Image from the BBC: Hajj 2011 It’s Hajj season again. From all over Sri Lanka, a few thousand fortunate Muslims have already left to perform the actual pilgrimage, a once in a lifetime obligation for those who can afford it, to join hundreds of thousands more in Mecca. The Hajj is the pilgrimage of Abraham and has been followed ...
What Growth is Good Growth? Standard Chartered’s 2010 report titled ‘The 7% Club’, examined how merging nations can achieve sustained 7% growth levels. Any economy growing at 7% a year on average stands to double its economy in roughly ten years. And if your domestic economic mix is good enough to hit 7% on a sustained basis, you’re on the path ...
Water Is Life is carrying out a play on a twitter hashtag that is usually considered to be satirical. #firstworldproblems tweets are usually self effacing guilty admissions of how people have it so good but they still complain. Water is Life however have voted to take it seriously. I don’t whether on purpose or not. Their campaign features poor kids complaining ...
Nice guy Pakistan fan at Pallekale Halaal Sri Lanka tweeted the below this morning. The ACJU already sent what i think is a mass SMS via dialog saying the same. Muslims are requested to avoid deliberate support/overjoy in today’s match arousing the feeling of hatred among our Sri Lankan brothers-ACJU — HALAAL Sri Lanka (@HalaalSL) October 4, 2012 Interesting. I ...
I met Nathan on a bus bound for Hatton. Nathan lives in a shop at pettah. A hotel. He’s a career hotel worker. Having worked in Nawalapitiya. He now juggles three jobs in pettah in order to raise his kids of which he has four. He is also a karate master. Owns five cows. And farms a small patch ...
take it easy and you’ll do fine: Upali Upali is what industry insiders call a ‘professional tuk tuk driver’. He bought his first tuk tuk 27 years ago. Currently driving a four stroke TVS, he claims that it is better than its Bajaj equivalent. The TVS is the latest of 8 three wheelers he has owned throughout his career. He gets ...
The Central Bank just released the first six months of trade data for Sri Lanka. Trade is an important component of the Balance of Payments (BOP). Which computes the sum of a countries transactions with the rest of the world. Sri Lanka’s BOP is perpetually in the red. In 2011, massive imports in consumer durables and investment goods made ...
Yesterday i was ‘dragged to court’. Must to the chagrin of my family. ‘Why did you get involved?’ ‘you should have just walked away’, now you’re going to have to waste half your life there and you’re never going to be able to even leave the country, was the general surmise. It was about this. Some three months ago ...
From the impressive @13thWitness’ Instagram feed I stayed away, i really did. I was derisive of the ‘hipster’ image associated with it . I didn’t want to be identified as one. Why would i use my perfectly good camera to take perfectly good pictures and then make them look like they were shot with my uncle’s old Pentax and ...
Sci-fi as a genre is easily confused with high budgets and futuristic gadgematics. But sci fi is really more about ideas and concepts. And even about philosophy and ethics. Where would Rendezvous with Rama be without the sense of mystery it invokes into the biosphere of the great unknown universe? Where would the Culture series be if it wasn’t ...
News The S&P 500 rose 0.7% on positive comments from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve while Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) dropped 1.8% as Greece’s prime minister asked for a two-year reprieve from cutting government spending. MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) slid 0.4% on signs of slow growth in the two largest economies in the world and concern over the Euro zone. Brent crude fell 12 cents after ...
Are a thorny topic. officially the unemployment rate is pretty low. But unofficially people are just not happy with their jobs, or employers are not really happy with the type of people who work for them. This is underemployment, or mal-employment and im not sure the latter qualifies as a proper economic term. Add to this, there are the ...
(Syndicated with permission from Frontier Research) News The S&P 500 index rose by 0.9% for the week on optimistic expectations from Europe while the European Stoxx 600 climbed 0.6% to a 13 month high. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index again saw a slight rise (0.2%) based on positive comments from the Chinese premier and expectations of a US recovery. Brent crude pared larger weekly gains and advanced only 75 ...
The plight of the Rohingya has been exacerbating while the world was caught up with the Olympics. Scores have already died gruesome deaths and tens of thousands have been internally displaced. Aan Sun Suu Kyi has been silent, contributing to the violence by actually saying that she ‘doesn’t know’ if the Rohingya are Burmese, and continues a trip around ...
(Syndicated with permission from Frontier Research) News Asia’s MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 3% for the week as better US economic data and Chinese stimulus hopes spurred investor confidence, the S&P 500 also rose slightly by 1.1% on similar hopes. The European Stoxx 600 increased by 1.6% on better than expected corporate earnings and stimulus hopes for the region. Meanwhile, geopolitical concerns and North Sea ...
(Frontier Research does this nifty summary as a part of its overall range of news products, usually for private clients. They scour through the myriad goings on in the global economy so you don’t have to, and bring out what’s relevant from a Sri Lankan non-expert’s perspective. Pretty useful if you’re generally into economics, or just want to get a feel ...
Markets showed mixed sentiments despite a late rally sparked by optimistic statements from European leaders. Underlying issues such as drought, inflation and economic growth are becoming more of a concern for emerging economies. (Frontier Research does this nifty summary as a part of its overall range of news products, usually for private clients. They scour through the myriad goings on in ...
Quite enjoyed Vedi, which i had the pleasure of watching on a recent bus ride to Jaffna. Tamil movies capture the imaginations of millions, and completely command the attitudes of a good chunk of them. A certain segment of Tamil movie fans will swear by their favorite movie stars. To them this shit is real. And this is evidenced by ...
Last week global markets rallied on stimulus hopes and better than expected corporate earnings, while geopolitical tensions drove up crude oil. On that note, speculation on what will happen to Sri Lanka should it discover commercially viable oil reserves has already begun. (Frontier Research does this nifty summary as a part of its overall range of news products, usually for private ...
Frontier Research does this nifty summary as a part of its overall range of news products, usually for private clients. They scour through the myriad goings on in the global economy so you don’t have to, and bring out what’s relevant from a Sri Lankan non-expert’s perspective. Pretty useful if you’re generally into economics, or just want to get a feel ...
