Persistent Patriarchy: Women Workers on Sri Lankan Plantations

__Abstract__ The early suffragists in the United States had decried the “prolonged slavery of woman” as the “darkest page in human history” with one of the leaders, Susan B. Anthony, stating on Independence Day in 1876 that “Universal manhood suffrage, by establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son” (Stanton et al 1887). While countries all over the world have witnessed progress in gender equality and gender rights since that period, the recent UNDP Human Development Report of 2014 has acknowledged that there is still “no country with perfect gender equality”.1 In Sri Lanka, women on plantations experience much gender discrimination and many gender disadvantages, being ‘slaves’ to men who themselves are ‘slaves’

Plantation Patriarchy and Structural Violence: Women Workers in Sri Lanka

__Abstract__ Plantation production began in Sri Lanka in the early 19th century under British colonial rule, when the government provided financial incentives and infrastructural support for the commercialisation and export of agricultural crops in line with promoting laissez-faire capitalism. Motivated by the possibility of making high profits, British entrepreneurs, including several officials, took up the large-scale cultivation of initially coffee, and then subsequently, tea, rubber and coconut. Keen to minimise their costs of labour, the planters recruited workers from neighbouring districts of the Madras Presidency in south India where there were large numbers badly affected by the widespread famine and indebtedness in the region. The spread of plantation production in the 19th and 20th centuries resulted in a more permanent workforce, constituting the single largest and organised segment of the working class in the country. While women formed a small proportion of the early pattern of migration, their numbers subsequently increased and, by the 20th century, they comprised half the now permanent workforce on the plantations

Natesa Aiyar and Meenachi Ammal: Pioneers of Trade Unionism and Feminism on The Plantations

Natesa Aiyar and Meenachi were labour activists, politicians and visionaries who used their the oratory and organisational skills, to mobilise the workers to struggle mobilise for better working conditions and wages, as well citizenship rights for all women and men on the plantations. exploitative conditions but he also emphasised the need to provide higher wages to women as well as to ensure children’s right to education

Generation and forecasting of monsoon rainfall data

Generation and forecasting of monsoon rainfall dat

Indirect Regulatory Capture, Regulator and the Utility in Electricity Sector

This paper discussed the two cases of the regulatory decisions of the electricity sector regulator of Sri Lanka on renewable energy tariff calculation and approval of long term generation Expansion plan. The objectives of the analysis of the case studies are to examine how does utility can react on the regulatory decisions in the monopolistic market and whether it leads to a situation of Indirect Regulatory Capture. The regulatory process is examined from the perspective of various interest groups over the time, using Public Interest theory and Interest Group theory. The two cases are shown to have been strongly influenced by the interests of the different stakeholders of the electricity sector themselves, indicating a degree of 'regulatory capture'. The relationship of the utility and the regulator has been increasingly challenged by external pressures, interests of the stakeholders, and by, the level of resistance of the monopolistic utility. The paper concludes that in the monopolistic electricity market regulators decision can be reversed if the Utility is strong enough to resist the regulators decision if not favorable for the public or the utilities’ interest