Charitha Ratwatte‘Divi Neguma’ Dept: Development catalyst, dependency creator or a white elephant?
The Government has gazetted a Bill, on 27 July 2012, to set up a Divi Neguma Department, which will take over the existing Samurdhi Authority, the Southern Development Authority and the Udarata Development Authority (successor to the Kandyan Peasantry Commission).
Entrepreneur and the profit motive
The first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote 75 years ago: “It would be absurd to say that the profit motive does not appeal to the average Indian, but it is nevertheless true that there is no such admiration for it in India as there is in the west. The possessor of money may be envied but he is not particularly respected or admired. Respect and admiration still go… to those who sacrifice themselves… for the public good.”
Regulation of microfinance institutions
A recent briefing for the press on a recent cabinet meeting and the decisions taken referred to the introduction of legislation to regulate microfinance institutions to ensure financial stability in that sector.
The battle at the Ford at Wagolla
A historic battle took place in the Kande Uda Rata Rajadhaniya, in the course of one of the many invasions by the Western colonial powers who once occupied what was known as the Maritime Provinces of Lanka, at the site of the ford at Wagolla village, a crossing point of the Mahaweli river on one of the routes from Senkadagala Kande Mahanuwara to Hanguranketha and Hewaheta.
The ability to save
Protecting the small depositor
One reason for poor communities the world over responding to the service facility provided by Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) to take in the small amounts of savings the poor generate on a daily or weekly basis is the security offered by the cash being securely looked after at a remote location.
Posterior Liqueurs
The ‘Yes-Man’ Parasite, a.k.a. HMV
The dictionary definition of a ‘pun’: ‘the clever or humorous use of a word that has more than one meaning, or words that have different meanings but sound the same’. The second word of the headline of today’s column is not exactly a pun, but somewhat akin to one, as it is a play of a similar sounding activity which can be done with the human or animal tongue, spelt differently.
Great games with neighbours and friends
Playing off India against China and vice versa
‘The Great Game’ was the name given to a diplomatic and military tussle between the British and Russian empires during the time of the British Raj in India for influence over what constitutes today’s central Asian states.
Dairy: The mirage of self-sufficiency
Sri Lanka’s dependence on imported milk is a phenomenon that evolved during the time frame of my lifetime. I well remember as a child, a man used to bring a cow and its small calf to our house – we lived in a Government quarters bungalow in Colombo – and milk the cow, in the presence of my mother, and give her the fresh milk in containers provided by her, for the family’s daily consumption.
Globalisation: The challenges
An important feature of the recent Sri Lanka Economic Summit, which both the Guest Speaker Gurcharan Das, Author, Columnist and Management Consultant and Keynote Speaker Dr. Kalpana Kochar, Chief Economist – South Asia of the World Bank, referred to were the opportunities presented to Sri Lanka by the ongoing process of globalisation and particularly the economic resurgence of China and India
Governance
Four examples; two bad and two good
The website of the London Economist newspaper has a reference to an official of a certain country referring to a journalist in words similar to what follows – I have substituted words which would be appropriate to an officer and a gentleman addressing a lady, for what was actually allegedly used, as the original is unprintable.
He described her as: ‘An excreta consuming, fornicating porcine’.
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