Pri's blog

on http://www.agjohnson.us/ and was introduced to Bonaro Overstreet picked this from his (Allan's)  web page Stubborn Ounces (To one who doubts the worth of doing anything if you can’t do everything) You say the little efforts that I make will do no good; they will never prevail to tip the hovering scale where Justice hangs in the balance. I don’t think I ever thought they would. But I am prejudiced beyond debate in favor of my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight. Bonaro Overstreet

I am not sure what it is with the Human Development Report and the UNDP, but it must be for at least the second or third time, I was invited to talk at its launch in Colombo.  This time I was  part of a panel, moderated by Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, and with His Excellency, John Rankin, the British High Commissioner and Dr B M S Batagoda, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury as co-panellists.  Mr Subinay Nandy, UN Resident Coordinator and Resident Representative, chaired the proceedings, and the Hon G L Pieris, Minister of External Affairs made the keynote address, and stayed on as a panelist. Overall, the latest HDR seems to be a very different document to its predecessors.   A conversation on the semantics of the HDR and the etymology of the words used could be interesting.   Entitled “ The rise of the South: Human Progess in a Diverse World” and focused on the ‘dramatic rebalancing of world economic power’ the report can be read as one that highlight...