Mahinda Money
Money printing taken to its logical conclusion.
Where to start. Mahinda has printed 1000 Rupee notes with his face on them. That’s OK, he ended the war and stuff. The notes themselves, however, look like they were made on PowerPoint and have no security details besides one hologramic strip. If you look at a normal 1000 Rupee note it says ‘Thomas De La Rue’ on the back left. This is a series British currency printer. The Mahinda notes have no such mark, so they could have been printed by Roadside Johnny in Weeraketiya. But I haven’t even got to the back.
I’m glad we liberated Japan
The front is OK. I dig the Mahinda Stalinesque chic and the sun is rising in the east and north and there’s rice for everybody, OK fine. I don’t think we should mangle warp the flag so much but passable. The back however, is ridiculous. It’s a main motif is a joint forces operation to recreate Iwo Jima except with a clip art Sri Lankan flag. There’s Toppigala, aircraft flying at each other and a boat floating in the air. You can also see a backwards ’1000′, carried over from the other side. If you look closely at the soldiers they look Mongoloid, have no sense of perspective and, frankly, drawn by a third grader.
In more detail, there are none of the hard to reproduce curlicues and flourishes of the usual thousand. The numerals look like a basic PowerPoint gradient and even the vestigial hologram strip is about 1/4th the size of the original. It seems like any self-respecting counterfeiter could print this thing, especially now that it’s still in the WTF? stage of legal tender.
But I digress. I guess it works as an election handbill.
The same thoughts occured to me too. I didn’t notice the omission of “Thomas de la rue” but I noticed this note can be reproduced easily. Anyway I guess this is actually an election handbill and not real money.
After all, even Sarath Fonseka has em in his wallet. :P
I was unfortunate enough to get a handful of these, what’s really interesting is the reaction of the shopkeepers, etc who receive these notes. The most common reaction I get is what nonsense….Old Mahinda mamme might be shooting himself in the foot by allowing this monstrosity. BTW does anyone need anymore evidence that Nivaad Cabraal should be fired?
[...] (up to a point) education function. However, some stuff is a bit offensive. For example, printing shoddy money with the current President on it, right before an election. Or spending Rs. 9 million of state funds on a gymnastics display at the [...]
With this, MR is definitely the man whose portrait is printed most.
Notice the red wavy line on the blue bar at the bottom of the obverse? That’s like the copyright UPFA motif, the only thing that’s missing is the white lily… election handbill? definitely!
No amount of internet banter on obscure subjects such as this will affect the outcome. The point is that, for the first time in four decades, real development is taking place in the villages. Roads are being built, water is being given and even the internet is getting to rural areas through a somewhat unsuitable plan.
Most importantly, wealth is trickling in to the poorer sections of society; Mahinda’s constituency. For instance, there are the 200,000 or so Sri Lankan guest workers in Italy. The majority got there illegally, but Mahinda made it a point to persuade the Italian Government to give new permits to those already there. This month about 3,000 permits are to be given to Sri Lankans in Italy, who know, and whose 30,000 dependents in Sri Lanka know who was responsible for it.
Whatever the faults of the buonapartist leadership, it is making an effort to make development happen, wherever possible in a participatory manner. There are many grandiose schemes for the North, to match those in Hambantota, and like the latter some of it at least will take place.
Unless the opposition is willing to come up with something better than Mahinda is offering, it will not get very far. Certainly that Sad Ferret is not an alternative.
“an effort to make development happen, wherever possible in a participatory manner” – do u have more information on this? From what I’ve seen the projects like the Southern airport, etc are far from participatory. In fact specifically for the airport I haven’t seen much evidence of how this project is going to ‘raise the living standards of the disadvantaged people’ (to paraphrase the Daily News). Is there a demand for international flights to come into that area? Are the employees of the airports going to be sourced from the area, are there technical schools to be built in the area to supply the technical staff needed to run an airport? Those specifics do not seem to be available anywhere.
Also with regard to development and the price to be paid, refere the Sunday times article on how a lot of these projects are being paid for.
http://sundaytimes.lk/091206/News/nws_02.html
This info is to N .
Any aircraft approaching in Sri Lanka has to keep fuel to fly India as no other airport is available for diversion in an emergency. They have to reduce cargo load accordingly. This kept ticket prices high.
When raining in Western part no other air strip in West is possible. Hambantota is in Dry Zone you know. The second airport was a requirement for decades, commercially and technically.
They have already developed many tisuue cultured vegitable farms suitable for export around H’tota after years of experiments in Bata-atha farm laboratory. The President has given full support and guidance for this project past few years.
Flower producers in Bandarawela are delighted about this airport as their supply time and transport cost reduced in big way.
At the begining there will be a cargo business here than passenger traffic.
I do not know how to explain to you the benefits come to local people when a mega project like this go off in any place.
Thanks for the information. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the money to improve Ratmalana airport for ‘emergency’ purposes. Also I have never heard of Katunayake being shut down because of rain? Last I checked they build airports in areas where there are snowstorms so I can’t imagine the wet zone can have much effect.
With regard to export crops, are the returns from these enough to justify the material and environmental costs of building the airport? Wouldn’t it be better to invest this money in high speed rail to connect these areas with Katunayake to cut the transport costs down. This would have a knock on effect of improving mobility for all Sri Lankans.
I am yet to see a mega project bring tangible, long term benefits to local people that a better thought out series of smaller incremental projects couldn’t have brought. Maybe that’s why you can’t explain the benefits?
[...] idea, and certainly less offensive than the campaign handbills that pass for money [...]