On the 5th of March, a long-delayed Budget was presented in Parliament by the Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera. While this delay is indicative of the major economical set backs caused by the political upheaval that took place last year on October 26th, the budget itself is a blueprint of the Government’s priority list for […]
Poverty
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Inequality and its Persistence in Jaffna – Ahilan Kadirgamar
Image: A house of a ex-female cadre in Vanni, 2016. Inequality is now one of the most internationally researched and debated social issues. Rising income inequalities between and within countries after the neo-liberal turn of the 1970s gained further attention with the global economic crisis of 2008. As inequality became a central concern of studies […]
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Sri Lankans driven to suicide by exorbitant debt repayments
Image: A protest in Kilinochchi last June against the micro-finance system. By Saman Gunadasa (28 March 2019 /WSW) 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 […]
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Recommendations made by the Treaty Bodies and Special Procedure Mandate Holders are being implemented, Sri Lanka tells UNHRC 40.
Image: The UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky in Colombo. Statement by HE Mr. A. L. A. Azeez Ambassador / Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka (28 February 2019,) after the presentation of the Report (A/HRC/40/57/Add.2) on the visit of Independent Expert to Sri Lanka from 3rd to 11th September 2018. Mr. President, […]
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Sri Lanka: Generational Challenges of Northern Reconstruction – Ahilan Kadirgamar
Image: A rusted bicycle standing idle by the Jaffna lagoon, April 2018. © S. Deshapriya. ( Daily Mirror 18.02.19) A decade after the war, the North continues to be mired in a social and economic crisis, with little light at the end of the tunnel. The liberals address this crisis by increasingly resorting to attitudinal, behavioural and […]
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Post-war development: New direction needed for north, says new study
Image: Post-war development centered on building infrastructure etc has failed. A study commissioned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka urges a fresh approach to address post-war socio-economic challenges in the north by building on its existing regional capacity and resources. Authored by an independent committee and launched yesterday at the Jaffna Public Library Auditorium, ‘Economic Development […]
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Five reasons why Sri Lanka is not a real democracy
Eranda Ginige. The real meaning of independence is the freedom we the people of this land gained from the British Empire. What we must really celebrate is the victory of democracy over monarchy. The rule of the people over the rule of kings and queens. The rule by the people over the rule by a […]
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Urgent steps needed to uplift up-country Tamil community in Sri Lanka
Image: Majority of the up country Tamils are working in Tea plantations. (c).deshapriya. Up-Country People (26) 08. The community, primarily Tamils of an oppressed caste from Southern India brought as indentured labour to work in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations (the Estate sector) by the British, has a long history of pervasive discrimination, exploitation and violence. […]
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Sri Lanka: More Poverty in Four Districts Including 3 Tamil Districts
The Districts of Mullaitivu, Moneragala, Mannar and Batticaloa had a higher rate of poverty in comparison with others, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Wimal Nanayakkara noted. The 2014 Millennium Development Goals Country Report prepared by the IPS highlighted the incidence of income poverty based on socio-economic groups revealed that the […]
