Student loans are crippling Americans. Education in the US is expensive because education is privatized, but that is not to say that community colleges with cheaper education do not exist. But the better jobs and opportunities go to students from more expensive universities because the perception is that these universities are better. Students will do almost anything to get ...
Ibn Batuta Leaving Tangier by Burt Silverman ..think about the fact that i’m just as ‘Sri Lankan’ as you. Probably even more so, depending on the definition. The Muslims of Sri Lanka hark back to early Arab traders, everyone knows that, but the story is actually much more complex and ...
“Hanging by my fingers and toes, looking for purchase on a near vertical surface of rock. Jerry is behind me, KP below him, then Indi and a fall of a few thousand feet after that” Probably would be a good tweet to describe this moment, if i’m in a position to tweet, which i’m not. Lakegala is in the ...
With the perceived failure of its leadership to appropriately address its problems, there is an increasing vacuum for a movement that truly incorporates the Muslim community from the grassroots-up into collective decision making, the recently established Interim Shura Council is attempting to do just that. Pic: Puttlam Grand Mosque Sri Lanka’s Muslim community suffers from both internal and external issues. ...
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 ...
Tuktuk wisdom this Vesak? No thanks. Pic by Jerry How many hundreds of millions were spent on the Vesak celebrations this year? I know i sound like a wet blanket. Why can’t I just chillax and enjoy the party? Incidentally, do Sri Lankans party to forget everything else, or do we forget everything else when we party? That question ...
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 ...
Azath Salley was arrested yesterday. One of the allegations made against him is making comments that incite religious hatred. Azath Salley in recent months has built a reputation of of sorts of being pretty much the only Muslim politician with the courage to go up against the BBS in public. This affidavit penned by the General Secretary and Leader of ...
In this Daily News article penned by one Shenali Waduge on Muslims in Sri Lanka and why Buddhists should be scared of their ‘encroachment’, she displays a high level of confusion, connecting disparate events in the Muslim world (fabricating where it suits her), taking them out of context and then applying them to Sri Lanka. Particularly absurd is her ...
what it should have looked like So my car wouldn’t start. again. And this time there was no Indi, Roel, Salmaan and Viyan to push it, only a tired old security guard who though he gave his 100 percent failed to ignite my engine, bless him. Some lazy ass who walked by suggested i ...
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 ...
The Puttalam Grand Mosque was conceptualized by Muslims, engineered by a Burgher, designed by a Sinhalese and built by Tamils. Its founders were pretty keen to go out of their way to bring in some symbolic multi-ethnicity in what is usually considered to be a Muslim only place. The mosque was built in 1934 and [...]
Is already underway. As we speak hundreds upon hundreds of unsuspecting Sinhala shoppers are being innocently handed colorfully wrapped pieces of candy. Pieces of candy which, when consumed, will abruptly abort the fetuses of any Sinhala women unfortunate enough to be pregnant at the time and destroy the kidneys of any Sinhala kids bold enough to try it. And why is No ...
Sri Lanka’s poverty line uses somewhat of an outdated system to calculate poverty. But of course, to be fair, the whole world uses an outdated system to calculate poverty. I was at a forum organized by the Center for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) yesterday and a few interesting things were voiced. Poverty The Department of Census and Statistics takes a value ...
Sri Lanka’s GDP increased by 7.9% in the first quarter of 2012. But what does this mean exactly? I made the following infographic to explain. Click to see a larger and clearer image. I used data from The Department of Census and Statistics, The World Bank and Trading Economics.
Current excess can lead to future stress. Here, let me break it down for you In Sri Lanka interest rates have been low for a long time. When interest rates are low people spend rather than save. But when they stay low for a long time people will begin to expect them to go up again and well, how many ...
Recently a Russian was caught at the border trying to smuggle in 200 pounds of not cocaine, not heroin, but butter into Norway. The stash is worth in excess of five thousand dollars In a bizarre example of external factors affecting consumer demand, Norwegians have eaten up the entire butter supply in the country. Norway doesn’t belong to the ...
Tuk tuks, even metre tuks, are ridiculously overpriced. Just do the math. A metre tuk costs Rs. 30 a kilometer. Your average car covers the distance in about ten. Regular tuk tuks will fleece you for even higher amounts. Tuk tuk fares, like a lot of similar services, have not reached their optimum pricing. They [...]
Nizam at Pottuvil Point Arugam Bay is a happy town. Or should I say a hippy town? Surfers roam the streets and frequent small hotels run by locals. Everyone knows everyone else. Arugam Bay has remained largely unnoticed throughout the war. Now though, commercialization has begun to erode the idyllic ...
Another crime scene, another time and place At around nine last Thursday I was sitting on the balcony of my friend’s suite at the Cinnamon Lakeside, the hotel’s floating restaurant was doing the rounds on the Beira lake; it’s basket-like structure lit up with lights, competing with the neon lamps of the new Bally’s casino across the water. Colombo seems ...
