Can Education make a difference in the country?  Just giving it free would help to develop the country?  or just making sure all the people do get educated? or just literacy is enough to develop the country? The answer is NO.  Just the education would not contribute in developing the country.  It will be yet another factor if it is not properly designed.  The purpose of this article is to discuss how the Effective education is tied with the national development. 

What is Education?

Education in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.

Human development Index is as follows

The 17th Amendment was passed in the parliament in 2001 and was practice only for few years.  The purpose of bringing this amendment to the constitution was to eliminate the political interference to the national authorities which should stick independent.  17th Amendment suggested to centralize the control around independent commissions.  This would address the fundamental problem of our constitution which is having all the government entities under political branches.  However exercising this would be really challenging as this clearly discourages the political inference.

He went to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and told him that India needed a strong vision to take it forward!

"I said to him it is possible that we will still collapse, but there is a chance that if we take bold measures we may turn around, and that, I said, is an opportunity. We must convert this crisis into an opportunity to build a new India, to do things which many people before us have thought and said should be done, but somehow were never done," said Singh in an interview to PBS in 2001.

India, a country with hundreds of ethnics, thousands of different people contexts and over one billion of population, has now become e one of the strongest economies in the modern world.  It is a fact that you find the most richest and the poorest people segments in India. 
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Political Solution to Sri Lanka: is one of the popular topics being discussed these days.  The Political Solution for the Sri Lankan political issues, was initiated by HE JR Jayawardena and Indian Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi.  This agreement is well known as Indo Lanka Peace Accord.  The most important fact is that this is the first ever incident happened after the independence, which involved an external party in an internal matter.  There are number of political aspects around this agreement.  It is not merely bring peace to people but there were many hidden intentions initiated.  

This article discusses the step by step incidents that ultimately resulted in Indo Lanka Agreement.  Further this discusses the Russian factor which could have had a big influence indirectly.  Remember that this was the Soviet Union's demanding time.  This article is mainly based on Wiki sources. 

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These days Good Governance is a hot topic and therefore thought to figure what does it mean?

From Wikipedia

Good governance is an indeterminate term used in development literature to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights.^[1] Governance describes "the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented)".^[1] The term governance can apply to corporate, international, national, local governance ^[1] or to the interactions between other sectors of society.

Source of the article: Click here for the Source: UN ESCAPE

Good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are taken into account and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society.

Figure 2: Characteristics of good governance

Participation

Participation by both men and women is a key cornerstone of good governance. Participation could be either direct or through legitimate intermediate institutions or representatives. It is important to point out that representative democracy does not necessarily mean that the concerns of the most vulnerable in society would be taken into consideration in decision making. Participation needs to be informed and organized. This means freedom of association and expression on the one hand and an organized civil society on the other hand.

Rule of law

Good governance requires fair legal frameworks that are enforced impartially. It also requires full protection of human rights, particularly those of minorities. Impartial enforcement of laws requires an independent judiciary and an impartial and incorruptible police force.

Transparency

Transparency means that decisions taken and their enforcement are done in a manner that follows rules and regulations. It also means that information is freely available and directly accessible to those who will be affected by such decisions and their enforcement. It also means that enough information is provided and that it is provided in easily understandable forms and media.

Responsiveness

Good governance requires that institutions and processes try to serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.

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Sri Lank's foreign reserves hits a record figure!! Wow great!! this is a very good indication of re gaining the county's economic stability after the costly war with rebels.  The defense budget was sucking the the national resources and it hit the national development over past three decades.  Now the war has ended and looks like economy of the country is becoming stronger.

What does Foreign exchange reserves means? Wiki says:

Foreign exchange reserves (also called Forex reserves) in a strict sense are only the foreign currency deposits and bonds held by central banks and monetary authorities. However, the term in popular usage commonly includes foreign exchange and gold, SDRsIMF reserve positions. This broader figure is more readily available, but it is more accurately termed official international reserves or international reserves. These are assets of the central bank held in different reserve currencies, mostly the US dollar, and to a lesser extent the euro, the UK pound, and the Japanese yen, and used to back its liabilities, e.g. the local currency issued, and the various bank reserves deposited with the central bank, by the government or financial institutions.

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I saw an interesting mail conversation in a friend group and though that this will really shows the fight between two camps.  Enjoys and make sure that you understand this as an unofficial conversation between two friends.  Black is the original mail and purple is the answer

Following is the popular news of SF and Sunday Leader!!!
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Is this the beginning of controversial decisions?  

The purpose of this article is to discuss the controversial LMS deal which was taken place between the Sri Lankan government and JKH recently.  Many sources stated that the verdict was quiet controversial.

What is LMS? Lanka Marine Services expertise in bunkering and lubricants to meet all demands at port, at anchorage and at off port limits.

This is what I  could find:

1. LMS was a subsidiary of Ceylon Petroleum Cooperation.  However the land where the LMS is physically located was not under LMS account but under Sri Lanka ports authority.  This was not a problem for their operations as both were held by the government.

2. The government then decided to privatize the LMS through the PERC - Public Enterprise Reforming Commission. 

3. Government called for bidders.  JKH offered a massive bid which hammered all other bidders.  Finally the bid was closed selecting JKH as the potential buyer.  Deal was made!

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The following article is not mine.  But it would be really interesting to read this.  Source of the article is:

The stock market is the center of the economy, but it's a wild roller coaster. Someone who invests in the right company at the right time can look at an early retirement, but the wrong investment can cause you to lose everything. Trying to earn money in the stock market is not for the cowardly or weak of heart.

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The time of wielding wealth is over,' remarked the U.S historian Steph Friesier on the unprecedented financial turmoil. It is much like the scene, he said, in which a grand feast broke up all of a sudden, leaving everybody running wild. The Wall Street bubble suddenly burst, with the disillusionment of extravagant consumption puffed up by the fanciful splendor.

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Education is a human right.  All of us have the right to be educated at least the primary education.  However nowadays education has become sort of a business instead of serving the people as it used to be.  There are countries where the education system is totally free and there are some other countries where you need to have money to learn.  This articles discusses how education can serve to accomplish education in a reasonable manner. 
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There are number of arguments about the best organizational models. There is no perfect business model in the world. All the models have advantages as well as disadvantages. The right business model depends on the form of your businesses. The purpose of this article is to discuss the most suitable business model with more realistic examples

None of the Asian county is neither in the happiest nor the richest list.  This opens another discussion to find out the reasons for why it has happened like that.  However this article shows the comparison of the  most Richest Vs Happiest.  Enjoy!!

Many of you know that all of these economic problems started in US economy. Therefore it is worth to find out how it has happened. This article discusses the reasons for this global financial crisis.
Today almost everybody experiences the warm of this financial crisis. It is really important to

Tourism of Sri Lanka was severely affected for last few decades due to the 30 years long terrorist problem. However with the termination of the rebels now the people have the freedom to choose their livelihood.

East costal area is one of the most beautiful beach sides and now the locals as well as foreigners have started to visit east recently.
The good news is now all most all the guest houses and hotels are full of tourists and indicates another developing era of the country and the people who suffered by the war.

Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg recently participated a conference held in UK.

“growth is primary, revenue is secondary”

The objective of the Facebook has been to attract more and more people and expand the size of its community


He further said ‘What every great internet company has done is figure out a way to make money that matches what they are doing on the site.


I don't think that social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did," But on both sites people find information valuable. I'm pretty sure that we will find an analogous business model. But we are already experimenting.


One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today”


Facebook earns money by publishing Advertisements in its content. According to him Web searching will not be the everlasting solution to access information. He is trying to make social networking as the media to access information. Simply if his dreams come try you will browse internet not though Google but through Facebook. Good Luck

There are thousands of articles which are discussing the same topic. Here what I am trying to emphasize is just the high level picture of the whole scenario.



For a moment just forget everything and just think about America. What do you recall? Excellent foods, car racing, shopping molls, huge vehicles, clubbing, full of fun activities, families going on journeys etc.


If you look at it closely it is really a collection of costs. How do they spend such an amount of money on these things?


As you know US has a very strong economy and it has gained that stability over number of decades. Lots of manufacturing happened and as a result it has become the giant of the world economy. As a results of the stability of the financial institutions US has very low interest rates. For an example, a person would lease a house rather than spending money on it because the interest rate is very much low.


Furthermore, if you have your own house then the best option would be mortgage the property and invest the money in somewhere else. This is because the interest rate is very low and it is quite manageable if you have a reasonable job.


What people do is, they take the maximum advantage out of the law interest rates and spend money on non profit activities. It would never be a problem if you mortgage your house and put the money on the share market. What happens is, people spend money on other activities like those given above. Most of these are non profit activities and totally a waste in terms of economic perspective.

It was like a bubbling balloon and when it exposes then it is really hard to get it back. This is exactly what happened. Interest rates were low just because of the economy is stable. Ideally what should happen was people should enjoy the low interest rates and should invest the excess money either in a self business or in the shares market. What they have done was just spending money on wastes.



This is really impacted the American financial companies which re giants in the global. Once the giant collapsed no need to discuss about the rest. We all are experiencing that problem.


This is just the overview of what happened and please note that this is not the only reason for the problem. The investment approach of the people also has led to make this problem worst. We can discuss that later.

The latest news in the Sri Lankan apparel market is that it is going to lose the GSP+ tax concession for 2010. What it really does is, it increases the competitiveness of our apparel products.

As you know the cost of production is very much low in countries like China. If the whole market only concerns about the final price, yes China should rule the 90% of the total apparel market. Since this GSP concession is acting as a shield to countries like us, our competitiveness has increased.

For an example if you consider a garment company below is a summarized list of obligations it has.
1. Salaries and wages – we should not forget that labors are entitled for Over Time by law
2. Transportation of employees
3. Health insurance package
4. Should accommodate public and weekend holidays
5. Meals and other benefits
6. Security and safety

The above benefits are enforced by the law in order to make sure the security and the safety of the employees.

If you take a Chinese garment what are the costs they have other than the production cost. Its just the salary of the employees. The availability of the labor is just like nothing in China and more importantly we should not forget that they never satisfy the above measures. Human labor is extensively used at a very less price in China and therefore it has created unbeatable market price for their garments. However in the employee’s perspective it is like burning the life to survive. In order to prevent these kinds of actions EU and other developed countries who are mainly the buyers have introduced a tax concession to protect countries who are making sure the safety and the extra benefits.

It is a clear fact that these tax concessions help to develop the industry. But in the meantime the dependency also gets increased. For an example a country like Sri Lanka is highly depend on the apparel industry which is fully depend on the tax concessions. Basically what has happened is the whole economy is ruled by the tax concessions. This is not good in the long run. Yes this helps to keep the business going but the people who are in the industry should be looking forward to reduce the dependency.

What we can do to reduce the dependency with tax concessions?

Most of the apparel makers are sub contractors for popular brands like NIKE,ADDIDAS etc. Local companies also should try to establish a brand. This is not an easy task and it may require bulk of strategies. But it is worth to trying this while enjoying the tax concessions. Targeting the niche market would be really challenging but can result in enormous return.
Reducing additional costs may not be that practical as certain benefits are enforced by the law. This is a good side of the industry because in any circumstances it ensures the safety and benefits of the labor.

LSE poised to acquire Sri Lankan Technology Company

By Jeremy Grant in London

Published: September 14 2009 22:40 | Last updated: September 14 2009 22:54

The London Stock Exchange is expected to announce, possibly as early as Tuesday, the acquisition of Millennium IT, a Sri Lankan trading technology company, as the group embarks on a massive upgrade of its trading platform.

The move marks the biggest step yet taken by Xavier Rolet, chief executive, to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor Clara Furse. The exchange’s existing TradElect trading system was upgraded two years ago at a cost of £40m ($66m)