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Sri Lanka heading for serious crisis!

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By Dr. Laksiri Fernando

This is not a prediction, but the reality. Sri Lanka is already in a serious crisis in terms of people’s living conditions, the economy, foreign reserves, political system, government’s legitimacy, public administration, foreign relations and the government’s day to day decision making processes. While some are long standing, like the foreign reserves or debt, most of the others are quite recent, and are the results of unequivocal incompetence and bad management. Even the foreign debt situation has worsened under the present administration.

If one draws a balance sheet, the current administration can be credited for COVID-19 vaccinations, but almost all other endeavours are utter failures. At the presidential elections in November 2019, 6.9 million people voted with much hope, but all these are now shattered. The slogan touted was ‘Prosperity and Splendour.’ Prosperity has been acquired by the deal makers and fraudsters; no splendour to the country or the people. In economic policy, the government has zigzagged between ‘state-control’ and ‘free-market,’ and the economy and the people have suffered as a result.

Economy and inflation

What affects the people in general and their living conditions at present is the thumping inflation in essential commodities. Even according to the Central Bank, the national inflation rate has gone up from 3.7 percent in January 2021 to 7.6 percent in October 2021. As the Trading Economics website has noted, “Prices advanced at a faster pace for both food products (12.8 percent vs 10 percent in September) and non-food products (5.4 percent vs 3.8 percent).” Taking into account the piling up of hardships on people, Moody’s has downgraded Sri Lanka’s sovereign rating from Caa1 to Caa2. Corruption might be another reason for this downgrading.

People’s living difficulties cannot be fully gauged through official inflation rates. The newspapers and TV interviews with people on the ground have revealed more drastic conditions. Day by day the prices of essentials like rice, tea, milk powder, sugar, bread, coconut, lentils and vegetables have been going up. Men express their anger and women cry referring to their children’s and household needs. One reason for the price inflation is the rapid increase of fuel prices. Undoubtedly, world prices are going up, but in Sri Lanka, the gap between the fuel refinery costs and market prices is also high.

Of course, many countries have suffered economically during the COVID-19 pandemic. But to alleviate people’s suffering during the lockdowns and after, most countries (if democratic!) have taken measures to offer various payments and relief measures. It is understandable that Sri Lanka has serious public finance difficulties. However, most of these difficulties are the result of waste, corruption, and financial mismanagement. The stagnation of salaries in both public and private sectors has also contributed considerably to the people’s difficulties.

Zig-zag policies

There have been these zigzag policies and u-turns, particularly between August and October this year. First the government imposed a state of emergency with regard to essential food items, including rice and sugar, with controlled prices and started to raid hoarders. It created a huge black market and the prices shot up. The government did not have any control. It withdrew all the gazette notifications on controlled food prices, and the prices again went up!

Even before, since March 2020, import controls were imposed due to foreign currency shortages. Since then, and until last month the government went in the direction of a ‘closed economy’. After one year’s ‘experimentation,’ in April this year, Basil Rajapaksa was sworn in as the Minister of Finance to implement a change. It is that change we are experiencing at present!

Now, it appears that we are in an ‘open economy,’ more open than before to corruption and ‘money making’ by politicians, their families and cohorts. This is part of the controversy over the discreet deal between the government and the American New Fortress company.

The old dichotomous controversy over a ‘closed-economy’ and an ‘open-economy’ does not have much meaning today. While an economy should be open as much as possible in market sense and also in investments, the State has a definitive role in maintaining strategic enterprises like harbours, airports and the energy sector. In addition, the state also should offer welfare services to the needy and encourage people to work hard to contribute to the country’s welfare. To motivate people towards work and entrepreneurship, politicians should be exemplary, and free from corruption and misdeeds.

Fertilizer crisis

It was in April this year that the President suddenly declared a complete ban on chemical fertilizer importation. It was like a military order. That was the flaw. There is no question that high quality organic fertilizer is better for the environment and people’s health. However, that transition requires much time, planning, raising of awareness among farmers, and necessary arrangements to be made to produce (or import) reliable organic fertilizer.

The immediate effect was on the tea industry and vegetable cultivation. Then came the Maha paddy cultivation season in September. Without fertilizer, chemical or organic, farmers could not continue cultivation. Except in certain areas, the situation is the same today. Although the agriculture contribution to GDP is (under)estimated at eight percent, over 28 percent of the population depend on agriculture and 82 percent of the population live in rural areas.

In the President’s speech in April, he said, “the annual sum of USD 400 million spent on fertilizer imports could be used to uplift the lives of the people.” Now, what has happened? Perhaps realizing the lack of capacity to produce organic fertilizer locally, at such short notice, the government then decided to import 99,000 tonnes of ‘organic’ fertilizer (solid and liquid) from China. Perhaps there were other reasons.

This fertilizer has proved or is alleged to be more harmful than the chemical fertilizer! The government also decided to import 30,000 tonnes of potassium chloride from Lithuania, but called it ‘organic fertilizer.’ Sri Lanka also had to so far import 3.1 million litres of nano liquid fertilizer from India. Some politicians may have taken commissions from all these new foreign contracts.

Within the last three months, fertilizer costs have rocketed to nearly USD 150 million, and if calculated with previous imports (January to July), definitely exceed the previous annual cost of fertilizer imports ($ 400m) that the President quoted in April. If these figures are incorrect, it is up to the government to reveal the correct figures to the people.

Elevation of Gnanasara?

The government’s mistakes, blunders or offences are not limited to the mismanagement of the economy, cost of living, or the ‘commission seeking’ deals by ministers and appointed officials. The social and public policies are equally disastrous. A recent case in point is the appointment of (Ven.) Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara as the Chairman of the so-called Presidential Task Force on ‘One Country, One Law.’

‘One country, one law’ is not the correct formulation, if it refers to granting, the civil code or personal laws in the country, some uniformity or conformity. ‘Uniform civil code’ or ‘common civil code’ might be better formulations. ‘One country, one law’ should refer strictly to offering the validity and application of laws equally to the ‘powerful and powerless’; the ‘politicians and ordinary citizens’; and the ‘rich and poor’. This is the way the majority of the people must have understood the slogan at the last election.

Gnanasara undoubtedly is not suitable to perform either of the tasks. He is appallingly partial and aggressive. He is the leader of the Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Army) with proven discordant behaviour. He has been involved in many violent acts and was imprisoned for six months for threatening a woman in the courts. What kind of law reforms can one expect from this type of person? In addition to this dubious Chairman, this so-called 13-member task force does not include a single woman, Tamil or a Christian.

Conclusion

One wonders whether the purpose of the above moves, on the part of the government, is to instigate and fuel religious and ethnic tensions in the country. This is in order to possibly tighten a stronger military or authoritarian grip on the political system as the economic and political policies of the government have been utter failures.

However, in Sri Lanka, the democratic traditions of the country, people’s awareness, trade union movement, independent media and civil society organizations are stronger than the spoiled and corrupt political leaders. Let us keep our fingers crossed.



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BRICS’ pushback against dollar domination sparks global economic standoff

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BRICS leaders at the recent Summit in Brazil. /United Nations

If one were to look for a ‘rationale’ for the Trump administration’s current decision to significantly raise its tariffs on goods and services entering its shores from virtually the rest of the world, then, it is a recent statement by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that one needs to scrutinize. He is quoted as saying that tariffs could return ‘to April levels, if countries fail to strike a deal with the US.’

In other words, countries are urged to negotiate better tariff rates with the US without further delay if they are not to be at the receiving end of the threatened new tariff regime and its disquieting conditions. An unemotional approach to the questions at hand is best.

It would be foolish on the part of the rest of the world to dismiss the Trump administration’s pronouncements on the tariff question as empty rhetoric. In this crisis there is what may be called a not so veiled invitation to the world to enter into discussions with the US urgently to iron out what the US sees as unfair trade terms. In the process perhaps mutually acceptable terms could be arrived at between the US and those countries with which it is presumably having costly trade deficits. The tariff crisis, therefore, should be approached as a situation that necessitates earnest, rational negotiations between the US and its trading partners for the resolving of outstanding issues.

Meanwhile, the crisis has brought more into the open simmering antagonisms between the US and predominantly Southern groupings, such as the BRICS. While the tariff matter figured with some urgency in the recent BRICS Summit in Brazil, it was all too clear that the biggest powers in the grouping were in an effort ‘to take the fight back to the US’ on trade, investment and connected issues that go to the heart of the struggle for global predominance between the East and the US. In this connection the term ‘West’ would need to be avoided currently because the US is no longer in complete agreement with its Western partners on issues of the first magnitude, such as the Middle East, trade tariffs and Ukraine.

Russian President Putin is in the forefront of the BRICS pushback against US dominance in the world economy. For instance, he is on record that intra-BRICS economic interactions should take place in national currencies increasingly. This applies in particular to trade and investment. Speaking up also for an ‘independent settlement and depository system’ within BRICS, Putin said that the creation of such a system would make ‘currency transactions faster, more efficient and safer’ among BRICS countries.

If the above and other intra-BRICS arrangements come to be implemented, the world’s dependence on the dollar would steadily shrink with a corresponding decrease in the power and influence of the US in world affairs.

The US’ current hurry to bring the world to the negotiating table on economic issues, such as the tariff question, is evidence that the US has been fully cognizant of emergent threats to its predominance. While it is in an effort to impress that it is ‘talking’ from a position of strength, it could very well be that it is fearful for its seemingly number one position on the world stage. Its present moves on the economic front suggest that it is in an all-out effort to keep its global dominance intact.

At this juncture it may be apt to observe that since ‘economics drives politics’, a less dollar dependent world could very well mark the beginning of the decline of the US as the world’s sole super power. One would not be exaggerating by stating that the tariff issue is a ‘pre-emptive’, strategic move of sorts by the US to remain in contention.

However, the ‘writing on the wall’ had been very manifest for the US and the West for quite a while. It is no longer revelatory that the global economic centre of gravity has been shifting from the West to the East.

Asian scholarship, in particular, has been profoundly cognizant of the trends. Just a few statistics on the Asian economic resurgence would prove the point. Parag Khanna in his notable work, ‘The Future is Asian’, for example, discloses the following: ‘Asia represents 50 percent of global GDP…It accounts for half of global economic growth. Asia produces and exports as well as imports and consumes more goods than any region.’

However, the US continues to be number one in the international power system currently and non-Western powers in particular would be erring badly if they presume that the economic health of the world and connected matters could be determined by them alone. Talks with the US would not only have to continue but would need to be conducted with the insight that neither the East nor the West would stand to gain by ignoring or glossing over the US presence.

To be sure, any US efforts to have only its way in the affairs of the world would need to be checked but as matters stand, the East and the South would need to enter into judicious negotiations with the US to meet their legitimate ends.

From the above viewpoint, it could be said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the most perceptive of Southern leaders at the BRICS Summit. On assuming chairmanship of the BRICS grouping, Modi said, among other things: ‘…During our chairmanship of BRICS, we will take this forum forward in the spirit of people-centricity and humanity first.’

People-centricity should indeed be the focus of BRICS and other such formations of predominantly the South, that have taken upon themselves to usher the wellbeing of people, as opposed to that of power elites and ruling classes.

East and West need to balance each other’s power but it all should be geared towards the wellbeing of ordinary people everywhere. The Cold War years continue to be instructive for the sole reason that the so-called ordinary people in the Western and Soviet camps gained nothing almost from the power jousts of the big powers involved. It is hoped that BRICS would grow steadily but not at the cost of democratic development.

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Familian Night of Elegance …

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The UK branch of the Past Pupils Association of Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya went into action last month with their third grand event … ‘Familian Night of Elegance.’ And, according to reports coming my way, it was nothing short of a spectacular success.

This dazzling evening brought together over 350 guests who came to celebrate sisterhood, tradition, and the deep-rooted bonds shared by Familians around the world.

Describing the event to us, Inoka De Sliva, who was very much a part of the scene, said:

Inoka De Silva: With one of the exciting prizes – air ticket to Canada and back to the UK

“The highlight of the night was the performance by the legendary Corrine Almeida, specially flown in from Sri Lanka. Her soulful voice lit up the room, creating unforgettable memories for all who attended. She was backed by the sensational UK-based band Frontline, whose energy and musical excellence kept the crowd on their feet throughout the evening.”

Corrine
Almeida:
Created
unforgettable
memories

Inoka, who now resides in the UK, went on to say that the hosting duties were flawlessly handled by the ever popular DJ and compere Vasi Sachi, who brought his trademark style and charisma to the stage, while his curated DJ sets, during the breaks, added fun and a modern vibe to the atmosphere.

Mrs. Rajika Jesuthasan: President of the UK
branch of the Past Pupils Association of
Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya
(Pix by Mishtré Photography’s Trevon Simon

The event also featured stunning dance performances that captivated the audience and elevated the celebration with vibrant cultural flair and energy.

One of the most appreciated gestures of the evening was the beautiful satin saree given to every lady upon arrival … a thoughtful and elegant gift that made all feel special.

Guests were also treated to an impressive raffle draw with 20 fantastic prizes, including air tickets.

The Past Pupils Association of Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya, UK branch, was founded by Mrs. Rajika Jesuthasan née Rajakarier four years ago, with a clear mission: to bring Familians in the UK together under one roof, and to give back to their beloved alma mater.

As the curtain closed on another successful Familian celebration, guests left with hearts full, and spirits high, and already counting down the days until the next gathering.

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The perfect tone …

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We all want to have flawless skin, yet most people believe that the only way to achieve that aesthetic is by using costly skin care products.

Getting that perfect skin is not that difficult, even for the busiest of us, with the help of simple face beauty tips at home.

Well, here are some essential ways that will give you the perfect tone without having to go anywhere.

Ice Cubes to Tighten Skin:

Applying ice cubes to your skin is a fast and easy effective method that helps to reduce eye bags and pores, and makes the skin look fresh and beautiful. Using an ice cube on your face, as a remedy in the morning, helps to “revive” and prepare the skin.

*  Oil Cleansing for Skin:

Use natural oils, like coconut oil or olive oil, to cleanse your skin. Oils can clean the face thoroughly, yet moisturise its surface, for they remove dirt and excess oil without destroying the skin’s natural barriers. All one has to do is pick a specific oil, rub it softly over their face, and then wipe it off, using a warm soak (cloth soaked in warm water). It is a very simple method for cleaning the face.

* Sugar Scrub:

Mix a tablespoon of sugar with honey, or olive oil, to make a gentle scrub. Apply it in soft, circular motions, on your face and wash it off after a minute. This helps hydrate your skin by eliminating dead skin cells, which is the primary purpose of the scrub.

*  Rose Water Toner:

One natural toner that will soothe and hydrate your skin is rose water. Tightening pores, this water improves the general texture of your skin. This water may be applied gently to the face post-cleansing to provide a soothing and hydrating effect to your face.

* Aloe Vera:

It is well known that aloe vera does wonders for the skin. It will provide alleviation for the skin, because of its calming and moisturising effects. The application of aloe vera gel, in its pure form, to one’s skin is beneficial as it aids in moisturising each layer, prevents slight skin deformity, and also imparts a fresh and healthy look to the face. Before going to bed is the best time to apply aloe vera.

Water:

Staying hydrated, by drinking plenty of water (06 to 08 cups or glasses a day), helps to flush toxins and its functions in detoxification of the body, and maintenance the youthfulness of the skin in one’s appearance.

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