Disease attacks coconut cultivation of Sri Lanka

(June 18, 2010) A disease is spreading in the coconut cultivations of Sri Lanka’s Southern Province, says the Ministry of Plantation.

This disease is believed spread to Sri Lanka from areas like Kerala in India. Leaves of the diseased coconut trees are dried prematurely due to this disease.

The Minister of Plantation Mahinda Samarasinghe says that measures will be initiated to prevent the spread of the disease to Sri Lanka’s Coconut Triangle to avoid loss to economy.

Already, 6200 trees that have been affected by the disease have been removed, the Minister said adding that a census on the spread of disease is carried out now.

The Minister said that a task force chaired by the chairman of the Coconut Development Board has been appointed to fight the disease.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Coconut , Coconut Development Board , India , Kerala , kidney diseases

STRAIGHT TALK ACROSS PALK STRAIT - “NO FTAS”!

A Joint India-Lanka People's Statement for Cultivating Peace and not Free Trade Agreements

Talks towards a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) are to be intensified by the governments of India and Sri Lanka. This is one of the main messages from yesterday's joint declaration in Delhi, India between the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the visiting Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse. A joint commission has been revived for the purpose to deepen economic and agricultural ties. The CEPA is likely to be made final and signed by the end of this year.

This CEPA has no social backing and has been met with people's protests on both sides. In the past the two countries have signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that came into effect in 2000 and reportedly, the next level of trade relations through a CEPA are to “build on the gains” of the earlier FTA. However, a decade later there are neither official impact studies on either side nor real life evidence to show that trade between the two countries has gainfully bettered people's lives. The FTA was only about trade in goods, but the CEPA will broaden out to cover much more, including services and investment.
Despite PM Singh's call for “inclusive growth” and the President Rajapaksa's Election Manifesto Mahinda Chinthanaya motto that Lankans will produce locally, everything they need; our governments are negotiating several bilateral trade and investment agreements amongst themselves and other countries. In these negotiations, as in Lanka “the government (is) determined to give an opportunity to the business community, industrialists, investors, importers and exporters...to air their views on the CEPA and many other agreements which are scheduled to be signed.” Likewise, in India it is the industry bodies and business associations, such as FICCI and CII, that are consulted. The talks are not made transparent to ordinary people's whose lives and livelihoods are most affected by such bilateral trade and investment agreements. The two sides have now agreed to launch a CEOs Forum, so that business communities can interact. It is the economic and political elites that are able to bargain win-win deals for themselves.

South-South FTAs too must be seen as a continuation of relationships of dominance by powerful players and private corporations. The Indian peoples' experience with the Sri Lankan FTA shows that it has had a devastating impact on agricultural livelihoods in states such as Kerala. The same FTA has also had negative impacts on the Sri Lankan side, which explains the anti-India sentiment even with the proposed CEPA. Trade is thus turning our peoples against each other. Therefore, the urgent need for a new basis for fostering relationships amongst the countries in South Asia. Trade can not be a basis for lasting peace in the sub-region.
We, ordinary peoples, farmers' groups, worker unions, trade activists, non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations, representing both India and Sri Lanka, express solidarity with the movements on both sides of Palk Strait that work for genuine friendship across the Palk Strait. Till small farmers, fisher folk and local communities from both sides progress, there can be no real peace. In securing that peace, we do not need terms of trade – tariff quotas, import duties, CEPAs, etc. but an agreement to first make peace with the natural resources that support lives, cultures and livelihoods. Trade rules compel us to compete rather than collaborate. Moreover, more trading means more impacts on the planet and our peoples. It is our firm belief that resettlement after the many crises – ethnic, economic and ecological, requires rebuilding local economies that are socially just and ecologically appropriate. Therefore, we do not support any of the trade agreements between the two governments. We however endorse the many “alternatives” that people's themselves are building in partnership, such as on seed, food and farm practices. On our part we commit to work on a people-to-people level to sow peace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) , Free Trade Agreement , India

Asia wide Peasants Caravan will be commenced in Sri Lanka

At the height of global financial crisis, state terrorism and widespread land grabbing of huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian and African nations, the militant Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) and International League of Peoples’  Struggle (ILPS) Commission kicked-off a “Five–month Asia-wide Peasants’ Caravan for Land and Livelihood” that will commence on July 21 and will be held till November 2009 in ten countries in Asia such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka. 

The theme of the Peasants’ Caravan is “Stop Global Land Grabbing! Struggle for Genuine Agrarian Reform and Peoples’ Food Sovereignty.”

Asia wide Peasants Caravan for Land and Livelihood will commence on 20th of July in Sri Lanka. Launching ceremony which will be hosted by MONLAR and Vikalpani will be held in Peasant Information Center Kurunegala at 10.00 am.
Download Introduction brochure:
http://www.asianpeasant.org/sites/default/files/Brochure%20Asian%20Peasants%20Caravan%20on%20Land%20and%20Livelihoodsl%20_0.pdf

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Asia , Bangladesh , India , Indonesia , Malaysia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka to build a coal power plant on land grabbed from Tamil civilians of Sampur

View Larger Map

Sri Lanka government is going ahead with the plan to set up a coal power plant in Sampur in Trincomalee district. The Minister of Power and Energy W. D. J. Senevirathna said in the parliament on June 23, 2009 that a Memorandum of Understanding will be signed with India in this regard.

The 500 MW power plant, which is estimated to cost US$500 million, is expected to be running by 2012.

The location chosen to set up the plant is a fertile land inhabited by the traditional Tamil villagers for many centuries. They were displaced in the military operations against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The government subsequently declared Sampur and surrounding areas as a High Security Zone (HSZ) and offered to relocate the displaced.

Transcurrents.com website said last year that most Sampur residents had fled the area in a panic, leaving behind documents including proof of ownership of lands. “The authorities are now pretending that these families had been planted there by the LTTE,” said one source of the website, requesting anonymity. “Their houses have been flattened. But they had lived there for generations. The village is in Dutch records and Rajasinghe II, who built a replacement for Koneswaram Temple in Thampalakamam, assigned Sampur to perform certain services at the temple.”

Read the article for more details.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in India , Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , Sampur , Sri Lanka , Trincomalee