This serves, perhaps, as a response to the most recent comment: Almost all the efforts of elites like Prof Samarajeewa has been a farce. The rural -urban gap has widened as clearly indicative of offerings made in wireless Chamintha Thilakarathna (Reuters) Colombo, October 1 After 25 years selling fruit and vegetables at a market in downtown Colombo, Sri Lankan trader MW Ranjith made an investment that to his amazement transformed his life and his business — he bought a mobile phone. For years Ranjith, and thousands of traders and farmers like him, went without phones, discouraged by high land line charges and lengthy installation delays. But now a boom in the mobile telecoms market is pulling the informal sector into the economy and even influencing food prices. “Before I got the phone, if I ran out of vegetables I had no way of getting in touch with farmers,” said the 50-year-old trader, sitting with his phone in one hand and calculating his profits for the day with the other.