Unlike the financial crisis of 2008, the economic levers alone were insufficient to stimulate global economic recovery in 2022 as what had led to the current crisis was the consequences of evolving geopolitics, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Thursday at the ADB’s 55th annual meeting. “The Ukraine war on one side and the US-China rivalry, […]

By Michael Kugelman, Pakistan’s Polarization Undermines Crisis Response As world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly this week, the organization estimated that Pakistan’s catastrophic floods have now displaced nearly 8 million people. A health crisis looms: Floodwaters have triggered outbreaks of cholera, malaria, and dengue fever. Thousands of pregnant women and more than [...

For the first time in parliamentary history, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has issued a dire warning to Parliament and political parties therein over the responsibility on their part to ensure financial stability and discipline. Their failure to do so would trigger public protests again, they were told. There hadn’t been such a public […]

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev who died last Tuesday was hardly known outside the Soviet Union when JR Jayewardene made himself Sri Lanka’s President in 1978. Seven years later, on March 11, 1985, Gorbachev would be become the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He was 54 years old and was the first leader of the […]

Thursday 1st September, 2022 There is absolutely no need for aliens to take the trouble of undertaking intergalactic missions to destroy this planet. The so-called big powers vying for global dominance are already at it, and the signs are that they will succeed in their endeavour. The entire world is reeling from the war in […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando The Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) and Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) recently declared corruption as the root cause of Sri Lanka’s current political and economic crisis. The declaration was made in a statement titled, “SLID and TISL launch ‘Business Against Corruption’ Initiative” issued to the media after the two organisations […]

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s two years in office – a period of unprecedented political turmoil, uncertainty and further deterioration of Parliament – should be thoroughly examined. In fact, the UNP, with the support of the then President Maithripala Sirisena, paved the way for Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s candidature, at the 2019 presidential election, by blocking Mahinda Rajapaksa’s path […...

The World Food Programme (WFP) is seeking donor support to reach 3.4 million people in Sri Lanka with food and nutrition assistance as nearly a quarter of Sri Lanka is facing food shortages for millions.Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since independence is spinning off a “serious food crisis,” says the World Food Programme Representative and […]

by Chandre Dharmawardana, chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca. The forex crisis had forced the government to jettison its initial set of economic managers of the Central bank who looked for home-grown solutions and opposed dealing with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The President re-instated a set of managers whose ideas were more orthodox and aligned with the neo-liberal bankers […]

Calls for unity in a country torn apart by nationalism and monetary instability

By Kalinga Tudor Silva One of the important ways, the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka has directly impacted our lives is having to go through long and seeming unending queues, to access petrol, diesel, kerosene and even our dear passports. Queues have multiplied, sprung up on either side of the road and across the […]

Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka housed ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa following the recent crisis, until he was forced to flee the country entirely. That continues a trend of the city, and especially its strategic deep-sea port, being in the news for all the wrong reasons. In 2017, when Sri Lanka found itself struggling to make […]

Global un-employment set to rise