Many Toyota Hiaces in Sri Lanka

I like the Toyota Hiace van and have noticed it’s very popular in Sri Lanka. It’s a cool van. The Hiace is the first vehicle some visitors to Sri Lanka ride in. There are so many Toyota Hiaces on Sri Lankan roads, seemingly much more than the other vans. You constantly see them. I have enjoyed riding in Hiaces through Sri Lanka. The Hiace is good for travelling out of Colombo into other parts of the country. I’m featuring photos of Toyota Hiaces in Sri Lanka below.

   

A Toyota Hiace in a Colombo suburb.

A Toyota Hiace in a Galle roundabout.

Toyota Hiaces in The Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya.

A Toyota Hiace in Colombo.

An Old Toyota Hiace.

Toyota Hiaces on the highway.

Toyota Hiaces have made and continue to make a significant contribution to Sri Lanka’s transport sector. This Japanese vehicle plays an important role in Sri Lankan society. I like their design. Feel free to comment about your Sri Lankan experiences travelling in or driving a Toyota Hiace.

Sri Lankan Twitter Showcase: September 2018

On the Internet, people discuss and share happenings of Sri Lanka. One platform where this occurs is on social media. I decided to showcase a collection of tweets about Sri Lanka from the social media website Twitter covering the month of September 2018 in sequential order. If you don’t use Twitter or are unfamiliar with it, you can still read this post. The tweets (a message of 280 characters or less) are featured on this blog post. I selected a group of tweets that I like. Issues covered include politics, economics, pictures and positive occurrences. I’m including positive occurrences as there is usually more talk about the negative occurrences than the positive ones and hearing positive news can make us feel good.

Sunsets in Matara pic.twitter.com/i2VKwvWMzq

— Kalani Kumarasinghe (@KalaniWrites) 1 September 2018

This is a good picture of Matara by Kalani Kumarasinghe. Sorry, but the image embedding doesn't do it justice. I recommend clicking the picture link above to see it properly.

#SriLanka #Finmin @MangalaLK says  “the government needs to undertake more difficult and challenging #reforms in order to drive future economic growth and development”, given higher debt and unproductive mega infrastructures like port & airport

— Shihar Aneez (@shiharaneez) 2 September 2018

I think this is a good statement from Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera. What ultimately matters is if the government takes these reforms and how successful they are if carried out. I am of the opinion that Mangala is one of Sri Lanka’s better ministers so that gives some hope.

After falling to 10% of the average World GDP in 1978, Sri Lanka's GDP per capita has now climbed to 38% since the liberalization of the economy, and most of this boom happened in just the last 15 years!
Our last post will show you how this has reflected in Sri Lankan households. pic.twitter.com/SH3q7hxU8h

— Frontier Research SL (@FrontierResSL) 3 September 2018

These statistics show economic growth of Sri Lanka, particularly since the start of the 21st century.

Power limitation is an overriding concern in democratic constitutions - one way of ensuring this is through term limitations @welikalaa#19A #constitution #lka

— Verité Research (@VeriteResearch) 6 September 2018

This is a good point made by Dr. Asanga Welikala at his recent Verité Research talk titled “The Presidential Term Limit After The Nineteenth Amendment”.

Sri Lanka's per capita GDP 1820-2016. From Angus Maddison's brilliant dataset. pic.twitter.com/WictyrGbmO

— Daniel Alphonsus (@danielalphonsus) 7 September 2018

This is an image of Sri Lanka’s GDP per capita as shared by Daniel Alphonsus who got the figures from English economist Angus Maddison. The reason this is different to the previous Sri Lankan GDP per capita figures that showed GDP decreasing from 1960 to 1978 is because that one was in comparison with the rest of the world. This shows tremendous growth Sri Lanka has undergone and gives hope that as the GDP per capita has gone up in the past, it will go up again in the future to bring benefits to Sri Lanka.

#Citra, #SriLanka's first Social Innovation Lab, recently entered into a partnership with the Mount Lavinia Municipal Council to develop a citizen-centred open source platform for dengue prevention and control. pic.twitter.com/Io78H6dtgp

— Sri Lanka Times (@SriLankaTimes) 8 September 2018

It’s good to see technology being used to work on dengue prevention and control.

Commission to Investigate Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) has received 1968 complaints during the past nine months of the year, according to the commission. #Srilanka

— Thuvaraki Thuva (@NilaThuva) 11 September 2018

These are interesting statistics regarding CIABOC. It’s good that they are getting these complaints. I hope that CIABOC will get more complaints and that it will get more effective in the fight against corruption.

Sri Lanka Navy rescued a Whale Shark (Rhincodon Typus) that was stranded to Alampil beach area in Mulathivu and supported it to swim deep waters, yesterday (10th Sep). It weighs about 9000 Kg and about 9m in length. pic.twitter.com/uRHQ8scnOi

— Sunil Jayasiri (@sjayasiri) 11 September 2018

It’s good to see a story of a whale shark being rescued. It’s interesting to note that whale sharks are not harmful to humans.

RTI Commission has received 951 appeals of which 690 have been completed hearing and 4% of received appeals have been rejected by the commission, DG of RTI Com. Piyathissa Ranasinghe says. #lka #srilanka #RTIworkshop #RTIsrilanka

— Piyumi Fonseka (@Piyumi_KF) 17 September 2018

This is a good example of the Right to Information (RTI) law functioning with all the work on appeals by the RTI Commission.

#NuwaraEliya #SriLanka

Photo credit: @rovinovic pic.twitter.com/6RD38giHwY

— Sri Lankan Trends (@SriLankanTrends) 18 September 2018

This is a great photo of Nuwara Eliya taken by Rovin Shanila featured on the Sri Lankan Trends Twitter account.

Price of a 400g Milk Powder packet to be reduced by Rs. 25 - Cost of Living Committee #LKA #SriLanka

— Sri Lanka Tweet 🇱🇰 (@SriLankaTweet) 18 September 2018

The Sri Lankan economy functions in a way where the government sets prices for certain goods. As it’s very unfortunate that prices of goods frequently rise, it’s worth noting that there are also some price reductions such as this one.

Sri Lanka will celebrate RIght to Information week from 21st to 28th September, 2018 says Ms. Tilaka Jayasundera, Addl Secy (Development), Minister of Finance and Media today while declaring open the RTI week today. #RTI

— Sudarshana Gunawardana (@Sudarshana_RN) 20 September 2018

It’s good to note that Sri Lanka is celebrating Right to Information week this week of writing as recounted by Director General of Government Information, Sudarshana Gunawardana. It's also worth noting that today (28th September) is International Right to Know Day.

This year #lka's #PenalCode was amended increasing the min. age of criminal responsibility from 8 to 12 years. According to the #UN Committee on the Rights of the Child a min. age below 12 years is not acceptable #CRC #children

— Verité Law (@VRlawSL) 20 September 2018

This is information of the Amendment to the Penal Code which was passed earlier this year that increased the minimum age of criminal responsibility as reported by the Verité Law Twitter account (part of think tank Verité Research).

Sri Lanka's  @DailyNews_lk  is 67 years younger than the NYT, but the Sri Lankan daily got on the internet a year before the prestigious New York publication! NYT went on line on January 22, 1996, when the Daily News of Colombo was already on the World Wide Web. https://t.co/MeJJDWNTGk

— M A Ratna (@maratnasiri) 20 September 2018

M.A. Ratnasiri shares recent contrasting facts alongside the New York Times of Sri Lanka’s paper the Daily News. It’s good to know that the Daily News went online before the internationally acclaimed New York Times.

We collected over 200 sacks of garbage cleaning up Preethipura beach this morning. Thanks to everyone who participated from @EU_in_Sri_Lanka @UNOPS and the Marine Environment Protection Authority! #BeatPlasticPollution #lka pic.twitter.com/NnOYREHiIe

— EU in Sri Lanka (@EU_in_Sri_Lanka) 21 September 2018

It’s good to see a beach clean-up effort by the EU in Sri Lanka, UN agency UNOPS and the Government entity Marine Environment Protection Authority.

UPFA MPs Wimal Weerawansa and Prasanna Ranaweera were suspended from parliament for two weeks and four weeks respectively for unparliamentary conduct and breach of parliament standing orders.

— K.T.Rajasingham (@KTRaja) 21 September 2018

At the end of last week, two MPs were temporarily suspended from Parliament. I suspect that this is a result of the new Parliamentary Standing Orders adopted in April.

The constitutional council (appoints indep commissions) requires 3 "persons of eminence and integrity who have distinguished themselves in public or professional life and who are not members of any political party" -any names that should be top of the list for consideration? #lka

— Asoka Obeyesekere (@asokao) 24 September 2018

This is from Asoka Obeyesekere (Executive Director of Transparency International Sri Lanka). My suggestions are Priyan Dias, Nishan de Mel and W.A. Wijewardena.

I hope you enjoyed reading my selection of tweets on Sri Lanka. I am on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sumith90 in case anyone is interested. I would enjoy hearing people’s thoughts on any of the issues and happenings featured here.  

A Snapshot of Sri Lanka

In this post, I will be providing images of Sri Lanka, focusing on Colombo, Kandy, Upcountry and some other places in Sri Lanka. I’ll give some text describing each photo or a group of photos. These photos were taken recently in May 2017 when I was in Sri Lanka. I’m trying to capture the diversity and beauty of Sri Lanka giving pictures in both built-up and natural areas that showcase buildings, trees, scenery, bridges, vehicles, houses, rivers, lakes, falls, seas, railways, mountains and rocks. The pictures will be given in the order that they were taken. Let’s begin with images of Colombo.

Here’s a seaside road in Wellawatte at night.

A view of Galle Road from a taxi heading towards Kollupitiya.

Here’s a view of Marine Drive from a taxi heading towards Colombo Fort.

A Colombo road with trees and modern buildings.

Views of Marine Drive, Wellawatte with the sea and railway.

We’ll now move on to images taken outside of Colombo. Here’s a bridge near Avissawella overlooking a river.

A view of the Castlereigh Reservoir.

Mountains, Trees, Grasslands and Waterfalls.

A mountain in Nuwara Eliya.

A Sri Lankan shaped Pond in Hakgala Botanical Gardens, Nuwara Eliya.

Inside Hakgala Botanical Gardens.

A view of the Kandy Lake taken from a boat.

Hillside houses in Kandy.

A view of the Kandy Lake and its surroundings.

Mahaweli River in Kandy.

A road by a bridge in Kandy.

Views from the Hotel Topaz in Kandy.

Palm Trees seen on the Kandy to Colombo train ride.

A Rock also seen on the Kandy to Colombo train ride.

We’ll now be returning to Colombo. Here are some of the many apartment buildings in Wellawatte.

A view of skyscrapers in Colombo Fort taken near Galle Face.

Buildings by the Beira Lake.

A view of a street in Colombo Fort.

Galle Face Green with the Sri Lankan Flag flying.

Crescat Boulevard (A shopping complex).

I hope you enjoyed these pictures of Sri Lanka. Feel free to give your thoughts on my selection or if you have any questions about any of the places I selected.