JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva met with Liu Jie, Governor of China’s Zhejiang Province, during an official visit to China at the invitation of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The meeting took place yesterday (June 9) at the main public reception hall of Zhejiang Province. Silva is currently leading a JVP delegation in China as part of efforts to deepen relations between the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the CPC.

Among the Sri Lankan delegation were Deputy Ministers Eranga Gunasekara and Muneer Mulafer, MPs M. Jegadeeswaran, Deepti Wasalathilake and Dharmapriya Wijesinghe, along with other party members.

The Chinese delegation included Deputy Governor Lu Shan and senior officials from the CPC’s International Department, including Pan Xubin of the South Asia Division.

Sri Lanka and China are strengthening economic and trade cooperation with the signing of key agreements, the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka said.

“Two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed following the talks – one on setting up a trade facilitation working group, and the other on industrial and supply chain cooperation,” the Chinese Embassy said.

China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Sri Lankan Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Co-operative Development Wasantha Samarasinghe met at the China-Sri Lanka Joint Trade and Economic Commission held recently in Colombo.

They discussed “advancing high-quality Belt and Road Initiative cooperation, expanding trade and investment, and safeguarding the multilateral trading system”.

They also explored additional investment opportunities, the Embassy said.

In a significant move to boost transport infrastructure in the Northern Province, the Transport Ministry and the Railways Department are working to extend the Kankesanthurai (KKS) railway line to a new industrial estate currently under development in the area.

This extension is expected to enhance both passenger travel and goods transportation services in the region.

The Kankesanthurai Railway Station, which was heavily damaged during the three decade long civil conflict, was restored and reopened to the public ten years ago.

Today, Transport Minister Bimal Ratnayake conducted an inspection tour of the station and announced plans to further upgrade its facilities.

During his visit, Minister Ratnayake pointed out that although the restoration of the railway line has improved connectivity for passengers, the station still lacks proper infrastructure for goods handling and storage.

“We have now commenced goods transportation activities here, which will bring considerable convenience and a profitable service to the public. However, there are currently no facilities to properly receive and store goods at this station, a gap we intend to address immediately,” he said.

The Minister also stressed on the importance of integrating the railway and bus services, especially with all roads leading to the Jaffna International Airport now fully operational.

“It is crucial to establish a coordinated transport system to provide efficient services to both residents and businesses,” he added.

Looking ahead, the planned extension of the railway line is expected to support fuel transportation and facilitate the movement of goods directly to the port, further enhancing the region’s logistics capabilities.

Joining the observation tour were Ramalingam Chandrasekaran, General Manager of Railways Dhammika Jayasundara and several other officials.

To mark the occasion, a tree was planted at the station premises and a new library was officially opened, signifying the ongoing commitment to community development alongside infrastructure growth.

The proposed developments are expected to bring renewed economic opportunities and improved connectivity to the people of Kankesanthurai and the Northern Province.

The way the Tamil parties in the North are going about the (s)election of mayors and deputy mayors in multiple local government councils after last month’s nation-wide polls, it’s becoming increasingly clear that in the name of ‘policy differences’ they are actually playing out yet another ‘ego war’ that has ruined the community enough through past several years and decades. In focus is former ITAK parliamentarian, M A Sumanthiran, at present the party’s acting general secretary, with ‘sky-high powers’ that includes the authority to forward the list of candidates and mayoral choices to the Election Commission.

That’s an internal affair of one of the many Tamil parties, but which is also still the dominant one, as the parliamentary polls and the present local government elections have proved. But the same cannot be said of the mayoral selection as alliances are being formed outside of the ITAK, if only to keep the party out of reckoning – but not knowing how to go about it.

At the end of the day, the ITAK is the single largest party / group in most local governments, starting with the prestigious Jaffna Municipal Council. It is also the only one to contest on its own without an ally. The party still needs the support of one or many of the other alliances in the mayoral polls. Herein lies the problem.

The ITAK has been stuck with the arrogance of being the single largest Tamil party for a long time now. In the now defunct Tamil National Alliance (TNA), they had insisted on allies contesting on the party’s ‘House’ symbol – and got away with it. In the changed circumstances, where the party is still the single largest one through elections but without majority vote-share, it has stuck to the same stand-point.

In mayoral elections, the ITAK declared early on that it would field candidates wherever the party has won the single-largest seat-share. Now, the Sumanthiran faction, with acting party president C V K Sivagnanam as the front, has struck a deal with former minister Douglas Devananda’s EPDP, where the latter would back the former for mayoralty in many local government councils.

This is not the first time that Douglas and the EPDP has done it. The last time too, when the TNA was intact and yet could not muster the numbers in councils like that in Jaffna, the EPDP offered support, when approached. It was the same this time, too.

Behind the back

The irony of it all then, but not now, is that the ITAK-TNA used to consider Douglas D as a ‘traitor’ to the cause, as branded by the LTTE in its time. This time round, with the decision reached, faction leader and parliamentarian Sritharan has recalled how the ITAK leadership had decided to work with other ‘Tamil nationalist’ parties in mayoral elections – but not with ‘traitors’.

Obviously, Sritharan did not notice this distinction the last time round, when a tall leader like the late Sampanthan was still at the helm. Nor did he have problems with Sumanthiran affixing his signature to the EC letter, asking for the allocation of the ITAK’s ‘House’ symbol for him in the parliamentary elections from Kilinochchi last year.

This time round, however, Sritharan sort of questioned Sumanthiran’s authority in the matter when he discovered that the Sivagnanam-Sumanthiran duo, if not the latter, all by himself, was going ahead with the choice of party mayors in his Kilinochchi district, without consulting him, without involving him. Worse still for Sritharan, party councillors in multiple local councils in Kilinochchi seemed to indicate that they would deal with Sumanthiran without him if that is what it takes to get their names forwarded to the EC.

It is sad that Sritharan’s election as party president in an open organisational poll against Sumanthiran is stuck in the courts, and Sumanthiran is still now in charge of the party affairs. It is not known why Sritharan’s legal team is not urging the court to fast-track the party elections. But then, any challenge to the status quo could well lead to the EC possibly freezing the ITAK name and title and also the ‘House’ symbol. Traditional party voters would not forgive those that had caused it.

Family fiefdom

If this in the internal dynamics within the dominant ITAK still, outside of the party there are others like parliamentarian Gajendra Kumar Ponnambalam, for whom the pre-Independence Tamil Congress. For him, the party is the third-generation family fiefdom, from the days of his grandfather C G Ponnambalam and father Kumar Ponnambalam.

At one-level, Gajan Ponnambalam seems to want all Tamil parties, including possibly the ITAK, to come under the Tamil Congress umbrella. At another, and more identifiable level, he seems wanting to lord over Tamil politics, especially in the North, the same way Sumanthiran too seems wanting to. Given the inherent limitations however, Sumanthiran seems less ambitious, at least for now, and will want to settle for control over the ITAK. That is not the case with Gajan Ponnambalam, or so it seems.

All of it means that Sumanthiran is at the target of every other Tamil leader wanting to make a name and fame for himself – whether Sritharan from within the ITAK or Gajan Ponnambalam and the rest, from outside. In this background, the Tamil Congress has tied up with what is known as the ‘Democratic Tamil Front’, which is a product of the forgotten TNA split. The ITAK certainly was the cause, and Sumanthiran possibly was.

Ask erstwhile ITAK allies in the now-defunct TNA and they would tell you how under the late Samapanthan, the former treated them as less than second-class citizens in decision-making, whether political or electoral. The formal split occurred two-plus years ago when Sumanthiran mouthed the ITAK idea for TNA partners to contest the local council elections individually, so that each of them could corner a few seats, and unite to claim mayoralty in a vast majority of local councils in the Tamil areas.

It did not find favour at the time, and the allies were convinced that it was a shrewd ways to get rid of them once and for all. Yet, when the local council elections were postponed then and were conducted last month, Sumanthiran’s predictions alone came true. Only that the breakaway allies under a new nomenclature, ‘Democratic Tamil Front’, have ended up signing up with the Tamil Congress and Gajan Ponnambalam.

Unyielding, unbending

It was unthinking to the point of outright arrogance that the ITAK has continued to insist on not sharing mayoralty with prospective post-poll allies in councils where they had come on the top. Those allies once seemed to include not only the Democratic Tamil Front but also the Tamil Congress, with whom the Sivagnanam-Sumanthiran duo held talks.

Because the ITAK was unyielding and unbending, the other two signed up for a marriage of convenience, but Gajan called it a ‘policy-based alliance’, or ‘kolkai koottani’ in Tamil. It’s anything but what it’s supposed to be. It’s as opportunistic as any other, as the purpose was to capture as many councils as possible against whatever alliance that ITAK may form or formulate.

All is fair in love, war and electoral politics, yes. But it’s laughable for multiple parties from within the Congress-led front and the Democratic Front signing up for a ‘kolkai koottani’ without mutual discussions and extensive internal debates. And the ‘policy’ that the Congress is insisting on, and on which the rest have signed up without giving it a second thought – because they don’t intend sticking to it either way – is all that the Tamil parties have been saying all along but without much success.

The only thing is that under Sumanthiran, the ITAK may not agree to give up on the demand for full implementation of the 13-A even while moving towards ‘federalism’, the one-point agenda of the Congress, which diluted its cause from the previous idea of ‘confederation’. It is an irony that the new-found Democratic Front allies of the Congress alone had initiated an all-party Tamil leaders’ missive to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi two years back, for New Delhi to press the then Ranil Wickremesinghe dispensation to ensure full implementation of 13-A, obtained as far back as 1987 through Indian intervention and participation.

Facing the electorate

It is in this background, the Tamil parties will have to face the long-delayed Provincial Council elections, whenever held. A lot will depend on the ruling JVP-NPP’s willingness to face the electorate elsewhere after witnessing a clear fall in their vote-share from the high 61 per cent in the parliamentary elections to 43 per cent in the local government elections – the same figure as President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s vote-share when he was elected, again last year.

The same applies to the Tamil areas, where the voter anger over the unending personality clashes through the past months and years had frustrated the new-generation voters in particular that they preferred the centre-left JVP-NPP, once opposed to ‘Tamil nationalism’ and still not supportive of the cause. The ruling combine obtained the highest vote-share and seat-share in the Tamil Northern Province, starting with the prestigious Jaffna electoral district.

If it had sobered the Tamil voters to settle for the Tamil parties in the local government elections, the post-poll behaviour of their political leaderships may push the voter back into the waiting hands of the JVP combine during the PC polls. Or, else more Tamil voters may stay at home than during the parliamentary elections and local government polls, than used to be the case in the past – thus sending out a further message, which however may not be lost on their leaderships.

Ethnic predators

Fifteen years after the one-sided end of the ethnic war, it’s ‘future imperfect’ for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Even while unearthing new evidence to ‘Sinahala majoritarianism’, old and new, their lives and thoughts are sought to be controlled by their own polity and leaders. But that too is slowly changing.

The agitated media coverage of the discovery of human skeletons from court-ordered excavations in Semmani, to the ‘un-kept promise’ of President Anura Dissanayake to de-notify the government take-over of private Tamil lands under an archaic law passed close to a century ago, there are newer concerns adding to the old – war crimes probe, accountability issues and return of Tamil lands in military ‘occupation’.

There is not enough enthusiasm, especially among the future generations about the past sins of the ethnic predators from the other Sinhala side. This has caused a piquant situation and raised a poignant question on where from here for the Sri Lankan Tamils. The question strikes them in the face. But there is none among them to find an honest and enforceable response.

(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)

The Ministry of Public Security plans to recruit 10,000 individuals under the age of 45 who have legally retired from active military service into the police force.

Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala revealed the initiative during the opening ceremony of the Thambutthegama Superintendent of Police office.

He said that a Cabinet Paper seeking approval to recruit the ex-military personnel for a five-year period will be submitted to the Cabinet today.

Sri Lanka’s gross foreign reserves dropped 42 million US dollars to 6,284 million US dollars, below the level seen in October 2024, amid rising concerns that another cycle of policy errors is starting.

Sri Lanka’s gross official reserves hit 6,472 million dollars in October 2024, amid warnings of money printing, as large volumes of excess liquidity were dumped into the banking system to mis-target interbank call money rates.

In December and January, the central bank sold dollars on a net basis, as printed money was used for private credit, driving up imports.

In January private credit contracted, and the central bank bought dollars on a net basis.

Policy rate were cut in May 2022, though data shows that interbank rates were ‘signalled’ up, slightly with excess liquidity from dollar purchases boosting interbank liquidity without money being printed, and three month bill yields falling below the bureaucratically controlled rate.

Sri Lanka has had bad consequences from late cycle ‘rate cuts’ in the past.

Analysts have warned that beliefs that rates can be cut or that money can be printed through open market operations are spurious monetary doctrines that emerged in the ‘age of inflation’ and a central bank is just a ‘bank of issue’ subject to laws of nature discovered by classical economists.

Due to the central banks flawed operating frameworks which reject economics (current as well as in the past) people have to suffer exchange and import controls.

Many also leave the country of their birth to stable Middle Eastern countries where macro-economists cannot control short or long term rates and employment is many times their permanent resident population.

By February 2024, gross official reserves were down to 6,086 but private credit eased and the central bank bought dollars. An IMF tranche also came and foreign reserves went up to 6.5 billion US dollars.

After the IMF tranches reserves started to go down again.

Unless money is printed, there will not be immediate forex shortages (the central bank will not have to spend reserves to finance current outflows like imports to stop the rupee from falling from the newly created liquidity) but reserve collections may not be sufficient to repay debt, if interest rates are too low, even if some dollars are bought from the market.

The central bank itself has to settle dollar loans to India borrowed to effectively finance imports when money was printed to artificially boost credit in the run up the default.

As a result, the interest rate structure is dictated by the need to repay debt (by raising deposits from the domestic banking system) and IMF reserve targets and not historical statistical formulae as believed in countries that go to the IMF again and again and default (also again and again once it starts).

The Finance Ministry does not independently buy dollars from the market from rupees raised by Treasury bill sales, and is a helpless prisoner depending on central bank deflationary policy to collect reserves, EN’s economic columnist Bellwether says.

Meanwhile with the central bank running of Treasury bills bought during the crisis (they were converted to step down securities) the ability run deflationary policy is limited to coupon payments coming in, unless action is taken to sell them down.

Failing to reach reserve targets tends to unsettle foreign investors and rating agencies.

Sri Lanka’s central bank is now pursuing a so-called single policy rate involving narrowly controlling a mid-corridor rate, which critics have showed contributed to rapid-fire peacetime currency crises since the end of a 30-year war.

Before open market operations and discretionary monetary policy, external crises were limited money printed in desperation due to war, not due deliberate actions taken to follow follow a statistical doctrine which undermines the working of a credit system.