Category: Opinion
Opinion: “Banking is necessary; banks are not” – Bill Gates
By Taamara de Silva To those who say that Apple did not kill the music industry, being forced to buy the entire music album did, Amazon did not kill retailers, long queues at the local store did, AirBnb didn’t kill the hotel industry, limited availability of hotel rooms did, Uber didn’t kill the taxi business, […]
Jaffna’s Moolai Cooperative Hospital
By Jekhan Aruliah In the North-West corner of the Jaffna Peninsula close to the causeway to Karainagar Island is the small village of Moolai. It is a patch of land connecting the causeway to Karainagar with its famous Casuarina Beach, and Vaddukoddai with its famous school Jaffna College. Moolai would have been quite unknown but […]
Opinion: My new year’s wish – a final rest to “ghosts” of years past!
By Chrishmal Warnasuriya G’day from down-under: Our customary few lines that usually accompany my New Year’s wish-list this time comes from the land of Skippy the Kangaroo and boxing day MCG cricket (sans the sand-paper of course); hence the slight delay in reaching you, my apologies! Our extensive travels and the chance to look at things […]
Jaffna to New York’s Wall Street and back to Jaffna
By Jekhan Aruliah Back in the day Raj Janan’s father was a successful industrialist in Jaffna, owning at various times an aluminium factory, a knitwear factory, a private hospital and a newspaper. Janan’s childhood was disrupted by the JVP insurrection in 1971 when he was 11 years old.One consequence of which was the family was […]
Opinion: Revolution 4.0 – An intriguing case of the man and machine
By Taamara de Silva “The changes are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.” – Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum We sway on the cusp of a technological revolution that will forever reconstruct the very fabric […]
Opinion: Give Ranil a break and allow him space to put Sri Lanka back together
December 17, 2018 (LBO) – Remember where we have been. In the moments after October 26th, and the days immediately following, Sri Lanka reached all time lowpoints in its constitutional democracy.Hunkered down in his official residence (Temple Trees), illegally deposed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, his parliamentary group, and party supporters engaged in gallows humour in […]
Dr. Ravi Perumalpillai, Oxford Surgeon who became a Jaffna Farmer
By Jekhan Aruliah I write this piece as my appreciation of a Diasporan who came back to Jaffna and made a difference, sowing economic and medical seeds in the North. A friend who passed away in Colombo on 9th December 2018, and whose ashes were scattered in Jaffna four days later. I first met Ravi […]
‘s development priorities needed
What is Next for Middle-Income Asia and Sri Lanka? By Dr. Ganeshan Wignaraja* Decades of sustained economic growth have left the Asia Pacific with few lower-income countries. Absolute poverty levels are and will continue to keep falling. This is cause for celebration. But it also requires a new partnership between countries and development institutions to […]
Entrepreneurs in Jaffna? Take a look in Ammachi!
By Jekhan Aruliah Soon after I moved to Jaffna in 2015 I heard rumours of this fantastic food court run by war widows. Friends driving North from Colombo said they found it somewhere on the A9 near Killinochchi in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. It was a year before I actually got round to visiting the […]
Smuggled Cigarettes: A challenge to Govt.’s revenue and health objectives
(RIU) –Sri Lanka is one of the first middle-income countries to adopt a strong tobacco control policy. The country ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and made early progress with a ban on enclosed public place smoking, graphic health warnings, ban on sales to persons under 21 and a ban on sponsorship, supported by […]
Opinion: BOI/BOC/PB fiasco, Are board positions worth fighting for?
October 19, 2019 (LBO) – Thursday morning the Colombo business community woke up the news that President Maithripala Sirisena had given instructions for the dissolution of the boards of directors of the Board of Investment (BOI), Bank of Ceylon (BOC) and Peoples Bank. After the news broke there was much speculation on the legality of […]
Opinion: Khashoggi Killing – Imagine if Sri Lanka had done it
October 16, 2018 (LBO) – Imagine a team of 15 highly trained Sri Lankan intelligence operatives board a private plane and embark on a journey to Istanbul, one of the greatest cities in the history of the world. This team of operatives includes those well versed in interrogation, torture, forensics, and someone who is an […]