My Heart Bleeds for Sri Lanka's Economic Crisis
I wrote about a talented singer called Yohani.
Yohani is a young singer from Sri Lanka who became famous over the last two-plus years. Yohani's "Manike Mage Hithe" song became viral on the Internet. People started singing and dancing to the music.
There were several language adaptations of the "Manike Mage Hithe" song. Yohani became a celebrity around the world.
Even during the early days of the so-called pandemic, during the fourth quarter of 2020, Yohani traveled to India for two live programs. She toured several other countries in 2021. Yohani has been touring in the current year also.
Cross refer to my article, Music is Peace: "Yohani Sings" which details the story of the talented Sri Lankan singer Yohani.
Sri Lanka is a beautiful island nation in the Indian Ocean
Sri Lanka is a small island nation in the Indian Ocean to the south of India. It has just over twenty million population.
Sri Lanka attracts tourists from the entire world because of its scenic beauty. The country earns a good amount of foreign currency from tourism.
Sri Lanka also has some agricultural land where farmers grow rice, wheat, vegetables, and other crops. The hilly areas are full of tea plantations. Sri Lanka exports tea to foreign nations.
Image Source: Marvin Meyer on Unsplash.
There were no tourists during the pandemic years (2020, 2021)
The last two-plus years of pandemic-induced lockdowns affected the global tourism business. Sri Lanka was no exception. The income from tourism was nil.
Since tourism is one of the largest sources of foreign currency earning for Sri Lanka, the non-functional tourism industry due to lockdowns hit badly on the economy of the country.
The common citizens of Sri Lanka used to get indirect income from tourism. Therefore, the lockdowns severely affected the daily livelihood of the Sri Lankan citizens.
Yohani's country Sri Lanka is in a deep economic crisis
Sri Lanka has been in deep economic trouble due to long-time negative governance by a family of politicians. The country has been ruled by two brothers from a single RAJAPAKSA family - one is the President, and the other one is its Prime Minister.
Several of their other RAJAPAKSA family members and relatives are in the parliament and hold top administrative positions.
The President and Prime Minister brothers duo took important policy decisions inside their family and implemented those policies in the parliament.
For example, in 2019, the duo brothers' government suddenly enforced a hundred percent organic agricultural policy without having any discussions with the farmers.
Under its new policy, the Sri Lankan government stopped importing chemical fertilizer from foreign countries.
The farmers were not prepared to go for a hundred percent organic farming for all crops. As a result, the agricultural yields in 2020 and 2021 were poor. The farmers suffered a big loss in their agricultural income.
Over to that, the so-called pandemic-induced lockdowns resulted in nil business in the tourism industry sector.
Image Source: GIF created by me using my title texts and photos by Ibrahim Boran and Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash.
Bringing it altogether
Sri Lanka's foreign currency reserve is nil.
There is an acute shortage of petroleum products, including oil and fuels.
There is a shortage of food items, such as rice, wheat, cooking oil, etc.
Citizens are crying for food, cooking oil, and daily utilities.
The Sri Lankan government has requested all foreign airlines not to fill oil in the Sri Lankan airports.
The Sri Lankan government is having a huge debt to many neighboring nations.
No nation will give interest-free loans to Sri Lanka. India and a very few nations agreed to provide help with medicines.
To pay salaries to the employees, the government has been printing more money notes resulting in high inflations.
Citizens have been protesting on the streets. They captured the Presidential residence. Many military and police personnel have joined the protests with the citizens. Former cricket player Sanath Jaisuriya was seen among the protesters.
Sri Lanka is now facing a civil war, or even worse!
Postscript
My heart bleeds for Sri Lanka's economic crisis.
Yohani has been putting sincere efforts into attracting financial help from foreign nations.
I have a Sri Lankan friend with whom I studied in Japan. I had a telephonic conversation with my Sri Lankan friend in 2019. Now, I couldn't contact him. My messages remain unanswered on LinkedIn.
Nobody knows how and when Sri Lanka will get back to normalcy.
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Cheers!
Unity (Debesh Choudhury)
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Lead Image: I have created a GIF animation using title texts and photos by Ibrahim Boran and Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash.
All other images are either drawn/created by myself or credited to the respective artists/sources.
Disclaimer: All texts are mine and original. Any similarity and resemblance to any other content are purely accidental. The article is not advice for life, career, business, or investment. Do your research before adopting any options.
Unite and Empower Humanity.
July 15, 2022
I hope this country will soon recover