ABOUT PPID

In Pursuit of Intellectual Excellence in Research and Pedagogical Innovations!

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 eighteen years (2004-2021) of its endurance.

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 http://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. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-015-9637-3  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. http://www.epw.in/discussion/boat-migration-australia.html-0

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. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09584935.2011.565313

PPID logically predicted, backed-up by empirical evidence, the demise of the LTTE in 2006 and it happened in 2009. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590701507628#.U8nX9kDm5eY

PPID proposed a cap on the annual Government Budget deficit in 2001-2002 and the Fiscal (Management) Responsibility Act was enacted in 2003. http://www.epw.in/commentary/sri-lanka-budget-2001-social-agenda-vs-military-development.html

PPID logically argued, backed-up by empirical evidence, the case for free trade between India and Sri Lanka in 1993 and the Governments of India and Sri Lanka inked a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (albeit partial) in 1998 that came into operation in 2000. http://www.epw.in/special-articles/contraband-trade-and-unofficial-capital-transfers-between-sri-lanka-and-india.html