Recent Comments
Anti-Social Marketing (Nibras Bawa) (19)
David Blacker: Who cares, man? you’re still moaning on about a fight you lost months ago. It’s like the kid who gets his ass kicked then talk big later. You lost, you ran away like a whiney ponneya, and now you’re actually...
sharanga: A more accurate description would be I had my penis up your because you were refusing to answer a simple question. Now the fact that you thought I was not just Heshan, but also meechum just shows that you are stupid, and therefore your...
David Blacker: Come, come, you ran away from that debate with tail tucked in your panties. Too late late to be a hero now, man. Why don’t you make up a few more “facts 221;? As for you being Heshan, etc, well, can you blame me? All...
Chi Chi Hits The Scene, And A Referee (5)
sack: Indiz post about Gotabhaya had much more comments. http://indi.ca/ 2012/07/gotas-p uppy-hate/
Liberal One: He he, the article with the least number of comments out of Indi’s recent ones. Looks like no body wants to put their lives at risk by commenting on the wrong article. I’m off as well.
max: Every family should have a Fredo
The Arrest Of Azath Salley (21)
tastyjujubes: Well Nafi, why are you worried about the Jews and Israel and the US and western culture? Simple fact is that a lot of people do not want Sri Lanka to be an Islamic country or another Saudi Arabia. Sri Lanka has a long tradition of...
sharanga: //Azath Salley by any means if he had said that in India he should get punished by law// Nonsense. Azath Salley was perfectly within his rights to say what he said. Freedom of Speech means you have the freedom to say anything you may...
sharanga: @Nafi, My problem is that I don’t like religious fanatics. That is why I don’t like Bodu Bala Sena either (plus the fact they are stupid). I believe it is true if I said the Muslims are more religious than the Buddhists or...
Rally For Unity (Success) (24)
sharanga: And that’s what I’m saying. These protests should be directed against the government. They need to point their fingers at the government and get it to stop supporting these extremist groups. By the way, Azad Sali has been arrested under...
|
|
 I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and Kottu but also YAMU) but also in that the magazine takes a bit of a critical stance. It’s worth reading the editorial (which I can only find in print) where they describe that only a few women are included and that all of the 40 are from middle to upper middle class backgrounds.
|
 I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the Daily Mirror Life section, which is well worth a read. In other news, he also recently slapped a referee around in full public view at a rugby match. At least it seems that his elder brother restrained him.
|
 In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from Kottu. He also published some plagiarized stuff on Groundviews. He flamed out a bit more then disappeared. Until now. Now he’s back hosting a rather expensive social media event in Colombo, which is a bit ironic, seeing as he was known for being the most anti-social person the blogosphere had seen at the time.
|
 The chutzpah of this government knows no bounds. Every government since Independence has had to balance placating Sinhala nationalists (AKA racists) while at the same time actually running a sensible, inclusive nation that doesn’t send minority citizens, capital and foreign investment fleeing. Basically, they’ve had to pay lip service to nationalists while at the same time trying to run an actual nation. Every government has also generally failed, SWRD being killed by a nationalist monk and everyone after almost losing the country to various rebellions. In that context Mahinda is actually doing a better job by virtue of not being dead and not losing control of the country. But he’s still not doing a good job.
|
|
|
Gone are the days we can trust the Central Bank. I am sure there has been some jugglary going on. We just can’t FELL a growth of 8%, especially the lower middle class and working class. Even the middle class is stuck with no pay increases in the private sector.
Also this theory that the “30 year war” was the reason we are not developing is complete bullshit. I can remember 10 years ago, when the Hela Urumaya was formed, one of it’s senior members and advisers Neville Karunatileka, no less than the former governor of the Central Bank Neville Karunatileka, on a live debate on TNL,
showed with facts and figures that the war in the north and east has NO EFFECT on the overall economy.
I don’t think you have to or can trust the central bank. GDP numbers are audited by places like ADB, IMF & World Bank. Just wait for thier end of the year review
I love the infographic, but like the commentators above I don’t buy into the Central Bank’s figures. Also, when you take a pretty small economy it’s not very instructive to compare growth rates with massively larger economies, only with comparable economies.
Interestingly, we grew at about 5-6% during the most part of the war. We’d naturally grow at about 7% now provided the govt doesnt interfere with its stupidity and short sightedness in policies.
I know the business editor of an English daily and according to him no, you just can’t trust the Central Bank. They’ll produce info to fool the masses and unsuspecting suckers into investing in what is basically a piggy bank for one particular family.
Thanks for the share Indi. The surveys and data to come up with the National Accounts are done by the Department of Census and Statistics, not the Central Bank. Most (if not all) international watchdogs/economic entities do accept Sri Lanka’s state GDP figures without too much question. Trust issues have arisen with the state economic apparatus in recent times over the credibility of inflation numbers and currency manipulation. Which are easier to fake in the short term. But there is a justifiable lack of confidence with the Central Bank, and they certianly deserve it.
That being said GDP itself is a notoriously untrustworthy metric when it comes to judging ‘growth’ or economic prosperity. It was developed during the great depression to find an easy way to aggregate and measure an economy. Many new theories have popped up trying to advacate a different notion of ‘economic growth’. None of them have taken off though. the Gross National Happiness index is one such attempt, used with success in Bhutan.
Good stuff