Felicitation Volume of Professor G.W. Indrani

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    Foreign Policy of the United States and US Rise to Hegemony
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Rathnayake, R.M.S.S.
    In today’s competitive international arena, it is widely known that the United States (US) is at the top of the world’s hierarchy of power. The US emerged preeminent from the II World War and ever since, the country is predominant in world’s economic, political, technological and military sectors. Though the Soviet Union posed a substantial threat to the preponderance of the US during the Cold War, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the US rose to power as the undisputed hegemon in the international order. In its relations with other actors in the international system, the US utilizes its foreign policy to achieve its national interests as well as secure its hegemonic ambitions. The objective of the study is to analyze the US foreign policy and identify the causes and circumstances that led to the hegemony of the US. This study is mainly based on secondary data such as books, articles, newspapers, journals and the World Wide Web is also used as an important research tool. The analysis of the data and information collected is done in a theoretical perspective using hegemonic stability theory and cycles of hegemony and war theory. As per the study, the US foreign policy during the II World War, decline of Britain’s power, post-II World War and Cold War policies of the US and the disintegration of the Soviet Union paved the way for US hegemony in the world order.
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    How Japanese Manufacturing Ideally Words
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Ubayachandra, E.G.
    At present, it is noted that Operations Management has made a Considerable change in manufacturing field. It is highly visible in Japanese management practice today. Japanese management is very popular in manufacturing. In this practice, the newly introduced concepts namely Just-In-Time (JIT), Total quality control (TQC) and Kanban play a greater role. How do these concepts become more popular in the real practice today? Secrecy behind this is that they have shown so feasible in the Japanese management practice today. Currently a more comprehensive understanding of these new concepts and the Japanese practice has led to their usage throughout the world during 1970s and on into the 1980s. In Japanese management practice employee involvement has become very popular. Openness and total employee involvement are important to Japanese. All employees help to solve production problems when they occur. The Japanese workers are specially well-equipped to participate in decision making. One of the most often discussed aspects of the Japanese management is lifetime employment. It allows employees to take risks and offer suggestions that improve operations. Productivity in United States failed to keep pace with that of other industrial countries. (J.eromeA.Mark, 1979). During this era, many foreign companies started to carve out substantial niches for themselves in United States markets. Prominent examples for this situation are Nissan, Toyota, Sanyo, and Sony. Under this climate, managers in United States have become acutely aware of a more competitive worldwide market. Here, the competitiveness is a frequent topic of discussion at present among managers and government officials and in the mass media. Competitiveness can be defined as the relative standing of one competitor against other rivals. It is of course like the game of musical chairs. The major three American automakers such as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have worries about their organizations’ relative standing in the United States automobile marketplace. Competitiveness has become a prominent business and government concerns in the era of global business as a contest among nations. Members of the mass media routinely talk about the competitiveness is a benchmark for past performance. In this case, the Japanese companies play a greater role at present. These companies have a significant percentage of the world Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) market. This rapidly increasing competition has meant decreased market shares of United States and Canadian business practices. Before this challenging situation especially United States and Canada have refined their attention on cost control, productivity improvement and quality. Since 1970s Japan has penetrated into North American markets. Now it is repeated itself in Western Europe. Under this climate, North American business practices are gaining a greater appreciation of the strategies implemented by the giant international competitors, Particularly the Japanese manufacturers. As such, it is worthwhile to understand the Japanese management practice and the secrecy behind their manufacturing. As the situation is so, it was a puzzle to the author that why Sri Lanka is still at the bottom of the industrialization.Also, the author aims to point out the manner in which existing industries in Sri Lanka ought to be restructured. Especially, this message would be given to the owners of the industries here and the policy markers. Moreover, a vacuum of providing opinions in this respect was also indentified by the author. The ideas have been presented along with this paper methodologically. It was concluded here that as western companines now learn from Japanese, Sri Lanka should essentially absorb and implement the Japanese management techniques to develop our industries.
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    The applicability of adopting European Union’s integration model in South Asia: A comparative analysis of EU and SAARC
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Gunasena, T.
    The European integration is three decades older than the South Asian integration. At present European Union (EU) stands as an outstanding regional body with huge success in the world. South Asian integration has not yet completed the basic premises of economic integration and the aim of this paper is to comparatively analyze the two regional integration processes and to identify how far is it appropriate to adopt the European integration model to accelerate the South Asian integration in the future. One specific objectives of this paper is to identify the core differences between the two regional settings and next objective is to determine the theoretical relevance of certain existing theories in describing the two integration processes. Another specific objective is to evaluate the suitability of adopting EU model in South Asia and then to recommend the necessary reforms for South Asia to attain better integration. To that end the data triangulation method has been used to accumulate secondary data from multiple sources available in electronic and printed form including books, journals, web, reports, historical records and treaties. Qualitative content analysis has been used since this is a documentary analysis and Content analysis evaluate document texts and to test theoretical relevance to understand data more comprehensively and scientifically. It will test prevailing theories in different contexts when compare the categories of different settings. Key findings depicts that there is a sharp diversity between the EU and South Asian region in terms of trade, economic development, human development, industrialization, urbanization, trade liberalization, income levels, poverty alleviation and political integration. Amidst these differences the applicability of adopting the European model proves to be a failure due to many factors. The democratic nature of the countries and their practice of free market economic policies along with the successful resolutions for political tensions in Europe significantly caused the long term success of European integration whereas South Asian countries are suffering from huge diversities in economic, geographic, cultural, trade and military terms within the region and hesitate to cooperate with one another due to these differences. Indo-Pakistan political tensions blended with smaller states’ fear psychosis of Indian hegemony is the greatest constraint for better integration in South Asia. South Asia required rearranging the structure of its regional organization and opening avenues to discuss contentious issues among member states and needing to establish real democracies in their countries apart from building strong and reliable interactions among people to people contacts while adopting more comprehensive free market economic policies domestically.
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    Poverty impacts of agricultural trade liberalisation in Sri Lanka: A review of the literature
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Ranathunga, S.P.B.
    Any policy reform will bring positive impacts as well as adverse impacts to the society, depending on the economy and on the characteristics of the population group. The impacts of trade liberalisation, particularly the impact of trade policies in developed countries and inequality in developing economies, is strongly debated in the international trade and development arena. Objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the theoretical and empirical literature on the effect of agricultural trade liberalisation on poverty, in particular, focusing in Sri Lanka. Methods used for analysing the complex poverty impacts of trade liberalisation include partial equilibrium models, econometric analysis, general equilibrium models, and micro/macro simulation models, which combine macro-level simulation with micro-level household models. Agricultural trade liberalisation in particular tends to adversely affect small farmers in developing countries while large scale farmers/producers and the farmers from developed countries gain through agricultural trade liberalisation. Therefore, agricultural trade liberalisation tends to supports consumers while adversely affecting rural producers. However, country-specific studies are needed to explore the outcomes for particular groups in particular countries. Each and every policy reform will bring positive impact as well as adverse impact to society, depending on the economy and on the characteristics of the population group.
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    Unique Features of Foreign Policy of UNP Regimes (1948 – 1965) and Bandaranaike Regimes (1956 – 1965)
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Madanayaka, S.A.K.
    Foreign policy is a key component of a state which represents the nature of its relations with the world. Regime changes in a particular state are always have an impact on the foreign policy and it changes the nature of it. This study has been conducted in order to “identify the common and unique features of the foreign policy of UNP regimes from 1948 -1965 and Bandaranaike regimes from 1956 – 1965.” The methodology that has followed for the study is qualitative in nature while only based on secondary data and used descriptive analysis. The study has been conducted as a comparison as well as contrast of the two regimes in the particular periods in order to find out the features. According to the study, during the period of 1948 to 1965, foreign policy of the most of UNP leaders were similar in nature with the distinctive feature of pro-western policy and anti-communist attitude. UNP regimes did not conduct firm relations with the India during the particular period. Foreign policy of the SLFP regimes was mainly characterized by the “nonalignment policy” which emphasized on equal relations with all the countries. At the same time specially, Mr.Bandaranaike had cordial relations with the communist countries as well as with India which was a great achievement in the foreign policy of Sri Lanka.
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    Evaluation of the interventions performed by support agencies towards the impact of the quality of life of resettled IDPs
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Godagama, A.
    The IDP issue is a key challenge faced by countries that experienced wars and natural calamities. In this regard Sri Lanka too faced this challenge with a large number of IDPs where the national government and other organizations have taken the responsibility for providing protection and reconstructing their lives for achieving a lasting solution. This article focuses on what degree the interventions performed by governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations have impacted on the development of quality of life of resettled IDPs. The government was expected to play the pivotal role here. The non –governmental agencies were \ expected to support the IDPs by providing basic survival needs and interventions that can be useful for IDPs to revive their lost lives with dignity ensuring a QOL. In order to realize these objectives many agencies have been providing survival services mainly while some have been engaged in providing development support services
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    Human Ecology and Diseases Ecology: A Medico - Geographical Review
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Rathnasekara, S.R.L.S.
    Medical Geography is one of the main approaches to study disease ecology and related issues in current Geographical Research. Disease ecology has originated from human ecology and the human ecological processes have been helpful in generating some diseases where the humans and diseases environment. It is a known fact that the every health issues are connected with human ecology and diseases ecological background. This paper examines the relationship between human ecological process and diseases ecology through a medical geography approach using secondary data.
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    Landfilling and Environmental problems in Sri Lanka (with reference to Gampaha District)
    (Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Nawarathna Banda, H.M.
    Inevitable consequences of the practice of solid waste disposal in landfills are gas and leachate generation due primarily to microbial decomposition, climatic conditions, refuse characteristics and nature of landfilling operations. The diffusion of gas and leachate away from the landfill boundaries and their release into the surrounding environment present serious environmental concerns at both existing and new facilities. The problem of this study is there any impact of landfilling on environment in Sri Lanka. The objectives of this study are to identify the reasons for environmental problems, identify the environmental problems created due to landfilling and identify the solutions for overcome or mitigating the environmental problems due to landfilling in Sri Lanka. Besides potential health hazards, these concerns include, and are not limited to, fires and explosions, vegetation damage, unpleasant odors, landfill settlement, ground water pollution, air pollution and global warming. Managing waste could be a grave issue for a newly developing country such as Sri Lanka. Lack of a proper waste management system and irregular garbage dumping practices have not only created an unpleasant atmosphere but the sanitary issues that may lead to instances of public unrest and tensed situations. Following the recent experiences of the turmoil caused by civil unrest due to a polluted water problem that claimed lives, the need to establish a suitable waste disposal system is immensely felt. A wide extent of land excavated into a pit which is called a cell, laid with layers of different material to protect the soil from pollution and extract the waste water separately, has a capacity to hold an estimated 20, 000 metric tons of solid waste within a targeted period of 10 to 15 years by the time the landfill is completed. It is expected to be handed over to the public as a recreational ground when the landfill is complete. Located in a remote forest land near the Kirindiwela town, the site will provide a state-of-the-art garbage dumping ground for residual waste collected within the DompePradeshiyaSabha area.The project will come as a solution to the unregulated, open dumping of solid waste by local authorities and will be the first sanitary fill to be used with modern technology to avoid pollution of soil, ground water and waterways in the surrounding area. The project will come as a solution to the unregulated, open dumping of solid waste by local authorities and will be the first sanitary fill to be used with modern technology to avoid pollution of soil, ground water and waterways in the surrounding area. This study has been used both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected from five hundred samples in Gampaha district by using interview schedule and observation method. Secondary data was collected from secondary various sources. Data was analyzed by using statistical methods like graphs, tables, percentage etc. According to collected data those living near landfill sites it were found that households use well water for drinking and cooking purposes, bathing and washing of clothes and vehicles and for gardening purposes. However, the number of households using well water is significantly lessamount in residences very close to the landfill. The usage of well water increases with the distance to the landfill. It is an indication that although wells are available in households close to landfill areas residents are hesitates to use them. However, since most of the householders use well water in the area can be seen a serious problem of ground water pollution. Other problems were odor, flood in rainy season reducing land value, breeding grounds for mosquitos, worms and various insects, create smoke and poisonous gases giving rise to safety problems, Children affected by various diseases such as skin diseases, and unbalance the biodiversity in the area. The responsibility of government, NGOs and policy making bodies are to take necessary actions to control the problem of land filling on environment by hazards waste in Sri Lanka.