and India, where a large Tamil diaspora, a number of whom are sympathetic to the LTTE, live, to prevent another conflagration.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s State-controlled ‘Daily News’ reported that UNP Leader Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe was scheduled to meet Maheswaran in Colombo yesterday to inquire into her controversial statement.

Following the victory at the 10 February Local Government elections, the only thing now needed for the Rajapaksa camp to further consolidate their position is to brand the Government as being a ‘tiger’ supporter, to infuriate the 70 per cent Sinhala-Buddhist masses, in the light of recent developments.

Therefore, the best thing that Maheswaran could do to save her Party from further humiliation is to resign.

Contextualising Minister’s Tiger Bomb

State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran

By Ameer Ali –JULY 5, 2018

Dr. Ameer Ali

State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran’s emotional outburst in welcoming the return of LTTE has obviously and legitimately provoked condemnation both inside and outside the parliament. This writer is equally disturbed by her thoughtless reference to a group of megalomaniacs who knew how to take up the gun but did not know when to put it down. Yet, Vijayakala’s verbal bomb blast must be contextualised.  

The nation is nearing a decade since LTTE was defeated and civil war came to an end. Jaffna has been rebuilt partly due to infrastructure development undertaken by the MR regime and partly due to massive inflow of funds from expatriate Tamils. Jaffna has changed its skyline so rapidly that it is difficult for an outsider to detect any visual evidence of a twenty-five year civil war fought in that territory. No wonder that MR is fondly remembered in some parts of the peninsula. So far so good.

However, the real picture is sadly a different one. Gang related violence, drug trade and drug addiction, rape of women and girls as young as six year old, day light robbery, alcoholism, murder, harassment by security forces and such other social and administrative evils are widespread and remain unresolved.  Perhaps, this is an island wide phenomenon not confined only to the Tamil north. Even so, to clean up the social mess in a war ravaged territory the government must have given some priority to this sector so that its people could enjoy some semblance of the so called peace dividend. Instead, at present, there is a general fear and uncertainty about the future ruling the minds of young men and women. My interview with a number of ordinary Tamils and Tamil professionals in different parts of the north conveyed a feeling of widespread unhappiness and frustration.  The psychological effect of this state of affairs should not be underrated.  

Read More

The irrational urge for one folk, one fuhrer, one fatherland 

Adolf Hitler

By Harim Peiris-July 5, 2018, 10:23 pm

In the context of an anemic economy and the failure of a democratic coalition to resolve the economic uncertainty and fear people felt, a proud and ancient people, turned to a former Army corporal and in a narrow win, elected the fascists to power. No, not in Sri Lanka, this was Germany in the early nineteen thirties where the failures of the Weimer Republic and its weak coalition governments created an attraction for the strongman politics and ideology, loosely defined as Fascism, to become increasingly popular. Adolf Hitler and his fascist Nazi Party promised a strong Germany, one folk, one fuhrer and one fatherland or one people, one leader and one great country.

The implementation of this vision, unleashed the horrors of the second world war on Europe and the world. The creation of one people, meant that another people (the Jews, but also Gypsies and other minorities needed to be eliminated). The existence of one leader, meant that there was no need for debate and dissent, accordingly the Reichstag (the German Parliament) conveniently burned down one night in a mysterious fire. The need for one fatherland meant that Germany needed to expand its borders, hence the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Poland as Germany tried to recreate the country according to history. Over six million European Jews and millions of others, civilians and military, including pre-independent Ceylon’s troops in the British Army, perished in the war.

The interesting fact, is that while many German people saw the excesses, the weaknesses, the flaws and the social self-destruction which the pursuit of an Aryan master race and German fascism would entail, German society provided no outlet, no space to even explore this topic, until the tragedy played out. Ethnic German nationalism extracted a unbelievable toll on Germany, Germans and the world.

Tamil nationalism and the quest for Tamil Eelam

Fast forward about forty years after the second world war to post independent Sri Lanka and Tamil nationalism within the country had changed from peaceful, Gandhian non-violent and democratic demands for political and cultural rights to a violent armed conflict for a separate state. In the pursuit of a Tamil Eelam, Tamil nationalist leadership was captured by the "sole representatives of the Tamil people", the LTTE, which also promised "one leader, one people & one land". In the pursuit of having only one leader, the "Suriya Thevan", (among other titles), countless other Tamil leaders from Appapillai Amirthalingaml, Sam Thambimuthu to Neelan Thiruchelvam had to be murdered. In the pursuit of having one people, the Muslim community had to be ethnically cleansed from the land, hence the expulsion of Jaffna’s Muslim by the LTTE. In the attempt to carve out a mono-ethnic enclave in the North and East of Sri Lanka, a violent thirty-year conflict was waged, heaping untold misery on all Sri Lankans in general and the largely Tamil civilian population of the North and the multi ethnic population of the East in particular. The cost of the LTTE and the armed conflict to the Tamil community was huge, their children conscripted, their towns and villages destroyed, their communities internally displaced, their leaders murdered, intra Tamil democratic debate and dissent destroyed, their middle class scattered throughout the West and the poorer sections of Tamil society forced across the border as refugees to India. Nonetheless, before, during and even ten years after the conflict, there is still neither the political space or will to explore and possibly condemn the astronomical human cost and the non-existent benefits of the thirst for Tamil Eelam, through the means of "one leader, one people and one land.

Sinhala nationalism should not go down the path of European fascism or Tamil nationalism

It is Ambassador and prolific newspaper columnist Dayan Jayathilaka, who I believed first coined the phrase "the sons of ‘56" to the SLFP led UPFA administrations from 2005 to 2015. The phrase denoting that the Sinhala nationalist ideology and social direction of the post CBK SLFP led administrations. The changeover from the PA to the UPFA, was a more Sinhala nationalist, albeit moderate and modernist, exercise, than President Kumaratunga’s Peoples’ Alliance (PA) Administrations. As the focus in Sri Lankan politics turns nearly one and half years ahead to the elections of 2020 and in the context of the February local government polls victory by essentially the political forces of former President Rajapakse, there is interest and focus on what type of a "sons of ’56" Sinhala nationalism, a proposed JO / SLPP / Rajapakse third term would entail. In that context, even the mere hint of serious calls or exploration of a "strong man" rule, and seeking support for the same from ethnic identity, rather than a broader more pluralistic nation state civic identity has the potential to have similar disastrous consequences.

Sri Lanka is democratic and pluralistic. We have been let down in the past, not due to an over-abundance of either democracy or pluralism, but rather due to a deficit of the same. We had our national conflicts, including with both the LTTE and the JVP and now most recently post war with the Muslim community, due to a democratic and rule of law deficit, not an excess. If we have not developed our economy, it is not due to the absence of a strong leader, but rather the absence of checks, balances, transparency and accountability which would be common features in an open and democratic society. Sri Lanka has largely implemented an ill-liberal democracy. While we have representative government, we have not valued, cherished or developed either accountability or transparency in governance.

Accordingly the answer to the Sinhala community’s frustrations may lie in greater transparency, accountability and checks and balances through a consolidation, strengthening and institutionalization of changes brought about through the 19th Amendment, the resultant Independent Commissions and the Right to Information (RTI) Act, rather than trying to shift a democratic, pluralistic and inclusive Sri Lanka to "one leader, one people and one land".

A real Swiss lesson – Merci!

Thursday, 5 July 2018

This is all about an experience but more so placing on record an experiential learning. Those who read this may take their own interpretations or reflect with more questions. I am giving a perception I do value.

Landing in Switzerland coming from Sri Lanka for a change I felt like a big brother. Usually this is not an experience Sri Lankans can have unless you are a frequent flyer to Maldives! My country is bigger than yours and there was no feeling of a citizen from a small country which meant that I should not be cowed about! We also have numbers to boast of (or worry about?!) comparing 22 million to 8.4 million Swiss.

Well, the rest of data really puts you in place! The relationship between the Sri Lankan Rupee and Swiss Franc (CHF) is like David and Goliath and that limits seriously your purchasing aspirations. Consistently the world’s No. 1 country in the Global Innovation Index, I still have the visuals of proudly Swiss Made analogue watches on billboards as you move to get your passport stamped after disembarking.

Even though the mobile can give you the accurate time, the Swiss have been able to keep their watch industry thriving and with even dedicated Museums (Philippe Patek museum in Geneva) to showcase Swiss design talent. Quality in design and aesthetic appeal can preserve institutions even perhaps well after their technical age of relevance – they are not simple watches but monuments for displaying time.


Star-class sustainability mindset

My time was spent within the confines of a technical university EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne) presently ranked 22nd in the global scale (QS rating). I do not dare open my rating for discussion. The metro stopped next to my place of stay at the University and I could directly step into it from the platform.

Bikes go in and come out of the train with passengers. Bikes to hire over the web are evident and 80% of the commuters to the campus are soft mobility converts. There is a repair shop dedicated to bicycles and all facilities are provided within for anyone to come in and get their bikes repaired by themselves for free. Of course you can outsource your problem to a technical support available but then it will be at a significant cost. So all students are competent in repair work and a skill aspect goes up a notch in the community.

When I met the Head of the Energy Group (Prof. Scartezzini) he told me that the campus is planning to ban cars in the near future. Now there would not be any agitation over car permits at EPFL for sure. The campus has 15,000 m2 of PV panels on its roofs, triple glazing in buildings (dating back 30 years or so), no hot water in washbasins, ecological green spaces (no electric lawn mowers and when the need arrives sheep do the honours). EPFL is really a campus operated with a sustainable mindset and all its practices are star-class well worthy of emulation.

An aspect I learnt was their interest and commitment towards low carbon transformation. The entire EPFL is cooled and heated from a heat pump system utilising water from nearby Lake Geneva. I also noticed their reluctance to use air conditioning even though the temperatures were in the 30s (centigrade).

At EPFL, research was quite visual as they appear to put into practice what they are doing transforming the university to an experimental lab. Prof. Scartezzini has the idea that university is a mini-city and that definition allows you to reach for scale from your own confines. You walk through spaces and scientific comments greet you, not absurd graffiti!

One research of developing paint to coat train wagons gave me a lesson. The development of the paint had been with a view to reducing the air conditioning load. Upon inventing the paint they have identified that passengers within cannot use their cellular phones and after another back to the drawing board – voila! Another major development.

What is interesting is a simple requirement had been converted to a highly-advanced development and then the final result – saving of operational expenditure, gaining of advanced scientific knowledge, etc. All the more sweeter is the researchers have based their search along the attributes of a butterfly Blue Morpho – true biomimetic research well in tune with an eco design.


EPFL’s Convention Centre – A world’s first

Famous scientist Michael Gratzel heralds from EPFL and his award-winning invention of dye sensitised solar cells adorn the façade of EPFL’s Convention Centre – A world’s first. And Gratzel was trying mimic the leaf! Go to the university bookshop and you will find a G-cell based haversack for sale. 100% electricity used by EPFL is from renewables.

You find that the EPFL Convention Centre has a design of its own with the integration more emerging energetic technologies. The entire centre rests on 30-metre-deep geothermal pillars – a design of EPFL’s Soil Mechanics lab. Passage of heat transmitting fluids in these pillars exchange heat of the ground with the building. The sanitary hot water used is generated by heat produced by the fridges, one option among a few, and heat is 100% renewable. I was quite happy to see food waste being turned into biogas and there were vehicle powered by biogas operating within the campus.

Even in the plenary room natural light is made use of. The researchers at EPFL including one Sri Lankan were analysing and modelling cities of multiple countries. While Dasun who specialises in distributed urban energy systems was showing me around the campus, his model analysis for Lund in Sweden was running in the cloud!

Dasun’s modelling repertoire involves Hemberg, Geneva, Bern (Swiss) Lund (Sweden), San Francisco (USA), Nablus (Palastine), Dubai (UAE), Turin (Italy) – Any message for the CEB? As I heard, four more Sri Lankans are making excellent showing in Computer Science.


Tackling local issues with world-class solutions 

The lesson in this short sojourn courtesy of EPFL of course is to understand you tackle local issues but produce world-class solutions and develop cutting edge abilities. Your system is your laboratory and the mind is about finding the best solution there is – not a one of approximation.

I can see why even the Germans rate Swiss efficiency to be better than theirs and I do have some experience of the former. While we have been able to snatch defeat from victory as well as defeat subsequent to victory, the Swiss demonstrate the way forward.

I listened to why Swiss came up with the CERN – the largest laboratory in the world! And they pumped in money when they had much less and more issues subsequent to the world war. They invested to keep their talent in the country and today CERN draws in plenty of talent with many Nobel prizes and as the birthplace of the touch screen and the World Wide Web. A lesson in investing wisely and not asking for subsidies and handouts but taking charge of one’s own destiny.




Swiss pride

A short journey outside the campus, the social event of the conference was taking all of us to a UNESCO heritage site and you may be initially excused for thinking of seeing ruins and medieval fortresses – no, the visit was to Lavaux vineyards which is the UNESCO heritage site – a location with stunning scenery.

Families who were growing and producing vines were able to show 1,300 years of lineage and located alongside the Lake Geneva they speak of moving their village after a tsunami. Tsunami without a sea and by the side of a lake – that has happened due to a part of mountain crashing down to the lake around 560 and that had created a 10m high wave! While they served wine I contended with reminiscing about 150 years of Ceylon Tea and thinking that the estate where Taylor started it all for Ceylon is not even in a popular tourist trail back home.

It was evident that the Swiss are proud of their cows too in addition to their watches. Well you receive your visa in Colombo and the courtyard stands a big sculpture of a cow! I cannot imagine what our Sri Lankan embassies are showcasing!? Your take-home memorabilia are of course various types of happy cows! And cowbells (kuhglocke) quite elaborately decorated.

Of course one is reminded that world’s No. 1 food industry is based in Switzerland when among displays of watches you see Nespresso designs. It was also evident that they love their cheese when fondue is a national dish, reminding anyone of their past too. Fast food is mainly for visitors and they want to know from where what they eat comes from and they prefer the produce to be from within, having trust on how they produce. Of course the Swiss revolutionised chocolates by adding milk and we all have a break at times!

To me the most important lesson was EPFL’s sustainability mindset and the emerging social innovativeness; Switzerland did portray a country with four languages – a polyglot paradise perhaps; a style of architecture which now they speak out to the outside with – modern architecture; research culture that solves local situations but results in globally best solutions; an attitude as demonstrated with CERN investing for the future; a country of a few million people in a small land mass that has managed to scale the development ladder effectively. I must admit I did not see the vaults of famous Swiss banks! Merci!

Sri Lanka to shift naval base to China-controlled port city

FILE PHOTO: Sri Lanka's navy fires a gun salute during the Sri Lanka's 70th Independence day celebrations in Colombo, Sri Lanka February 4, 2018. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

JULY 2, 2018

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka is shifting a naval base to a port built and controlled by China, it said on Monday, a move that will strengthen security at a harbor that foreign powers fear China could use for military purposes.

The base currently in the tourist district of Galle will be moved 125 km (80 miles) east along Sri Lanka’s southern coast to Hambantota, nearer a main shipping route between Asia and Europe.

The $1.5 billion deepwater port is likely to play a major role in China’s “Belt and Road” initiative and is under a 99-year lease to China Merchants Port Holdings at a cost of $1.12 billion.

FILE PHOTO: A Navy officer looks at the heroes' name board of a war memorial, during a commemoration ceremony to mark the 9th anniversary of the fallen soldiers during the final stage of war between Tamil Tigers and government army, in Colombo, Sri Lanka May 19, 2018. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

Government and diplomatic sources have told Reuters that the United States, India and Japan have raised concerns that China might use the port as a naval base.

The Sri Lankan government and Chinese embassy in Colombo have denied that and the agreement for the port deal included a clause that it cannot be used for military purposes.

“Sri Lanka has already informed China that Hambantota port cannot be used for military purposes,” Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said in a statement.

“Since the security of the port will be under the control of Sri Lanka navy, there is no need to fear,” the statement said.

 

A naval unit has already been established in Hambantota and construction work for the base is under way, navy spokesman Dinesh Bandara said.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the Hambantota port project was to help Sri Lanka achieve its aim of becoming a logistics hub in the Indian Ocean, which was good for the country’s economic development and the region as a whole.

Reporting by Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Robin Pomeroy

Whither Sri Lanka?

By Gamini Dullewe –JULY 3, 2018

The problem of quite a number in this country of their inability to cope with different Religions and different races in this Multicultural and Multi religious society is mainly due to the lack of knowledge of the history of origins of both the Sinhalese and also the Tamils. The Sinhalese believe, as mentioned in the Mahawamsa, authored by Priest Mahinda also not a Sinhalese, that the Sinhalese commenced occupation of the country, with the advent of Prince Vijaya and his retinue of seven hundred men. However Prince Vijaya was not a Sinhalese. Then how one could conclude that the progeny is Sinhalese is a point to ponder. Besides the Sinhalese of  today are not a pure race, but a mixture of nationalities that have assimilated over a period of time to the country’s population to call themselves as the Sinhalese. More than half the number, bear Portuguese names. While the Tamils too are migrants from South India as probably the land mass would have been connected then. Therefore to determine as to who came first is like the, hen and chick situation, which came first.  

Long before the advent of the Portuguese, Dutch and the English, the country was inhabited by the Tamils and the Sinhalese and both Tamil Kings and Sinhalese Kings have ruled parts of the country including the Nayakkars from India, the last King of Kandy. The majority of the Population has been this mixed race of the Sinhalese living in the South West and the Tamils Living in the NortEast have been a sizable minority. Then with trade some Moors also have settled down and married in to both the Sinhalese and the Tamils, to constitute a small segment of the county’s population as Muslims. In the early years under the Kings, a feudal system of governance has been in force, where there was no employment or unemployment in the present sense. All were vassals ruled by the Kings, assisted by a few families of the Aristocracy. There were no qualified doctors, Engineers, Accountants, Lawyers, School Principals, teachers, nurses, clerks, peons  or any other  employment in that system. The system had Vedamahaththayas to look after the sick, a family tradition. The Engineers were self-made individuals who were responsible for the construction of the old edifices like Sigiriya, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and the Irrigation network of canals for Agriculture. It was a very simple social structure where none had wealth to flaunt unlike today. The King owned all the land and doled out to the subjects to whom it was deserving according to performance of duty.

It was the British who changed everything by introducing a form of Governance. Along with the change they introduced a system of Education where the Christian Church played a significant role to churn the public to take up office to man the new system. Whereas, earlier there was only Pirivena Education that produced Sinhala Pali scholars and Buddhist Priests to propagate Buddhism. The Christian schools that were established by the British Christian Missionaries at the beginning, encouraged the Natives to convert to Christianity to enter such schools. The education enabled the natives to secure govt jobs after completing their education. Hence many Buddhists from the middle classes converted themselves to become Christians in order to receive an education and the qualification to secure employment. There were many Catholics in the coastal areas by then, who had already converted,  that enabled them to get an education. However the requirement to convert was relaxed and some Buddhists too managed to secure an education and then qualify and was able to secure employment in the new system.  It must be noted that none without qualification had been absorbed to the system, be they Sinhalese or Tamil as the British were handling the Management.

The reason why many Tamils constituted the Administrative Service at that time, was because they took to education in more numbers than the Sinhalese did, with an early start. The majority Sinhalese were quite content of their life styles that they preferred the Laisser-faire living to working for a salary. It was only much later the Sinhalese realized that a job and a salary provided means for a better living standard, that they also sought education. Here it must be remembered that the masses were emancipated by the British first, although the Socialists believe it was Bandaranaike who emancipated the masses, from being mere vassals in the country to become Professionals and Academics in society, long before Independence through an education system the British introduced. It was only afterwards that Henry Steel Olcott established Buddhist schools for the Buddhists of the Island, the facility to receive an education. This was the new beginning for all who enjoy today of being a somebody in society, from being nobodies then. 

Read More

The front guard and the rearguard

Public sector employees have been disgruntled with the way the government has operated for quite some time

There’s a curious contradiction with respect to the strikes that we are seeing now. The strikers are enthusiastic about what they are demonstrating against, and are not in any mood to placate the powers that be, in return for petty favours

Sri Lanka has turned into a Picket Republic. The trade union movement has a front guard in the form of the professionals and a rearguard in the form of the blue collar workers

2018-07-06

2015 and 2016, years of optimism, hope, and a little growth, have been followed by 2017 and 2018, years of cynicism, darkness, and not a little regression. The writing, some would say, is on the wall, and unless the government acts swiftly, it can only lead itself to its own defeat at the hands of a newcomer to the political race (I am, of course, talking about the Gotabaya Rajapaksa phenomenon). On all fronts, the people are being assailed with one overbearing issue after another, from petrol prices to bus fares. Those in power, roosted atop their comfortable nests, do not seem to mind or care, and even if they do, the problems assailing us aren’t assailing them. But the administration is feeling the heat, even if it’s slow to react to that heat, and this in the form of the most potent wave of strikes this country has witnessed in recent years.   

Inevitable, some might say. Yes, but to an extent only. The truth is that public sector employees have been disgruntled with the way the government has operated for quite some time and 2017 marked a turning point of sorts for the trade unions attached to that public sector. Fears of the private sphere taking over the public, be it in health, education, or even essential services like electricity and water, have compelled the unions to take to the streets and challenge the status quo in ways which have not been matched before, especially not during the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. (Obviously, given that the Rajapaksas were not going to be tolerant with the unions, they were too cautious when treading on territory they are basically rampaging through now.) And yet, this is not the most neo-liberal regime this country has inherited. It is a far cry from the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime and this because, despite the UNP’s blatant right-wing economic policy, it has on paper at least become a social market, not ‘laissez faire’, party. As such, the issues with the unions are more complex, more multifarious.   

There’s a curious contradiction with respect to the strikes that we are seeing now. The strikers are enthusiastic about what they are demonstrating against, and are not in any mood to placate the powers that be, in return for petty favours, but what they are doing is being described by commentators as a licence for the former regime to step in and institutionalise harsher and stronger anti-union policies. W. A. Sunil, in an article written to the World Socialist Web and tellingly headlined “Sri Lankan unions betray national postal strike”, complains that the postal union leaders more or less conceded ground to the government because of their fear that continuing the strike would lead to the rest of the public sector walking out on the regime, giving the Pohottuwa carte-blanche to enter the political sphere and take leadership. “Why not oppose both - the government and Mahinda Rajapaksa?” he quotes a postal office worker from Hatton.   

The problem is that it is difficult to oppose both because the one implies a marked absence of the other. In Sri Lanka, as with even the United States, change, radical or democratic, has been premised on substituting one order for another. It is not in the interests of the government to shift the leadership to its sworn enemy and this the public sector, or so supporters of the government claim, has not properly heeded. For this reason, editorials from the state media are rife with accusations to the effect that the postal workers and strikers from other essential sectors (like water and electricity) are working for power-hungry politicians. This, of course, is erroneous, since those power-hungry politicians - the lackeys of the Rajapaksas - are as derided by the strikers as those in power. As Ranjan Jayalal, the fierce, almost Jacobin Secretary of the Workers Union at the Ceylon Electricity Board, stated in no uncertain terms at a protest held in Colombo on June 20, the anomalies they were facing with regard to their salaries in relation to the salaries of engineers have a great deal to do with Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom they (the union workers) would dearly love to see being punished alongside Maithripala Sirisena, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Ranjith Siyambalapitiya. 

The CEB Union led the longest ever strike last year, at eight days. That record was matched and then broken by the postal workers’ strike this year. What’s next? One can only guess, so I am guessing that we will continue to see further disruptions to water, the government petrol bowser operators (the private operators have already threatened the government), and even the SLCTB (which has not struck work in a long, long time).   

Either way, it is important to note that all these strikes and disruptions to essential services (the CEB strike last year, for instance, left outstation, faraway places like Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura without electricity for six days) can be traced to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime. Ranjan Jayalal did not wake up one fine morning in April and September 2017 and decide that the union needed to continually refrain from work as a sign of protest. No. Even in 2012, he was actively protesting against the salary scale anomalies which the Rajapaksas and the then Minister for Power and Energy had sanctioned (hiking it from 1:6 to 1:9). There was another dimension to the problem: CEB depots in Karawella and Galapitamada were allegedly to be privatised, to be passed over to Chinese hands. With the present government’s ambiguous love affair with China, which led last year to a complete shutdown in fuel distribution owing to (surprise, surprise!) a strike by petroleum workers, it is not hard to determine that we may well see a return to the old order if, with no feasible alternative in sight, it decides to privatise in part at least those services again. “We will never ever let the consumer be burdened by price hikes!” these strikers roar confidently. Perhaps, but I sadly believe that they are shouting to deaf ears. Not too difficult to find out why.   

Fears of the private sphere taking over the public, have compelled the unions to take to the streets and challenge the status quo in ways which have not been matched before

The nationalists, the professionals, those opposed to the government on economic as well as cultural grounds, cannot be counted on to sympathise with workers who would be hard done by even with the government of their (the nationalists) preference in power. There has never been any love lost between the public sector and Mahinda Rajapaksa, barring exceptions like the SLCTB, which owes its resurrection to Dinesh Gunawardena. The interests of those professional nationalists, of the Viyath Maga and Yuthukama Sanvada Kavaya camps, therefore, are miles away from the interests of Ranjan Jayalal, Chinthaka Bandara, and the other prominent trade union leaders. To give just one example, the CEB engineers may be reliable when it comes to opposition to the Free Trade Agreement with Singapore (which many professional fronts are opposing anyway), but they are not reliable when it comes to crackdowns on lower level staff, i.e. the staff who are represented by Jayalal and the CEB Workers’ Union.   

Sri Lanka has turned into a Picket Republic. The trade union movement has a front guard in the form of the professionals and a rearguard in the form of the blue collar workers. These two used to coincide in the heady, tumultuous days of the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime (Sri Lanka was left in the dark, literally, for three days because both the workers and the engineers stopped work at the National Grid, protesting against the regime’s drive towards privatising the CEB and LECO). They do not coincide. Not anymore. Probably this explains why and how Mahinda and his cohorts have done their best to court and curry favour with the former group, the front guard, especially through Viyath Maga. The type of industry the purveyors of VM envision is one that is buttressed by a ruthless admixture of populism and economics, anti-union in the strongest sense of that term. That, plus the fact that these policy anomalies which the unions are combating, go back to the former regime (even for the postal workers, who are taking to task a circular issued in 2006, one year after Rajapaksa assumed his first term in office), means that the rearguard is swearing vengeance on both the incumbent and his predecessor. The problem here, however, is that the idealism expressed by the likes of W. A. Sunil and outfits like the World Socialist Web just doesn’t work out in reality: if you demonstrate against this government to such an extent that you become capable even of toppling it from power, the most immediate consequence would materialise in the form of a Rajapaksa Restoration.   

Once you topple the one, and bring in the other, it won’t be too far away when these unions, swept away by the rhetoric of Marx and Lenin, will face a more repressive threat, not just to the resolution of their problems, but also to their very lives. The sad addendum here is that neither the unions nor the government seem to have grasped this. The one continues to agitate. The other continues to merely resist the agitation.