This is excellent news. From LBO,Sri Lana’s government plans to deregulate railway freight rates and invite private sector participation to increase movement of goods by rail, according to a new transport policy unveiled recently.”Railway freight tarif…

This is just very cool. It’ a simulation of air traffic worldwide, over a 24-hour period.  Just looking at that, can’t help but feel that Sri Lanka would have been such a logical place for another heavy traffic point. But no..[Link via Chris Blattman’…

Two silly statements I read today, ”Government will not sell any state owned property under any circumstances” : President ”No state institution will be privatized” : Minister.Let’s forget that 2. for the moment. Why does His Excellency think that t…

This is how the government intends on spending your taxes. At least partly how it will be spent. We can’t afford the whole thing so the rest will be financed by debt and aid (yes, yes, eventually paid by you). The largest expenditure is for defence, t…

Last month I tried to estimate how much of Sri Lankan youth go overseas for studies. I found this Island article which puts a number on that estimation:Around 7,000 students go abroad for higher education annually but the Higher Education Ministry does…

Centre for Civil Society is organizing it’s annual seminars on public policy, now called “I, Society and Public Policy” renamed from “Liberty & Society Seminars” starting in October in Delhi, Cochin, Bangalore and Pune. If you are between 18 - 25 w…

Finally, there’s some good news on the reform front :Sri Lanka has been rated the top South Asian reformer in an annual business regulation study by the World Bank group, with a new company law and credit information improvements boosting its scores. […

Last Wednesday, Anila Banradanike’s column for FT focused on Sri Lanka’s ‘Brain Drain’ particularly among urban youth. She complains, rightly, that there are no credible statistics available on how many people go abroad for studies. I agree, all I can…

Recently, Sri Lanka’s government decided to impose severe restrictions on the use of mobile phones citing ‘Security reasons’. Anything fly in Sri Lanka these days, if you say ‘national security’.The regulation dictates that all Sri Lankans must carry a…

Prompted by my earlier post on legalizing marijuana, Jack Point thinks that a good way of tackling the problem of hard drugs, such as heroin is for government to give it away for free for addicts and encourage them to voluntary enroll themselves to tre…

I was recently reminded by a friend that Sri Lanka actually does have legal access medical Marijuana (Ganja). The practitioners of traditional Ayurvedic medicine are allowed to carry 1kg (figure unconfirmed) amount of Ganja to be used for medicinal pur…

Drew Carey in another installment of his series at Reason.tv takes a swing at the U.S. protectionists’ (Obama-types) fear mongering over NAFTA.

Something that’s rarely understood by protectionist all over the world is that the biggest source of “job…

Seriously, have you ever wondered why the price of Petrol in Sri Lanka exceeds that of the United States? let’s do the math,1 Liters of Petrol in Sri Lanka costs about Rs.157 (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation prices)1 gallon of Petrol (gasoline) in the U.S…

Is that they don’t have their publications (research, policy studies, etc.) online.Either they haven’t really figured out that the web has significantly changed from 1999, or they think they will loose out on revenues. I understand partly, but really …

The theory of oil-induced inflationFor the Background of this post, do read my last one. This post is a result of the many frustrating times I spent listening government politicians, the media, and most other people attributing the causes of inflation …

When I was growing up, this idea that ‘our country was poor’ puzzled me. How can we be poor I thought, the government print the money don’t they? So how can they have all the money and still be poor? After days of thinking over this, I came to the con…

Nothing!. ASI has the explanation,There are no causes of poverty. It is the rest state, that which happens when you don’t do anything. If you want to experience poverty, just do nothing and it will come. To ask what causes poverty is like asking what c…

If you are a socialist, that is.The chart below from Gapminder shows increasing incomes per person at accelerating rates after president JR Jaywardene liberalized the Sri Lankan economy in 1977. Certainly, this isn’t good news for the lefties.(a still …

I think the World Bank should close down.Ok, not really but that was kind of what I suggested some time ago at the End Poverty in South Asia blog run by Shanta Devrajan, WB’s chief economist for the South Asian region. Devrajan was addressing questions…

News is much more fun these days. C.J. wants to send pube robbers to hell, in Kandy they have a blow job test, and now in France..The mayor of a village in south west France has banned residents from dying.Village graveyard is full and Gerard Lalanne h…

Apparently Airtel, scheduled to start operations in Sri Lanka this year, have run into some trouble. I like Airtel, it’s my operator of choice whenever I’m in India, I’ve got good memories with it. It worked well for me, and i did do some traveling acr…

Imagine a man walking in a dimly lit ally at about 2 a.m. in the morning, there’s not a soul in sight, the man is carrying a bag with him, and as he’s walking he sees at a distance a couple of policemen walking towards him. How will he react? His reaction said, Jacob […]

Former Sri Lankan Minister, and the national organizer of the main opposition UNP, S.B. Dissanayake seems to ‘get it’ when it comes to Higher Education reform. Here’s S.B. from an Interview with the Colombo Post :During 1960 to 70, our main five univer…

Greg Mankiw’s 10 principles of economics, The Rap Version :What can I say, just Awesome. I don’t know about #7, but WTF. For anyone feeling really bored, here’s the original version:People face tradeoffsThe cost of something is what you give up to get …