Browsing by Author "de Mel, Nishan"

Now showing items 1-20 of 42

    • 19th Amendment: The Wins, the Losses and the In-betweens 

      Gunatilleke, Gehan; de Mel, Nishan (Verité Research, 2015-06)
      This research brief seeks to provide an insight into how the final outcome of 19A fulfils the key expectations of democratising and depoliticising governance. The enactment of 19A is certainly a watershed event in Sri ...

    • The Alternatives to Universal Tax Registration in Sri Lanka 

      Background Note;No.04
      de Mel, Nishan; Moore, Mick       (Colombo: Verite Research, 2023-02)
      This note argues that the Sri Lankan government’s recent proposal to implement universal tax registration is neither a viable nor effective strategy to increase the country’s tax revenue. Instead, the note proposes four ...

    • Any president can contest a third term – if 18A is valid 

      VR Insights;Vol. 2, No. 18 - November 2014
      de Mel, Nishan; Gunatilleke, Gehan       (Colombo: Verité Research, 2014-11)
      This INSIGHT discusses the eligibility of twice-elected Sri Lankan presidents to contest a third term. It demonstrates that the textual arguments claiming to disqualify such presidents are mistaken: first, because an ...

    • Better Moderation of Hate Speech on Social Media: A Sri Lankan Case Study for Reputational-Cost Approaches 

      Strategy Brief;July 2021
      Jayasinha, Uween; de Mel, Nishan; Legal Team, Verité Research       (Colombo: Verité Research, 2021-07)
      As social media becomes more involved in personal, business, and political relations, it has become increasingly important to prevent the spread of hate speech and disinformation on social media. At present, hate speech ...

    • Calculating the Loss to the EPF From Proposed DDR 

      de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-07-12)
      Justice and good decision-making flows in part, from the discipline of public reasoning. The belief in democracy is anchored in the hope of harnessing the power of reasoned decision making that is openly and dialogically ...

    • Central Bank’s 30 year Bond Debacle: What is the “Loss”? 

      VR Insights;Vol. 3, No. 13
      de Mel, Nishan       (Colombo: Verité Research, 2015-07)
      In February 2015 the Central Bank of Sri Lanka called an auction for one billion rupees on a 30 year bond. It then accepted 10 fold – 10 billion rupees – after the bids were in. This Insight identifies three errors in the ...

    • Cigarette Tax Indexation in Budget 2019 

      de Mel, Nishan; Guruge, Aneesha (Colombo: Verité Research, 2019-07-17)
      The presentation discusses the cigarette tax indexation that was implemented by Sri Lanka’s Budget for 2019 (released in March). This indexation solved 2 problems of cigarette tax revisions in Sri Lanka—they were both too ...

    • Cigarette Tax Indexation, Getting It Right and Getting It Wrong 

      Verité Insights;Vol. 4, No. 1
      de Mel, Nishan; Guruge, Aneesha       (2019-08)
      The article tackles the cigarette tax indexation policy introduced with Sri Lanka’s 2019 Budget: where annual increases to the cigarette excise tax (a tax exclusive to cigarettes) will be based on inflation and income ...

    • Cigarette Taxation: 20 Billion Extra Revenue in 2020, if Indexation Is Implemented = දර්ශකයකට අනුව දුම්වැටි බදු අය කරන්නට කටයුතු කලොත්, 2020දී, රජයට රුපියල් බිලියන 20ක අමතර ආදායමක් 

      Verité Insights;Vol 8, No. 2
      Atapattu, Udahiruni; de Mel, Nishan; Munas, Hasna       (Colombo: Verité Research, 2020-06-01)
      The government could raise an extra Rs. 20 Billion from cigarette taxation in 2020 from the proper implementation of the indexation policy articulated in the 2019 Budget and rational calibration of taxes for all cigarette ...

    • Costs of Doing a Job For Urban Women In Sri Lanka 

      Abeysinghe, Subhashini; de Mel, Nishan; Siyambalapitiya, Sumini; Perera, Mihindu (Colombo: Verite Research, 2022-05)
      This report addressed a knowledge gap by conducting quantitative surveys and FGDs to estimate monetary & non-monetary “costs of doing a job” for women in Sri Lanka, to understand if it is cost prohibitive to engage in work ...

    • The Debt Digest - March 2023 

      de Mel, Nishan; Peiris, Udara (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-03-16)
      The Debt Digest by Verité Research provides analytical commentary on the latest developments in Sri Lanka’s debt crisis. A key milestone in Sri Lanka’s path to recovery was the staff-level agreement with the IMF in September ...

    • Does the Sri Lankan media exploit parliamentary candidates during elections? 

      de Mel, Nishan; Jayasinha, Uween (Verité Research, 2020-09)
      The pricing data of media institutions reveals that the media discriminates against the democratic process by charging higher rates for political ads than commercial ads, during election periods. This Insight quantifies ...

    • Education Inequality and Affirmative Action: Towards a Better Estimation (Working Paper) 

      Verité Research Working Paper Series; September 2013
      de Mel, Nishan; Kumarage, Aloka       (Colombo: Verité Research, 2013-09)
      The education sector had witnessed an overall decline in terms of budgetary allocations, and was also subject to inequality in distribution of educational opportunities within the country. Education inequality has implications ...

    • Financing Infrastructure: The (Non) Concessionality of Concessional Loans 

      de Mel, Nishan; Abeysinghe, Subhashini; Arangala, Mathisha (2020-06)
      Sri Lanka is highly dependent on international loans from multilateral and bilateral sources to finance infrastructure development. Multilateral and bilateral borrowing is often favoured by governments such as Sri Lanka ...

    • Financing Infrastructure: The (non) concessionality of concessional loans (Presentation) 

      de Mel, Nishan (2020-09-10)
      Multilateral and bilateral borrowing is often favoured by governments such as Sri Lanka because such financing tends to have ‘concessional’ elements, relative to the international financial markets. However, the cost ...

    • For Sri Lanka, a Governance-Linked Bond Might Just Be the Ticket 

      de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-12-21)
      It is a truth universally acknowledged that if Sri Lanka under-performs on its governance corrections, it will underperform on its economic recovery also (with apologies to Jane Austen), the first provides the foundation ...

    • Impact of COVID-19 Response on Unemployment in Sri Lanka 

      Asia's Path Forward;
      de Mel, Nishan; Perera, Mihindu       (Washington: Center for International Private Enterprise, 2020-10-01)
      Goal number eight of the Sustainable Development Goals is set out as “Decent work and economic growth.” This goal recognizes that economic growth is not just an end, but also a means in itself of generating jobs – productive ...

    • Impact of FOREX Crisis and Solutions for the National Economy 

      Rajkulendran, Raj Prabu; de Mel, Nishan (Verité Research, 2022-01)
      This presentation assesses the reasons for the current unprecedented crisis and the how the current crisis differs from the previous crisis Sri Lanka has been in. This presentation also assesses, the solutions for the ...

    • Is Sri Lanka Addicted to Missing Revenue Targets? 

      de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-10-30)
      It is all too familiar that Sri Lanka has a problem in meeting its budgeted revenue targets. Recently, a government member of parliament (MP) who voted in favour of the budget last year, said that the tax increases that ...

    • Let’s Shield the EPF With the Instincts of Winston Churchill 

      de Mel, Nishan (Colombo: Daily Mirror, 2023-07-06)
      The private sector workers of Sri Lanka are required by law to transfer 23% of their incomes to the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employees’ Trust Fund (ETF) every month, towards their retirement savings. The EPF ...