Sri Lankans driven to suicide by exorbitant debt repayments

A protest in Kilinochchi last June against the micro-finance system

By Saman Gunadasa -28 March 2019

According to a March 17 report in Sri Lanka’s Observer newspaper, at least 170 debt-ridden rural residents, mainly women, committed suicide last year. Most of those who took their lives were from the island’s war-devastated North and East.

The suicides are another indication of the deep-going social and economic problems facing the rural poor who are being hit by rising living costs and government cuts to subsidies and social welfare programs.

Citing information from the Progressive Peasants’ Congress, the newspaper reported that the latest suicide victim was from Elahara village in the Polonnaruwa district. The 38-year-old father took out an initial loan of 80,000 rupees ($US450) but was unable to service it, then borrowed another 30,000 rupees to pay back part of the original loan.

Desperate to settle the debt he moved to Colombo, over 170 kilometres away, in an attempt to secure masonry work. He was unsuccessful and returned to the village where he took his life. His suicide is one of many such tragedies reported in the media over recent years.

The loan taken out by the poverty-stricken Elahara villager is typical of those being provided by so-called micro-finance lenders.

According to the government’s National Economic Council, there are around 10,000 such lenders in the country, the majority of them not subject to any regulations. The development finance department of the finance ministry estimates that about 2.9 million people—84 percent of them women—obtained loans from these companies in 2017.

Official bank interest rates on loans in Sri Lanka are generally between 15 and 20 percent. While the Central Bank has imposed a maximum rate of 35 percent for microfinance loans, some lenders charge unbearable rates ranging as high as 220 percent.

Most of those who committed suicide in response to exorbitant loan repayments last year were from the Vavuniya and Jaffna districts in the island’s north and Batticalao in the east.

Colombo’s devastating three-decade war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam killed nearly 200,000 people and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands more in these areas. Currently there are about 90,000 war widows in the North and East provinces attempting to maintain their families without any real income.

Since the war ended in 2009, successive Sri Lankan governments have refused to provide economic and social support for these war survivors, opening the way for predatory lenders to profit from the suffering.

A report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky in January noted that various institutions “generate huge profits by putting enormous pressure on poor borrowers, and on women in particular.”

While some loans were for small businesses, others were to cover everyday living expenses or to reduce or pay off previous loans, Bohoslavsky reported. He noted that “collectors visit the houses of these women, sometimes on a daily basis, and that the women are [often] exposed to psychological and physical violence by collectors.” Debt collectors sometimes pressurised women for “sexual favours,” he said, and that some female borrowers had even offered to sell their kidneys to repay loans.

K. Selvadi, 45 and a mother of four children, is from Kayts in Jaffna. She told World Socialist Web Site reporters that she and two other women jointly applied for a 75,000-rupee loan for a fishing net. Their husbands had to sign as guarantors and the repayments are 2,000 rupees per month.

Selvadi said that she faced an uphill battle to pay the interest and settle the loan because the income from fishing was insufficient.

“I am looking for odd jobs in vegetable gardens. This is very difficult work because it is in the hot sun and they only pay 700 rupees for a whole day. One of my daughters works in a crab meat company for just 15,000 rupees per month,” she explained.

M. Sivaranjani, 36, from Velanai, obtained three loans totalling 300,000 rupees in order to develop the family’s fishing business. She pays about 10,000 rupees per month on loan repayments.

“If we don’t pay these instalments the debt collectors come to our home. We have to borrow from friends or relatives in order keep up the payments. Our lives have been transformed into a debt-ridden existence,” she said.

Kirubalini, 44, from Velanai, spends her entire earnings on interest repayments. “The government has said that it will write off microfinance loans but it’s done nothing. It also promised to provide low interest loans but these will still be loans. I can’t sleep properly because of these debts,” she said.

While rural farmers are borrowing from the banks in order to pay for farm inputs, they are also taking out additional loans from microfinance companies for basic living expenses. They frequently confront crop failure due to drought or floods. Currently, 14 districts in Sri Lanka are experiencing severe drought.

Radhika Gunarathna, director of the Nelumyaya Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, told the media that she recently learnt that a 45-year-old mother of two was on the brink of a family suicide because their bakery had gone bankrupt. They had borrowed 800,000 rupees to sustain the small business. Her husband suggested that they close all the doors and windows of their home and that all four members of the family gas themselves to death.

Farming communities are burdened by the rising cost of seed, pesticides and fertilisers whose prices are controlled by profiting-gouging multinational corporations. Protests by farmers demanding guaranteed prices for their produce and improved subsidies, including for fertiliser, are increasing across the island.

Plantation workers are also heavily burdened by exorbitant loans because they do not receive a living wage. In recent months estate workers have held militant protests and a six-day national strike to demand a doubling of their 500-rupee daily basic wage. This struggle was betrayed by the plantation unions who settled on a paltry pay rise tied to increased productivity rates.

Sri Lankan Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera last month visited northern Jaffna in a desperate attempt to deflect mounting anger over microfinance loans. He declared that the government would write-off nearly 1,400 million rupees in capital and interest costs to more than 45,000 female borrowers.

Blaming “loan sharks” for the high interest rates, Samaraweera, admitted that the government’s debt write-off “is a short-term solution to a much larger problem” but declared “it is not feasible to have multiple debt write offs of this nature.” He proclaimed the government would introduce new laws and regulations to control the so-called microfinance industry.

Samaraweera’s claims are bogus. His recent International Monetary Fund-endorsed budget, which will force the working masses into further debt, provided generous concessions to big business and finance capital.

Suicides caused by rural debt, including microfinance borrowings, are a rampant problem in so-called developing countries. In India, for example, 5,650 debt-ridden farmers and 6,710 agricultural workers committed suicide in 2014. The following year 8,007 farmers and 4,595 agricultural workers took their own lives. The Indian government responded to these catastrophic and increasing figures by stopping its recording of the number of suicides.

Where are People in these Expert talks?

 

All discussions on improving ease of business ranking is a discourse with no purpose

29 March 2019

The Daily Mirror on Thursday 21 March, carried a very detailed and exhaustive analysis on Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and their returns in terms of economic gain titled Sri Lanka FTA debate: What have we gained and what can we achieve.   
This was by two eminent personalities. One an academic, Prof. Prema-Chandra Athukorala and the other Dr Dayaratna Silva a diplomat, very familiar with the WTO.   
Their conclusions included:  
“The available evidence on the role of FTAs in attracting FDI is mixed, at best. The only policy inference one can make from this evidence is that FTAs can play a role at the margin in enticing foreign investors provided the other preconditions on the supply side are met.”   
The same day the Daily FT carried an article titled Diplomats show the way forward for Sri Lanka.   

This news story said, “….the envoys also highlighted the need to reduce taxes, improve governance, develop infrastructure, expand labour force diversity, uplift wealth creation in the rural economy, improve ease of doing business ranking and tackle corruption including e-procurement.”  
That same day, the Daily FT also reported on the Fireside Chat organised by them on Tuesday before, highlighting PM Wickremesinghe’s Vote of Confidence.   
“You have done well. We are for a market-oriented economy and we are looking for a larger role for the private sector to play and no doubt in the coming years that role will expand. You have to learn to compete with the world and that is what we want you all to do,” the PM was quoted.  
Just three days before on 18 March, a very short essay by IPS on Alleviating Poverty in Sri Lanka: Take a Broader Look at Poverty Measures said, “Although only 1.9 per cent of the population in Sri Lanka is in multidimensional poverty (MDP), 9.5 per cent are near MDP.”   

"Ease of business ranking means, Foreign Investors being given easy, quick access to establish as they please"

And then the IPS having compared many calculations on poverty says:  
“These estimates of the poor and the near-poor, based on different measures show that at least 11.5 per cent of the population in Sri Lanka is either poor or near poor in some form. (emphasis from original)”   
The “near poor” is as vulnerable as the “poor”, according to IPS. 
 Reading through all these economic reviews, critiques, explanations and propositions with promises for the future, one is confused as to where the “11.5 per cent poor and near poor” are placed in these discourses.   
Everyone talking about FTAs, governance, labour force diversifications, wealth creation in the rural economy, infrastructure development is not talking about the 11.5 per cent “poor and near poor”. 
Nor are they about the 70 per cent of rural people, outside the free market economy.   
Talk about FTAs and FDIs is not about improving schools, improving hospitals and healthcare, not about public transport, not about creating an economy the rural people can afford to have a decent life.   

They are talking of a big city economy that creates diverse and large markets- an economy that leaves the whole rural economy as worthless and a cashless entity. Thus, all discussions about improving “ease of business ranking” of Sri Lanka is a 40-year-old discourse with no purpose. 
In plain English here, ease of business ranking means, Foreign Direct Investors should be given easy and quick access to establish their businesses as they please. That has two major aspects. One is bureaucratic red tape they want reduced. For many reasons it is impossible.   
Bureaucracy in State agencies is manipulative and corrupt in free market economies. They work in tandem with powerful political elites responsible for policy making. It becomes more difficult, as investors are the new rich nomadic dealers in global free markets running after quick and big profits. They are obviously corrupt. They would not exist otherwise.   
Within this corrupt State and irresponsibly inefficient agencies that approve, regulate and monitor all FDIs, corruption and investments bed together.   
Often incoming Investors raise local funds using collaborators.   
Close to 200 such foreign investors have closed factories and fled the country during the past decade, without paying wages and gratuities, defaulting on EPF and ETF contributions of workers and also on massive loans borrowed from local banks.   

"Bureaucracy is manipulative and corrupt in free market economies"

BOI had never taken any legal action against any of those illegal closures. They are not spoken about when talking of “ease of business ranking”.  
The second is to have free unorganised labour with no conditions attached to workers’ and democratic rights.   
That has absolutely nothing in common with Labour force diversifications touted around in business forums. Atomising of the labour force is being practised even now, with employers allowed to bust trade unions, sack workers who initiate forming trade unions and using everything from thuggery to bribing State officials.   
Meanwhile, this Government is ready with a new law titled Employment and Service Contracting Rights Act proposed as one that incorporates all existing 53 Acts related to labour and industry.   In September 2017 the Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade handling this USAID funded project titled Support for Accelerated Investment in Lanka (SAIL) made efforts through the Labour Ministry to have the consent of trade unions for the project.   
That failed when the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) member unions protested against USAID handling labour reforms in Sri Lanka.   
Yet, this UNP Government proceeded with USAID to draft the new Act. It creates a legal status for the Employer to lay down employment conditions and leaves space for impermanency in employment.   

Wages Board Ordinance and the Shop and Office Act would be deemed invalid under the proposed Act and with that goes the Eight Hour working Day.   
It leaves ILO Conventions 87 and 98, something to which Sri Lanka is a signatory, very much irrelevant.   
This private sector engine for growth seems to run with over 2.5 million Citizens stripped of their Fundamental Rights guaranteed in the Constitution.  
Continuing with this insanely competitive economic freedom what have FDIs and FTAs provided Sri Lanka in terms of national development? 
We live with a fatal break down of law and order, a judiciary questioned in society, almost defunct State services including power and energy, public transport, formal education, public health and hospitals.   

Forty years that led to rampant corruption in every nook and corner in daily life besides mega corruption.   
Totally dependent on FDIs and FTAs added, no government has ever paid any serious attention to the lives of People.   
This private sector that is geared for export manufacture can never be an engine of growth in terms of national development to address people’s needs.   
This does not contribute to the quality improvement in standard of living and does not regenerate new Capital for growth.   
This compels every Government to offer more and more concessions to attract FDIs. With all incentives, FDIs have never been able to bring the revenue brought in by stranded rural people, who go as migrant labour and plantation workers who demand a mere Rs.1,000 per day.   
In 2017 migrant worker remittances totalled USD 7.2 billion and tea exports USD 1.5 billion, while the most proudly spoken apparel exports earned close to USD 5.0 billion (without cost deductions on raw material imported) and tourism USD 3.9 billion.   
The irony is worker remittances accounted for 96 per cent of the foreign trade deficit in 2017. Providing massive concessions for FDIs through four decades have not helped us at least to bridge the foreign trade deficit.   

"Worker remittances accounted for 96 per cent of the foreign trade deficit in 2017-not FDIs"

This irrational craze for FDIs with massive loads of incentives that have never been totalled to date has good reasons to be stopped forthwith.   
Good reasons to have a regulated market to keep out wheeler-dealer business with FDIs and instead promote a decent, responsible private sector with rural economy given importance.   
Money pumped into rural projects under whatever label within this free consumer market has always ended up in Colombo. 
Heavily funded Integrated Rural Development Projects (IRDP) from 1978 to 2000 have left no rural development that can be showcased.   
The free market is a wastebasket of Dollar revenue. Import of vehicles (USD 813 million on personal imports in 1st six months 2018) allowed for Rupee revenue from Custom’s duty and taxes should be stopped immediately and import of fuel (USD 17 billion in 2017 for transport) to burn in crazy traffic jams that adds nothing to improve public commuting should be regulated. All that’s good money wasted on urban life.   Rural development needs a more open approach. The old system of land tenure and land use with subsidies doled out for political patronage have led to a dependency syndrome in rural life. Self-sufficiency in rice is a paradox not accounting for underutilised land and labour and also the import of wheat that was worth Rs.54 billion in 2017.   

From Gal-Oya to accelerated Mahaweli Scheme second and third generations had to move out searching for the income they could not earn in their own area. 
It is a proven fact FDIs and FTAs cannot make life better for the people though this Government keeps saying it would.   
Clearly the problem today is rural life that is left out from this city-based free market economy.   
It is about young women going out as housemaids to the Mid-East to slog for a pittance. It is about youth who leave their villages in search of employment in towns and cities.   
It is about improving the quality and efficiency of health facilities, education, public transport, housing within planned cities and towns and most importantly safeguarding the environment. It is about the life of 70 per cent or more of the people living outside the Megapolis demarcated by this government that Experts keep ignoring.  

Derana TV Chairman Says He Accepted The Post To Avoid Going To Jail – He Also Confessed He likes Smoking Cannabis

MARCH 30, 2019

Chairman Derana group of companies Dilith Jayaweera speaking at the opening of a book launch openly confessed that he took over the Chairman post of Derana to prevent himself from going to jail.

A shocked member of the audience speaking to Colombo Telegraph questioned “Does it mean that there are conditions to prevent people from going to jail? I am confused. Does it mean media bosses are exonerated even though they break the law? Is it because politically they can be blackmailed thereafter to run elections campaigns and also cover up the sins of politicians? “

The Derana Chairman shockingly also went on to say that he also enjoys smoking a “joint” whenever he gets an opportunity, even though he reiterated that he is not addicted to it.

The phrase “Smoking a joint” that the Derana Chairman Jayaweera used is widely understood publicly in Sri Lanka, as smoking of cannabis.

Even though many countries in the world have legalized the smoking of cannabis, it is still prohibited and illegal in Sri Lanka and could possible send offenders to jail.

“I may be a Chairman of a big group of companies, but I also like to travel in a tuk tuk and eat at the famous wayside cafe Pilawoos,” Jayaweera went on to say.

The flamboyant Chairman of the Derana group Jayaweera elaborating further during his speech stressed on the importance of happiness. Finding happiness for many has now become a problem.

People find happiness in many ways he went on to say.

Some smoke cannabis, some like to get intoxicated from alcohol, whilst some like to find happiness whilst chatting with friends.

Read More

Barring Nagananda Kodituwakku from practicing law

The Supreme Court

Friday, 29 March 2019 

The Supreme Court has issued an order barring Nagananda Kodithuwakku, Attorney-at-Law and public interest litigation activist, who has entered the political arena of Sri Lanka as a prospective presidential candidate, from practicing as a lawyer for three years. I think it is important that we assess Kodithuwakku’s role in the light of this incident.

Nagananda was an ex-revenue officer of the Customs Administration of Sri Lanka. As a Customs Revenue Officer, he proved to be a special kind of a person who never bowed down to powerful politicians. I knew him closely for a long time. During the reign of JR Jayewardene, he was interdicted from Customs Service for a longer period, due to an incident in which he had detected a fraud involving the importation of a brand new Benz car by a leading crony of the then-Government, under the pretext of importing a used vehicle. Nagananda maintained an uncompromising policy against the culprit, which eventually resulted in him being interdicted.

He was still on interdiction when Chandrika Kumaranatunga came to power in 1994. It was I who introduced him to Chandrika. He performed a strategic role, which no ordinary person would have undertaken, during the first Presidential Election of Chandrika Kumaranatunga. Chandrika knew that his interdiction was unreasonable and she assured him that he would be reinstated in service, following her victory of the Presidential Election.

Though Chandrika had a genuine interest in doing justice to Kodithuwakku, there was an influential clique among her close confidantes who were strongly against Kodithuwakku being reinstated in the Customs Service. Balapatabendi, Secretary to the President, was one of them. Perhaps, Balapatabendi was angry with Kodithuwakku over a report published in the Ravaya newspaper, about the importation of a stock of footwear by his son, which had been cleared without paying customs duty. Balapatabendi might have thought that Kodithuwakku had leaked out the information about this transaction to Ravaya.

Reporting of this issue in the Ravaya was not to the liking of the President too. She summoned me, and blamed me for publishing the article. She told me that she knew Bala from the time she worked at the Land Reforms Commission; he is an extremely a honest person; so she had called Bala and had told him that the Ravaya may have published the article on wrong information provided by somebody, without checking its accuracy. Having said that, she told me another interesting story about taking legal action against the publication of the article. According to what she told me, she had advised Balapatabendi to file a case against me, and had assured him that she would defray all legal expenses; but, he had not taken legal action, proving that the Secretary to the President was scared of Victor Ivan.

Once she finished making her comments, I told her that “Though I do not know your subject, I am sure that I know my subject (journalism) very well; also, I have a very good knowledge about my informants; I know very well who should be and who should not be trusted.”


Chandrika’s ungratefulness 

Attorney at Law Nagananda Kodithuwakku

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga

Former Chief Justice Sarath N Silva

I came to know, through unofficial sources, of the decision taken by Chandrika not to reinstate Kodithuwakku.The report published in the Ravaya newspaper too, might have caused this decision, to a certain extent. However, I was posted of the decision at last, through one of her secretaries, who is none other than the former Chairman of State Timber Corporation who was taken into custody recently, together with the Chief of Staff of the incumbent President, while they were accepting a bribe of Rs. 20 million. Maybe President Chandrika did not have the guts to tell it to me direct. The secretary talked to me over the phone, almost apologetically.The brief of what he said is as follows. “Madam is very keen in reinstating Kodituwakku. But, the senior officers of the Ministry of Finance were strongly against it. Understandably, it would not be possible for Madam to make them angry as the Ministry of Finance is coming under her purview. So, Madam asked me to tell “Athula Ayya” about her inability to reinstate Kodituwakku back in his post.” In reply, I told him to tell madam that “I too, would become an adversary of the Government the day Kodituwakku decides to go against her.” It appeared that the secretary was flabbergasted by my reply. He said many things to comfort me.

However, Kodithuwakku was reinstated in service later, by S.M.I. Senarathna, the Chief of Customs. It was initiated without seeking the approval of the President. Though Senarathna was an officer, very close to the President, Harry Jayawardena had threatened a team of Customs Officers, pointing a pistol at them, on an occasion they had gone to his residence in connection with an investigation initiated by Customs against a company belonged to Harry Jayawardena. On this issue, the President openly took the side of Harry Jayawardena. However, the Chief of Customs, contrary to the stand taken by the President, strongly appeared for the defence of the Customs Officers. Later, this dispute became a protracted issue and as a result, a Customs officer was murdered. In this backdrop, the Chief of Customs intervened and got Kodithuwakku to flee to the UK for his defence.

Before leaving to the UK, Kodithuwakku came to my office to inform me about his departure. I had a good knowledge about the assassination of the Customs Officer. At this meeting, he shared with me the latest information about the murder. A statement made by him on this incident, before he left Sri Lanka, was published in the Ravaya newspaper.

During his stay in the UK, Kodithuwakku was employed as a lawyer there. As far as I know, he returned to Sri Lanka during the second term of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Thereafter, he returned to Sri Lanka from time to time, and on some occasions he used to pay a visit to me. He used to appear for Customs cases when he was in Sri Lanka. He got involved in a big dispute with Mohan Peiris, the Attorney General. Gradually, he became a public interest litigation activist and a prospective candidate for Presidential Election 2020. He can be considered a person who has made the optimum use of social media for his campaigns. This has resulted in making him an accepted and popular character among those who are connected to social media.


Fighting with the Judiciary 

It was a Supreme Court Judge who had filed the case against Nagananda in the Supreme Court. The incident pertained to this inquiry had occurred during a case taken up in 2015, before a panel of judges, of which the Judge who filed the case against Nagananda was also a member in his capacity as the then President of the Court of Appeal (CoA). On that occasion, Attorney-at-Law Kodithuwakku, appearing for the Complainant, had objected to the case being heard by that Judge and had requested the case be transferred to a different Court. If there are reasonable grounds, not only an Attorney-at-Law, an Accused too has the right to raise objections. But there is a way to do that. Objections, if any, must be raised in proper and decent manner, keeping to the accepted norms and the culture of the Judiciary. In this instance, I do not know how Kodithuwakku would have conducted himself in making the objection.

A person who chooses to fight against the Judiciary is most likely to get trapped in a situation involving a Contempt of Court. As the law of Contempt of Court in Sri Lanka has not been interpreted with a formal Act, it will not be an easy task to fight against a charge on Contempt of Court. Facing a charge of Contempt of Court can be considered falling into a trap, not so easy to escape. Those who choose to fight with the Judiciary must be aware of it. Public media had reported that Nagananda was prepared to express his regret to the Supreme Court Judge who lodged the complaint against him. The plight of Nagananda in this case is more or less similar to that of S.B. Dissanayake.Whatever the reason, Nagananda also had done the same thing that S.B. Dissanayake did. S.B. Dissanayake admitted his fault. There were instances when Mahatma Gandhi had refused to pay even a simple and an affordable fine and opted to go to jail. Socrates, being faithful to his principles, chose to face death penalty when he could have saved his life by paying a big fine.

Courage and determination can be considered two important elements that a fighter should possess. Kodithuwakku has both these qualities. One who possesses these two qualities can become a defiant fighter, but not a successful fighter.There is a third quality required to be a successful fighter. That is the strategic wisdom. It is the strategic wisdom that enables the fighter to understand the main challenges, set priorities, plan the way to fight, collect objective facts required for the fight, decide the appropriate time for fighting, and times when one should abstain from fighting, and to make a proper assessment of the results generated.

It is not a wise move to adopt a policy of fighting against all challenges at once. It might invariably create a situation in which all opponents will get together and form themselves into a formidable force against the fighter, and make him an easy prey. The most intelligent and the best strategic approach would be to select only one challenge at a time that one can be sure of winning, and launch the fight against it. It was only after that the other challenges should be taken up, one or two issues at a time and pursue the fight against them. Military leaders intent on capturing countries will not fight against many countries simultaneously. What they do is to capture one. and then invade another. and so on. This can be considered the biggest weakness inherent in the strategy of Nagananda. His line of attack has been to fight against all challenges at once. Especially when a person resolves to fight against the Judiciary, he should have a good strategic road map. Besides that, he must have a good discipline and self restraint to pursue the struggle with due respect to the other party or parties involved.


My experiences 

I am a person who had had a major conflict with the Judiciary. It can be considered the biggest conflict a civilian had entered into with the Judiciary in Sri Lanka’s history of Judiciary. It can also be considered a conflict which attracted the attention of the international legal community.

But it was not a spurious conflict based on unauthentic facts, initiated with the object of boosting the image of the fighter. On the contrary, it can be described as a genuine struggle based on reasonable and realistic facts, and initiated in a small scale, and had gradually developed into a large-scale fight, gathering momentum and the support of several parties. Though it was initiated by me alone, it can be described as a struggle which, in a certain stage of its development, had received the support and the sympathy of the community of lawyers and judges as well as the general public.

The origin of this conflict can be traced back to an article I had published in the Ravaya newspaper on an incident in which a Magistrate had sexually harassed a woman, a case related to her being heard by him, and the lackadaisical policy adopted by the authorities in this regard. The disappointment and serious shock that was caused in me, due to the nature of the issue, and the careless attitude of the authorities, prompted me to launch this struggle. The Magistrate in question happened to be a clerk of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation before he joined the Judiciary, and had been dismissed from the service on account of his involvement in a fraud involving an insurance claim of a third party. He had not disclosed his infamous career history when he joined the Judiciary.

When this incident was published in the Ravaya newspaper, the Magistrate in question met Sarath Silva, the Attorney General who had close connections with him. On advice of the Attorney General, he had given a statement against me to the Criminal Investigations Department, to institute a criminal defamation case against me. When two investigators of the Criminal Investigations Department came to me to get a statement from me, I produced all information that I had discovered up to then about the conduct of the Magistrate, including a photocopy of a document confirming his dismissal from Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, his previous employer, over a deliberate financial fraud of cheating a third party. In addition, all information that I had of the women, the victim of the case were also provided to them.

Though the investigation was begun against me, it eventually ended up being an investigation against the Magistrate who made the complaint. The investigating officers, in addition to questioning and obtaining a statement from the woman who was the victim of the incident, had obtained relevant information from Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation about his dismissal from service.

In this backdrop, in which the Complainant had become an accused, the Criminal Investigations Department had sent its report of the investigation to Attorney General Sarath Nanda Silva for his advice. I was tacitly but eagerly waiting to see the course of action that the Attorney General would be taking against this fraudulent and rapist Magistrate.

When it became evident that the Attorney General was stalling and not going to take any action, I complained the matter to Professor G. L. Peiris , the then-Minister of Justice and he, in turn requested the Attorney General to submit a report on this issue. Consequently, a confidential report was sent to the Minister. I managed to obtain a copy of this report, and was shocked to see the contents therein. The undisguised contempt I felt about the Attorney General was beyond expression. It may be possible that a rape can be variously interpreted and ignored, but how can we recognize an Attorney General, who does not consider a culprit, who had been found guilty of a financial fraud and dismissed from service, joining the Judiciary, a serious and unpardonable offence, as the Attorney General of the country?

After reading the confidential report of the Attorney General, my observation on him was that he must be a low and despicable person. This led me to find out more about Sarath Silva, the Attorney General. As a result, I was able to surface two horrendous incidents relating to him, which could be proved with evidence. Of them I have published only one incident.

The story I published covered the case filed by Jayasekara, a Chemical Engineer, against his wife, making both his wife and Sarath Silva, co-respondents of the case and the procedure implemented in hearing the case which was contrary to the law, by the Attorney General Sarath Silva, with the connivance of the District Judge Upali Abeyratna. As I have published this episode before, I do not wish to repeat it here. Of the two incidents, the most horrendous is the one that I had not published. Had it been published, not only Sarath Silva, but also an innocent family connected to that incident might have been ruined completely. It was not published not because there was no evidence, but out of concern of the fate of the other party.

On account of the persistent pressure that I applied against the above two Magistrates and the Attorney General Sarath Silva, The President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka requested the Chief Justice to appoint a Committee to investigate into this matter. Consequently, the Chief Justice was compelled to appoint two tripartite investigating committees comprised of the judges of the Appeal Court. The Investigating Committee appointed to inquire into the charges against Lenin Rathnayaka found him guilty for all charges put forward by me. District Judge Upali Abeyratna admitted the fault without facing the inquiry.

After the two Magistrates were found guilty by two tripartite investigating committees, I made a complaint to the Supreme Court requesting to strike the name of Sarath Silva, the Attorney General, off the Roll of Attorneys–at- Law, under the Clause 2 of the Judicial Act , on account of the fact that he had committed a grave offence by defending Magistrate Lenin Rathnayaka, and covering up his malpractices, knowing very well that the latter had been found guilty of all charges levied against him. A similar complaint was made to the Supreme Court by the Engineer Jayasekara against Sarath Silva, Attorney General based on his case.

The Supreme Court held a collective meeting to discuss whether these two complaints should be taken up for trial. In that meeting only two judges had objected to the holding of an investigation against the Attorney General. Consequently, an investigating committee comprised of Justice Ameer Ismail, Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, and Justice Dr. Mark Fernando was appointed. Justice Ameer Ismail was made in charge of the inquiry into the complaint I made, while Justice Shirani Bandaranayke was in charge of the inquiry into the complaint made by Jayasekara. Dr. Mark Fernando was the officer in charge of coordination and management of both cases. G. P.S. Silva, the Chief Justice went on retirement when these two inquiries against Attorney General had been commenced and were in progress.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, coming to the rescue of Sarath Silva, her close confidante, who had found himself gripped in a strangulated condition with no escape, made him the Chief Justice, ignoring the investigations initiated by the Supreme Court and was in progress. I expressed my protest and condemnation of this appointment by publishing the picture depicting the swearing in of Sarath Silva as the new Chief Justice in the presence of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, upside down against a black background, with the text of the report printed in reverse white in the front page of the Ravaya Newspaper. Thereafter, three of us filed fundamental rights cases challenging the appointment of the Chief Justice. In view of the fact that Chief Justice himself was deciding the panel of judges of this case, we knew for sure that we can never win the case. However, our intention was to continue our struggle and keep it alive, rather than leaving it to be abandoned half way through its progress, following his appointment to the post of Chief Justice. Several Bar Associations including the International Bar Association got together and made arrangements to nominate a retired Chief Justice of Kerala, India, as an observer of this trial.

Thereafter, I took part in two unsuccessful efforts for impeaching the Chief Justice. Besides that, I authored and published a book titled “Unfinished Struggle”, highlighting the contemptible role of Sarath Silva the Chief Justice. The book was published when he was the sitting Chief Justice. It became a popular publication both locally and internationally.

I must state that the role played by political parties and the media of the country in this dispute involving Sarath Silva was equally contemptible as Sarath Silva himself.

 Not only the two main political parties, the parties like JVP and Hela Urumaya too, resorted to reaping maximum benefits for their advantage from this crisis, like flies feeding on a decomposed corpse, thereby reinforcing his survival. The owners of many media organisations made this crisis an opportunity to settle their legal suits with the support of the Chief Justice. The status of Sri Lanka would not have been as wretched as it is today if the role played by political parties and media in this crisis had been different. 

Samantha Power accused of ‘ignoring history’ in Sri Lanka

190329 Samantha Power SL5.jpg

29 March 2019

Senior US policy figure Samantha Power has been accused of ‘ignoring history’ during her visit to Sri Lanka last month, after she spoke at an event praising current finance minister Mangala Samaraweera.

Power was seated at the front row of the event, alongside several other Sri Lankan leaders, including former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who oversaw the military offensive that killed tens of thousands of Tamils.

“Sri Lanka has been a true partner of the United States, and I am grateful that many of the relationships I was able to form while working with your country have endured, and become very meaningful friendships,” Power said in the opening of her speech. She went on to call Samaraweera “one of the most remarkable people I encountered during my eight years serving in the US government”.

She referenced Martin Luther King Jr, the unknown protestor at Tiananmen Square, Nelson Mandela and the mothers of the disappeared across the island, in her speech celebrating Samaraweera’s 30 years in parliamentary politics. Power also made just one reference to Rajapaksa in her address, pointing only to his work with Samaraweera in forming the ‘Mother’s Front’ in 1990, for Sinhala mothers of the disappeared. 

mmediately after her speech, she faced much criticism from activists and political commentators, including across social media.

Writing on her speech in The National Interest, Taylor Dibbert said,

“More broadly, Sri Lanka’s supposed transitional justice roadmap has left a lot to be desired. Even the little that has happened has been done in a rather opaque fashion. And Colombo has resisted vital international assistance that would help make the process more credible.” 

“Power is no longer the human-rights supporter that she claims to be. During Obama’s tenure, she was part of the problem regarding U.S.-Sri Lanka policy. Unfortunately, even with her being out of government, she is still a problem."

See the full piece by Dibbert here.

Power, who has held several senior US positions including ambassador to the UN, was a key figure in the Obama administration. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her book 'A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide', which examined US foreign policy in response to genocide.

Related Articles: 

10 February 2019 : Samantha Power to address event celebrating Mangala Samaraweera

UN TORTURE PREVENTION BODY TO VISIT SRI LANKA NEXT WEEK

Image: Torture by prison officials at Agunakolapalassa prison came in to light through a leaked CCTV footage.

29/03/2019

(Press release/29 March, 2019)  GENEVA  — The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture is set to carry out its first visit to Sri Lanka from 2 to 12 April to examine the treatment of people deprived of their liberty and the safeguards in place for their protection against torture and ill-treatment.

The four-member delegation will meet government officials and hold discussions with relevant ministries, as well as meeting with the Human Rights Commission and civil society organisations. Their talks in Colombo will focus on advising and assisting the Sri Lankan authorities regarding the measures they must take to be in compliance with the obligations contained in the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture.

The Subcommittee will be visiting places of deprivation of liberty and will hold discussions on Sri Lanka establishing an independent National Preventive Mechanism. The Optional Protocol, which Sri Lanka ratified in 2017, requires such a mechanism to be established with the authority and capacity to undertake preventive visits to any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty.

“During our visit we will be exploring the steps Sri Lanka needs to take to effectively prevent torture and ill-treatment of people deprived of their liberty,” said Victor Zaharia, who will head the delegation. “We will also advise the authorities on the full implementation of their treaty obligations, including how they can best establish a national independent body to visit places of detention.”

The delegation will be composed of Victor Zaharia, Head of Delegation (Republic of Moldova), Satyabhooshun Gupt Domah (Mauritius), Petros Michaelides (Cyprus), and June Lopez (Philippines).
ENDS

For media inquiries or for more information, please contact:

In Sri Lanka: Armen Avetisyan, +41 79-4444332/ aavetisyan@ohchr.org
In Geneva: Julia Grønnevet, +41 (0) 22 917 9310 / jgronnevet@ohchr.org

Background

The Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture monitors States parties’ adherence to the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture which to date has been ratified by 89 countries. The Subcommittee is made up of 25 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States parties. 

The Subcommittee has a mandate to undertake visits to States parties, during the course of which it may visit any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty. Learn more with our videos on the Treaty Body system and on the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture! 

Rising indulgently to criticism and bored look at the nation

March 28, 2019, 7:43 pm 


Vinod Moonesinghe criticized Cassandra severely, somewhat at length, in the Opinion Page of "The Island" of Monday March 25. Yet to her it was a mere carping whine. Hence the indulgence mentioned in the title and the couple of days taken to respond.

Why quote European Classics?

Vinod M was critiquing her article in "The Island" of Friday 22 March where the cartoonist Jeffrey’s picture of two huge legs got her quoting Shelley and Shakespeare who wrote sharply on legs – men’s, and in power. Vinod’s crit of Cass is that she "…looks at things from a very Eurocentric viewpoint." SO WHAT? This was her immediate and rude reply. One is free, Cass presumes, in this democratic socialist etc country of ours to have any viewpoint, even to take an anti-government stance. Vinod faults Cass for quoting Shakespeare and the Greek and Roman classics. She quoted the Bard, but only made a passing reference to a battle in ancient Greece.

Puzzled by this baseless accusation, she read Vinod’s article further and had her being preached to on the Spartans, Persians and Greeks. Then this sentence: "This brings us back to Cassandra. Why is she, an Asian, siding with the Europeans?" This really is laughable and not even worthy of repudiation. She is not ‘siding’ since there is no conflict or argument. She was quoting an English poet and the incomparable Bard who wrote so brilliantly that one could pick quotes from every second line of his. Vinod details who the original Cassandra was (don’t we know!) and then asks the idiotic question "So why should Cassandra be quoting these European classics and not Asian ones? Why not Kautiliya and the Dhammapada or at the very least the Bible or the Quran?"

For the very obvious and simple and completely justified reason that she could not recall a quote from the Bible or the Dhammapada, both of which she is familiar with, on massive legs!! Also she is not, repeat not, so conversant with the two classics mentioned that she can freely quote from them. She has not read a word of Kautiliya, nor from the Quran. Obvious that she quotes as she does because she is more familiar with the English classics, admittedly a small number in the ocean of English lit, but sufficient to appreciate.

Vinod demonstrates how blinkered persons can be and how narrow in opinions and judgments made. Also, just because Cass quotes from English literature which those of the older generation were fortunate to be immersed in, it does not make her Euro-centric. But what if she is? Neither her nationalism nor her love and admiration for Sri Lanka are diminished therefrom.

However, Cassandra thanks Vinod Moonesinghe for reading her, and more, for critiquing her. Cass, as a freelance journalist, adores and thrives on criticism. Thanks also for the dose of education! Immediately on reading Vinod’s opinion a quote came to her – yes, Eurocentric again – from an Anglo-Irish poet, Oliver Goldsmith - and his rather tongue-in-cheek poem on the Village Schoolmaster. Once you read the quote you will understand why it seems apt though one is certain Vinod Moonesinghe is no schoolmaster!

The village all declared how much he knew — And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. !!

The week’s news

Not so much to comment on as it is centered on nominated and hopeful candidates for president. Cassandra shies away from this topic but hopes fervently the Elephants will select to nominate that Brave Heart – Karu Jayasuriya.

The Standard Five Scholarship Examination was pushed up front on Tuesday news by a TV clip showing HE the President very emphatically, very forcefully using wide hand gestures, to announce that on his recommendation he would ban this examination. In the very next breath the announcer Cass listened to said the Deputy Secy to the Ministry of Education was awaiting a final decision on this matter. Nothing goes without controversy: Opposition opposing everything the government even plans; the Pres and his government pronouncing contrary statements. Well, Cass decided to wait patiently for the morrow’s newspapers. No mention on the Grade 5 scholarship examination in the Wednesday 27 press. So, as often happens, we news-seekers are left high and dry. Is the exam kaput or not?

Turmoil and disasters all around the globe

The US is embroiled in the Mueller Report and the Mexican Wall with Trump solidly and vociferously centre staged. He celebrates the report clears him of collusion with Russia in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election and crows over the granting of a large sum from some emergency fund to build his wall, in spite of the Democrats’ attempt to stymie him.

Theresa May continues trying to get her Brexit deal through Parliament with Conservative MPs voting against her proposal and a Minister or two of her Cabinet resigning. Graphically, a colour lights system revealed analysts’ prognosis, with two lit orange lights indicating an early general election in Britain and a referendum on the Brexit issue. No light lighting up on her early exit as PM.

Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi have been utterly devastated by Cyclone Idai. In Mozambique alone 1.8 million have been affected and severely with them losing everything from homes to family members. Malaria, cholera and dysentery are feared while another African nation fights Ebola.

Better news flashes

The world cannot be bogged down by misery and horrendous trouble, much caused by itself. There has to be good news too. One major item to cheer and gloat over, even in this land of ours, is the taking over militarily, the last of the ISIS strongholds in Syria. Their areas of strength were targeted and wiped out by US led military forces. But as every reporter on BBC and CNN added, with the good news was: "But ISIS is not crushed completely." Militants are in considerable areas in Iraq and Afganistan and in pockets in Indonesia. We remember the widespread showing of brutal beheadings of journalists caught by the militants. Thousands more would have been put to death. And when the jihadi fighters fled their last stronghold in Syria a few days ago, they did so leaving wives and children in the thousands who now languish in desert tents. Countries some of them came from have refused to take them back; justifiably so.

Good to see pictures of Prince Philip and Camelia, Duchess of Cornwall, in a previous communist regime – Cuba. One clip seen which delighted Cass was of the two of them enjoying a ballet class conducted by a former star performer in the (British) Royal Ballet.

Wave was the cathartic outpouring of deep deep grief suffered by Sonali Deraniyagala on losing her entire family of parents, husband Stephen Lissenburgh and two sons. Published in 2013 urged by Michael Ondaatje, it was selected one of the ten best books worldwide recently. She tried drugs, drinks and considered suicide but mercifully let time heal her. Reading the book Cass kept thinking of all the women of southern and eastern Sri Lanka who suffered a similar tragedy or worse, and had not the very many supportive relatives and friends Sonali had; neither material resources. Now this Cambridge graduate in economics with a doctorate has contracted a same sex marriage. Headlines announced "’Tsunami’ Sonali Deraniyagala finds love and bliss marrying ‘Potter’ actress Fiona Shaw." The actress has many films to her name and was Harry Potter’s aunt Petunia Dursley; out of the Hogwarts gang but dangerous in her own way. We sincerely wish the two happiness and fulfillment. One question: How are they addressed? With their separate names or Mr and Mrs - which surname?

Cassandra leaves you with that question and some light–heartedness in this world of turmoil and island of election fever, prevarication and of course drugs and corruption.

Hambantota Refinery Project A Potential Money Laundering Risk: TISL

Jagathrakshakan

MARCH 28, 2019

Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) believes the controversy surrounding the proposed USD 3.85 billion oil refinery in Mirijjawila, Hambantota, could have a negative impact on Sri Lanka’s efforts to remove itself from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) ‘Grey List’ of countries vulnerable to money laundering and terrorism financing.

The main investor in the project, the Singapore based ‘investment vehicle’ Silver Park International PTE Ltd, is a company controlled by the family of Tamil Nadu politician and former Indian Union Minister Dr. S. Jagathrakshakan, whose business interests have previously been implicated by Indian authorities and the media in several alleged corruption scandals. Of the 40 FATF recommendations which set the international standards on combating money laundering, recommendation 12 requires that reasonable measures are taken to ascertain the source of wealth and source of funds in transactions involving politically exposed persons.

TISL Executive Director Asoka Obeyesekere said, “In light of the efforts being made by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to get off the FATF Grey List, it is essential that the Board of Investment conducts enhanced due diligence on the Silver Park International investment, given that its directors fall squarely within the FATF definition of politically exposed persons”.

Given the confusion relating to the parties engaged in the project, TISL also calls on all state agencies to ensure adherence to proactive disclosure provisions outlined in the Right to Information Act. Section 9 of the RTI Act requires the line Minister of a given project to publicly communicate all available information relating to the project, three months prior to commencement.

Read More

Grade 5 Scholarship Examination: Make it smarter, abolish not!

Families in Sri Lanka organise their lives around the schedules of the three national examinations. Of these, the grade five scholarship examination is the most controversial because of the pressure it puts on small children – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara 

 Friday, 29 March 2019 

The President has made headlines declaring an intention by the Government to abolish the Grade Five Scholarship examination. The President is free to express his opinions but policy making has to be led by the Minister of Education and ratified by the Cabinet.

Besides, the President’s call to abolish the scholarship exam is misguided, I believe.

My observations are based on the results of an action research that we carried out in 2012-2014 period on a holistic education process tested in Ampara education zone, and reports of committees of experts in some of which committees I had the opportunity to participate.

The holistic education initiative in Ampara education zone was led by then Minister of Education for the Eastern Province, but unfortunately the minister lost his portfolio before we could institutionalise the innovations through policy changes at national level. One important lesson we learned is that innovations in education will not succeed without changes to the examination system. In that regard, the present discussion on Grade Five Scholarship Examination is a welcome development.

The Grade Five exam with its imperfections is still a useful mechanism to level the playing field in an inequitable education system which cannot be reformed anytime soon. Succeeding governments to their credit have made efforts, and continue to make efforts, to remove inequities through various initiatives, which are more or less similar but implemented under different names such as Navodya Schools, Isuru Schools, Thousand Schools and now as the Nearest School is the Best School. Education is not an island. It reflects inequities in society. Reforms take time. In the meantime parents will find ways through bribes or whatever means to get children into popular schools, with or without the scholarship exams.

Families in Sri Lanka organise their lives around the schedules of the three national examinations. Of these, the grade five scholarship examination is the most controversial because of the pressure it puts on small children. Those who score above a certain cut off mark in the exam get to attend popular schools. Though these schools typically pack 50 or more students to a class, they are in high demand for extra-curricular reasons. The intangible benefit of getting a child into a privileged group of parents and students is sure to be on the backs of the parents’ minds.

The harmful effects of the present exam on children at an individual level and its adverse impact on the teaching and learning process as a whole are well documented. But such competitive exams are not limited to Sri Lanka. Scholarship examinations similar to ours in purpose are held in Australia (Year-7 Test), Singapore (PSLE) and UK (11-Plus), for example. The Singapore PSLE is a particularly demanding one because children are streamed into fast-track academic, regular academic or technical tracks based on the examination results. The pressure on children is said to be immense and authorities continue to modify the examination.

However, by all accounts these other examinations do not seem to distort the educational process as in Sri Lanka. Therefore, we should look for ways not to abolish the exam, but to improve it after studying the form and content of testing used in Singapore and other countries.

Currently the scholarship exam consists of two papers each of one hour and 15 minutes duration. Paper I is a general intelligence test and Paper II is a test of attainment of all material covered in the syllabus. I propose that the objectives of the exam should be articulated to include (1) identifying gifted students (2) assessing the attainment of essential competencies of all students and (3) identifying schools that fail to equip all their students with essential competencies. These steps or similar would make the examination a smarter one that achieves national objectives without hurting the teaching learning process or the development of primary school age children. Following are some proposals for consideration:

• Do away with Paper II that tests subject knowledge
• Sharpen Paper I to correctly select gifted children 
• Introduce an essential competency component
• Rank the schools, not the children on essential competencies
• Continue the nearest school best school initiatives
• Base all decision of evidence 

Do away with Paper II that tests subject knowledge

The Grade 5 Scholarship Examination which began as an IQ test became an examination that tested knowledge, because it was felt that teachers were not covering the subjects properly. The testing of subject knowledge is the origin of rote learning and unnecessary pressure on children.

Primary curriculum includes four main subjects which are Language, Math, Religion and Environment. In Grades 1 and 2, education is expected to be mostly play-based, with the pen and pencil components increasing significantly only in Grade 5. Activity-based learning is central to all grades. The Environment subject consisting of units such as Our Garden, The Animals around Us, the Sky, and Water, etc. is particularly amenable to activity-based student-centred learning.

However, the inclusion of subject knowledge in the scholarship exam has turned learning into a process of absorbing a heap of facts based on past papers. For example, in the course unit, ‘trees around us’ the child is expected to ‘explore and appreciate’ the tress around him/her. A scholarship examination guide book released recently with past question papers from 2000-2016 had questions regarding over 100 species of plants – the shape of their branches, flowers and about their propagation. Imagine a child preparing for the examination without knowing which property of which tree will be tested on the big day. In effect, preparing for the scholarship examination means covering an unauthorised curriculum based on past papers.

In response, the teachers are setting aside teacher guides and using ‘sets’ or ‘kattala’ of past papers to drill the students on ‘correct’ answers. Tuition masters do that better for a fee. In order to change this tragic system we propose to remove the testing the subject knowledge from the scholarship examination and restricting subject knowledge to school-based formative assessment and evaluations.

To ensure that teachers do indeed cover the subjects, we propose that school-based assessments should be checked for ‘completion or not’ for those securing cut-off mark at the exam.

Sharpen Paper I to select gifted children 

The stated objective of the scholarship exam is to select students of higher cognitive ability and give them scholarships to attend a school of their choosing. In an article published a year before her death in 2017, Dr. Thilokasundari Kariyawasam noted that the design of the present exam is far from scientific and not sufficiently discriminatory to identify the truly gifted students and she advocated getting foreign expertise to design a better exam. Since then the design of the exam may have improved.

Introduce an essential competency component

The Primary education curriculum identifies 55 competencies that need to be inculcated in a child completing Year 5. First 23 of these competencies literacy with listening, speaking comprehension and writing as well competencies and numeracy with mathematical concepts, graphing, identifying patterns and interpreting included. Schools are responsible for ensuring that each and every child possesses minimum achievements in these 55 competences, but currently, they are simply a list of items to be ticked off casually. In-Service-Advisors (or ISAs) are required to monitor but the process is ad hoc.

Overall incentives in schools are biased towards schools that focus on winning horses, claiming winners and receiving publicity. This is a wasteful exercise. The number of gifted children in a school is largely a random occurrence. Children succeed not because of schools but their innate ability and the extent of coaching received.

A focus on essential competencies will get schools back on track. A test of essential competencies can be an exam carried out by each province. It can be used as a screening test for the scholarship exam by including few additional challenging questions. The papers need to be moderated by cross-province panel that incudes national representatives.

Alternatively, essential competencies can be tested as a compulsory Paper I in the present scholarship examination with an intelligence test designed to select gifted students being an optional Paper II.

Rank the schools not the children

Currently the aftermath of the scholarship exam is an occasion for a media circus with children, their parents and teachers serving to fill space on newspapers for lazy journalists. These news stories send the wrong message to majority of children that only exam success matters and they are not good enough. Also schools that do not give essential competencies to all children get off the hook while a few achievers go on parade.

It is neither psychologically or socially appropriate to rank children of primary school age or a more productive exercise would be to rank the schools based on percent of students achieving essential competencies in language and math, respectively.

Increase merit-based admissions to popular schools

Although the ministry lists 212 or so schools as popular schools, each offers only 1-3 classes to scholarship-based admissions. For example, of the 10 or more parallel classes in Grade 6 at Royal College or Vishaka Vidyalaya, only three are open to scholarship students. More classes should be opened eventually turning some of these to national schools with residential facilities dedicated to gifted children from across the country. But in the short terms it would be unwise to disturb the present eco-system too much. The popularity of these schools is based on the additional resources afforded by wealthier or more influential parents or past pupils of these schools and social networks they represent.

Nearest school best school

When we did a study in 2007, the number of popular schools listed by the Ministry of Education was only 107 covering only one third of the 93 educational zones. The number has almost doubled by 2018 and the coverage of zones too has increased. But the actual quality of these schools needs to be assessed and publicised.

Base all decisions on evidence

Policy decisions are typically made in top down mode using opinions of experts. Whatever the opinions of the experts, proposed changes should be tested on a random sample of students and teachers or at least a suitable focus groups of each. As Dr. Kariyawasam advised, the format of the scholarship exam should be tested rigorously for its efficacy to identify the most gifted. The essential competency component should be designed such that the tests don’t harm the play-centred education recommended for primary school children.