This volume examines the dichotomy between the two faces of South Asia - one poverty stricken and lagging in development, the other highly urbanized and growing rapidly - and tries to find a workable solution to bridge this gap. It looks at the many policy and institutional constraints that...

The India–Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement has been in operation for more than a decade. The paper provides the Sri Lankan perspective of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) highlighting both the positive outcomes and the negative aspects. The paper shows that the FTA has worked in favor of Sri...

There is growing interest in recent years in the economic dimensions of civil wars and other violent social conflicts. This paper discusses some of the conceptual and methodological problems associated with assessing the economic costs of such conflicts, and presents an evaluation of the costs...

India-Sri Lanka Bilateral Free Trade Agreement signed in1998 was a pioneering attempt in the direction of trade liberalization in South Asian region. This paper examines the performance of the Agreement in the first six years of its coming into being and draws lessons from its success that could...

The India–Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement has been in operation for more than a decade. The paper provides the Sri Lankan perspective of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) highlighting both the positive outcomes and the negative aspects. The paper shows that the FTA has worked in favor of Sri Lanka...

Sri Lanka has achieved a high level of financial inclusion compared to other South Asian countries. Its financial sector comprises a wide range of financial institutions providing financial services such as loans, savings, pawning, leasing and finance, and remittance and money transfer...