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Wednesday, 3 October 2012

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Development and West’s discontents

If the developing world is to make a substantial impression on international opinion, it should seize this moment when its prospects of material prosperity are the brightest in decades. The irony is that while the West is struggling through a ‘Winter of Discontent’, in terms of economic fortunes, considerable parts of the developing world are experiencing robust growth and prosperity. East Asia today is a case in point.

The tables are turned in an economic sense globally and it should be a matter for puzzlement that the West’s prescriptions for economic advancement are currently proving very questionable. Such contradictions were not lost on External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris, who, in the course of his address to the UN General Assembly on Monday, said with characteristic eloquence that it is ‘paradoxical that it is the same countries where the financial crisis originated, which now seek to provide policy prescriptions to others.’

Today, not only the Western world’s prescriptions for economic recovery but their paradigms for sustainable growth are proving to be questionable. If some of the West’s economies are crumbling like a pack of cards, how could the developing countries in particular regard their development paradigms as sacrosanct? This is a prime and challenging issue the world needs to probe.

This is an intellectual challenge of the highest importance and no less a global forum than the UN General Assembly needs to take it up. Whereas the UN Security Council does not adequately represent the current international balance of forces, since power continues to be weighted in this body towards the powers that emerged predominant at the Second World War, the UN General Assembly, more or less, does. By taking up the issue of equitable growth and spelling out how this aim could be arrived at, the UNGS could prove its total effectiveness.

Besides, it could help rally round it the bulk of international opinion because it has within its fold the entirety of the UN’s 193 countries. Therefore, what is considered the developing world needs to seize this moment and be the determining and driving force behind the world’s development debate and agenda. Hitherto, this was entirely in the hands of the West and it should be plain to see that the so-called development models laid down by the West have failed badly. Besides, the West has failed in fending for itself and the inference needs to be drawn that it cannot arrogate to itself the role of guide on these questions of the first importance.

In other words, the developing countries need to emerge as intellectual leaders and the moment could not be riper for this undertaking than now when the West’s approaches to development have visibly failed. In view of the economic doldrums in which the West is finding itself, one could very well tell the West: ‘Physician Heal Thyself.’

Accordingly, the Lankan External Affairs Minister did right during his address to the UNGS to focus strongly on Sri Lanka’s economic performance over the past three years in particular. As could be seen, Sri Lanka has sailed safely through many an economic storm and proved its economic resilience. Not only has the country as a whole proved economically vibrant, the Jaffna district has emerged a front-runner in national economic growth.

Sri Lanka should take the initiative in explaining to the world how it has emerged victorious. It should not only share this experience with the rest of the developing world, but with the West too. In other words, it must showcase its development strategy. Clearly, Sri Lanka emerged robust because it ended terror and created peaceful conditions which made growth possible. Besides, and equally crucially, it has seen the need to include to the extent possible, people in the decision-making process. That is, democracy has gone hand-in-hand with development.

ICT should not sow hatred and intolerance - President at GSR 12

Strategists and regulators in telecommunications and ICT should think of ways to prevent this great technology being used to sow hatred and examine how to avoid the advances of instant communication being the source and cause of violence against faiths, cultures and traditions that need respect and protection,

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The Human Dimension

Children’s Day - can we do something more?

Yesterday was the World Children’s Day - my five year old daughter came home from school, happy that she got to participate in activities related to World Children’s Day. From media to institutions, everyone remembered that yesterday indeed was an important day.

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Small tanks and food security in ancient SL

Small village tanks laid the foundation for an agrarian society based on a ‘one-tank one village’ ecological pattern in the initial stages of state formation in Sri Lanka. Topographical surveyors of the latter part of the nineteenth century have observed that there was one small village reservoir in each square mile in the South-Eastern part of the island.

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