America is the crucible of subsidy in telecoms. This menace has now spread into many markets and opened the doors of financial malpractice. This finest form of crime has been, by far, limited to networks. Now the idea of subsiding the handsets is being promoted. Heaven knows that GSMA coined the Ultra Low Cost Handset (ULCH) initiative five years ago. The objective was to promote handsets bellow US$50 price tag. Motorola won the deal and sub $30 became business as usual with the other vendors thereafter. Exploding growth in China and India is attributed to ULCH. There is no scheme of subsidizing the handsets anymore in the developing world. Pity the Americans are sweetening this flat stuff in 2011. Subsidy will possibly take another giant leap in this land of opportunity. Good news is, unlike America’s infamous subsidies to various segments of agriculture, the idea of subsidizing handsets will not harm us. Read full report.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant potential to enhance public services and drive innovation within Sri Lanka’s public sector. At the AI Asia Summit 2024 in Colombo, Merl Chandana, Research Manager and head of the Data, Algorithms, and Policy (DAP) team at LIRNEasia, shared insights on how the government can harness AI effectively and responsibly.
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In the world of technology, programming errors—whether stemming from minor oversights or fundamental misunderstandings—can have catastrophic consequences. From the tragic failure of spacecraft missions to the collapse of critical infrastructures, history is filled with examples where a simple bug or miscalculation triggered massive disasters.
Aswesuma to Prajashakthi: considerations for future social protection programmes
This article was carried in the Daily Mirror on 17 October 2024 on International Eradication of Poverty Day Poverty in Sri Lanka has increased significantly with the onset of COVID-19 and the macroeconomic crisis. LIRNEasia’s national survey in 2023 highlighted that 4 million people fell into poverty between 2019 and 2023, causing 7 million individuals — or 31% of the population — to live in poverty at the time.
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