A NATION SUFFERS A SURREAL FAMILY LEADERSHIP

Sri Lanka has everything going against it. Its economy has melted down. Its money earner, the tourism industry, had collapsed due to the Covid-19 & the country is about to default the loans. It is now seriously thinking of an IMF bailout. And above all, the ‘no love lost’ situation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils still continues! 

The country is fully under the control of one family, the Rajapaksa’s. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is its President, his elder brother Mahindra (formerly country’s President) is the Prime minister, younger brother Basil is the finance minister, eldest brother Chamal is Irrigation minister, Mahinda’s son, Namal is the Sports minister and Chamal’s son, Shasheendra is the minister for Organic fertiliser production, vegetable cultivation and advanced agri technology!

That is not all, Mahinda’s second son Yoshita is the PM’s Chief of Staff on ministerial rank and the nephew of the President, Nipuna Ranawaka is the member of Parliament. 

The Rajapasa family holds 9 ministerial berths that includes 7 cabinet posts. It is estimated that about 75 % of the Country’s budget is under their control, a feat not even the monarchs of Saudi Arabia could claim! 

The first thing that President did after coming to power was passing the 20th amendment of the Country’s constitution that gave the President unlimited powers, an act that was nationally (by the namesake opposition) and internationally condemned. But who bothers? 

The huge debt that the country has with China, taken for building the Hambantota port and other infrastructure projects, had resulted in China taking over the port and at this rate, no one will be surprised if China monopolises the sea cargo movement of Sri Lanka by controlling its ports.  

Post the civil war and the military (excess) action, the Tamils are still demanding a fair deal from the Government and there is no progress made on it, getting the attention of the world bodies, including the United Nations, all cajoling the government to do something for the Tamil minority at the earliest. 

The collapse of tourism industry, something which Sri Lanka ever depended on progress and forex, had struck the last nail to the country’s economic meltdown. It confirms the adage that ‘when somethings start going wrong, everything goes wrong with it‘

Added to that are the challenges brought in by the agriculture reform by the government, advising organic farming and withdrawing fertilisers and chemicals from paddy (Lankan staple diet) & vegetable cultivation, resulting in considerably reduced agricultural output, thereby taking the country into a famine situation. 

A famished country, unabated Covid, inflation shooting up, internal ethnic strife, unemployment and; ruled by the thumb of an autocratic family, everything is taking Sri Lanka, our neighbors, down the road.

It is Thomas Jefferson who said, “the government you elect is the government you deserve”!

WHAT WOULD BE XI JINPING'S NEXT MOVE?

Now that he had consolidated his position as President for life (almost), he would be working on:

1. Annexing more land to China (Arunachal Pradesh of India, Taiwan, Some of the islands belonging to Philippines, the north east side of Bhutan, most of the Pangong lake valley in Ladak etc.)
2. Completely re-energising the Chinese army and building higher capacities within it
3. Fighting indirect wars with USA (at times spilling over to sea skirmishes with USA and allies, in South China Sea)
4. Trying to take full control of WTO
5. Completely localising Hong Kong & Macau, may be, cancelling the ‘one country, 2 system’ mode
6. Acting brutally on the those satellite countries that had availed huge Chinese loans but unable to pay back (remember, China's  Belt and Road initiatives) in the past for infrastructure and facilities and makng them Chinese stooges on world scene.
7. Taking cutting edge leadership in technology, engineering, electronics, IOT, 5G, space & missile technologies, nuclear technology, healthcare technology etc., even outdoing USA & Europe
8. Controlling Chinese billionaire entrepreneurs and to a large extent, taking over/ managing their enterprises.
9. Doing everything possible to make the Xi thought on ‘common prosperity’ successful, in order to manage the citizens, by making them happy.
10. Increasing the gap between him and next in line in CCP thus making sure that no alternative leader to him emerge within It.

However at all points in time, he may have to watch over his shoulder as 1. world opinion can shift, 2. the Islamic word can go against him in support of Uighur muslims, 3. some smart Alec can come up in CCP politburo gaining support from majority with in it and 4. social media technology oriented denizens catching him in his act.

That’s about it. Let us keep watching China.........

RESOLVE YOUR CONFLICTS BEFORE YOU GO AWAY

Someone sent me a short video on Kashi Labh Mukti Bhavan (KLMB), Varanasi; commented by Deepak Ramola, a young TED speaker who speaks on life lessons learnt. 

Kashi Labh Mukti Bhavan, existing since the 1950s, built by the Dalmias, is a place for people to go, stay and die (of course, naturally) when it is time for it, such as old age, terminal illness etc. Since dying in Varanasi, the most sacred city of India, is believed to give eternal deliverance to the soul, many people come to stay here during their final days and as per records, more than 15000 people’s life had ended in this very building!

Much more interesting is the life lessons learnt from the manager of KLMB that is expressed in the video. Citing many cases that occurred there, the  major lesson delivered was about ‘resolving the conflicts before one ends the life’. I found it very interesting. 

Practically all of us may have undergone conflicts with others in life, be it kith, kin or someone. Often our big ego does not allow us to take the initiative to resolve the conflicts and we carry it inside and instead of going away, it grows inside, often boiling inside us. While we would not accept it to others that it is killing us and we deny its existence, in reality, we are seriously affected by it. Carrying such a pain inside, how peacefully can you prepare to die, even when the time has come? And, if we die carrying the painful burn of conflict inside, do we really think the soul that leaves our body will be eternally liberated?

So if it is liberation (moksh) of the soul is that we seek, it is important that we take the initiative to meet the person/s with whom we have the conflict and resolve it before we leave the earth. The manager poignantly explains a particular case of an elder brother on deathbed there passing away with peace on his face immediately after resolving his long-standing conflict with the younger one. Let us realise this, CARRYING A PAINFUL CONFLICT INSIDE, NO ONE CAN DIE IN PEACE!

At the end of the video the commentator makes a statement and I would like end this post with with it. “Resolve your conflicts today because the good news is, you are alive today to do it and the bad news is, no one knows, for how long will you live

PAY ATTENTION TO THINGS AROUND YOU, YOU COULD PROBABLY SAVE A LIFE

I read and and commented on a post about a person in USA suddenly having a heart attack in a car and a stranger attending to him and saving him from an instant death.

In the post he mentions that one major takeaway from the incident is about paying attention to things around you, in his some stranger paying attention to him, to save him from the brink of death.

This kindled my memory and brought out an an incident that happened in my life, of saving a life. I haven’t chest thumped it by telling it to the world, but I explain it below so that any of the reader may get a motivation to pay attention to things around, to the extent of a saving a dear life.

The members of an internationally affiliated social club of Cochin where I was a member & an office bearer, were doing a pleasure ride cum family dinner on a cruze boat on the backwaters of Cochin. It started by late evening and we concluded the official meeting in the first hour. Later by about 7.30 pm, the boat was brought and anchored at the Fine Arts Hall jetty to load the dinner from a reputed restaurant in the city and after that, the boat was about to resume the journey. Along with the club President and two three other office bearers, I too alighted from the boat and volunteered to get the food inside. One by one everyone from outside boarded the boat back and the president and I were the last to board. Without us realising, by then, the boat was moving off slowly (probably the carelessness of the boat driver)

One must admit that we were a little tipsy with the beer intake during the trip and as our president tried to jump into the boat, the boat having moved off, he went straight into the deep water (indeed deeper as this jetty was used by big cruze and cargo boats) and being dark already, no one watching to raise an alarm!

Having seen him falling into water, at that moment, from out of the blue, it dawned on me that a person who falls into deep water like this, will come up in a few seconds before going down again and calling the attention of the people on this side, standing on the steps, I waited for his body to come up and I wasn’t disappointed. As he came up,I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up. All these happened in a few seconds. After the first aid and all, we resumed the journey.

People later told me that if he wasn’t pulled out then, his would have been a gone case.

It had happened in his midlife and our then president, after having a full career, including that in GCC nations, is now living a peaceful retired life in Cochin. May be at times, he would remembering the accident. Initially around the date, I used to get his mail/call.

Yes, paying attention on things around you helps and by virtue of it, you could probably be saving someone’s life too