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Showing posts from December, 2011

Pri's Prize for Ignorance and Idiocy

Possibly my last blog for 2011, with this year's PPII (obscure acronyms is a hallmark of my trade but this is easily worked out)  awarded to our Ambassador in Washington shooting from the hip in response to a question he must have been asked about the latest International Crisis Group report on Sri Lanka on Women's Insecurity in the North and East. Please check his speech out here , and if you think the PPII is undeserved, please let me know!  Only just began reading the report, which comes with the biases that we have learned to associate with the International Crisis Group, but talks about the highly patriarchal nature of Tamil and Muslim societies, and the insecurities generated for women by, not just the military, but also by  the LTTE, and by society in general.   In the face of the Amabassador's vehement denials of the prevalence of sexual harrassment and rape in the Paradise Isle  an article in yesterday's Daily Mirror quotes Police spokesman SP Ajith Rohana s

No more dogs on the E01

On Boxing Day - decided to go south on the E01.  All in all a pleasant, uneventful experience, though returning in the late evening did provide a sense of  "is this really Sri Lanka?"  No dogs, just one thalagoya . Disciplined drivers - quite a number of them.  Only cause for concern were those holiday makers who seemed to have stopped for a picnic away from the hard shoulder, off the expressway on the reservations and who will have to re-enter the highway at unauthorised points without any time or space to gather speed.   For more thoughts on the expressway check out my article in the I sland of December 13. 

The Prime Minister’s call will exacerbate Horizontal Inequality in Sri Lanka

I do take Harsha de Silva's well argued, and evidence based point in yesterday's Daily Mirror opinion   t hat the Prime Minister's call to ban  wheat flour could affect certain segments of the society more than others , but I do see a need to encourage other staples other than wheat flour, both from a nutritional and food security angle.  The long term goal of the Prime Minister's initiative could be positive even though the method employed is rather ham fisted.  (This is the same with the breaking up of illegal constructions on the beach in Unawatuna, where in the name of protecting the environment, the environment itself is currently destroyed - see http://indi.ca/2011/12/the-unawatuna-demolition-first-hand/)  Wonder how many readers remember how wheat flour crept into and lodged itself firmly into our diet.  There was the PL480 grant, an outcome of the US Marshall Plan; there was the Prima Factory built in the East; there were the efforts of Unilever in training a

Photo essay - mobile phone use in Sierra Leone

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Roadside Vendor in Makeni Duncan Green's very interesting blog  - Mobile Phones and Farmers - what are the benefits?     with what looked like a very contrived photo of two Maasai men in full regalia checking their mobile phones, one lounging on a plastic chair! inspired me to share these mobile related photos from Sierra Leone... In Freetown. Africell advertising Mobile phone servicing in Kabala Mobile phone user in Freetown

Hobnobbing with the great and the good

For the second time in a month!  First in Berlin, at the BMZ 50 th Anniversary celebrations (BMZ is the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) ,  that included a conference entitled  Minds for Change- Future Forum where I had the opportunity to hear Professor Muhammed Yunus, Nobel Laureate and the founder of Grameen Bank, among other things.  And again yesterday, at the Galle Face Hotel Grand Ballroom, where the South Asia Policy and Research Institute (SAPRI) , a brainchild of Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunga, had its first inaugural event  - the Role of the Corporate Sector and Non-Governmental  Agencies in Poverty Alleviation, where Professor Yunus was once again a keynote speaker.  It’s interesting that Bangladesh has produced  two greats in micro finance – Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC, and Muhammed Yunus, the founder of Grameen .   The former was knighted by the Queen for his contribution to mankind, and the latt