Economic Strategy Book Launch (Tha Tha’s)
Next Monday my father is launching his book Apata Galapena Arthika Kremaveda*, on economic strategy for Sri Lanka. It’s in Sinhala and it covers economic strategies appropriate for Sri Lanka, which is a rough translation. He wrote it with C.J. Amaratunga, a senior journalist. It should be insightful and one hopes policy-makers are into, like, policy.
The book launch is on the 6th of August 4 PM at BCIS. The title translates as Economic strategies appropriate for us. It has seven chapters. The intro is about the ills of uninformed policy. Next comes transport (roads and railway), water (irrigation and drinking water), electricity (including discussion of coal and nuclear options), ICTs (incl job creation), and education (primary to tertiary). Finally comes a chapter on the importance of managing international economic relations, especially that with India. The book is dedicated to Seeya.
My co author CJ Amaratunga is a senior journalist, who currently writes possibly the most read political column in Sri Lanka, Guruda Vigrahaya in Lankadeepa. He is, like me, one who has refused to follow his profession. He holds an engineering degree from U of Moratuwa but has been a journalist since 1985. He is the Editor of the regional editions of Irida Lankadeepa.
My dad is like me except with depth, ie, much better informed and researched. He’s also had a lot of experience in and out of government, so I daresay it’ll be a good read. If anyone is interested, please come to the book launch at 4 PM, it’s at the Bandaranaike Center For International Studies, which is in the BMICH complex, to the left of the main building as you’re coming in. I’ve posted the event details on YAMU.
Also, regarding the cover, it’s the first Sinhala language Wordle, or word cloud. The software to create it in the Sinhala language was made by Pahan Sarathchandra, a young software developer. I think they’re trying to release it, but it certainly makes for an interesting cover which you can actually judge the book by.
*Why did I not put this in unicode? By accident my blog is encoded in some Swedish language format and doesn’t have the unicode. I will fix this.
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 
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 
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 
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.
Very cool. Do we get a translation in the future? I’d love to read it.
Best wishes to your father on the book launch. Sounds like an interesting read. I hope to ask a relative to get a copy and send it to me once it’s launched. I am particularly curious as to why there isn’t a chapter on agriculture – isn’t this a key economic area for Sri Lanka?
Agriculture is 12% of the economy. Services is over 50%.
But we picked the topics not on the basis of such indicators. We decided to give priority to the broadly defined infrastructure services that one could not self-supply, which required government action. So, for example in the water chapter, we discuss irrigation services, both in terms of maintenance and in terms of balancing against other uses such as electricity, drinking water, seaplane landing facilities, etc. Irrigation is a service a farmer cannot self-supply.
Issues pertaining to agriculture come up, for example the failure of the government to provide law and order in rural areas and the resulting effects on investment decisions by smallholders.
Magey aarthikayata galappena prakashanayak nam miladee ragena kiyawami.
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