THE SCENE WAS STRANGE. There were long queues on both sides of Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, a usually bustling street close to the heart of Colombo, but oddly quiet now. On one side of the mawatha (which means street in Sinhalese) were hundreds of two-wheelers and luxury cars, parked bumper to bumper. On the other side was an equally long queue of autorickshaws.
The lines barely moved. Men in khaki, some of them resting on the doorsteps of a swanky bungalow, kept watch. “That one is mine,” said Dinouk Liyanage, an autorickshaw driver. “I have been here for two days to fill it up with petrol.”
Despite the long wait, Liyanage will get only 10 litres of petrol. “There is rationing,” he explained. “We don’t have sufficient fuel.” Ten litres will barely last two days, he added.
The long queues showed how acute the fuel shortage in Sri Lanka was. With no end in sight even after four months, the shortage is crippling the lives of the elite as well as the everyman.
Liyanage said his expenses have tripled, while his income has plunged. “I used to earn LKR 50,000 a month, and spend only LKR 40,000. I have now pawned all my wife’s jewellery. But there seems to be no way out,” he said.
He could as well have been describing the state of the economy. Ninety-five per cent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million people are reeling under an economic crisis, and the prolonged food, fuel and electricity shortages it has caused. Schools and colleges are shut; offices are plagued by power cuts; newspapers have ceased printing for want of ink and newsprint; and inadequate medical supplies have forced hospitals to postpone surgeries.
この記事は THE WEEK India の August 07, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は THE WEEK India の August 07, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Angry, Young America
Campus protests against the Gaza war continue to linger as students demand a realignment of US ties with Israel
We need to engage more with communities
Designer Aratrik Dev Varman of the label Tilla has long been a lover of history. One could comfortably call him part-aesthete, part-archeologist, for his clothes dip into vintage styles of the Kutch, Sindh, Balochistan and Afghanistan, bringing alive antique styles and crafts. Tilla, the store and atelier, are situated on a tree-lined avenue in Ahmedabad.
The great luxury slowdown
A year or so ago, if anyone had told me that Tommy Hilfiger would have stolen the show at New York’s Met Gala, I would have laughed. But it seems the end of giant luxury labels is upon us even before we expected it. The American ready-to-wear designer Tommy Hilfiger seems to have created the maximum media buzz at the 2024 Met Gala, according to several data analytics firms.
RAP BRINGS RAPTURE
How indie artistes, especially hip-hoppers, are driving the phenomenal rise of Malayalam music
Employability issues are a narrative created by the corporate world
Prof Yogesh Singh is the 23rd vice chancellor of the century-old University of Delhi (DU). An engineer with a PhD in computer engineering, Singh has an impressive track record of teaching, innovation and research in the area of software engineering. He has more than 250 publications and his book, Software Testing, published by the Cambridge University Press, is well-received internationally. In an interview with THE WEEK, Singh talks about trends in higher education in India, the challenges faced by big universities, and how to make higher education more interesting. Asked about the perception that Indian graduates are “not employable”, he reacts strongly, and emphasises the difference between training and higher education. Edited excerpts:
SERVING WITH DISTINCTION
Conceived as a university like no other, Jawaharlal Nehru University became India's best. Here is how
Mandela Effect and Liar's Dividend
The complex tapestry of AI's impact on society
The other Sabyasachi
I am Sabyasachi Mukherjee, not to be confused with my namesake, the celebrated fashion couturier, declared the venerated director-general of Mumbai’s pride, George Wittet’s Indo-Saracenic jewel, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum.
THE MANGO HUNTERS
'Naadan Maavukal' started out as a Facebook group, but what it does offline has helped conserve many indigenous varieties of mangoes
BJP LEADERS, TOO, HAVE HAD ENOUGH
Farmers’ protest has taken the centre stage in Haryana, which goes to the polls on May 25. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is confident that the Congress, which has been out of power for 10 years, will regain its hold on the state. “People who voted for the BJP are disappointed today. It is clear that they want change,” he told THE WEEK.
