AN ISLAND IN TROUBLED WATERS

AN ISLAND IN TROUBLED WATERS

After the gory and heartwrenching war bulletins it was equally unsettling to see photographs of the beautiful island nation, much closer home, in flames - Sri Lanka...

The President and Prime Minister’s residences being torched by protestors. Journalists in the line of duty being robbed and assaulted. Rising civilian casualties, curfew and shoot-at-sight orders imposed to quell the unrest...

Ever since independence, Sri Lanka (Ceylon from 1948 till 1972) relied on agricultural exports mainly tea, spices and rubber for her foreign reserves, which unfortunately has not been really impressive. Consumption exceeded production. Tourism, the other important industry, took a massive hit after the tragic loss of lives post the April 2019 bomb blasts across churches and luxury hotels, scaring away all foreign tourists...

To be true to his electoral promises in 2019, the President drastically cut tax rates; but with the economic growth unable to rise to the occasion, the governmental funds soon dried up...

To top it all, the pandemic that hit the world in 2020 squeezed her economy all the more. Plagued with inadequate production and scarce foreign reserves for import, citizens turned to agriculture to make a living...

However in April 2021, the government's decision to aspire to be the world's first nation to go organic by banning chemical fertilizer imports was probably a serious fib. Sri Lanka was cash-strapped...

With no fertilizers, the country’s farm output suddenly dropped. Supplies of rice, tea, rubber, spices, and other essential items crashed leading to a massive jump in prices of basic commodities like food, fuel, and even medical supplies, almost on the brink of total scarcity of everything...

Since a few years Sri Lanka has been receiving loans from IMF and other nations, and will probably continue to do so to in the wake of the present crisis...

Though a mountainous task, Sri Lanka badly needs to up her economy, producing at least as much as she would need to import. Inevitable, but the bullet has to be bitten...

Let us hope that Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, with a four-fold past experience in that designation, would find his fifth term effective enough to pull his nation out of the dire straits that she finds herself in...

🙏🙏

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