Category: Watch Tower
Opinion: Commonwealth roundtable to kickoff ambitious ‘Agenda for Growth’
By Patricia Scotland, Commonwealth Secretary-General This week, Commonwealth Trade and Investment ministers will meet for the first time in London at Marlborough House, the Commonwealth’s headquarters. The two-day meeting, jointly organised with the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, will kick-start an ambitious ‘Agenda for Growth’ across the Commonwealth’s 52 member countries. Our challenge is to […]
Opinion: Five customer experience trends for 2017
By Dinesh Jebamani Customer experience may have become a buzzword for marketers, but it also holds great significance for developers, and designers, as building customer-centric interfaces and apps is now a necessity. In 2016, we saw many businesses strive to make their customer experiences richer and better, and in 2017 we will see this effort […]
Opinion: Economic Priorities in Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy
By Deshal de Mel Context Sri Lanka is a small island economy with a population of 20.9 million and an economy of GDP US$ 82 billion (which is less than Apple’s 2015 gross profit of US$ 89 billion). Sustained growth of enterprise requires economies of scale, which in a country of Sri Lanka’s size, necessarily entails […]
Opinion: Should Sri Lanka Adopt Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard?
By Sujit Christy, Director, Information Security Professional Associates (iSPA) During the past few years several data breaches have made global headlines. You may remember the Target Stores data breach in 2013 that put the credit-card numbers and personal information of millions of people into the hands of cyber criminals.According to the court documents about 42 […]
Opinion: Peopleizing governance – Acute need of the hour
Return to the roots of Democracy – Athens & Sparta … By Chrishmal Warnasuriya Proposed Constitutional Reforms – “Grama Raajya”: So, almost 70 years on since our independence we are now discussing the need to return sovereign power back to the grassroots, thus it has taken us all this time to realize that bit-by-bit, the […]
Opinion: Jaffna, high literacy, low employment and lowest income. How come?
By Jekhan Aruliah Despite the Jaffna district having the second highest Literacy Rate in Sri Lanka, it does badly on employment and dismally on incomes. What’s up? I have heard it said here in Sri Lanka and abroad that unemployment is high in Jaffna because so many people don’t need to work. It is asserted […]
Opinion: Cashing in on APIs – leveraging technology to boost your business
By Sanjeewa Malalgoda, Technical Lead at WSO2 Even if you’re not an excessively tech-savvy individual, you most likely would have used a mobile application in your mobile device via an internet connection, used a Gmail client, Twitter, Facebook, or mobile apps, or purchased something online. In a tech world, you’re already reaping the benefits of […]
Opinion: Projects in conflict in Megapolis transport plan?
By Commuter Colombo’s chronic congestion is everybody’s favorite bugbear. The government’s Megapolis Plan identifies it as one of the “6 key urban development challenges” which it expects to address, to achieve the “5 fundamental goals” of economic growth and prosperity, good governance, an efficient, well-planned region, social equity and harmony and environmental sustainability. That would […]
Opinion: Is Jaffna a quaint tourist destination, or an economic powerhouse waiting for some diesel in the tank?
By Jekhan Aruliah Deloittes, one of the top global accounting firms, has for many years produced a “London Office Crane Survey”. The Deloittes website states: “The level of construction is widely used as a measure of economic activity – counting the number of cranes / construction sites across Central London is a relatively easy and […]
Opinion: Blood on your hands? Guard the safeguards
By the Commuter The politicians have a new excuse. So do the bureaucrats, and seemingly some segments of the public. Apparently, projects are getting delayed due to regulatory requirements to safeguard environment and citizens’ rights. Such as having to do a proper EIA. Or comply with equitable procedures in land acquisition. And the “smarter” ones […]
Opinion: No room should be left to ‘distort’ freight market in Sri Lanka
By Dinesh De Silva The impact of shipping surcharges including terminal handling charges have been battering the Import and Export industry from 1991 to 2004. Import Export trade knowing the effects on their respective business and keeping the end consumer in mind lobbied with every government from the inception, highlighting the unfair trading practices that […]
Opinion: IT security for your enterprise, have you got it all covered?
By Dimuthu Leelarathne, director of solutions architecture at WSO2 Cyber security and the resultant risks, if not addressed properly, was a hot topic in Colombo recently. And it’s now taken the spotlight globally as well with various discussions taking place to commemorate US cyber security month. Even a top regional study released in Singapore recently […]