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All hype and hot air?

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Dr. Pethiyagoda

The Colombo Climate Summit:

An interview with Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda

by Ifham Nizam

The challenge before us, as a nation, is to build national resilience to climate change, says internationally recognised Sri Lankan scientist and policy advocate, Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda, in an interview with The Island. “If the West wants us to reduce emissions, they should damn well be made to pay for it. As for us, we should reduce emissions only if and when this serves our national interest, that is, when it generates sustainable growth for us.”

Excerpts:

Q: Your keynote address at the Colombo Climate Summit held earlier this month raised some eyebrows because you said that bribery and corruption were one of the biggest threats that faces Sri Lanka in its response to climate change. What did you mean by that?

A: We have to recognise the fact that recent Sri Lankan governments have been corrupt on an industrial scale. In the run up to the 2015 election, the Yahapalana Coalition claimed massive corruption on the part of the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration. However, since then, Sri Lanka has sunk four more points towards the bottom of the Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International. We are now in the top 35% of the world’s most corrupt countries, our worst score ever. Everything from visas to wind power is being farmed out to cronies by the government without going through a transparent competitive bidding process.

Our national response to climate change, for example, will involve preventing saltwater intrusion into our 103 rivers as sea level rises in the coming decades. It will call for massive civil engineering interventions that will dwarf even the Mahaweli Project. It will cost tens of billions of dollars. This will be a gift to politicians anxious to exploit this opportunity for personal gain. That is why corruption threatens the building of national resilience to climate change. And that is why, unless we get the system change that the youth demanded when they booted Gotabaya Rajapaksa out of office in 2022, we are going to slide from bad to worse.

Q:  There have been allegations on social media that the Climate Summit was all hype and hot air, serving only to greenwash the real issues. For example, it omitted to include many environmental NGOs and even government agencies associated with climate. Your response?

A: The Summit was organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) and therefore aimed primarily at business and industry. It did not set out to formulate national policy. And the CCC did a great job, bringing in experts from across the world to lend their expertise. The challenges that climate change poses to business are very different to those that it poses to government. Businesses are concerned mainly with issues of sustainability. That is to say, how they can maximise their profitability while minimising their carbon footprints, maximising their energy efficiency, ensuring agricultural productivity, generating renewable energy, transacting climate-associated financial instruments, and so on.

The challenges before government, however, are very different. Government has to do stuff like building resilience to sea-level change, planning agriculture in a warmer world, investing in energy infrastructure, devising interventions to conserve biodiversity in a changing climate, managing urban water supply, irrigation and hydropower as rainfall regimes change, and so on. In fact, the government would do well to have its own climate summit to plan the National Response to Climate Change.

 As I pointed out in my addresses to the summit, many of the national institutions that need to be at the forefront of our response to climate change are hopelessly underfunded and inefficient. I referred especially to the moribund Department of Meteorology, which badly needs a firecracker lit under it. But agriculture research, too, is lagging badly behind. As far as I know, none of our crop research institutes are developing new cultivars of tea or rice in greenhouse conditions that model future climate regimes. We have to do these things if we are to overcome the massive challenges that a changing climate poses.

Q:President Wickremesinghe has urged that Sri Lanka takes a lead in establishing the world’s first climate university. Isn’t that a step in the right direction?

A: Frankly, I think this is a waste of time and resources. First off, the word ‘university’ derives from the Latin root ‘universitas’, meaning ‘the whole’. In other words, a place that teaches everything. You do not have universities that teach only one subject. That is called a school, a faculty or an institute. It would have been better to invest the enormous sum of money he is trying to raise for this venture in the creation of climate schools in some of our universities. In fact, universities such as Peradeniya already have excellent programmes in the associated sciences. And goodness knows our existing universities are badly underfunded.

 But the president is no fool. He knows that like ‘biodiversity’ in the 1990s, ‘terrorism’ in the 2000s, and ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ in the 2010s, ‘climate’ is the international buzzword of this decade. At a time when Sri Lanka is insolvent and at the sharp end of the UN Human Rights Commission, mooting a climate university paints him and the country in a benign light in the international community. I suspect that this was the consideration driving his rhetoric about a climate university. I would be astonished if such a university ever comes into existence in Sri Lanka. But to be fair, his rhetoric does an excellent job of glossing over our many defects in the eyes of the gullible West.

Q: You raised some eyebrows in the run-up to the Summit when you were quoted as saying “There is no climate emergency”. However, UN Secretary General António Guterres has said that every country should declare a climate emergency. Does this mean that you are a climate change denier, a climate sceptic?

A:  There is no doubt that climate is warming at an apparently unprecedented rate, and that human greenhouse gas emissions are exacerbating this warming. I fully support reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally and building national resilience to climate change. But I do not believe we require a state of emergency to do this. I should explain this.

First off, although Mr Guterres has verbally called on nations to declare emergencies, the UN itself has not declared an emergency. The UN’s procedure provides for it to declare a Level-3 emergency in such situations, but Guterres has not done that. As it happens, not even the UN’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) has advocated for a state of emergency. Meanwhile, even as Mr Guterres sings his hypocritical song, he continues to criss-cross the world in his private jet.

 Second, as Sri Lankans know only too well, a state of emergency is a terrible thing. It suspends normal laws, it gives unlimited power to government, it sets aside human rights and freedoms, and it puts mature, thoughtful planning to one side and engenders ill-conceived knee-jerk reactions by government. We all saw all this play out in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s disastrous management of the covid emergency, overriding the Health Ministry’s Public and Community Health professionals and turning over management of the pandemic to the army. People were arrested and even abducted for having covid, houses were raided, Muslims were prevented from burying their dead, and billions were spent on procuring covid test kits from cronies without a transparent procurement process. Previous governments used emergencies to incarcerate, torture and murder thousands of youths. We should have learned by now that emergencies are not things you can trust Sri Lankan politicians with.

Finally, you need to recognise that our response to climate change is going to take decades: certainly, beyond the end of this century. Do people seriously intend to have a state of emergency for the next 70 or 100 years? Only a very ignorant person would say so.

Q: But don’t we have a responsibility to be good global citizens? Should we not do everything we can to reduce emissions?

A:  Look, for the past two centuries, the West industrialised at the cost of the global environment. The 50% increase we have seen in atmospheric carbon dioxide over that period is almost in its entirety caused by the West. They enriched themselves at the cost of the global environment with the one hand while suppressing us through colonialism with the other. And now they have the cheek to tell us, the developing world, that it is our job to be good global citizens? Look at it this way. Say that a cake was made for the whole world to share. Then, the West elbows its way to the table, gobbles up 90% of it and fattens itself. Having done that, it tells us “Now there’s only 10% left. Please be good global citizens and share this 10% equitably among yourselves and with us.” My answer is No. The developing world should simply tell the developed world to fly a kite. They caused this mess, and they should pay to clean it up, not us.

The challenge before us, as a nation, is to build national resilience to climate change. If the West wants us to reduce emissions, they should damn well be made to pay for it. As for us, we should reduce emissions only if and when this serves our national interest, that is, when it generates sustainable growth for us. But then, even when wind power, for example, has become dirt cheap worldwide, we are paying three times the world price for it here in Sri Lanka because corrupt people are lining their pockets with loot.

In my view, Sri Lanka should even consider withdrawing from the UN’s COP (Conference of Parties) process. Now we are at the 29th COP, which if nothing else, shows that the first 28 COPs were failures. They have done nothing to attenuate climate change. These COP meetings involve thousands of officials flying to global tourism hotspots every year, cramming into five-star hotels and returning home with papers full of promises and platitudes. None of that ever gets turned into so-called climate action. It is a waste of time, and we should have the courage to say so and refuse to dance to the West’s tune. Of course, they will try to cut so-called aid to us. But if we state our case clearly to the citizens of the West, showing that their governments’ demands that we mitigate climate change are just an extension of the colonial enterprise, I think we will win the day. We need to call out the West’s hypocrisy.

Q: That’s a strong word. Can you seriously make such a claim?

A: What, hypocrisy? Of course, I can. Just take the UK. Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions are now 50% lower than they were in 1990. The UK is the poster child of the developed world. Three cheers! But how did they do it? First, they exported a lot of their emissions by turning from a high-carbon manufacturing economy into a low-carbon service economy. Goods for the UK market are now increasingly manufactured overseas, so the exporting countries’, principally China, are doing the emitting on the UK’s behalf. The UK has also been replacing high-CO2 coal as a source of energy with ‘renewable’ wood-pellets imported from North America. Millions of tons of wood pellets. Its argument is that this is sustainable because the CO2 that wood combustion emits will be reabsorbed when those American forests are replanted. But they claim the emissions reduction now, even though the trees will not grow back for decades from now. Such examples, to my mind, are indicative of the lowest form of hypocrisy and we should call them out on it. But the UK may not be the worst offender: Germany is not far behind. So yes, I am serious when I call these countries hypocrites. Sadly, most of their citizens are unaware of the true facts, and I don’t blame them. They too, are misled by their governments.

Q:     You make everything sound pretty hopeless…

A: Ah, but I am optimistic. I think governments like the UK’s and Germany’s have been stampeded by activists into making promises that they simply cannot keep. But globally, humans have been wonderful innovators. Our hallmark as a species is innovating. I have no doubt that we will innovate our way out of global warming too. This is a long journey, and we are only at the beginning. If we keep our nerve and stay the course like responsible adults should, we’re going to come out of this just fine. But by then there will be new problems that call for yet more innovations. That’s the human predicament, the human story.

Q:     Are there examples of innovations in Sri Lanka that help address climate threats?

A: There are many. Colombo Port City is a fine example of the kind of engineering we need to reclaim land that lies below sea level. Industry has been becoming more sustainable, too. Star Garments’ 35,000-square foot facility in Katunayake is South Asia’s first certified ‘Passive House’ factory: It uses 70% less energy than other buildings of comparable size. And if you think about it, the thousands of tanks and reservoirs scattered across the dry zone were built by Sri Lankan kings over the past 2000 years as a response to a climate threat, namely drought. What a phenomenal innovation that ‘hydraulic civilization’ was!

And then there are the ongoing efforts to reconnect fragmented wet-zone forest fragments by means of biodiversity corridors. Initiatives by NGOs such as the PLANT project of the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society, the rainforest and mangrove restoration projects of Biodiversity Sri Lanka, and the 2-km forest corridor at Endana near Kahawatta by Dilmah Conservation are leading the way in this regard. I urge your readers to support these pioneering projects. That is how, by everyone doing their bit, Sri Lanka can build resilience to the climate of the future.



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Citizenship, Devolution, Land and Language: The Vicarious Legacies of SJV Chelvanayakam

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From left GG Ponnambalam, SJV Chelvanayakam and M. Tiruchelvam

SJV Chelvanayakam, the founder leader of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi, aka Ceylon Tamil Federal Party, passed away 49 years ago on 26 April 1977. There were events in Sri Lanka and other parts of the world where Tamils live, to commemorate his memory and his contributions to Tamil society and politics. His legacy is most remembered for his espousal of the cause of federalism and his commitment to pursuing it solely through non-violent politics. Chelvanayakam’s political life spanned a full 30 years from his first election as MP for Kankesanthurai in 1947 until his death in 1977.

Under the rubric of federalism, Chelvanayakam formulated what he called the four basic demands of the Tamil speaking people, a political appellation he coined to encompass – the Sri Lankan Tamils, Sri Lankan Muslims and the hill country Tamils (Malaiyaka Tamils). The four demands included the restoration of the citizenship rights of the hill country Tamils; cessation of state sponsored land colonisation in the North and East; parity of status for the Sinhala and Tamil languages; and a system of regional autonomy to devolve power to the northern and eastern provinces.

High-minded Politics

Although the four basic demands that Chelvanayakam articulated were not directly delivered upon during his lifetime, they became part of the country’s political discourse and dynamic to such an extent that they had to be dealt with, one way or another, even after his death. So, we can call these posthumous developments as Chelvanayakam’s vicarious legacies. There is more to his legacy. He belonged to a category of Sri Lankans, Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, who took to politics, public life, public service, and even private business with a measure of high-mindedness that was almost temperamental and not at all contrived. Chelvanayakam personified high-minded politics. But he was not the only one. There were quite a few others in the 20th century. There have not been many since.

Born on 31 March 1898, Chelvanayakam was 49 years old when he entered parliament. He was not an upstart school dropout dashing into politics or coming straight out of the university, or even a hereditary claimant, but a self-made man, an accomplished lawyer, a King’s Counsel, later Queen’s Counsel, and was widely regarded as one of the finest civil lawyers of his generation. He was a serious man who took to politics seriously. Howard Wriggins, in his classic 1960 book, “Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation”, called Chelvanayakam “the earnest Christian lawyer.”

Chelvanayakam’s professional standing, calm demeanour, his personal qualities of sincerity and honesty, and his friendships with men of the calibre of Sir Edward Jayatilleke KC (Chief Justice, 1950-52), H.V. Perera QC, P. Navaratnarajah, QC, and K.C. Thangarajah, were integral to his politics. The four of them were also mutual friends of Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and they played a part in the celebrated consociational achievement in 1957, called the B-C Pact.

Chelvanayakam effortlessly combined elite consociationalism with grass roots politics and mass movements. He led the Federal Party both as a democratic organization and an open movement. Chelvanayakam and the Federal Party used parliament as their forum to present their case, the courts to fight for their rights, and took to organizing non-violent protests, political pilgrimages and satyagraha campaigns. He was imprisoned in Batticaloa, detained in Panagoda, and was placed under house arrest several times. His Alfred House Gardens neighbours in Colombo used to wonder why the government and the police were after him, of all people, and why wouldn’t they do something about his four boisterous, but studious, sons!

He was a rare politician who filed his own election petition when he was defeated in the 1952 election, his first as the leader of the Federal Party, and was rewarded with punitive damages by an exacting judge. He had to borrow money from Sir Edward Jayatilleke to pay damages. The common practice for losing candidates was to file vexatious petitions in the name of one of their supporters with no asset to pay legal costs. Chelvanayakam was too much of a principled man for that. As a matter of a different principle, the two old Left parties never challenged election losses in court, but Dr. Colvin R de Silva singled out Chelvanayakam’s uniqueness for praise in parliament, in the course of a debate on amendments to the country’s election laws in 1968.

Disenfranchisement & Disintegration

Although he became an MP in 1947, Chelvanayakam had been associated with GG Ponnambalam and the Tamil Congress Party for a number of years. GG was the flamboyant frontliner, SJV the quiet mainstay behind. Tamil politics at that time was all about representation. In fact, all politics in Sri Lanka has been all about representation all the time. It started when British colonial rulers began nominating local (Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim) representatives to quasi legislative bodies, and it became a contentious political matter after the introduction of universal franchise in 1931.

Communal representation was conveniently made to look ugly by those who themselves were politically communal. Indeed, under colonial rule, if not later too, Sri Lankans were a schizophrenic society where most Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims were socially friendly, but politically communal. The underlying premise to the fight over representation was that British colonialists were not leaving in a hurry and they were there to stay and rule for a long time. Hence the jostling for positions under a foreign master. It was in this context that Ponnambalam made his celebrated 50-50 pitch for balanced representation between the Sinhalese, on the one hand, and all the others – Tamils, Muslims, Indian Tamils – combined on the other. It was a perfectly rational proposition, but it was also perfectly poor politics.

But independence came far sooner than expected. The Soulbury Constitution was set up not for a continuing colonial state, but as the constitution for an independent new Ceylon. So, the argument for balanced representation became irrelevant in the new circumstances. The new Soulbury Constitution was enacted in 1945, general elections were held in 1947, a new parliament was elected, and Ceylon became independent in 1948. SJV Chelvanayakam was among the seven Tamil Congress MPs elected to the first parliament led by GG Ponnambalam.

The Tamil Congress campaigned in the 1947 election against accepting the Soulbury Constitution and for a vaguely formulated mandate “to cooperate with any progressive Sinhalese party which would grant the Tamil their due rights.” But what these rights are was not specified. In a Feb. 5, 1946 speech in Jaffna, Ponnambalam specifically proposed “responsive cooperation between the communities” – not parties – and advocated “a social welfare policy” to benefit not only the poor masses of Tamils but also the large masses of the Sinhalese.

So, when Ponnambalam and four of the seven Tamil Congress MPs decided to join the government of DS Senanayake with Ponnambalam accepting the portfolio of the Minister of Industries, Industrial Research and Fisheries, they were opposed by Chelvanayakam and two other Tamil Congress MPs. The immediate context for this split was the Citizenship question that arose soon after independence when DS Senanayake’s UNP government introduced the Ceylon Citizenship Bill in parliament. The purpose and effect of the bill was to deprive the estate Tamils of Indian origin (then numbering about 780,000) of their citizenship. Previously the government had got parliament to enact the Elections Act to stipulate that only citizens can vote in national elections. In one stroke, the whole working population of the plantations was disenfranchised.

GG Ponnambalam and all seven Tamil Congress MPs voted against the two bills. Joining them in opposition were the six MPs from the Ceylon Indian Congress representing the Malaiyaka Tamils and 18 Sinhalese MPs from the Left Parties. The Citizenship Bill was passed in Parliament on 20 August 1948. Ponnambalam called it a dark day for Ceylon and accused Senanayake of racism. But less than a month later, on September 3, 1948, he joined the Senanayake cabinet as a prominent minister and the government’s principal defender in parliamentary debates. Dr. NM Perera once called Ponnambalam “the devil’s advocate from Jaffna.”

Chelvanayakam remained in the opposition with two of his Congress colleagues. A little over an year later, on December 18, 1949, Chelvanayakam founded the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, Federal Party in English. Not long after, joining Chelvanayakam in the opposition was SWRD Bandaranaike, who broke away from the UNP government over succession differences and went on to form another new political party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. As was his wont as a Marxist to see trends and patterns in politics, Hector Abhayavardhana saw the breakaways of Chelvanayakam and Bandaranaike, as well as the emergence of Thondaman as the leader of the disenfranchised hill country Tamils, as symptoms of a disintegrating society as it was transitioning from colonial rule to independence.

Abhayavardhana saw the Citizenship Act as the political trigger of this disintegration in the course of which “what was set up for the purpose of a future nation ended in caricature as a Sinhalese state.” Chelvanayakam may have agreed with this assessment even though he was located at the right end of the ideological continuum. “Ideologically, SJV is to the right of JR,” was part of political gossip in the old days. He saw “seeds of communism” in Philip Gunawardena’s Paddy Lands Act. For all their differences, Chelvanayakam and Ponnambalam were united in one respect – as unrepentant opponents of Marxism.

The Four Demands

Chelvanayakam had his work cut out as the leader of a new political party and pitting himself against a formidable political foe like Ponnambalam with all the ministerial resources at his disposal. Chelvanayakam may not have quite seen it that way. Rather, he saw his role as a matter of moral duty to fill the vacuum created by what he believed to be Ponnambalam’s betrayal, and to provide new leadership to a people who were at the crossroads of uncertainty after the unexpectedly early arrival of independence.

He set about his work by expanding his political constituency to include not only the island’s indigenous Tamils, but also the Muslims and the Tamil plantation workers from South India – as the island’s Tamil speaking people. It was he who vigorously introduced the disenfranchised Indian Tamils as hill country Tamils. In the aftermath of the Citizenship Act and disenfranchisement, restoring their citizenship rights became an obvious first demand for the new Party.

Having learnt the lesson from Ponnambalam’s failed 50-50 demand, Chelvanayakam territorialized the representation question by identifying the northern and eastern provinces as “traditional Tamil homelands,” and adding a measure regional autonomy to make up for the shortfall in representation at the national level in Colombo. To territorialization and autonomy, he added the cessation of state sponsored land colonization especially in the eastern province. Chelvanayakam and the Federal Party painstakingly explained that they were by no means opposed to Sinhalese voluntarily living in Tamil areas, either as a matter of choice, pursuing business or as government and private sector employees, but the nuancing was quite easily lost in the political shouting match.

The fourth demand, after citizenship, regional autonomy, and land, was about language. Language was not an issue when Chelvanayakam started the Federal Party. But he pessimistically predicted that sooner or later the then prevailing consensus, based on a State Council resolution, over equality between the two languages would be broken. He was proved right, sooner than later, and language became the explosive question in the 1956 election. As it turned out, the UNP government was thrown out, SWRD Bandaranaike led a coalition of parties to victory and government in the south, while SJV Chelvanayakam won a majority of the seats in the North and East, including two Muslims from Kalmunai and Pottuvil.

After the passage of the Sinhala Only Act on June 5, 1956, the Federal Party launched a political pilgrimage and mobilized a convention that was held in Trincomalee in the month of August. The four basic demands were concretized at the convention, viz., citizenship restoration for the hill country Tamils, parity of status for the Sinhala and Tamil languages, the cessation of state sponsored land colonization, and a system of regional autonomy in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

The four demands became the basis for the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam agreement – the B-C Pact of 1957, and again the agreement between SJV Chelvanayakam and Dudley Senanayake in 1965. The former was abrogated by Prime Minister Bandaranaike under political duress but was not abandoned by him. The latter has been implemented in fits and starts.

The two agreements which should have been constitutionally enshrined, were severely ignored in the making of the 1972 Constitution and the 1978 Constitution – with the latter learning nothing and forgetting everything that its predecessor had inadvertently precipitated. The political precipitation was the rise of Tamil separatism and its companion, Tamil political violence. Ironically, Tamil separatism and violence created the incentive to resolve what Chelvanayakam had formulated and non-violently pursued as the four basic demands of the Tamils.

After his death in 1977, the citizenship question has finally been resolved. The 13th Amendment to the 1978 Constitution that was enacted in 1987 resolved the language question both in law and to an appreciable measure in practice. The same amendment also brought about the system of provincial councils, substantially fulfilling the regional autonomy demand of SJV Chelvanayakam. The land question, however, has taken a different turn with state sponsored land colonisation in the east giving way to government security forces sequestering private residential properties of Tamil families in the north, especially in the Jaffna Peninsula.

Further, the future of the Provincial Council system has become uncertain with the extended postponement of provincial elections by four Presidents and their governments, including the current incumbents. The provinces are now being administered by the President through handpicked governors without the elected provincial councils as mandated by the constitution. Imagine a Sri Lanka where there is only an Executive President and no parliament – not even a nameboard one. “What horror!”, you would say. But that is the microcosmic reality today in the country’s nine provinces.

by Rajan Philips

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Application of AI in Logistics in Sri Lanka can improve efficiency, reduce cost and enhance decision making

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KIVA robots in Amazon Warehouses

“AI increases profits while reducing un ethical intervention which is proven by Successful Global Business Models”

Artificial Intelligence(AI) is still only a buzz word in the Sri Lankan society, though many wanted to have an awareness of the concept the resources are scares, even still the IT industry has not formulated any awareness programs or a Degree yet to cope with the development. But world education warns that there want be any IT based jobs in future without learning the AI. AI has multiple use in any discipline and it has the ability to increase the efficiency of the work intern cut down the product or the service cost. Below description is how the application of AI can smoother the function of Logistic or the Supply Chain Management.

AI Integrating Procedure for Distribution Systems

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in logistics can greatly improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance decision-making in simple enhance the profit margins. Below is a structured overview of how AI can be used in logistics, including key applications, tools, and real-world examples. Machine Learning(ML) is the foundation to AI but subsequently develops the capability of absorbing the information from the cloud (IT environment) and produce future behavior or trends by analyzing the fed data to the computers on a certain period of time. In some occasions vendors offer unbelievable discounts by using ML or AI, because it clearly understands the market behavior, human behavior, expiration and many other variables that gives the profits or losses to the product or the service.

Key Areas Where AI is Used in Logistics;

· Demand Forecasting

· Route Optimization

· Warehouse Automation

· Predictive Maintenance

· Inventory Management

· Supply chain Management

· Customer Service with Chat bots

· Fraud Detection and Risk Management

1. Demand Forecasting

AI can analyze historical data, market trends, and external factors (like weather or news) to:

· Predict product demand more accurately

· Optimize inventory levels

· Reduce stockouts or overstocking

Tools: Machine learning models (e.g., time series forecasting) and IT platforms/software like Amazon Forecast, Prophet by Meta. These are the software applications that helps to understand the future trends.

Amazon Forecasting software

Traditional forecasting methods typically rely on statistical modeling, but software like “Chronos” that treats time series data (data collected during a certain period of time) as a language to be modeled and uses a pre-trained FM (forecast Models) to generate forecasts, which similar to how “Large Language Models” (LLMs) generate texts helps you achieve accurate predictions faster, significantly reducing development time compared to traditional methods.

Prophet by Meta

Prophet is a very efficient and accurate procedure for forecasting time series data based on an additive model where non-linear trends are fit with yearly, weekly, and daily seasonality, plus holiday effects. It works best with time series that have strong seasonal effects and several seasons of historical data. This software adds many social, cultural and geographical variables other than internal information to decision making.

2. Route Optimization

AI-powered systems can calculate the most efficient delivery routes in real-time using:

· Traffic data

· Weather conditions

· Delivery time windows

· Vehicle capacity and fuel usage

Example: UPS (one of the largest Logistic companies in the world) uses its ORION system (AI-based) to save millions of gallons of fuel per year.

IT Tools: Google OR-Tools, Route4Me, Mapbox with ML integration.

IBM Maximo is a multi-facet coordinator

The “Route4Me” IT platform automates and integrates mission-critical last mile workflows, empowering route planners, dispatchers, drivers, and managers to take the business to the next level. Distribution networks, passenger transportation networks can achieve much cost reduction by using above platforms. This is a good platform for the Sri Lanka passenger industry to reduce the overheads for the population. In Sri Lanka “Pick me” and “Uber” uses similar platforms in their transportation industry. Whole three wheeler industry can be regulating with this kind of software and transfer benefits to the passengers.

3. Warehouse Automation

AI enables:

· Robotics for picking, packing, and sorting

· Vision systems for scanning and inventory management

· Autonomous forklifts and drones for internal transport

Example: Amazon’s use of “Kiva robots” in fulfillment(distribution) centers.

Kiva Robots in Warehouses

Traditionally, goods are moved around a distribution center using a conveyor system  or by human-operated machines (such as forklifts). In Kiva’s approach, items are stored in portable storage units. When an order is entered into the Kiva database system, the software locates the closest automated guided vehicle to the item and directs it to retrieve it. The mobile robots navigate around the warehouse by following a series of computerized bar-code stickers on the floor. Each drive unit has a sensor that prevents it from colliding with others. When the drive unit reaches the target location, it slides underneath the pod(Pallet) and lifts it off the ground through a corkscrew action. The robot then carries the pod to the specified human operator to pick up the items or subsequently hand over to the “drone” to deliver to the customer. Human intervention is minimal and accordingly overheads are reduced, Sri Lanka needs to achieve this kind of operational level in order to par with the international markets.

4. Predictive Maintenance

Traditionally Sri Lankans are week in maintenance, they basically wait until the machine stops in the other way bureaucratic too are much restrict on the maintenance and the procurement procedure. Applying this kind of maintenance software will eradicate all of these lethargies and the bureaucratic blocks. Subsequently continuing the smooth operations and productions.

AI monitors equipment (vehicles, conveyor belts, etc.) to:

· Predict when they will fail

· Schedule maintenance proactively

· Reduce downtime and repair costs

Tools: IoT(internet of things as cameras, sensors, GPS etc.) sensors + ML models (e.g., anomaly detection), IT platforms like IBM Maximo.

IBM Maximo is a multi-facet coordinator

“From equipment to factories, from fleets to infrastructure, Maximo Application Suite empowers users across verticals to coordinate maintenance and management for a broad range of asset classes”.

5. Supply Chain Visibility

AI can analyze data across the supply chain to:

· Track shipments in real-time

· Identify delays or bottlenecks

· Provide predictive ETAs

📦 Example: DHL (Logistic Company) uses AI to forecast transit delays and offer dynamic ETA updates.

This is an ideal tool for cargo management, ideal for sea ports and the air ports in Sri Lanka. This is one of the grave gray areas in the port system, though the port system is lacking the required information due to that the client has to pay the demurrages and warehouse cost for the ports. Also, cut down unnecessary delays and reduce bribes and corruption at all levels.

6. Inventory Management

AI helps optimize:

· Stock levels across multiple warehouses

· Replenishment timing

· Safety stock calculation

Tools: ERP (Entrepreneur Resource Planning) systems with embedded AI (e.g., SAP, Oracle), custom ML models.

These systems drastically reduce the human intervention and speedup the Supply management process.

7. Customer Service & Chatbots

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can:

· Handle customer queries 24/7

· Track orders

· Provide personalized delivery updates

Tools: Dialogflow, Microsoft Bot Framework, ChatGPT API

Dialogflow

“Dialogflow” is a natural language understanding IT platform that makes it easy to design and integrate a conversational user interface into the mobile app, web application, device, bot, interactive voice response system, and so on. Using Dialogflow, establishments can provide new and engaging ways for users to interact with the product. Dialogflow can analyze multiple types of input from the customers, including text or audio inputs (like from a phone or voice recording). It can also respond to the customers in a couple of ways, either through text or with synthetic speech.

AI Conversational Chatbots Platform

Above IT platforms control the human intervention and reduce the cost of employees. Chatbots are basically efficient than the humans due to the high memory power for the standard customer inquiries. Application to Government sector will reduce the burden for the general public.

8. Fraud Detection & Risk Management

AI detects unusual patterns in:

· Orders

· Transactions

· Supplier behavior

Helps prevent:

· Cargo theft

· Counterfeit goods

· Financial fraud

*”KPMG Clara” for Supply Chain Risk Management

“KPMG Clara” is an AI-powered IT platform offering supply chain analytics, risk detection, and compliance management.

Key Features:

· AI-driven risk modeling

· ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and compliance monitoring

· Predictive analytics for disruptions

· Supplier risk scoring

“Geo Analysis” (AI based) IT platform in Supply Chain Access Control

Above IT platform Monitor access patterns across cross-border freight hubs, regional warehouses, and remote carrier logins. “Geo analysis” for supply chain authentication identifies impossible travel, geo-inconsistencies, and spoofed IPs to reduce credential abuse and unauthorized entry into logistics systems. This important IT platform can reduce corruption and many unethical practices, ideal tool for the Sri Lankan Government sector that can curb the mal practices.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a remarkable IT tool which can apply in almost all the sectors that can reap the Efficiency and Accuracy. In above paragraphs I have described the application in different stages of the Logistic or the Supply Chain Management. Application of AI tools can be done on stages as initially find the specific pain points pertaining to the supply chain and then, prepare data from the GPS, inventory systems, sales forecasts and supplier records. Subsequently can understand the specific AI platforms and ML models to suit the SCM operation. Further, can apply in a small scale as a pilot project and analyze impact as cost savings or efficiency gains. Once understand the model can roll out to other areas of operations in the establishment.

Final outcome will be “15% reduction in fuel cost, 20% faster deliveries, Increased customer satisfaction”

There may be many negative lobbies since this is new to the many sectors in the country and further ability to proof the corruption but proper education and understanding the world AI based business models, establishments can reach the required goal.

(Writer can be reached at, chandana_w@yahoo.com)

by Lt Col. Chandana Weerakoon.
Chartered Logistician

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Features

Motherhood is not ‘giving up’

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Since having my baby, I have been regularly met with the question, “Are you back at work?”

“No,”

I reply. “I am doing my PhD from home.”

Several emotions arise. I feel guilty that I am not back at work, that somehow I should be. I also feel relieved that I can justify my time at home by offering up the PhD as a worthy endeavour. Sometimes, the person responds in surprise, “Oh, so no work?” Other times, they are approving, “How lucky for you and your baby.” Occasionally, there is the advice, “Don’t give up work.”

At the back of my mind are certain thoughts. “Am I not ‘working’? Isn’t the work of motherhood also considered ‘work’? If it isn’t, shouldn’t it be?”

Although the questions, comments, and advice about returning to work are made innocently enough, mostly benevolently, they have prompted me to reflect on the idea of work and motherhood, and how mothers and society view both.

Motherhood, I believe, is a full-time, highly skilled, unpaid job that never ends. All mothers work at least two jobs. They do the work of mothering, and also work in either a paid or unpaid additional role. Many women will do even more. They mother, care for their elderly parents, work a paid job, voluntarily contribute to community building, and try to fit in creative pursuits, hobbies, or ‘self-care’ when they can.

Motherhood requires many skills. You are, effectively, the CEO of your family and home (with hopefully a supportive co-CEO by your side). There is the work of child-rearing, which requires patience, energy, creativity, presence, flexibility, courage, fortitude, knowledge, and the ability to research, learn, and unlearn. You are raising the future. Then there is the work of home and family life, which requires skills in leadership, organisation, prioritisation, delegation, negotiation, financial management, crisis management, and conflict resolution. There is also the internal work of being self-aware, forgiving yourself and others, practicing compassion, and accepting the inherent imperfections of ‘doing it all’.

This work of motherhood is now recognised as ‘unpaid caregiving and domestic work’ and ‘invisible labour’ by international organisations such as the United Nations. It includes physical labour, direct care labour, mental or cognitive labour, and emotional labour, and is mostly the work of women.

I am not complaining. Men have their own unpaid labour. I love being a mother and wife. I view it as a privilege and a blessing. Ideally, the job can also be supported by paid or unpaid help. My point is that the work of women, and specifically mothers, should be recognised and respected, not only by society, but also by women and mothers themselves.

I know it is not just me who has experienced conflicting emotions about ‘giving up’ traditional work to focus on family life. Within my social circle and more widely, mothers describe a loss of self-worth and identity unless they are ‘working mothers’, and feeling embarrassment and guilt when asked the dreaded question, “What do you do?” There is the loss of financial dignity that comes with taking on an unpaid job, no matter how important you may think it is. Dynamics with husbands also need to shift, where both members are viewed as equally valuable to making the business of ‘home’ successful.

Neha Ruch, the author of The Power Pause, is an American brand strategist-turned-full-time stay-at-home mother and home maker, who addresses this very issue. Many of my thoughts for this article are based on her book. She argues that the time a woman wishes to invest in this phase of life, motherhood and family life, is valuable, not just for the children or family unit, but for the mother herself. It is a time for growth, skill-building, and expanding networks and connections.

Often, it leads women in new, creative, and more fulfilling directions, and provides an opportunity for them to re-enter the workforce on their own terms. She also points out that ‘the pause’ is not a luxury for a lucky minority, as many women become the default caregiver for their children if childcare is too costly, or not the preferred option. Through the movement she has created, Ruch provides legitimacy, validation, and structure to this phase of life (because, after all, it is only a phase, not forever) that is often spoken of as mindless, monotonous, and unglamorous, and I am grateful for it.

I suppose what I am saying is, next time you meet a mother, consider asking her, “How are you?”, and next time I am asked what I do, I should proudly declare (using Ruch’s script), “Right now, I am on a career pause and get to be home with my baby, and I am exploring possibilities for the future.”

(Lihini Wijeyaratne Cooray

Lihini is rediscovering her love for writing while embracing first-time motherhood and her ‘Power Pause’. She is also navigating her roles as a doctor and PhD researcher. She hopes that her writing can inspire a fresh perspective on motherhood as being valuable, powerful, and exciting.)

by Lihini Wijeyaratne Cooray

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