According to DBS Jeyaraj, the latest LTTE meet-up had less than 3,000 attendees, down from 35k in 2004 (and more in protests at the end of war). The is partly due to the declining popularity of violent, distant separatism, and also divisions within the LTTE. Rather oddly, one of the splits seems to be that the Vinayagam doesn’t want to hold a Pongu Thamil until Prabhakaran returns. Presumably with Jimmy Hoffa and the 12th Imam.

What do wealthy Sri Lankans spend on? Foreign cars, iPhones, imported goods and travel. I call it Ghettonomics. Rappers representing the hood get out and spend all their money on luxury items, sold by already wealthy people. It’s not like Bentleys are made in Brooklyn. Hence, the hood remains poor. I think this is one reason why income inequality hurts developing countries.

Income does not guarantee a decent life. The answer is in that sentence itself. Decent is a relative term, relative to the people around you. While there’s no particular relation between income and say, health, internationally, there is a pretty clear relation within countries. That is, inequality does matter.

Kumar Pereira gave a nice interview to the Sunday Times this weekend. He ‘lost’ in MasterChef, but his illustrated cookbook has been picked up by a publisher. Apparently he has a recipe for some sort of kiribath sushi. In last week’s contest to cook for the Dalai Lama, Dani won with a Sri Lankan ‘thali’, with a Sri Lankan on the panel (Shanaka Fernando).

If you like my writing and would like to see it brutalized by bad layout, you can read my columns in print. I’m in The Sunday Leader and now The Nation. This week I’m talking about Sri Lanka Unites in The Leader and Sri Lanka’s Electricity Crisis in The Nation.

What assets are getting nationalized in Sri Lanka? According to Lakbima News (via Jeyaraj), it’s Hotel Developers (Lanka) PLC, the owning company of Colombo Hilton. That company was run pretty dubiously, I guess, but there are also properties and assets being taken from sugar, tractor, and apparel companies galore. 37 institutions in all, including private ones.

Since Occupy Wall Street, protests have spread all over the world. The basic gripe is social and economic inequality. In Colombo, people attempted an occupy protest, which didn’t really pan out. Why? Well they weren’t part of that bigger movement. They were actually part of an almost counter movement called Occupy Yourself. Rather than calling for more access to the system, they were calling for checking out entirely.

An elephant has gone on rampage in Kekirawa (near Dambulla), damaging like 50 vehicles and temporarily closing the road. While he has not released a statement, humans have been steadily encroaching on elephant land for years. It could also be personal. While he has not released a statement, humans have been steadily encroaching on elephant land for years. It could also be personal. While elephants ‘rampage’ through villages with some frequency, it’s rare for them to trash vehicles. 50 vehicles, I must say, is pretty impressive, as far as rampages go.

I was in university when Axe body spray came out. I think they gave it away at some party. We kept it on a table and sprayed it to annoy each other. I always thought it smelled like ass. I just read an interesting article about their marketing strategy, which seems to be a bit more sophisticated than sex sells. It may, however, have oversold itself.

I was like, the 4,626,728,819th person alive on earth. According to this great infographic from the BBC. I’m actually quite amazed that like 2.5 billion people have arrived since then. The place I live now, Sri Lanka, has about 44 births per day, 15 deaths and 6 people migrate. I can expect to live to about 71.2 years old, attaining my maximum baila dancing skill after 50.