Bureaucracy Can Kill

I needed to hand in a document to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka today. The same one that got ferociously bombed and attacked 15 or so years ago, maiming and killing many civilians in what used to be the heart of the business district.

Having been through the silly security rigmarole previously for a meeting there, I thought I'd go straight to the off-site car park (sitting on prime real estate in the heart of the Fort), walk over and hand over the document.

The guard at the car park would have none of it. I first needed to go to the Central Bank's main gate (put in place after the terrorists drove right up 15 years ago), announce my intentions, and then be directed back to the car park I was currently sitting outside.

So I drove up to the terrorist-proof main entrance, nonchalantly left open. I stopped my Hilux, which could've been packed with about 300Kg of high explosives, at the gate (when any petty politician or terrorist could've just charged through), right by the guard room, and explained myself. I needed to go to the Mail Room, I was told. Where to park? Oh, just leave the vehicle right there at the gate, just move it so I wouldn't obstruct the entrance.

So I walked in, handed over the document, walked back out and went off home. I tooted my horn in farewell at the guard at the offsite car park, but he seemed to be busy with his newspaper in the depths of his little guard hut.

What was the point of that off-site car park again? And wait, we don't have terrorists in Sri Lanka anymore either, right?

Don't fall for trumped-up credit card "phone bill" surcharge

I wrote to my bank manager yesterday about something that happened while I was on the road. The episode is what prompted my earlier post about pigtailed Chinamen. Don't get cowed into accepting additional charges. Even if you have to pay, insist on a detailed accounting - this opens them up for liability under whatever consumer protection and merchant agreements that may govern them, so they'll never do it.

"Just want to alert you to something going on at N.P.G. Appusinhgho & Sons Lanka Filling Station, Ratnapura.

I stopped there earlier today to pump diesel, and when I checked whether they accept credit cards the attendant told me they have a flat surcharge of Rs. 10/- per card transaction, which he said was to cover the "phone bill." He said I would have to agree to that before he would pump diesel. I said it would be ok as long as I was given a bill mentioning the cost of the diesel pumped (I wanted Rs. 2,000/- worth) and the additional charge separately.

Once the diesel was pumped I was brought the credit card slip for Rs. 2010/-. I did not sign the slip and asked for an additional bill as I had asked, giving the breakdown. The station supervisor got involved at this point and I repeated my request. The supervisor told me he would give me a bill for Rs. 2010/- and I repeated that I would like the breakdown to be shown on the bill. The supervisor brought me a bill for a single figure of Rs. 2010/-. When I repeated my insistence on a breakdown, a person who appeared to be the owner, who had been watching from the office nearby, appeared to instruct the attendant and supervisor to settle the issue. The supervisor made a show of telling the attendant that he should have made sure I agreed to the additional charge. Another attendant then came along and gave me back cash for Rs. 10/- to repay the surcharge."

අපි කොන්ඩේ බැඳපු චීන්නු නෙමෙය්! (Api kondey bendapu Cheenun nemey!)

The best English phrase that comes close to this is, "I wasn't born yesterday." The Sri Lankan version is much richer in history and imagery (of course). I'm not the expert on such things, but the phrase has to do with the fact that in ancient times, South East Asian sailors, apparently long-haired, visiting Sri Lanka for trade, may have been considered easy targets for confidence tricks.

The direct translation is, "we're not pigtailed Chinamen!"

Two 21 year olds

I started this post some months back when we had an intern with us from the U.S. He'd just graduated from Stanford, with an International Relations major if I remember right. We did several visits around the country as part of the work we wanted him to do for us. Accompanying us was my loyal "Golaya" in Sinhala, which can mean Man Friday, disciple, side-kick. Officially, Aide to Managing Director.

They were both 21 years old. One, whose parents were from Nigeria, had been born in the U.S., gone to Stanford, and was now laying the ground for Ph.D. work. The other, born in a very rural part of Sri Lanka, had studied well enough to win a scholarship at 11 years to my Alma Mater, Royal College. He has lived with his aunt in Colombo longer than he has lived with his own parents, so he could come to school. He is the eldest of three children, but as with most young men that age, in many ways he was still a child himself.

How did I find him? The old network, of course - luckily for him at age 11 he plugged in to one of the best networks you could find in Sri Lanka, no hubris and no exaggeration there. I needed a good, able dogsbody able to take some of the killer workload par for the course with social entrepreneurship. My old Scout Master knew just the man, a Prefect who was very into agriculture, perfect as I'm working in agriculture myself.

So much into agriculture in fact, that he'd cheerfully crashed his Advanced Levels (entrance exam for state universities) the first time, then started what was supposed to be part-time job at a leading agribusiness conglomerate that worked him so hard he crashed his second shy, and was just finishing his third and last shot at possibly his only way to get a higher education, given his economic condition. Get the marks, get a shot at university. In any year only 8.5% of those who pass the exams, get a score high enough to actually gain a seat at a state university.

Eight and a half percent. That leaves around 185,000 young men and women who passed the university exam, unable to go to university. Every year.

So with me in my old Toyota (itself just a year younger than my two passengers) were two young men, one already in possession of a degree from arguably one of the best universities in the world, the other yet to find out whether he would even get a shot at working toward a degree. One had already lived by himself, met people from around the world, done a semester at Oxford, worked in Africa. The other had never left his home country, hadn't even been to most parts of his own country except on the clock for someone else - he'd been to historic Polonnaruwa twice but never got the chance to see the ruins - which are right by the road for cryin' out loud! (I made sure he didn't make it a hat-trick with our own visit).

Why does Sri Lanka do this to her young people? Fine we're a conservative society, we have different expectations of how children relate to their parents, etc etc. But seeing the different vectors in life experience thus far and opportunity going forward in young men of the same age brought many issues right up in front of me.

Why am I writing this now? My golaya is soon leaving for university, to pursue his dream of a degree in Agriculture. He has a standing offer to come back to us whenever he wants. I have not met many who work harder or are more loyal, despite the many rough edges smoothed down and the much learning he has managed while he was with me.

Higher education is just about the only way people like him can blow the hinges off the gates. Sri Lanka needs more seats at universities, better universities, and overall more opportunities for more young people. Now. Private universities? Fine. Make them accessible, hold them accountable to the highest of standards, and make the old, inefficient and mostly inefficient state universities get off their backsides and give them a good fight. Please don't just let in the people with the fattest unmarked envelopes and the biggest promises. Look at Qatar. Look at Malaysia. Look at Singapore. Education is life-changing, and not too indirectly, country-changing. Be picky. These may be the the most important decisions we ever make.

If we fritter away the chances for the current generation, we will look back and see that we missed the last chance to turn this ship around.

And that's why it's called the Screw Pine

We call it "rampe" (rum-pay) in Sinhala. Apparently it's called Pandan in South East Asian cultures. A researcher at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand (working under one of Rural Returns' advisors, Dr. Sarath Ilangaltileke) isolated the component that makes Jasmine rice aromatic, et voila, it turned out to be the exact compound found in rampe leaves. Sri Lankans have added a length of rampe to our rice for centuries. Now we know why exactly we did it - to enhance the aroma, particularly of the varieties that were less aromatic than our wonderful heirloom varieties. Don't believe me? Look up Chandrasekaran, B. et al, "A Textbook of Rice Science," 2007, Scientific Publishers India, p.293, section 13.3.5.

After much searching I finally found the missing link that led me to the English name, screw-pine. Didn't think much of it, didn't think it had anything to do with pines, nor did anything screwy about it come to mind immediately.

Thank goodness for the Kandyan Home Garden, and that people including my parents still preserve some vestiges even in crowded Colombo. Well, I gave the punchline away at the start, but there it is. And yes, the lower leaves have been cut away for cooking.

Gosh I love Sri Lanka :-)

Oh, and I need to some day scan in the sequence of photos I shot of polos (tender jak fruit) being cooked on the tree (can't get fresher - or slower - than that) in my great aunt's mother of all home gardens in Aluvihare. Now that's two whole different stories right there.

Sri Lanka Reading List - part 1 (I hope)

I've been back in the U.S. for a few weeks and it's been great to reconnect with classmates and other friends, and I've been busily twisting arms and encouraging nascent plans to visit Sri Lanka sooner rather than later. Though I love painting word-pictures and treating myself as well as my friends to stories from home, I thought it would be a good idea to start a little list of recommended reading - books that I enjoyed and which have enough connection to Sri Lanka to give people a taste of what's to come. Remembering the books' highlights makes me want to bring forward my return date!

Life having been so busy for the last few years, I haven't been getting through many books, so I recruited my uncle Suren, who also studied in the U.S. (in the 80's) and as a pilot, gets a lot of downtime where he devours books (and yeah, he's the one Malcolm Gladwell mentions in Outliers). Other respected elders, you may be next for a list of books (I'm talking to you, Shaku Akki)

Diya Rakusa's contributions:

• Handbook for the Ceylon Traveller, a Studio Times publication (unfortunately not available in the U.S. last time I checked)
• Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
• Flower Boy by Karen Roberts
• An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity the Author and Divers other Englishmen ... There, and of the Author's Miraculous Escape by Robert Knox (give the guy a break, this was the 18th century)

Suren Ratwatte's contributions

(notes from Suren to Diya Rakusa: "Haven't read the last one yet" and "Not necessarily positive. Don't censor the reading lists!"):

• Reef by Romesh Gunasekera **
• The sweet and simple kind by Yasmine Gooneratne
• The Hamilton Case by Michelle De Kretser *
• A Disobedient Girl by Ru(wani) Freeman

IT and Education in the 21st Century - Response to Say It, Look @ Episode 1

I've been avoiding the blogosphere for a while now, despite lots of blog-worthy items piling up. I do however want to get this post out, inspired by the World Bank-sponsored Say it, Look @ TV+Social Media convergence/mashup play. Great first effort, some great commentary in there (ok, the presenter could tone it down a little but I'll keep quiet about that - for now).

The show makes the point (17:26) we all know and manage to do little about - that the "quality and economic contribution of the Higher Education system" need to be improved.

I do want to reflect a little however on Mr. Harsha Aturupane's comment at 17:34 - that Sri Lanka should focus away from expanding access and concentrate on increasing quality and labour-market relevance in public higher education. Provocative stuff, particularly coming from an institution all-too-easily targeted by the entrenched JVP student union types in the state universities.

Answer First
Here's my basic thesis: Yes we need to improve the quality of the higher education system, but we can't afford to shut out the massive numbers that still never make it through because of economic reasons. Hopefully as we increase quality, the payoff and demand for more quantity will be more visible and immediate. Oh, and this little thing called SL2College is the perfect solution to to bridge the gap in the short term, and to maintain quality competitiveness in the long term.

The Education Funnel
Sri Lanka has a funnel of staggering proportions that keeps hundreds of thousands of qualified students out of the state higher education system. The following are 2007 figures.

Of 450,000 students (mostly 15-16 years or age, at grade 11) who sat for the GCE (General Certificate of Education) Ordinary Level ("O/L") exam, around 200,000 qualified for the GCE Advanced Level ("A/L") another two years down the road. Of the 230,000 students who sat for the A/L exam in 2007, over 104,000 passed, i.e. they essentially qualified for state university.

Only 17,196 (16.5%) were fortunate enough to gain a seat at a state university.

Multiple Failings
Yes, the state higher education system is broken far beyond just the point at which people get in. In the worst years, once had to wait several years between getting one's results (many months after the exam) and actually making it to classes  - because of the strikes, riots and other closures that tied up resources, used by the classes before you still waiting to graduate. One can still expect to take longer to graduate than the theoretical 3-4 years it should take, thanks to the assorted strikes, closures and other high-jinks that occur from time to time - usually timed just ahead of the more important exams that the less serious students have not gotten around to preparing for.

Yes, the system produces more "eternal students" (not quite of the Chekovian variety) and trained paper-pushers considering themselves fully entitled for a government pension and the least possible non-over-time work. State university graduates can mostly only dream of the new equipment and exposure they'd need to access to be really ready for the labour market. The regionally distorted labour market and economic center of gravity in Colombo mean that many do not want to go to the newer, perfectly good regional universities.

Not All Doom and Gloom
But look at those who really do put their noses to the grindstone. Our state universities have created some great academics, artists, doctors, engineers, lawyers and other professionals. Whether they go abroad as undergrads, postgrads or academics, Sri Lankan students and academics regularly excel elsewhere in the world. Pitifully few come back, but that must change. Our CEO at the IT company I worked for always states we are capable of producing the best engineers in the world, worthy of the heritage that created the mighty irrigation works and rock fortresses of our past.

I would say that Sri Lankan students, at least that subset who know why they are in university and are ready to make the most of the opportunity, have proven that we can shine through all the challenges they face in the state higher education system.

Walking the Tightrope
Yes, we need to improve the quality and labour-market orientation of our higher education system. That need has not changed. If we succeed, in doing so we will also change the nature of the average student who enters that system. They will be more cognizant of the tremendous responsibilities before them, to not waste the opportunities before them and the resources placed at their disposal, paid for by millions of taxpayers.

But we also need to widen the funnel. Private universities - another sector with all kinds of distortions and peculiarities introduced for political expediency and narrow interests - at least give some sort of outlet for those who can afford their costs. But for every student who can afford that option, there are hundreds, if not thousands, languishing in the provinces or in the urban slums, whose worldview is further distorted by the inequality in what might be one of the most vital Public Goods.

Until we do both, we will fall off the tightrope between a sea of "unemployed graduates" on the one hand, with no marketable skills or motivations to contribute to society; and, on the other hand, a self-perpetuating system of elitism where the gap between the Higher Education Haves and Have-Nots breeds resentment and unrest. We have experienced both, in some form, and at some point in the recent past. We need to make sure we stay on the tightrope this time.

SL2College - Short-Term Relief, Long-Term Relevance
Particularly in the interim, where we simply cannot afford to go putting up the "lecture halls, laboratories and canteens" that the program speaks about, SL2College is a service that could ease some of the pressure on the physical constraints - while also taking Sri Lankan students out into the world and impressing upon them the need to come back (and give back) with a wider world view and the vision and experience to not just accept the status quo in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan students are world-class. SL2College helps them explore the higher education opportunities that best fit their academic aspirations, whether locally or abroad - but always with a gentle reminder that they should also think about bringing back their skills and knowledge to the country that nurtured them and educated them, usually for free, in their early lives.

Parting Words from JFK
Education has a massive impact upon individual earning capacities. To me, the quote below pretty much sums up why education is both a Human Right and a Public Good, which can help us all find our way out of the hole we have dug ourselves into.

“Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each  of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”

-- John F. Kennedy.

Bad policy: short-term handouts trumping long-term growth

How would you go about entrenching poverty in a primarily rural, formerly agriculture-dominated tropical island economy?

Your land is blessed with two monsoons that almost split the year perfectly in two, interspersed with inter-monsoonal rains. You have diverse agro-ecological zones, and what's more those two monsoons approach your island from diametrically opposite compass points, spreading the water wealth. Your people are inheritors of centuries of vast public irrigation works that have conquered any imbalance in water availability, bringing liquid gold to the most fertile and agriculture-friendly parts of the island.

Let's assume you already have highly fragmented landholdings due to weak land markets, previous cock-eyed land reforms and a lot of inertia around more meaningful reforms. People with handkerchief sized sub-scale plots can't sell their lands due to unclear title or worse, arcane regulations. Rational land allocation is distorted by regulations that forbid any use but agriculture, sometimes of specific crops (ref. self-sufficiency) - you can't even  grow something the market might actually want.

Coddle local producers to the point of inefficiency with populist import protections, price controls and astronomical, unsustainable input subsidies (which by one of my calculations almost completely wipe out the GDP contribution from paddy); then cut them loose and bring in cheap imports when prices spike just ahead of the local harvests (or near elections) - depressing prices for everyone and killing incentives in local agriculture. Once in a while try to bring in a guaranteed-price centralized purchase scheme to repeat dramatic failures of the past. Big farmers want to cut their losses, small farmers just revert to subsistence, turning away from the vagaries of the market. Value-adders lock up their expensive (imported) machines whose output cannot be sold at a fair price thanks to the controls.

Self-sufficiency is one double-edged sword to swing around too much. The food shocks of 2008 provide an easy stalking horse for all kinds of protectionism taken too far. All kinds of marginal lands start coming back under cultivation, some of it just for subsistence, all competing with the "high-potential" zones that should be left to cultivate commodities efficiently - and cheaply - without specializing into higher-value crops or away from agriculture altogether.

There's no easy fix of course. Most of today's marginal lands were the agricultural heartlands of yore, sometimes by accident, sometimes reflecting the changing state of the art in technology. Like in Japan, agriculture, particularly rice, is embedded deep in our souls, and can't be turned away from easily. Few other alternatives exist - development in held back by isolation in its many forms; roads, technology and education have taken the longest to penetrate - and make an impression - in those same areas.

With an end to conflict, the clock is winding down on inefficient land allocations - if we don't get smarter about what we grow, where, farmers around the island will be faced with harvests they can't sell. Can we get markets working in time to keep the right farmers growing the crops best suited to their lands (and all the handicaps we can't dispense with overnight) - and to the market opportunities out there?

Don't like your score? Change the rules (again)

Sri Lanka's rejiggering the main price index less than two years after the last blatant wool-pulling exercise. This time they're even dropping alcohol and tobacco from the basket, clearly choosing to believe their own fairytale that temperance can be enforced - and apparently has been achieved - with the help of a few TV spots and millions of posters.

I heard that an old journalist (maybe too old to care anymore) had interrupted a Buddhist monk trotted out to sing the government's praises in decidedly non-secular areas, asking what exactly the reverend was celebrating, given that the reporter had just been to one of the lavish vote-buying parties at the Palace where the drinks flow freely.

Another little birdie tells me His Highness had nudged and winked away the concerns of a delegation from the meat industry about the similar blanket ban on slaughtering with "don't worry about all that, we also must have something to eat no!"

Finally, an unintended consequence of a blanket ban on animal slaughter (keeping in mind that I am personally against the taking of lives but also willing to step back and think of wider consequences): Apparently a commercially viable dairy operation needs to cull 20% of its herd annually, something one large operator has already had problems doing thanks to enthusiastic preemptive rent-seeking despite the anti-slaughter bill only being in proposal stage. So, overnight blanket ban on slaughter --> further reduced local milk production --> more imports --> less foreign exchange, and more reasons for the propagandists to squeal about foreign conspiracies - except in this case too, the problem is local, not foreign.

Dud bridges? Check. Private Presidential Palaces? Check.

I saw some TV coverage of this talk a while back - which also shows how long my backlog is(!)

Small groups pushing policy without evidence - sound familiar? Where are our median voters? How come they don't push for the kind of sensible reforms for which "a fair amount of consensus" apparently already exists, in "education, labour markets, land markets, and achieving macro-economic stability and better public spending?"

I suspect the median voter has had to rush wholesale to hang on to the Satakaya-tails just to survive, maybe angling for whatever infrastructure contracts the Chinese didn't bother with, or hoping for scraps from such long-term empire-building as the Deniyaya Raja-pasa-plex (new definition for PPP: Private Presidential Palace?)

A friend on holiday from the original home of the Land Rover observed over the weekend that one has to come to Sri Lanka to see tricked-out Land Rovers of every flavour hammering around - mostly on Colombo's streets of course, rather than the moonscapes all the ostentatious accessorizing implies they're meant for. I even saw an LR3 sporting a snorkel and winch - and the requisite garage plates - the other day. The cheap-and-cheerful Mahindras and Tatas seem long forgotten - good thing Land Rover is nominally Indian now - more than enough for Comrade Vimal to spin another set of rationalizations (wait - didn't he hate the Indians? Or was that last week?). Even the bald-headed, aisle-crossing Minister who pretentiously went around in a Hindustan Ambassador when he was in the last government came away from launching his own political party (better than admit defeat and go back whence he came) dispensing Justice in a shiny silver Jaguar.

Has the median voter evolved, throwing in the towel and joining the mad scramble to feed on the carcass? If the median voter has in fact had to become a opportunistic, carrion-feeding pragmatist in a ridiculously politicized society, what hope does that hold out for a "brighter future" that we all apparently still hope for, the past four years apparently not having been bright enough?

Do we really have a silent majority that might, juuust might, this time actually make the trip to the voting booth and send the Scamtastic Four and their friends and family back to their upgraded or brand-new homes to try and get by on the fortunes built up over the last four years? Tough ask, I would say, given the stranglehold on the state machinery and the scale on which it is being mis-used - why risk one's neck to put pen to paper when there are many goons happy to do it for you?

If we as voters do in fact come out of our stupor and topple the four-headed beast (wrong part of the anatomy? Many-pocketed, for sure) it's not like the journey's over. Better almost anyone than this clan, the past four years should tell us that. But we voters must keep the pressure up for the vital promises to be followed-through, for once. We must get up off our welfare-softened backsides and maintain a firmer hold on our elected servants (with less prostrating before them for a start) with clearer causality between good or bad policies and the political outcomes we voters alone should be able to decide.

It's time to step up to the plate.

New music video business model?

Has the music industry stumbled upon a new model to finance music video productions?

Over the last few months (hey, I don't watch much TV) I've noticed some pretty sly product placements in Sri Lankan music videos, to the extent that there is clearly some money changing hands here. Not a bad thing, considering how small the local market is, and that most of the music is pretty good, and pretty creative too. Here are just a couple; check out the related ones too:

Ashanthi:

• a womens' health supplement (? the pills in the purple box)
• a new fizzy drink being heavily promoted
• Mercedes might be a long shot, and Hummer an even longer one - I'll chalk those up to de rigeur rap-video props [later update - turns out the Hummer may have been a product placement too; I love how Sri Lankan companies brashly crown themselves "#1," "world's leading," etc with doubtless no evidence whatsoever]
• just to editorialize, I thought the little laptop face-off between Ashanthi and the rapper (DeLon?) was cleverly done

Iraj

• An European three-wheeler competing with the Indian brand
• another fizzy drink promoted as an essential accompaniment to any meal (perfect as this song is about food!)
• Other videos by Iraj have featured cellphone operators, fizzy drinks from the same manufacturer, and, not sure about this one, match manufacturers?

A while after I'd started on and forgotten this post, I noticed quite a bit of product placement in a Pussy Cat Dolls video too, and, in the interest of science, watched a few more to turn up some more such as

• Nokia, HP, and Campari in Hush Hush; Hush Hush
• Gratuitous Nokia in Jai Ho
• and now, when I look back, in most of their videos I guess

Politics and Rent-seeking

Departing from more mainstream (and mostly pretty good) rap in Sinhala, Tamil (with the help of friends), English and combinations thereof, Iraj has come up with an interesting commentary on the the local political marketplace.

Out of jail with no place to go? Go to work as the local politician's enforcer, putting up posters, stuffing ballot boxes and impersonating dead voters. Need protection from the few cops actually doing their jobs? Foot the politician's bills and see your problems evaporate. And the politician's take: I got here the hard way, and I ain't going back, whoever I have to kill.

Naturally one needs money to beat all the other low-lifes fighting to get a toe-hold on the elevator to power and rent-seeking heaven. Money in amounts one doesn't have, hence the need for even more rent-seeking, just to pay pipers, before one can set up one's empire, and, I don't know, say,

• make one's brothers one's personal advisors,
• employ one's family members, classmates and neighbours in key positions in the state machinery, ridiculously politicizing every institution as well as state-owned businesses
• educate (or try to, anyway) one's sons on taxpayers' money, take over - almost at gunpoint where necessary - all the reasonably profitable-looking businesses that are unfortunate to catch one's eye with their success
• or just start a competitor - say, a security service head-quartered on state property (seen it with my own eyes), and issue circulars "strongly advising" all state institutions to start employing one's own firm
• wine and dine just about every sector of society (which only the tax-evaders must really enjoy, since the taxpayer is after all footing those bills too)

Of course you can't take it with you, but who cares in a land of short memories and short-term thinking, particularly as your most potent infliction upon your country - your family - can hang around to fight over the carcass for years to come

Queueing Theory

Has anyone analysed the basic ability to form and honour a queue as an indicator of a country's level of development - or just plain education?

We Sri Lankans can't queue for toffee (in fact, if you plan to offer a toffee, stand back and be ready to call for ambulances and riot police), which, taken as a proxy for "education," would clearly show the difference between literacy (oh what wonderful - declining? - literacy rates we have!) and education.

Postcards from the Base of the Pyramid

Snapped this on my phone in October, found lying in a pile of rubbish (not cool) in Magam-Tissa, between Kirinde and Bundala/Hambantota.

Technical digression: Two-stroke three-wheeler/autorickshaw/tuk-tuk engines need the right amount of 2T engine oil mixed into their petrol/gasoline tanks (no separate lubrication cycle etc). Hence the extra pollutants spewed into the atmosphere too.

Back to BoP stuff: In urban petrol/gasoline sheds you see a "buddy" Coke bottle sitting on an engine oil dispenser next to the petrol pump. This is precisely to measure out the amount of 2T engine oil needed when a three-wheeler/autorickshaw/tuk-tuk driver pulls in to pump some gas.

Well someone at the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Company has either used his brain (hooray) or stumbled upon a clever BoP marketing strategy (ok, not so great for the environment, like the sachets etc the soap companies sell). The sachet holds 40ml of 2T engine oil, apparently, according to the packaging, the right amount to per 1 liter of petrol when topping up your cheap-and-cheerful three-wheeler - the BoP's ubiquitous, do-everything, go-almost-everywhere workhorse.

Digression on sachets and BoP marketing - I keep asking people I know at Unilever whether anyone has figured out the environmental impacts of all those Lifebuoy river-baths and Sunlight laundry days in our nation's waterways, lakes and tanks/reservoirs.

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[unpublished from 3.5 months ago] A future more like a past I barely knew

[I was looking another draft when I realized I hadn't published this, started June 19th 2009. Will not edit it further. General idea I had at the time: returning home after some tumultuous times, hoping things can return to something close to what they were]

One week more before we get on a plane back home - back to Sri Lanka. Finally some downtime after the treadmill of Business School; the fire hose is finally down to a trickle.

Hanging out at my aunt's place in Los Altos Hills, lucky to have my parents around too as well as my wife. Finally back to being able to read for pleasure alone. Of course it's a chance to devour some of the modern Sri Lankan literature lying around here, that four years of undergrad, five years of work and two years of business school made it too easy for me to never get around to.

Shyam Selvadurai's editor (Cinnamon Gardens) needs to be fired of course - how could he have let Galle Face Green - and Colombo, by extension - be moved lock stock and barrel to the East Coast, for Annalukshmi to watch the sun rise over the sea?!

I'd started Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family on a rare break at a friend's place in LA (for those who know him, never expected Sajith W. to have literature on his shelves - other than maybe the variety with yellow pages!!) and immediately felt a strange nostalgia for a time before my own, for an ideal, not even a country, that represented some of the best of our enchanted isle.

Sri Lanka on the BBC World Challenge short list again

A few years ago it was the elephant paper project, now it's the safe kerosene lamp project. Makes for an interesting comparison with D.Light. On one hand you could say D.Light leapfrogs the issues such as continued reliance on kerosene, fumes, remaining probability of fires; on the other the bottles would be cheaper to produce/sell/sponsor/distribute and require almost no behavior change.

If you needed a reason to do your job properly...

The present government made a big fuss about clawing back some of the bus transportation system some years back, painting them in the government coalition's livery. The main colour on the buses is red - the colour of the nationalist/Marxist/whatever-sells-right-now minority parties, embellished with a blue stripe in the "main" Sri Lanka Freedom (maybe not for much longer the way we're latching on to China and Iran) Party's colour. The tail wagging the dog? Not that unusual among Sri Lankan canines.

Translation of the text on the back of this state-owned bus: "The employees of the Sri Lanka Transport Board's Udahamulla Depot rehabilitated this bus in honour of His Excellency (you know who)'s completion of two years since ascending to his position."

Nice to know they still have reasons to do their jobs.

Another picture I wanted to take is of the row of such buses - more than 10 - parked along Green Path, obviously commandeered to transport large numbers of people for some political purpose. Turns out they're entertaining people in the thousands - driven up, not to mention fed and watered, at state expense - at the official First Residence ahead of the provincial elections coming up Down South. Talk about distorted political markets. One would want to avoid a possible rout in one's home province, after all - despite the shenanigans that don't seem to have been working too well.

My wife saw me writing this and "please don't get taken away."

Pulling the ladder up after them

State-educated (free ride all the way) doctors laying siege to the University Grants Commission demanding that the new private medical school project be denied (the buildings are already up opposite MillenniumIT in Malabe).

Expand opportunity to a wider base, overcoming the funnel into limited State universities that distorts the education system - if not the entire economy? What horror! What would become of the Chosen Few, such Brahmins as these, insulting their white coats as they hang on fences?