Preventing Suicide amongst Senior Citizens

Columns

Sep 18, 2020

Preventing Suicide amongst Senior Citizens Sri Lanka no longer tops the world ranking in suicide and that is good news. While that is a thing of the past, successfully managed through a Presidential Task Force appointed in 1997 to bring down the rate of suicide in the country, we cannot pat ourselves on the back.  No, not yet.  Not when our world ranking on suicide is at 29 out 157 countries, and still showing up ‘Red’ on the World map with approximately 14.2 deaths by ...Continued

Brexit offers more opportunities than threats

Columns

Sep 17, 2020

Oh how well I remember the sunny days and the balmy nights of Sri Lanka.  Life went on serenely in this paradise island, despite the madness of the politicians occasionally thrusting their noses into daily life. How I long for that serenity when here in the UK we have had four years of utter social and political madness, with politicians going on a policy rampage, the media writing more than its usual share of drivel whilst families and friends have become divided by the ever-present ...Continued

Not too late to Halt Destruction of Our Natural Resources

Columns

Sep 7, 2020

Allegations of misappropriation of monies running into millions of rupees, be it the bond scam, Helping Hambantota or pay-offs on projects are not uncommon in Sri Lanka.  Whether it’s aid or public funds, it has a value, both monetary and fixed. The same however is not the case when it involves natural resources, for the loss is not financial, rather, the negative impacts of such destruction will be felt for generations to come for all of humanity. This past month, two of Sri Lanka’s, nay, ...Continued

Where is the airline industry headed?

Columns

Sep 6, 2020

The world’s oldest airline The airline industry is just 100 years old. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines founded in 1919 is a claimant for the crown of the ‘oldest’, but it ceased operations for a few years in the 1940s during the Second World War. Avianca of Columbia was founded in 1919, but was originally named SCADTA. So Qantas, founded in 1920 claims the title as the ‘world’s oldest continuously-operating airline under one name’, and had planned a huge party to celebrate its centenary in November. ...Continued

There are no excuses with a super-majority?

Columns

Aug 21, 2020

There are two types of government in this world of ours; those that seek office and those that seek power.   Those that seek office, broadly speaking, put up a manifesto which outlines a programme for government and then seeks to carry out that programme, when in office, for the betterment of all the people.  There are precious few governments or political parties across the world who can say that they are purists in this form of government and sooner or later even their insecurities ...Continued

Asian aviation at a standstill

Columns

Aug 17, 2020

  Introduction Today, the world finds itself in a situation that is unprecedented in modern history. A pandemic that emerged in Asia has brought the entire world’s interconnected supply chain and trillion dollar travel industry, to a standstill.   Even countries that have employed seemingly successful strategies that resulted in the initial containment of COVID-19, have faced crippling ‘second waves’. With the relaxation of restrictions the virus has resurfaced, hitting metropolitan areas especially hard. Melbourne, Australia was forced into another ‘Level 4’ lock down recently. ...Continued

A PATHFINDER AGENDA FOR URGENT ECONOMIC ACTION FOR THE NEW...

Columns

Aug 8, 2020

Now that the parliamentary elections are concluded, the focus of the new government should shift to the serious business of fixing the economy. COVID-19 has hit Sri Lanka’s economic outlook harder than expected. A gloomy prognosis suggests a scenario of negative economic growth, high unemployment and rising foreign debt in 2020 and 2021. Revenue from tourism, remittances and foreign investment are all down. At all costs, one should guard against a pandemic induced economic crisis from turning into a crisis in the financial system which ...Continued

Is there an answer?

Columns

Aug 5, 2020

I adore Sri Lanka and I love its people, possibly with the exception of the politicians. I spent some ten years on and off working in Sri Lanka and was privileged to visit just about every corner, from Jaffna to Galle and Ampara to Colombo (I got close, but missed out on Batticaloa and Trincomalee). I experienced a stunning country and a warm and generous people. I despaired at the waste caused by the civil strife and the many lives pointlessly lost. Rather than being ...Continued

Female candidates face intense scrutiny; CMEV

Columns

Aug 4, 2020

Strick regulations and proactive removal of hate speech and misinformation could have led to the lower number of hate speech and divisive language used on social media platforms during the current election period compared to last year’s Presidential Election, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) states. “Since the last election, a number of social media platforms including Facebook have made certain changes to their policies and procedures on hate speech,” the CMEV stated in its latest report. A number of the large Facebook groups, ...Continued

‘Workforce Protection’ key to move forward- survey finds

Columns

Jul 31, 2020

The hospitality and food service sector recorded the highest economic losses in terms of revenue, foreign exchange earnings and investment as result of the Covid-19 pandemic, a survey conducted by the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) shows. The recently launched survey dubbed ‘An Initial Assessment of The Impact of Covid-19 on Employers’ further revealed that the worst hit were the small and medium scale businesses and boniness entities serving both domestic and foreign markets. “Exporters employing more than 250 employees lost all their earnings. This ...Continued

A strong Executive Presidency necessary to navigate the Post-COVID world...

Columns

Jul 28, 2020

Milinda Moragoda, former Cabinet Minister and Founder of the Pathfinder Foundation spoke about the need for Sri Lanka to be fast and agile in order to face the economic, social and international challenges of the Post-Covid environment. In a press release, he states, ‘there is no disputing the fact that the country benefited from having strong executive decision-making during the early stages of the pandemic. And as a result, many lives were saved. Disappointingly, no major political party has yet put forward a coherent governance ...Continued

Emphasising too much on Sinhala- Buddhist Nationalism is harmful to...

Columns

Jul 24, 2020

Q. What have we learnt from the Easter Sunday attacks?It seems that the threat is not completely eliminated and there are embers under the ashes. Although the security apparatus has been beefed up, is that enough? Or do we have to address the root causes of extremism and nip it in the bud? The Easter Sunday attack demonstrated to Sri Lanka and to the world that visionary, collective and decisive leadership is at the heart of addressing national security challenges. Hitherto the emphasis was for ...Continued