Comments on: Chellaney on Indo-Sri Lanka relations: How not to win friends and influence your neighbours

By: Bandara

Bandara — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:46:55 +0000

India may be more powerful, developed and richer than us, but we have a more cleaner country than you people.

By: Rohan Samarajiva

Rohan Samarajiva — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:19:16 +0000

I am truly puzzled by the allegation that I am jealous of India.

I reread the article but failed to grasp how this understanding could have come about. I am criticizing Professor Brahma Chellaney, who is in turn criticizing his government’s policies on the Sri Lankan conflict. I am not criticizing India, simply asking for a more positive engagement with us by intellectuals such as Professor Chellaney. If anyone is critical of India, it’s Chellaney.

By: rajivmw

rajivmw — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:30:43 +0000

Heshan,

So you warn us that Colombo and Kandy are unrepresentative.

Yet for human development, you cherry pick a singularly unrepresentative Indian state for us to compare ourselves with!

If only your prodigious goalpost shifting stopped there. But no sir, you’re just getting warmed up…

Because when it comes to millionnaire production, the state-level comparison you insisted on is suddenly forgotten – and it becomes perfectly acceptable to compare Sri Lanka and her 20 million people with a nation of a billion!

Are you for real?

By: Heshan

Heshan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:48:14 +0000

@rajivm:

Any economic analysis of India only makes sense if you give a regional/state-by-state breakdown.

KERALA

Life expectancy: 75 years

Literacy rate: 97.0

Per capita GDP: 11819 INR

Also, the statistics you gave for Sri Lanka are not uniform across the island. Colombo and Kandy would score high, while the rest is anyone’s guess. On the other hand, considering that India is significantly larger than Sri Lanka, it has definitely outperformed Sri Lanka. Obviously, there are a few states lagging behind (all in the North). You claim that Sri Lanka is richer? That is a laughable proposition. How many millionaires does Sri Lanka produce compared to India ?

By: rajivmw

rajivmw — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:13:09 +0000

Heshan,

As usual, your outburst is comically irrelevant to the subject in the original post. But since you boldly call for the facts, here are a few pertinent ones:

Per Capita Income 2008 (PPP)
Sri Lanka: USD4400
India: USD2900

Literacy Rate
Sri Lanka: 90.7%
India: 61%

Infant Mortality
Sri Lanka: 18.57 deaths/1,000 live births
India: 30.15 deaths/1,000 live births

Life Expectancy
Sri Lanka: 75.14 years
India: 69.89 years

Source: The CIA World Factbook

Also, India has banned women below 30 years of age from working as housemaids abroad. While that may indeed be a worthy policy, it makes it all but impossible to draw the kind of comparison you do. Be that as it may, there are far, far more Indians working in the Middle East than Sri Lankans, and I doubt they are all engineers and nuclear scientists as you might have us believe.

By: Heshan

Heshan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:40:11 +0000

The author is just jealous of India’s successes. Sri Lanka achieved Independence much more peacefully than India. And yet where do the nations stand today… India is a nuclear power that produces more than a million engineers annually… in contrast, Sri Lanka “exports” several hundred thousand housemaids – to be abused by Arabs – every year. The author should get his facts right.