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.
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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