Sri Lanka government takes control of the construction of shrines with purposes of domination

A Buddhist temple in Kilinochchi

(June 25, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka government has decided to ban construction of religious places of worship around the country without permission. The reason cited by the government is that these shrines cause religious conflicts.

According to new regulations, if anyone needs to build a religious places of worship in certain place, the person has to submit an application recommended by the Divisional Secretary of the relevant area to the Secretary of the Ministry of Buddhist and Religious Affairs. The Secretary has powers to appoint a committee to study the application.

Building religious places of worship was not always an innocent task everywhere on this earth throughout the world history. Everywhere, religious devotion was mingled with the ethno-religious hegemonic needs and political dominance.

The same attribute was prevalent when the colonial rulers assisted building of Christian churches and in the post colonial Sri Lanka that government assisted setting up of Buddhist temples.

The process of setting up of religious places of worship was highly invasive in the post-war period. For instance, the way the victorious Army hurriedly set up Buddhist temples and erected unaesthetic statues of Lord Buddha at every nook and corner was an insult to the preacher of one of the world's most non-violent religions.

Similar dominating acts are wide spread in areas minority religious devotees dwell predominantly too.

Vicious non-religious aims of rousing anger of the ‘opponent’ religions are behind all these acts.

Some politicians expect a free and easy ride to power on the back of the blind devotees mobilized either for or against these acts of religious dominancy.

Certain scrupulous elements make use of these things for other personal gains. For example, a famous gossip regarding a major Buddha statue in Panadura town is that a businessman put up this statue to prevent his business places that were behind it being demolished in road construction.

Some more unscrupulous individuals use this madness to squat in prime lands in major cities and towns. That is why the government had to take the control of putting up religious places of worship.


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No elections close by in Sri Lanka; regime imposes heavy taxes on food commodities to prevent bankruptcy

(June 23, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Sri Lanka government today increased the price of wheat flour in local market by imposing a new tax of Rs. 10 per kilo.

Wheat flour is considered an essential commodity and the price is controlled.

Accordingly, Sri Lanka’s major flour retailer Prima increased price of a kilo of flour by Rs. 10.50. The price of a kilo of flour sold by Prima will be raised from Rs. 63 to Rs. 73.50. The price increase is valid since midnight today.

The other flour retailer Serendib will also increase price soon, sources say.

The price of the bakery products is also to go up since today.

The government also imposed a new tax of Rs. 5 per kilo of sugar as well.

Meanwhile, the major opposition United National Party (UNP) criticized government’s moves to increase prices of essential commodities citing the escalation of prices in world market as reason, but not giving the advantage of the price de-escalations in world market to the consumers.

The UNP spokesman MP Lakshman Kiriella said that the price of sugar went down in world market. But the government imposed a tax of Rs. 5 per kilo of sugar preventing the decrease of sugar price in local market.
Sri Lanka government recently increased the price of milk powder. Before that the LP gas price was also increased. Now the government repeatedly highlights that the fuel prices will not be raised. This is a tactic to avoid the rightful bringing down of prices to match the world market prices. The government is silently imposing taxes to keep the dropping prices up.

Mahinda Rajapaksa regime is afraid of nothing. No elections close by.


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GSP Plus extension conditional, says EU; Sri Lanka to lose the free ride

(June 22, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Press Office of the Delegation of the European Union to Sri Lanka and the Maldives issuing a press release said today that the reports on the GSP Plus concessions to Sri Lanka stating that the benefit would be offered to Sri Lanka unconditionally was not true.

The European Union says that the date of 15 August on which Sri Lanka would cease to benefit from GSP+ will not be extended unconditionally.

The European Union says that it has informed the Government of Sri Lanka of its readiness to propose to the Council of the European Union to maintain GSP plus preferences for Sri Lanka for a limited additional period, subject to a clear and written commitment by the Government of Sri Lanka to undertake a well defined number of human rights related actions, within a 6 months time frame beginning in July of this year, and to provide reassurances as to the sustainability of progress registered under the GSP plus dialogue.

The European Union says, “Only if a written commitment to this effect has been made by the Government of Sri Lanka, by 1 July 2010, would the European Commission put such a proposal to the Council of the European Union, without prejudice to the final decision.”


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Setting fire to Tamil silver screen in Sri Lanka

(June 20, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) A fresh terrorist organization calling themselves ‘Democratic Tamil People’ sent warning letters to the cinemas in Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka banning screening Indian Tamil movies in the cinemas anywhere in the two Tamil speaking Provinces.

Meanwhile, an unknown group believed to belong to the same ‘Democratic Tamil People’ set fire to a screen of a cinema in Eastern town Kaththankudi. The cinema was showing an Indian Tamil movie. Kaththnkudi police is investigating the incident. Noone has been arrested yet and no one would be as normally happens in these areas.

The action of the ‘Democratic Tamil People’ is believed a tit for tat for the boycott of IIFA award ceremony held in Sri Lanka by Indian Tamil cinema artists and technical staff. Some media said that the hitherto unknown ‘Democratic Tamil People’ had told in its notice that they do not want the Indian Tamil cinema artists that boycotted the Colombo IIFA. (Apawa Epa nam Apatath Epa)

Ordinary Sri Lankans, either Tamil or Sinhala speaking were not interested in IIFA and most of the people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces were not at least aware of an IIFA. The war-victimized Tamils of the Northern and Eastern Provinces have enough woes than IIFA to worry.

The terrorists that banned screening Tamil movies in Northern and Eastern Provinces are appeasing no Tamils but the government that incurred a massive loss both financially as well as in propaganda through IIFA.

Meanwhile, several managers of cinema halls in Colombo and other areas out of the Northern and Eastern Provinces said that they have not received any warning notices. Major market for Tamil movies in Sri Lanka is still in Colombo. The managers however, were shocked with the news and expected the authorities would provide protection to them.

A major Tamil cinema complex in Colombo is belonged to the family of a Sinhala cinema director whose footage hard copy of a movie glorifying war was recently stolen by unknown persons at a Colombo studio.

Sri Lankan cinema was highly contributed by South Indian cinema before 1983. Tamil artists directed Sinhala films and many Sinhala cinema songs that are still popular were created with immense contribution of Tamil artists and technicians.

In 1983, state-sponsored Sinhala racists set fire to many cinemas and a few studios that belonged to Tamils. Thirty-year war spared few cinemas in Northern and Eastern Provinces for the Democratic Tamil People’ terrorists to ban screening films. Sri Lankan cinema industry is almost collapsed.


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Sri Lankan workers to have one more holiday; the Victory Day

(June 19, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka is to have war victory celebrations every year on May 18 and the government will have to become the day another holiday.

Sri Lanka already has 25 public holidays and the number will increase to 26, if the victory celebration day is added to the list.

The victory celebrations in massive scale cannot be conducted without proclaiming the day a holiday at least to the city where the celebrations are held. Om the other hand, the celebrations will become a propaganda loss comparing to the massive expense for the programme if people will not watch it in television. Therefore, it will become another unavoidable holiday.

Too many holidays is considered a factor discouraging the foreign direct investment to the country.

In public sector, the employees enjoy nearly one third of the years either holidays or leaves. Meanwhile many public sector employees in already overstaffed institutes idle without specific duty


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What victory are we celebrating in Sri Lanka?

(June 18, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka celebrates the war victory marked by killing of Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabakaran on May 18, 2009 a year and a month later. The victory celebrations were postponed a month ago since the floods displaced around half a million people, a large number from Colombo itself.

Yesterday an ethnic Sinhala man was arrested by police for enlarging a photo of Velupillai Prabakaran. Police intelligence officials are now interrogating him to identify may be his mindset. It seems having a photo of Prabakaran in possession a sin if not an offence in post-war Sri Lanka.

It is not a bad idea giving another holiday to Sri Lankan workers. But, the government need to tackle the issue of a large number of employees especially in the public sector idling on working days as well.  

Even an year after the war, the only change perceivable in Sri Lanka is the relative peace of being free from frequent bomb explosions. Ethnic polities are still as much divided as they were in the war time.

No person with a sense can say that the country is in the path of development about which the government boasts. No serious rapid growth of investments and growth of tourists that will be effective to achieve the goal of being Asia's Wonder.

One thing happening in Sri Lanka is the development of infrastructure with the funds raised from the open financial market at relatively higher interest rates. Massive rackets of commissions and other malpractices haunt this 'development.'

The nation is entangling in a crisis of debt day by day.

The most crucial issue of Sri Lanka at the moment is the number of terms the President can hold the post and the successor of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, either his son or one of his powerful brothers.

We, the Sri Lankans, have got up late on Wednesday and in front of the television watching the victory parade lazily sipping tea.


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Sri Lanka further into the debt crisis

(June 16, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) 'Sri Lanka government has plans to sell $275 million of dollar-denominated bonds locally this month to pay for maturing debt.

Three months ago, Sri Lanka failed to raise a targeted $100 million through a debt auction.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka will issue $175 million of two-year debt and $100 million of three-year paper, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said on its website.

Subscriptions for the so- called development bonds close on June 18.

The nation raised $92 million by selling development bonds through competitive bidding in March, and the central bank subsequently raised $8 million through placements that month.

Sri Lanka's public debt repayments and interest is amounting to 767 billion rupees this year. It is 44 percent of the overall budget expenditure of 1,780 billion rupees.

Last year government debt hit 4.1 trillion rupees. Of it, 1.8 trillion rupees was foreign debt, a 22 percent rise, according to Central Bank annual report: “The ratio of debt service to government revenue increased further to 117.5 percent from 90.5 percent.,” the report said. Total debt servicing rose by 39 percent to 825.7 billion rupees in 2009, including a huge interest payout of 309.7 billion rupees that comprised 26 percent of total expenditure.

World Bank Director for South Asia Ernesto May launching the World Bank’s South Asia Economic Update 2010 in Colombo last week noted: “South Asia has very high levels of public debt—over 60 percent of GDP for the region. As seen in Europe with markets focusing on highly indebted countries, markets will start penalising those with high debt.” He pointed out that Sri Lanka’s debt was the second highest in the region after the Maldives—increasing from 81 percent of GDP in 2008 to 86 percent in 2009.

Out of this massive debt services burden, 36.5 percent is for foreign debt. Sri Lanka should target investment led growth and minimize borrowings which could lead to a future debt crisis, former Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed said. "Don't depend too much on loans, the better thing of course is to invite foreign investors to come in and create jobs and bring in capital into the country," Mohamed told reporters at a media briefing in Colombo.

Allocations for health and education were as low as 52 and 46 billion rupees respectively—a total of 10 billion rupees less than for 2009. The budget for 2009 was itself 12 billion rupees lower than the amount for 2008. The combined allocation for health and education this year is less than half of defence expenditure in 2010.

The government promised an IMF team in May that it would considerably reduce recurrent spending. It intends to cut government subsidies to the Ceylon Electricity Board, Petroleum Corporation, Central Transport Board, railways and postal services. Total losses in these sectors amount to 49 billion rupees and can only be reduced by axing jobs, cutting wages and increasing prices.

Meanwhile, the defence budget at 202 billion rupees ($US1.8 billion) or 21 percent of the total expenditure of 974 billion rupees allocated to government ministries. At a convention of public sector trade unions that are under Trade Union Confederation last week, Joseph Stalin Fernando, the national organizer of the trade union coalition argued that the government is increasing defense expenditure to suppress the workers' struggles.

However, the trade unions failed to gather the expected number of participants to the convention and some trade union leaders expressed wonder why the workers were so unresponsive in a time the government is breaking the promise of Rs. 2500 per month salary hike for public servants.

(Sources: World Socialist Website, Lanka Business Online)


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