Speaker: Dr. Ahilan Kadirgamar, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka
Date: 8 December 2023 (Friday)
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Venue: Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya (Hybrid)
Sri Lanka is going through its worst economic crisis since Independence. Following its unprecedented default on external debt in April 2022, explanations for the crisis have linked external debt distress to fiscal problems in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the austerity policies under the IMF program towards debt resolution and economic revival, have major political and economic implications. In this context, a political economy approach of analyzing the conundrum of debt and fiscal sustainability in Sri Lanka have implications for many debt distressed countries in the Global South.
Ahilan Kadirgamar is Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, a MA in Economics from the New School for Social Research and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a fortnightly columnist in the Daily Mirror, an Editorial Board Member of the Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences and a Board Member of Himal Southasian Magazine. His research interests include agrarian change, co-operatives and economic alternatives, and regularly writes on the political economy of Sri Lanka in forums such as The Hindu and the Economic and Political Weekly in India. He is currently a Vice President of the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA), the Honorary Chair of the Northern Co-operative Development Bank and an Executive Committee member of the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs).
Distinguished Professor Dato’ Dr. Rajah Rasiah obtained his doctorate in economics from Cambridge University in 1992 and served as a fellow at Harvard University in 2014. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at UNIMAS (1999-2000), and at Faculty of Economics and Administration in the University of Malaya in 2009–2010 and 2013–2014. He also holds professorial fellow positions at the Centre for Rising Powers in Cambridge University, UNU-MERIT, and Technology Management and Development Centre in Oxford University. Among his prestigious awards include the Cambridge Journal of Economics Award by the Cambridge Political Economy Trust in 1992, the Robert McNamara Award by the World Bank in 1993, the Celso Furtado Prize for advancing the frontiers of Social Science thought (Economics) from the World Academy of Sciences in 2014, and the Merdeka Prize under the category of scholastic achievement in 2018 from the Merdeka Prize Committee. He was awarded the Distinguished Professor of Economics Position by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia in 2017.
Last Update: 30/11/2023