Suryakumar ton sets up India’s series victory
How India has become cricket’s super power
ACA chief executive on run-outs backing up: ‘It shouldn’t be the word Mankad’
Mitchell Swepson, Lance Morris, Peter Handscomb? Who will get on the India flight?
Khawaja waits on 195 as rain washes out day three at the SCG
The Third Round of Sri Lanka – Thailand Free Trade Agreement negotiations scheduled to commence tomorrow
Hayleys Fentons geared up for more inspiring projects like Capitol Twin Peaks
ComBank introduces ‘Visa Direct’ and ‘Mastercard Send’ card-to-card fund transfers – a first in Sri Lanka
AIA Insurance offers health policies to employees at Sun Lanka Private Limited.
Capital Maharaja continues expansion streak with the appointment of three CEOs
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by Hugh Karunanayake
The Royal Thomian match of 1951 will for long be remembered for its nail-biting finish, and for the manner in which the Royal College team led by skipper T. Vairavanathan extracted a five-run victory from the jaws of defeat. It will certainly occupy a top position in the history of the series, the second oldest school cricket encounter in the world, (the first game being played in 1880).
In the souvenir issued in 2004 to commemorate the 125th encounter in the series under the title “The impossible finish of 1951” a cricket scribe writing under the pseudonym “The Commentator” exclaimed “Even the boldest writer of sports fiction would not have dared to invent such an implausible finish to a cricket match”.
Royal batted first and made an unimpressive 146. The Thomians followed for only a couple of overs when rain washed out further play. This was the era of the two day game played on Friday and Saturday, and rain invariably meant loss of playing time, and a draw. Playing time for the Saturday was only five and a half hours for the completion of three innings…… A highly unlikely scenario for a decisive game. However Royal skipper Vairavanathan by astute captaincy had the Thomian struggling at 61 runs with seven wickets down.
Sensing the deteriorating nature of the wicket the Thomian skipper sent in the Royalists for their second turn at the wicket. As expected, the batting was not up to the challenge and except for skipper Vairavanathan and SS Jayawickreme who made 38 and 39 respectively, the Royal side struggled to get 105 when skipper Vairavanathan sportingly declared with eight wickets down.
Either of the teams could win the game and the Thomians would have the match in the bag if they scored 191. A dogged resistance cum counter punching saw the Thomians with only three wickets down after having reached 150 runs. Did Vaira make a blunder in declaring? Another 41 runs with seven wickets to go seemed a most likely event, but not in skipper Vaira’s mind. To revert to the words of the scribe.
“A good length off break, and batsman Jayewardene plays back. As Vairavanathan walks back he flashes a glance and a smile at the off-side fielders. In the heightened rapport among the team there is no need for words. Instantly they get the message…. The next one is pitched further and flighted even higher. The batsman has been playing back with increasing difficulty. He prods hesitantly, misses, the ball is through and heading for middle and off stumps, the bails go flying, and ROYAL HAS WON ….
WELL, THAT WAS THE CRICKET – NOW HERE IS THE OTHER STORY!
It was the morning of the first day of the match, and every Royalist over 15 years of age would want to be in the cycle parade which starts at Racecourse Avenue and winds its way past (and into) Ladies College, Bishops College, Holy Family Convent, Visakha Vidyalaya and thence to the match at the Oval. Invariably the procession would arrive about an hour later due to the high jinx and theatricals of the processionists. My classmate and buddy Chandra Putra Laxana asked me whether he could come with me on the cycle parade, and since he had no bicycle could he ride on the bar of my cycle. Agreed, no problems there, and he was to arrive at my home around 10.30 am.
In the weeks prior to the event I was on the hunt for a fez or “thambi thoppi”with my friend Oma Senaratne. One Saturday Oma and I were riding our bikes near Deans Road Maradana looking for a likely victim when we came across a Moor funeral procession with hundreds of mourners (all males) and most of them wearing fez hats; a scene which kept us licking our lips in anticipation.(We found out later that the funeral was that of Minister T.B. Jayah’s mother). We decided on a strategy. We would wait till the procession went up Dean’s Road and we would pounce on an unsuspecting straggler and remove his head gear, turn around and pedal fast in the opposite direction.
The fez was taken with one swift grab, and we headed towards Victoria Park with several men chasing us uttering choice expletives. Despite there being a prominent sign at the entrance to the park saying “NO CYCLING PERMITTTED.” We pedaled fast into the park and this time we were chased by the park watchers. We re-emerged in Green Path the loot still safe and unscathed.
Laxana lived with his parents in a house called “The Walauwwa” on High Level Road, Kirillapona, and probably the only Muslims to live in a “waluwwa”. A dear easy going friend he had no difficulty in agreeing to another friend asking him whether he could accompany him to the match. And so it was that on the morning of the match he came to my home with his friend Raja Silva, a 13-year old lad still wearing shorts. Raja was later to be known as Rahula Silva a dreaded cop.
Now with Laxana and Raja it was impossible for us to go on my bike so instead we called for a Quickshaw and went to Princes Restaurant at the Galle Road next to Pendennis Avenue then. Raja took a fancy to my trophy of a few days before, and was wearing the fez thereafter, and that was the last I saw of it! We had a glass of beer each including Raja who had not tasted beer before.
There was no peer pressure there: on the contrary I felt that the guy was too young to drink beer, but he insisted. From Princes’ we hopped into another Quickshaw to the Oval when somewhere near Alexandra Road, Raja was feeling the impact of the beer. We then deviated to Bake House on Deans Road, as Raja was staggering after consuming the first glass of beer. We drew up two chairs on which he was laid across, and a friendly waiter fanned him while we marked time.
I was hoping that we could use the delay caused by Raja’s misadventure to good use as I thought the cycle procession would by now have reached the Lipton Circus area where the three of us could have joined the procession. When we came out however there was no sign of the procession but an eerie feeling that something had gone wrong. As we walked half-way up Ward Place we met with a scene of desolation and some destruction. Placards taken by the boys to the match were strewn about, and something serious may have happened. On reaching the Oval we heard the story which turned out to be nothing but a display of police brutality.
From the accounts given to me by our school mates the problem began when the procession of about 500 schoolboys turned into Ward Place and saw two police constables standing near the phone booth at the intersection between Alexandra Place and Ward Place. The usual chant of “ado kosso” erupted but what seemed to have irked the displeasure of the cops was when a boy took off the slouch hat of one of constables and placed it on his own head in a mocking gesture. The cops were not happy and had rung the Cinnamon Gardens Police station saying they were under attack. Within a few minutes police reinforcements headed by a jeep, a paddy wagon, and all the cops available at the Cinnamon Gardens police station swooped down on the procession with the cops swinging their batons and abusing the boys in raw Sinhala filth. It was a stupendous melee as the cops were on a military like mission!.
Roger Modder on seeing the cops breaking up the procession had abandoned his bike and was darting towards Borella junction pursued by a cop shouting “Anna suddawa allaganda” with Roger sprinting away shouting “mama sudda nemay mata Sinhala dannawa” Roger was too fast for the ralahami. They managed to ‘capture’ 12 boys including Gamini Iriyagolle, CV (Puggy) Gooneratne, Jehan Raheem, Jeevaka de Zoysa. They were all taken to the Cinnamon Garden Police station and humiliated by being placed in the police lock-up, and denied access to drinking water or to the telephone.
Some of the boys in the cycle procession who reached the Oval contacted Mr Bernard Anghie, Warden of the College Hostel who came immediately with a couple of boys to the Police Station. Anghie was fondly referred to by the boys as Angus, and upon entering the police station, introduced himself to the inspector in charge from whom he asked permission to use the police station phone. He immediately rang Mr Sidney de Zoysa who was then a senior and well known police officer. As soon as he took the phone and said “Hello Sidney “a magical aura seemed to have enveloped the police station! Sidney asked the phone to be given to the Inspector who was given an order which the entire police station could hear “Release those boys immediately.”
Cops who had been taunting the boys earlier, had now became very solicitous about their welfare One particular sergeant who seemed to have had a bee in his bonnet about Royalists and had been vituperative and insulting, was nowhere to be seen and later sighted in the station in civil clothes.
There were rumours that the Old Boys Union wanted the cops to be dealt with, but after a few days the whole matter lost its significance, and everyone was in a conciliatory mood. No further action was initiated. Of the boys whose name were mentioned in this story, only Jehan Raheem who worked as the UNDP Coordinator for Asia, now living in the USA and Jeevaka de Zoysa retired architect are among the living today. Raja aka Rahula Silva passed away some years ago after a remarkable career in the Police Force.
Chandra Putra Laxana worked as The Chief Editor of The Straits Times in Malaysia and later migrated to Melbourne Australia where he passed away 20 years ago. Oma Senaratne trained as an automobile engineer in Chelsea, UK and worked in Kuwait. He passed away about two decades ago. Gamini Iriyagolle joined the Ceylon Civil Service, and on retirement passed away also about two decades ago. Puggy Gooneratne served as a Minister in Government and was assassinated by a terrorist bomb 24 years ago. Roger Modder was a Director of the firm Carson Cumberbatch and died following a motor accident. All of them are remembered with great affection.
The failure of political leadership
The iconic “Old Anatomy Block” – the end is nigh!!
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by Kumar David
Of the three constitutions of Ceylon/Sri Lanka within living memory the most liberal was the Soulbury Constitution, then the Sirima-Colvin enactment; JR crafted the most authoritarian. From this experience people of my parent’s generation draw pleasant conclusions about old British times, but I have to let that discourse pass. However, one question I must ask is: was government less corrupt then? The period after Independence has brought material prosperity to the people – advances in healthcare and education, mega-projects (Gal Oya and Mahweli to name just two) and a more complex and industrialised economy. In this one para introduction I have noted two important points; a new constitution must provide opportunities for the economy to expand and secondly the ethical worthies of the public service and if possible – and that is a big if – the moral integrity of political classes must be fortified. Having said this, allow me to move on to the contingent circumstances accompanying the constitution making processes.
Starting 2015 numerous parliamentary committees toiled for hours, toured the country taking statements and burnt the midnight oil preparing the ground for a new constitution to replace JR’s monster. All that material remains locked up in various parliamentary archives. There was a change of government in 2020 and the Rajapaksa bandwagon that came to power was more determined than ever to retain an executive presidency and authoritarianism. Whatever was achieved before 1920 is now lost at least in part. The fight to enact a democratic constitution in Sri Lanka is going to be a Sisyphean task, uphill all the way. Interestingly the foreign interests (imperialism, IMF, or corporate powers) that collaborated with JR then have, to a degree, melted away thanks to universal human rights movements and global political competition have taken their fortunate toll.
In the context of Sri Lanka at this time there are (in addition to the economic anxieties of the masses and attempting to control the immorality of the political classes) three additional imperatives of national significance whose solution the constitution must facilitate. I will use the terminology by which they are widely known, these are.
The National Question
The aspirations of Youth
The protection and preservation of Democracy and Human Rights
I will now expand on this but it is impossible to avoid repeating what I have written about in my previous pieces in this column during the last six to eight weeks. Of particular significance is the recession facing global capitalism, the emergence of anarchist (Blanquist) trends in Lanka’s radical youth movements, the global inflation vs. interest-rate conflict and the universal expectation that there will have to be a great deal of belt-tightening before growth can resume in Lanka.
This nonsense of ethnic extremism has been going on for long enough and has destroyed the body politic of Sri Lanka; enough is enough. Firm legislation must be enacted to put an end to it. One vital step is that monks and other persons in yellow robes who provoke ethnic violence must be incarcerated without mercy. There should be no constitutional impediment to these essential measures. Second, the radical youth groups such as the Frontline Socialists and the JVP which have in the past dirtied their hands by messing around with communal extremism should no longer be allowed to get away with it. In the case of the JVP the problem is already half solved thanks to the NPP which is committed to devolution of responsibilities to communities and to provinces. The NPP must not relax pressure; if anything the pressure on the JVP to stop its communalism must be increased.
A problem is likely to be the media, sections of which may take to arrant racism in the guise of free speech. The rules of the Press Council and the laws in general must be strengthened as necessary. This time when international human rights pressure is being focussed on Sri Lanka is an appropriate moment to get tough. The next concern regarding the national question is what to expect from liberal capitalist entities? Commercial ventures, businessmen and grandees have become accustomed to purveying racist poppycock as their right. If Germany can declare Holocaust Denial a criminal offence, we can take a leaf from this copybook. Of course, one can cross the t’s and dot the i’s differently but my bottom line is that it is necessary to get tough on racism.
Making progress on the National Question, meeting the expectations of the young and cajoling the people to put up with the period of hardship to permit say a decade of economic improvement are all predicted on one variable. Is the economy improving and is it visible to the different social classes and political agents? This is not historical materialism gone haywire, on the contrary there are two ways in which material factors control society. The first is what I have said here, improving material conditions assuage social and political pressures. The second is crude personal materialism that governs daily life. What is commonly called greed, excessive and un-Buddhist desire for more, a willingness to sell even one’s mother down river in the commercial free-market if it is profitable to do so. This is a fact of daily life within and outside families, among friends and among commercial partners. It will be so for as long as homo sapiens exists as a species. Darwin’s survival thesis, Tennyson’s “Nature, red in tooth and claw” (Memoriam AHH 1850) etc.
One point of theoretical interest is the thesis that material benefit alone dictates the evolution of society and culture and the state are mere appendages that tag along. Is it reasonable to say that the different stages of historical evolution are a movement of society from slavery to serfdom, from classical (Greco-Roman, Xian China or pre-Mohenjo-Daro Indus Valley) to feudal, serf, medieval and capitalism today? That is too simplistic because each stage in social evolution carried in the transition, vestiges of the culture and statecraft of its origin.
Certainly there would have been little of this nature to carry over in the earliest stages of “Out of Africa ll” when homo sapiens moved out of Africa about 100,000 years ago over the Middle Eastern land mass, entering India, moving north across Central Asia into China and maybe 50,000 years ago crossing over into New Guinea and then Australia. The available anthropological and scientific literature is rich and these two paras are intended to no more than to point you in these directions.
What is very likely is that in the hunter-gatherer societies that preceded settled civilisation, initially in the Tigris-Euphrates Valleys, the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia commencing about 12,000 BC, social organisation was very rudimentary. There are hardly any cultural symbols (burial sites) or methods of state-craft are known to have been carried over from say 30,000 years ago. Prehistoric, in our case pre-Balangoda Man simply existed. His state-craft and cultural artefacts are lost.
In more recent times migration has crafted a course of worldwide penetration quite distinct from the aforesaid Out of Africa ll experiences. They have left dominant markers – Chinese cuisine without challenge the most diverse and best in the world, has spanned a legion of China towns all over the world. Indian indentured labour built the railways of North and South America or settled down into stable plantation communities all over Asia and Africa. None of this is to be confused with human pre-history.
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Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil
President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada
Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum
chandij@sympatico.ca
Greatest Of All Time (GOAT)
Today, instead of chronologically narrating another episode of my career, I decided to write about the number one game in the world – football and the greatest football player of all time – Pelé. He was the only player in history to have played in three World Cup winning teams.
The term ‘football’ is the original and globally accepted, popular term, as identified by the country which invented the modern game of football in 1863, England. Over 200 countries call the game ‘football’ while just nine countries, including USA, Canada, South Africa, and Australia call it ‘soccer’.
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was established in Paris in 1904. The inaugural FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men’s national football teams, took place in Uruguay. There has been a total of 22 World Cups since then: the first was in 1930 and the most recent in 2022. FIFA World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world, ahead of Tour de France, Cricket World Cup, Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games. FIFA Women’s World Cup, which commenced in 1991. now ranks the number six sporting event in the world.
I hosted Pelé for two days as a VIP guest at one of the hotels I managed over the years. In my career as an international hotelier, I have hosted 35 heads of state and government, as well as hundreds of celebrities. Pelé was the friendliest celebrity I ever met. Therefore, I fondly remember those two memorable days in May, 1998 very clearly. Twenty-five years have passed, but the lasting memory Pelé left in my mind has stayed fresh.
I am deeply saddened about Pelé passing away just a few days after the FIFA World Cup 2022. Three days of mourning were declared by the Brazilian government after Pele’s death was announced on December 29, 2022. The world united in mourning for Pelé.
In the history of World Cup Football, he played an important role from 1959 to 2022. In spite of a few scandals, Pelé performed most brilliantly on and off the field while creating unprecedented and unmatched excitement, setting records – some yet to be broken – spreading the love for the beautiful game like no other professional football player has ever done.
Football Fever in Jamaica
From 1995 to 1998 I was the General Manager of the largest hotel in Kingston, the capital city of Jamaica. Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel (Pegasus) was operated by Forte PLC, the largest British hotel company at that time, and I represented that company in Jamaica. Most heads of state and government, showbiz personalities and national cricket and football teams visiting Jamaica stayed at the Pegasus.
In 1997, a year before I met Pelé, I became more interested in football. By the mid-1990s, in one of my adopted countries, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) had invested heavily in developing football to an international competitive level in that country. Three years prior to that, JFF had recruited a top-ranking Brazilian football coach/technical director – René Rodrigues Simões, to train the national football team of Jamaica. His mission was to have Jamaica qualify for the FIFA World Cup held in France in 1998.
The government and private sector were brought fully on board. The national stadium near Pegasus, dubbed ‘The Office’ became a fortress. Support for local football reached unprecedented levels. In 1996 Jamaica won FIFA’s Best Mover Award after a big improvement in the country’s football rankings.
As the main business hotel in Jamaica, Pegasus fully supported the JFF campaign themed ‘Road to France.’ None of the 18 English-speaking nations in the Caribbean had ever qualified for a World Cup before. With the ‘can do’ attitude of the Jamaican team and the world-class training they received from their Brazilian head coach, Jamaicans were ready for the challenge.
René Rodrigues Simões, his wife and daughters were regular visitors to restaurants at Pegasus. They soon became friends of mine and my elder son Marlon, who lived at the Pegasus with me. René invited us to all World Cup qualifying matches played in Jamaica. He ensured that Marlon and I were given VIP seats just behind the seats allocated to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The Jamaican team was fondly called ‘The Reggae Boyz’ by all their fans.
On November 16, 1997, Jamaica’s football team made history by becoming the first English speaking Caribbean Island to ever qualify for the World Cup. Marlon and I joined our many Jamaican friends to celebrate when Jamaica qualified to go to France as one of the top 32 countries to compete for the prize. There was so much joy, excitement and celebration on this little island that the Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, had to declare the next day a public holiday.A commemorative ball that cost US$9 million was built in honour of the Reggae Boyz soon after they had qualified to go to France. With that initiative, Jamaica entered into the Guinness Book of world records for the largest football in the world. On the request of the Jamaica Tourist Board, I offered the front lawn of Pegasus free of charge, as the first location and the ceremonial launch of that massive ball.
The Governor General and the Prime Minister of Jamaica, three former Miss World winners from Jamaica and many Jamaican celebrities were invited to sign the ball after climbing a ladder which was three floors tall. I felt honoured when I was also asked to sign the massive ball in public, by the Jamaica Tourist Board. By then I was treated by most Jamaicans as one of them, rather than a Sri Lankan (the very next year I married a Jamaican). That evening, the news of the record-breaking ball with Pegasus in the background appeared on the 9:00 pm prime time TV news in over 25 countries.
The very next day, René came to see me at the hotel and gave me some great news: “To motivate the Reggae Boyz, we have arranged for the King to come to Jamaica for two days!” “Which king?” I ignorantly asked René. He jovially screamed”: “Chandi, it is the Football King of the world – my countryman, Pelé! He will stay at the Pegasus. My friend, look after the greatest legend of football”
The Legend
Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on October 23, 1940 in Brazil. He received the nickname ‘Pelé’ during his school days, but the word has no known meaning in Portuguese. Pelé grew up in poverty in the state of São Paulo. He was taught to play football by his father. The family could not afford a proper football and Pelé usually played with either an old sock stuffed with newspaper and tied with string or a grapefruit.
After playing for several amateur teams in his youth, at the age of 15, Pelé signed a professional contract with the famous club – Santos FC in Brazil in 1956. Ten months after signing professionally, the teenager was called up to the Brazil national team. In 1958, he became the youngest player (and the only teenager until Kylian Mbappé scored for France in 2018) to score a goal in the finals. After the 1958 and the 1962 World Cup wins for Brazil, some wealthy European clubs were eager to sign Pelé, but he loyally stayed on with Santos FC. With Pelé, Brazil achieved their third World Cup win in 1970.
During his time at Santos FC, Pelé played alongside many gifted players. Pelé’s 643 goals for Santos FC were the most goals scored for a single club until it was surpassed by Lionel Messi of Barcelona in 2020. Following a long and successful tenure with Santos FC (1956-1974) in which he won 10 club titles, the legend went on to finish his career playing three seasons for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (1974-1977). Pelé’s presence greatly enhanced the interest for soccer in the USA. The 23rd FIFA world Cup tournament will be jointly hosted by 16 cities in three North American countries: Canada, Mexico, and USA.
In 1977, prior to taking on new roles in sports, Pelé closed out his football playing career in an exhibition match between the Cosmos and Santos. The match was played in front of a sold-out crowd at Giants Stadium and was televised throughout the world. In later years, Pelé was labelled “the greatest” by FIFA. He was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century. Perhaps, Pelé was comparable to just one other sportsman – Muhammad Ali – who was there to watch Pelé playing his last football game in 1977.
In his final game, Pelé played the first half with the Cosmos, the second with Santos FC. The game ended with the Cosmos winning 2–1, with Pelé scoring with a 30-yard free-kick for the Cosmos in what was the final goal of his career. During the second half, it started to rain, prompting a Brazilian newspaper to come out with the headline the following day: “Even the Sky Was Crying.”
Alongside incredible success with Brazil and Santos FC, Pele was given FIFA’s Player of the Century Award in 2000, alongside seven retrospective Ballon d’Or wins.
Friendliest Celebrity
On May 8, 1998, I was waiting by the front entrance of Pegasus to welcome Pelé. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that he was very busy at that time working as a football pundit on TV and serving as the Minister for Sports in Brazil. My approach was to be very formal, respectful and professional. On their arrival at the hotel, Captain Horace Burrell, President JFF, introduced me to Pelé.
“Welcome to Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. It is an honour for our team to provide hospitality to you for two days, Sir,” I said. Pelé was a humble man and had a pleasing manner with which to place others at ease. “Call me Pelé,” he said while shaking my right hand and patting my right shoulder with his left palm at the same time. He was charming, pleasant and always had a nice smile.
I ushered Pelé to his suite on the 16th floor and introduced Cecile Hyatt-Reynolds, Guest Relations Manager who was there to handle his registration. Pelé responded to Cecile in the same polite, friendly and informal manner. He joked with the newspaper reporters and cameraman who were there to take some photographs.
The next day, I had an opportunity to have a brief discussion with Pelé and Captain Burrell. Having seen the launch of the ‘record-breaking’ massive football in the front of the hotel, on TV, Pelé wondered where the ball was now. I explained to him that the Jamaica Tourist Board was planning to set up the ball in New York for some weeks. It would then ship to London, before displaying it in Paris during the FIFA World Cup 1998. Pelé said, “Jamaica knows how to create extra publicity for tourism through football” and smiled. He was correct.
Before his departure from the hotel, I told Pelé about an idea I had. I planned to make a deal with the main broadcasting company in Jamaica. I would convert a large section of the hotel lobby to become the main station for TV and radio, during the 32 days of the World Cup 1998. Pegasus lobby was the most fashionable meeting place in New Kingston. Part of my planning was to get some top, theatre set designers to make it look like a Jamaican dancehall, popular with less affluent Jamaicans. I told Pelé all pre-game and post-game interviews as well as commentary during all the games would be broadcast to the whole country from the hotel lobby.
Pelé was pleased and impressed. “Great idea! You are also like the Jamaica Tourist Board! You know how to keep your hotel always in the limelight!” Pelé encouraged me. I went ahead with the ‘dancehall in the lobby’ plan, in spite of objections by a few members of the hotel’s board of directors. It certainly became the ‘talk of the town’ for over a month in the summer of 1998. At the end of the day, sports, broadcasting, hoteliering – all are similar to showbiz. At least that’s what I always believed in. I was happy when the King agreed with me.
Although Pelé stayed with us only for two days, I felt that I had known him closely for a long time. At the time of his departure, he gave me a big hug in the middle of the hotel lobby. “All the best with your ‘dancehall in the lobby’ during the World Cup!” he whispered into my ear.
Rest in Peace, King Pelé!
Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena
has been an Executive Chef, Food & Beverage Director, Hotel GM, Professor, Dean, VP, President and Consultant. He has published 21 textbooks. This weekly column narrates ‘fun’ stories from his 50-year career in South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and North America, and his travels to 98 countries and assignments in 44 countries.
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by Rajan Philips
On December 11, the Sunday Observer reported that the Japanese Government has agreed to reopen the Colombo-Malabe light rail project more than two years after it was highhandedly terminated by then Presidential Secretary PB Jayasundara. The project design was to start in July 2019 and construction completed by the end of 2024. The Malabe line is one of seven corridors radiating from Colombo and extending towards, Negombo, Kandy, Kaduwela, Malabe, Kottawa, Piliyandala, and Moratuwa. The seven corridors were identified for providing rapid transit service as part of the Western Region Megapolis Transport Master Plan (TMP), which was completed in November 2016 during the previous Ranil-Sirisena government with Champika Ranawaka as Megapolis Minister.
The Malabe line stretching over 16 km and including 16 stations, was to be financed by a soft loan arrangement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) covering 80% of the project cost of $2.2 billion. After the November 2019 Presidential election, the (new) Rajapaksa-Rajapaksa government signed a 30 billion yen concessionary loan with Japan for the project. Then, out of nowhere the Rajapaksas decided to cancel the project in September 2020, primarily to snub Champika Ranawaka, and to potentially explore other funding channels with assured kickbacks.
This was the first of two rebuffs that the Rajapaksas dished out to Japan. The second being the reneging of the 2019 agreement with India and Japan for the development and operation of the East Container Terminal at the Colombo Port. And now the current Ranil-Rajapaksa government has begged out a way with Japan and obtained its agreement to reopen the LRT project. This is a technically positive development even though Malabe Line is only one of the many pieces of transport infrastructure that Colombo and Sri Lanka direly need. Without a higher order transit system, Colombo will remain stuck with tuk-tuk as its most convenient mode of public transportation.
Transport infrastructure development is a constant work in progress that takes time, resources and supporting institutions. There is no magic wand solution to transportation in general, and urban transportation in particular. And countries with funding constraints should be project-ready to seize funding opportunities for project implementation. Only in Sri Lanka infrastructure funding opportunities are politically spurned by patriotic scoundrels. In one year, 2020, Sri Lanka walked away from the MCC grant of $480 M offered by the US government (that could have been used to upgrade 130 roadway junctions in Colombo and implement transit priority measures), and cancelled the agreement with Japan to implement the Malabe LRT line for no logical or sensible reason. It is a different story in Bangladesh.
Burgeoning Bangladesh
On December 28, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ceremonially opened Bangladesh’s first metro service for Dhaka. Joining the ceremony were the Japanese Ambassador to Bangladesh and a representative of Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), the same agency sponsoring the Malabe LRT project in Sri Lanka. The project was mostly funded by Japan and is one of the six Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) lines that are slated to be built. The Bangladeshi Prime Minister called it “another feather of pride” to the people of Bangladesh and the development of Bangladesh. The Prime Minister also used the ceremony to commemorate six Japanese engineers working on the project who were among the 29 people killed during an attack on a Dhaka cafe by Islamic extremists in 2016, as the MRT project was getting started.
Similar to the Malabe line in Colombo, the service that was opened in Dhaka is Phase 1 of MRT Line-6, and is the first to be constructed out of six Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) lines. MRT Line-6 is mostly an elevated 20 km long route with 16 elevated stations, and the completed first phase is about 12 km long with nine stations at a cost of $2.8 billion. Line-6 construction is funded through a loan agreement with JICA finalized in 2013, and construction began in 2016.
The six MRT lines are part of Dhaka Metro, the rapid transit component of the City’s 20-year Strategic Transport Plan, which will include both MRT and LRT systems to serve the nation’s capital city of 20 million people. The MRT system (with all six lines) will extend over 120 km at an estimated implementation cost of $20 billion, and will provide high frequency (every four minutes) and higher speed (100 km/h) service, using trains comprising six spacious air-conditioned cars each and electronic ticketing.
The implementation the MRT system comes under the purview of the Ministry of Communications and is led by Dhaka Transport Co-ordination Authority. A separate agency for implementing MRT Line-6 has been created, viz., Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTC). The General Consultant for the project is the NKDM Association comprised of Nippon Koei (Japan) and Development Design Consultants (Bangladesh). The construction contractor is a consortium led by foreign companies including Italian-Thai Development Public Company, Sinohydro of China, and a Tokyo construction company.
My reason for comparing Dhaka and Colombo, or Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, using urban transportation as an indicator is to point out the development trajectories of the countries – from where they were when they became independent 23 years apart (1948 and 1971), where they are now and where they are heading. Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, with a healthy balance of payments, thanks mostly to the ‘financial prudence’ of the colonial administration even while contributing to the Empire’s war effort. The Sterling reserves at independence had nothing to do with the first UNP government, as President Wickremesinghe has recently been claiming. In fact the UNP government ran through the reserves in what AJ Wilson has described as “an orgy of unplanned spending.”
On the other hand, Bangladesh was born in 1971, in an orgy of violence and blood bath. It came into being as the second most impoverished country in the world and for decades suffered the ignominy of being called an economic basket case. And for decades, as well, natural calamities conspired with political hatred and plunged the country into cyclonic devastation, military coups, high level assassinations, rampant corruption and abject poverty. The country’s turnaround or takeoff came about 20 years after its bloody birth and there has been no turning back.
The World Bank has been effusive in its praise, calling the country’s transformation from the world’s second poorest country to be one of the fastest growing economies as “one of the great development stories” of our time. A country of 165 million people, it is now generating strong domestic demand to sustain its economic growth. Transport and physical infrastructure are key components of its development momentum. Mega projects are diverse by sector and by location and the country is now getting to a stage where it can pay for its mega projects. Some of the projects, in addition to Dhaka Metro, include the Padma Bridge, Matarbari Port, and the Karnaphuli Tunnel for an underwater expressway beneath the Karnaphuli River in Chittagong.
Padma Bridge
The story of Padma Bridge is as old as Bangladesh. It was first identified as a feasible project in the former East Pakistan before the outbreak of the war. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, wanted the bridge built after the liberation of Bangladesh, but the project went dead after his assassination. The project was on and off with frequent government changes, until Sheikh Hasina as Awami League PM laid the foundation stone for its construction in 2001. But Awami League lost the general election in 2001 and the incoming BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) government terminated the project out of political spite. The same BNP government resurrected the project six years later and the project was on its feet again after the Awami League returned to power in the 2008 elections. Then it ran into a corruption storm.
The Padma Bridge project became notorious all over the world for its corruption scandals and the World Bank famously withdrew its support for the project with other donors following. The government of Bangladesh stepped in to take over the project and complete it with its own funds. The project is now completed, designed by AECOM, a US consulting giant out of its Hong Kong office and built by a Chinese construction firm, China Major Bridge Engineering Company Ltd, at a total cost of $3.6 billion, which Bangladesh paid.
The new bridge crosses the Padma River, the largest tributary of the Ganges in Bangladesh and among the most turbulent rivers in the world. The steel truss bridge is a significant engineering achievement, extending a total length over six kilometres in 41 sections (each 150 m long and 22 m wide), and supporting an upper deck of a four-lane highway and a lower deck of a single track railway. It is the longest bridge over the Ganges and the deepest in the world with piles sunk as deep as 127 metres. Prime Minister Hasina opened the bridge in June this year, reportedly one of more than 100 bridges she has been opening in recent months. Evidently, Bangladesh has come a long way since fiery birth in 1971 and decades of economic and sociopolitical traumas. What about Sri Lanka? (To be continued).
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