Jagdish Hathiramani's Portfolio

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Sri Lanka Design Festival in Colombo on November 11-17

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100829/BusinessTimes/bt14.html

A showcase of Sri Lankan designs, “ranging from traditional crafts to contemporary fashion, graphic, jewellery and interior design”, the MAS Holdings-sponsored Sri Lanka Design Festival will be held on November 11-17 at the Mount Lavinia Hotel, according to a statement by organisers. Sri Lanka is the ultimate stop for the festival in 2010, following a series of international launches that encompassed several European countries, including France, Italy and the UK, it said.

Attendees expected for the Sri Lankan leg of this event include “stakeholders from Sri Lanka’s apparel industry and ethical manufacturing movement, as well as international buyers, retailers, SMEs, designers and fashion designers and opinion leaders”.

According to the statement, the highlight of the most recent launch in France, which was held at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris, were discussions between organisers and Isabelle Quéhé, founder of the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. It was further revealed that these discussions had led to an agreement to create an award for a specially selected Sri Lankan designer to showcase their designs at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris in 2011.

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No real alternatives to oil: Chairman Chevron SL

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100815/BusinessTimes/bt36.html

No real alternatives to oil: Chairman Chevron SL
By Jagdish Hathiramani

There are no existing real alternatives to the world’s dependence on fossil fuels that account for 87% of the world’s current energy needs, according to Dr. Kishu Gomes, the Chairman of the local operation of USA-based oil company Chevron. He also added world energy demands by 2030 will be 40% higher than today. This is in addition to an oil crisis looming and ever-shortening intervals between recessions. Further, over the last three years, commodity prices increased by 100% while natural disasters, like those recently in Bangladesh and China, which cost these countries 5.2% and 2% of GDP respectively, would only grow to become more and more frequent with greater magnitudes.

He further noted that the recent BP crisis amounting to over a billion barrels of oil spilled was not atypical as the equivalent of 4.7 million barrels of oil leaks annually while a further 4.2 million barrels is added to this mix due to natural seepage. Dr. Gomes also suggested that for energy sustainability to become a reality substantial investments were needed in this area, which was not happening. Instead he noted that more and more money was being used to fight terrorism internationally and, in the case of Sri Lanka, the government’s continued spending of Rs. 170-180 billion on security.

Dr. Gomes made these comments at the recently concluded “CEO Forum on Innovation and Sustainability” organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies. Also speaking at the forum, Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology Chief Executive Ravi Fernando noted that being sustainable for Sri Lankan businesses had more to do with value addition as opposed to their traditional leanings towards commoditisation.

He also noted that there was a significant cause and effect relationship between a country’s investment in sciences and technology and its prosperity. To illustrate this point, he highlighted the examples of Korea and Singapore; countries that spent 2.5% and 2.2% respectively on science and technology research resulting in 75% and 60%, respectively, of exports of a technological nature. He further noted that Korea had over 5,000 patent s filed per year while Singapore had 446, compared to Sri Lanka’s 1.8.

Mr. Fernando also revealed that over the past year, SLINTEC’s first year of science, it had already filed five patents in the USA. He elaborated on one such process that related to sustainable nano fertiliser and its ability to address the problem that, of the Rs. 30 billion in fertiliser bought in Sri Lanka annually, one half or 50% was lost or washed away due to leeching. He further added that this could be exported since other countries faced similar problems.

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Pleas, once again, for Indo-Lanka CEPA draft to be made public

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100801/BusinessTimes/bt35.html

Pleas, once again, for Indo-Lanka CEPA draft to be made public
Indo Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)
By Jagdish Hathiramani

Repeated pleas were made at a discussion in Colombo this week on the Indo Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) for its draft to be made public, an issue that has drawn a lot of controversy in recent times.

One member of the audience also suggested the Indian government had already made its draft available to Indian businesses for their input, adding fuel to the fire. In recent times, sections of the Sri Lankan business community and professionals have expressed concern over certain services and other trades that are set to be included in the agreement which could be adverse to Sri Lanka, with such worries leading to a street protest some weeks back.

While there has been some re-assurance from government circles of an agreement that would balance the interest of both Sri Lanka and India, top corporate lawyer Kandiah Neelakandan, Senior Partner of Murugesu & Neelakandan, also told the meeting that the government should make the draft of the CEPA public, allowing chambers, professionals and other bodies to make better proposals which could then be incorporated in a future draft.

Speaking at a forum entitled “Indo Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA): Facts, Myths and Risks”, organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka in Colombo, he said it was because of secrecy surrounding the CEPA that most objections were being raised. He also noted that typically any reforms in this country, legal or otherwise, took a long time and that the public was seldom consulted.

Citing the Indo Singapore CEPA, which was signed in 2005 but which began negotiations at the same time as Sri Lanka’s, he indicated that that agreement showed responsible safeguards; mostly outlining minimum investments required and Singaporean citizen directors on the boards of Indian ventures set up to trade in Singapore. He also added that Sri Lanka was in a better bargaining position than Singapore as well as being able to make use of India’s tourism and IT potential. He also suggested that since the facts are not well know, Sri Lankans thought that India would attempt to conquer them.

He said Sri Lanka’s trade with India, which was at Rs. 46 million at the time the free trade agreement was signed between the two countries more than 10 years ago, is currently at US$516 million and is expected to reach levels of US$ 1.5 billion by 2012, when the CEPA is expected to come into effect.
Mr. Neelakandan also noted that India was Sri Lanka’s second most important partner in South Asia.

Meanwhile, according to another speaker, the founder of regional policy think tank LIRNEasia, Dr. Rohan Samarajiva, the framework for the trade of goods as highlighted by the CEPA was not the issue; the fight was about the services trade and the movementof people. He also noted that the CEPA’s rules did not abolish immigration laws.

Dr. Samarajiva also indicated that to date India had opened up more than Sri Lanka and gave the example that there were currently more than 3,000 Sri Lankans in India on work visas. He also added that to get to the government’s stated goal of 10% growth, service exports would have to grow, especially since services was a major component of the country’s economy.

He was also of the opinion that the CEPA would be a good precursor to prepare Sri Lanka for the looming implementation of the South Asia Free Trade Agreement, since this agreement would not only help the country sell to India but also improve its own quality. A case in point was the decline of Sri Lanka’s status as a traditional exporter of education. An example he posed was that more and more students from the Maldives ignored Sri Lanka in lieu of other countries for education.

Additionally, Dr. Samarajiva also noted that people skills were lacking locally as witnessed by recent AT Kearney rankings which placed Sri Lanka at number 16 while India was number 1. This difference was even though India and Sri Lanka had similar scores in two of the three criteria being ranked: business environment and financial attractiveness. The only area where Sri Lanka scored much lower than India was in people skills, which was becoming a bottleneck for the country. He further revealed that the local outsourcing operation of HSBC, which planned to hire a total of 4,000 employees, was not able to fill available slots because of lack of qualified people.

The final speaker at the forum, Dr. Manuj Weerasinghe, of the University of Colombo and the Sri Lanka Medical Association’s CEPA Sub Committee, revealed that 25 to 30 categories of paramedical professionals were to be included in the CEPA. He further suggested that India was asking Sri Lanka to “undertake additional commitments to recognise the qualifications of Indian medical professionals”. It was also his opinion that the CEPA was being put in place to bypass a number of health laws including those associated with the quality control of pharmaceuticals (CDDA No. 27 of 1980) and the monitoring of the private health sector (PMIR – No. 21 of 2006).

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Sri Lanka soon to stop exports that add no value: Treasury Secretary [FULL STORY]

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100711/BusinessTimes/bt17.html

Sri Lanka soon to stop exports that add no value: Treasury Secretary
By Jagdish Hathiramani

Sri Lanka will soon stop exporting any product which is without value additions, including materials such as sand as well as minerals, unless they are part of the value added chain, as articulated in the budget, said the country’s Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera on Thursday.

He added that this would not be a violation of World Trade Organisation terms. Dr. Jayasundera made these comments as the keynote speaker at a Breakfast Meeting held on Thursday in Colombo organised by IT-BPO body SLASSCOM, and which featured a number of top corporate and public sector leaders.

Dr. Jayasundera further noted that the recent budget was not just for 2011 but an indication of the government’s policy to grow the economy to reach exports of US$ 20 billion in 2020 from today’s US$8 billion. Stating that traditional Sri Lankan businesses such as tea, rubber, coconut, etc. were not enough to get the economy above US$ 10 billion, he said that the government was focusing on “enabling” 10 sectors to grow, with each becoming US$ 1 billion industries in the medium term; including IT (US$300 million), clinical trials and research, telecommunications and tourism (US$ 400 million).

He also implied that government agencies affiliated with these sectors, such as the country’s Board of Investment (BOI), tourism authorities, etc., would be restructured to facilitate “enabling” functions.

Dr. Jayasundera said that Sri Lanka’s defence budget had in recent times become an investment to build infrastructure, so public works projects such as ports, roads, irrigation and water, power, etc. could be completed soon. All the while maintaining public investment at 6% to 7%.

He also indicated that, while the current investment in the economy was 25% to 27%, 19% of this came from the private sector and 2% from foreign investment. Meanwhile, current growth is 7.1%, as of the first quarter of 2010, a figure he says will likely continue for three more quarters of this year or even longer, eventually becoming 8%. Also, to achieve this 8%, private sector would have to increase its investment to 35% with foreign investment also increasing to 4% to 5%. He added that he was quite optimistic that inflation for 2010 would not go above 7% to 8%.

Blaming what he called the “BOI regime” for inconsistencies in the country’s tax system; Dr. Jayasundera noted that the banking sector was privy to 65% to 70% taxes while the private sector in general was affected by 40% taxes. He further indicated that this would soon be resolved even if the country had to fore-go certain tax revenues for two to three years.

Commenting on the currently beleaguered apparel sector, Dr. Jayasundera opined that, while he was still optimistic that this sector would grow to its planned US$ 5 billion target in the next seven years, this would now have to be achieved by diversifying target customer destinations to emerging markets.

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Develop professionally efficient workforce: new THASL president

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100704/BusinessTimes/bt40.html

Sri Lanka must develop a sufficient supply of a “professionally efficient” workforce to meet the expectations of international tourists, according to newly-appointed Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President Anura Lokuhetty. This could be accomplished by strengthening the Ceylon Hotel School and other regional hotel schools, upgrading the Sri Lanka Institute of Hotel Management to a national university or even include tourism as a vocational subject in the country’s school curriculum.

He also suggested that Sri Lankan professionals who had taken jobs abroad in the past be lured back. As to the harassment of tourists by locals, Mr. Lokuhetty said: “ As a strong believer of the expansion of tourism through positive community participation, I suggest that to help overcome this problem, we assist and aid community centres, therefore encouraging traditional markets in every resort enabling local people in their own area to sell their wares to the tourists.”

He said this will also give tourists the opportunity to mingle freely with locals without pressure. “This will not only curtail irregular sales activities and harassment on our beaches, but will positively promote integration between the local communities and tourists, and all parties shall benefit,” he added.

In addition, to counter a current, too high 30% electricity surcharge faced by hotels, he proposed a fairer alternative whereby a flat rate of 10% be charged for all the country’s industries. Mr. Lokuhetty made these comments at an evening event which followed the Annual General Meetings of the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators and THASL held last week, where he was appointed as THASL President for the 2010/2011 period.

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tomorrowMEDICINE – personalised and self-aware

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100516/BusinessTimes/bt35.html

tomorrowMEDICINE – personalised and self-aware
By Jagdish Hathiramani

Continuing the Business Times’ tomorrowSERIES features, we look at how the practice of medicine will evolve into the future from its most public facet – a visit to the doctor’s office – to the wider possibilities stemming from research currently being carried out today. Either way, be prepared for just a brief glimpse of the wide potential encompassed by the world of tomorrowMEDICINE.

Visiting a doctor’s office is a regular occurrence for almost every ailment you can experience today. Rarely do doctors make house calls (home visits) any more. But what may be the exception today, may regain its status as the tomorrow’s norm. In fact, many believe that personalisation is the key to tomorrowMEDICINE and, as such, incorporating diagnostic devices into our everyday living space may be the best way to incrementally track changes to our bodies.

House calls

An idea we first touched on in our tomorrowHOME feature a while ago, the diagnostic tools of tomorrowMEDICINE will most likely be seamlessly integrated into our future homes as well as other items our bodies are regularly in contact with. From our clothes to the carpeting we walk on to sensors in our toilet seats to even biotechnology which continuously travels pathways within our bodies (cardiovascular, neural, etc.) and tracks the minutest of changes that occur, the diagnostic tools of tomorrow will be non-stop data collectors always transmitting to either our personal doctor’s office or to a central health authority database.

Aside from just diagnostics, the doctors of the future or their artificial intelligences may also be able to treat symptoms or adjust dosages of prescribed medicines remotely from off-site, concepts which suggest the forced obsolescence of today’s cutting-edge technology embodied by two-dimensional doctor consults via telemedicine.

In addition to this is the realisation that, as home computers evolve and get smarter, the concept of a family doctor or a general physician may ultimately prove unnecessary. Many suggest this may be entirely replaced by home computers or even biotechnolgy implants which diagnose and heal commonplace diseases without consulting external doctors, similar to current virus guards on today’s computers.

However, others also argue that the personal touch and the comfort level unique to visiting a human doctor may counter this trend towards a fully automated healing process as suggested by some peoples’ preferences towards talking to a human as opposed to interacting with automated menu systems which are becoming more an more prevalent everyday.

Either way, from pills that contain ingestible microelectronics which allow tracking and even adjusting the efficacy of the drugs that you have taken; to liquid gels that stop bleeding by transforming into solids when it comes into contact with blood; and even robotic nurses and caregivers for the elderly and infirm; tomorrowMEDICINE will be more about taking care of you the individual instead of you the human being.

Future therapies / tools

While house calls and efficacious self medication may be the public face of tomorrowMEDICINE, the true potential of patient treatment / rehabilitation is elusive to even the dreamers of the medical field today. This is because these stem from a variety of different, just-introduced areas such as: nanotechnology, biotechnology, mechanics, information technology, robotics, metallurgy, chemistry, engineering, etc. Just a smattering of ideas that make up the possibilities of tomorrowMEDICINE is more than enough to astound anyone. Even many futurists touting their own personal vision of what’s to come admit being incapable of grasping the wider canvass of what’s to come for this most vital of sciences. While bionic limbs, synthetic organs and medical robots have been talked about for many years, what’s even more amazing to consider are the multitude of new areas of research cropping up virtually overnight that will feed into our reality in the future. And, since multiple fields of inquiry and bridged and transcended, our choices are further expanded by the varied courses of concurrent pure study ongoing at the present time. The possibilities in this case? Truly infinite.

Interestingly, some more recently popular concepts conjectured have been in the following areas: regenerative medicine, biotechnology and cellular reprogramming. And, as such, these require further examination.

Basically an extension of what is being done today, one form of regenerative medicine allows for the use of replacement organs, via synthetics or cloning, to maintain one’s body at its peak. However, how this field continues to vary into the future, from our understanding of it today, may well prove to be because of the advent of safe and risk-free replacements to natural organs and appendages, these eventually forcing this field of medicine to shift from its current reactive approach towards the more proactive.

Replacing even functioning parts of the body may become commonplace as a recourse to limit aging or natural wear and tear. In fact, while it may be considered that immortality, or close to it, or can be viewed as the objective of this branch, there is also a school of thought pushing for the possibility of age reversal which will allow tomorrowYOU to always be at the prime of his or her life, no matter their actual age.

From medibots (medical nanobots) that act as nanometre-sized diagnosticians, healers and even smart bombs targetting cancer or genetic anomalies, all powered by the reaction in blood cells; to artificial immune systems, cryogenic sleep (bio stasis), drugs improving intelligence, perception and cognition, and synthetic limbs and organs; biotechnology is all about integrating technology and biology. In many instances bio material is even proving to be the building material for new technology such as in the case of nanotechnology.

Meanwhile, the field of cellular reprogramming, which is the most recent attempt at bridging the gap between science fiction and science fact, focuses on charting cells and using an individual’s own cells to treat their own unique set of ailments. By reprogramming one’s own damaged cells to act as stem cells which can then become any cell needed, today’s scientists believe they can overcome a number of barriers which can not be overcome by more traditional treatments such as transplantation, chemotherapy, etc. The reason why this is fascinating is because while many other areas of exploration are mere conjecture at this point, cellular reprogramming has shown significant real world promise to date in actually treating disease in lab settings.

The brain

While researchers are currently exploring the concept of brain machine interfaces to allow victims of strokes or spinal injuries to function at heightened levels and in everyday settings, the real reason this area often gets highlighted in science fiction is because of its vast, uncharted potential.

One possible oft-speculated application being the possibility of memory downloads and brain backups, where everyone’s core personality and memories will be stored in a safe remote location to be accessed in times of emergencies. This also ties into the concept of immortality as when one body gets used up or dies, brain backups allow one entity to be transferred into another body. As you may imagine, such a concept could possibly elicit a number of religious and philosophical repercussions.

However, if the human brain can truly and successfully interface with a machine, the applications of this technology may also have untold implications on the future of humanity, especially when you consider the steady rate of adoption of the Internet and the increasing popularity of virtual life; where anybody can be whatever they want. In fact, science fiction writers and futurists are already suggesting that humanity may eventually leave their physical bodies behind and ultimately evolve into entities both ephemeral and omniscient.

Interestingly, since many aspects of tomorrowMEDICINE are so intricately affected by other future technologies; there are also some very unique side effects to consider. While advances in patient care might be the goal of many medical technologies, side effects like the field of biomimetics may inadvertently result. This field is when a study of biological matter leads to a technological advancement outside the field. For example, the idea for Velcro coming from observing insects. On the other hand, there are also significant future dangers from the greater integration of technology, such as the possibility of biohacking; which is when malicious parties tap into implants or prosthesis or even synthetic organs and disrupt their functions which could lead to injuries or worse.

In the meantime, no matter what advantages, or even disadvantages, brought on by future technology, the one consistent, unifying thought amongst futurists and theoreticians appears to be that, considering the current inequitable nature of the world, where the majority of the global population faces ongoing and unnecessary starvation and disease; future advances in medicine will continue to be solely directed at the more affluent members of society, unless a shift towards a fairer sharing of already scarce resources occurs in tandem with the innovations of tomorrowMEDICINE.

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Young bankers lack basic skills – top industry official

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100321/BusinessTimes/bt13.html

Young bankers lack basic skills – top industry official
By Jagdish Hathiramani

A lot of young bankers are not going for bankers qualifications and are instead sitting for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants examinations. This means that many do not have the basic skills that generally come along with Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka (IBSL) qualifications, such as what it means when cheques are crossed, what payee only on cheques indicates, etc.

Further, since the global credit crisis was caused by a lack of credit principles being applied, there is now a shift back towards more traditional standards and, as such, intermediate banking qualifications are again increasingly being seen as essential for young bankers today.

These views were shared, with the Business Times, by Dimantha Seneviratne, the newly elected President of the Association of Professional Bankers (APB); a 22-year old local body that includes over 900 senior-level banking professionals who represent 22 banks operating locally, of which 11 are foreign banks, and encompasses, as per 2008, close to Rs. 2.8 trillion or 57% of all major financial institutions of the country.

Mr. Seneviratne, Chief Risk Officer for HSBC Sri Lanka and the Maldives and a 20-year banking veteran, also noted that foreign banks operating in Sri Lanka have an advantage over their counterparts as their staff are obliged to attend international conferences and so keep abreast of the latest trends in banking; a situation that APB intends to address somewhat with a number of local learning opportunities for all its members. These will include presentations on wealth management and credit card fraud, lectures by HSBC Senior Asian Economist Robert Prior- Wandesforde and the head of compliance of a foreign bank, and a joint seminar with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka on changes to accounting standards affecting banking.

Additionally, he indicated that APB’s annual convention slated for the beginning of September will also go a long way in updating members about the key issue in the banking field. For example, and in keeping with the country’s high literacy and growing numbers of CIMA qualified and IT professionals; Sri Lanka’s capability of becoming a hub for IT related financial services for banks in other countries as well as being a backup or disaster recovery clearing system for smaller SAARC countries, etc.

Mr. Seneviratne also noted that APB was already working on setting up a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme for associates and diploma holders of IBSL which would entail APB providing certificates for those participating at APB organised seminars, lectures and conventions as part requirement to obtain a CPD. Additionally, he highlighted APB’s role in promoting an industry-wide programme whereby fast tracked junior level promotions would be available based on banking qualifications as well as other APB efforts including those in research such as a proposed new research study on the impact and effectiveness of “Parate Execution”.