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ABOUT PPID
In Pursuit of Intellectual Excellence and Integrity in Research and Innovations in Pedagogy/Andragogy/Heutagogy!
The Jaffna peninsula can be claimed as the seat of knowledge and learning of the Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka. The Jaffna peninsula is divided into three geographical zones; namely Thenmarachchi, Vadamarachchi, and Valikamam.
The main town of Vadamarachchi is Point Pedro, which is also the northern-most town of Sri Lanka. The hallmark of Vadamarachchi is its learned citizens. Historically, Vadamarachchi has produced some of the best brains of Sri Lanka. However, due to the quarter century of civil war, almost all the learned persons have deserted to other parts of the country or abroad. This is not a tragic experience of Jaffna alone, but of the entire Eastern and Northern Provinces.
It is in this background that, an independent private social science research institution in the name of Point Pedro Institute of Development (PPID) was established in 2004, in order to resurrect the knowledge and intellectual bases of the Eastern and Northern Provinces. The PPID is the only institution focusing on regional aspects of economic development in Sri Lanka and has the highest number of peer reviewed scholarly social scientific publications per researcher in any institution in Sri Lanka
PPID has undertaken incisive, insightful, and foresighted policy research during the past twenty years (2004-2023) of its endurance.
A peer-reviewed PPID research paper published in March 2023 https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2023.2180703 elicited the following feedback from a distinguished veteran journalist in Sri Lanka, “…… I have come to expect high quality in your work. This paper is second to none. Your meticulous reliance on ground data to build your argument, alone, is brilliant deliberative methodology…………… As far as I know, there has been no cogently argued proposal for a bridge before this other than internal papers in the two respective Foreign Ministries. Since your paper is so exhaustive, I feel that your list of positive factors could have included a bit more mention of the potential for expansion of the main Lankan ports (Colombo, Galle, Trincomalee) and even lesser ports, which, if the FTA operates well, become ‘Indian subcontinental’ ports. I fully support the proposition. Happy to help advocate……”
A proposal to establish an independent non-partisan Budget Committee/Office in the Parliament of Sri Lanka was mooted by PPID in a Working Paper prepared for the Pathfinder Foundation way back in 2007 https://eldis.org/document/A37144, which is expected to be realised in earnest in 2023 https://www.parliament.lk/news-en/view/2746
A proposal to introduce Pay As You Earn (PAYE) income tax at source was proposed by PPID in a peer-reviewed journal article in 2012 https://doi.org/10.1177/0971523114539585 which was first introduced with effect from April 01, 2018, rescinded with effect from January 01, 2020, and reintroduced with effect from January 01, 2023 http://www.ird.gov.lk/en/about%20IRD/SitePages/Policy%20Changes.aspx?menuid=110406
Two peer-reviewed journal articles prepared by PPID in 2017 (“Development outcomes of old and new sources of international development finance in Sri Lanka”) http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0169796X17735241 and 2016 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-015-9637-3 (“Elusive economic peace dividend in Sri Lanka: all that glitters is not gold”) forewarned with evidence, albeit indirectly, about the sovereign bankruptcy of Sri Lanka that resulted in April 2022. The following op-ed published on January 24, 2023, traces our public intellectual contribution cautioning the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and other public authorities ever since 2007 about the risks involved in International Sovereign Bond (ISB) borrowings. https://www.ft.lk/columns/Anatomy-of-sovereign-insolvency-of-Sri-Lanka/4-744446
PPID’s policy research paper to resolve the enduring fishing disputes between Sri Lanka and India https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09733159.2018.1564556 appears to have elicited a policy responses by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2021 https://www.dailymirror.lk/caption_story/Project-kicks-off-to-culture-artificial-reef-in-Northern-waters/110-213919, Central Government of India, and the State Government of Tamil Nadu in February 2019. https://www.orfonline.org/research/south-asia-weekly-report-volume-xii-issue-25-52282/ https://www.orfonline.org/research/south-asia-weekly-report-volume-xii-issue-12-49259/
PPID foresaw the electoral defeat of the President Rajapaksa in June 2014 due to the lack of economic peace dividend in the conflict-affected provinces and beyond, which was realised in January 2015. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-015-9637-3/metrics https://rdcu.be/2s1n
PPID survey results contested the causes of boat migration (to Australia from Sri Lanka) attributed by an Australian refugee advocate in 2013 and the Australian Government toughened its policy on boat migration in the same year, which endures to date. https://www.epw.in/journal/2014/14/discussion/boat-migration-australia.html
PPID exposed and argued the case against military enterprises in Northern Sri Lanka in 2010 and the military expenditure in the Northern Provincial economy was cut-back to second place as a proportion of the provincial economy for the first time in decades in 2012. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09584935.2011.565313
We logically predicted, backed up by empirical evidence, the demise of the LTTE in 2006 and it happened in 2009, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590701507628 which was acknowledged seventeen years afterward by a stakeholder reader as follows: https://www.academia.edu/Messages?atid=23892387
March 12, 2023 |
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