The IMF recently praised Sri Lanka for bringing inflation under control. But on the streets, the price of food has been rising relentlessly.

Increases are seen in the price of wheat flour, bread, rice, vegetables, coconut, coconut oil, big onions  and red onions.

The cause? A combination exposure to global prices in the wake of IMF reforms, and the Sri Lankan state's ham-fisted efforts to fix prices in favour Sinhala producers and consumers at the same time. 

Just the other day, this newspaper raised doubts as to who India’s aid intended for the Tamil areas will actually go. As if on cue, the point was made. In Sri Lanka it seems not even the International Committee of the Red Cross can guarantee aid will be delivered to the right beneficiaries.

As the date for President Mahinda Rajapaksa to be sworn in for his second term approaches, the public service has been called upon to undertake a new task – making the country beautiful. Thus the police are instructing residents in their areas to keep the streets clean, to prune branches and to put flower beds outside their homes, reported the Sunday Times.

A 65 acre industrial estate in Atchuvely is to be developed bilaterally through a partnership between the Sri Lankan government and the Indian government, the Daily Mirror reported .

This is part of a range of activities Delhi is initiating to develop the war-shattered Tamil areas of the island.

The current Sri Lankan government made it clear from the start that it was opposed to the privatization of government owned enterprises. “The policy of the government was to retain ownership and management of ‘strategic’ enterprises such as state banks, electricity and utilities and make them profitable”, reported the Sunday Times, commenting on the government stance.

That making public enterprises profitable has been a difficult – if not impossible – task in the past has not stopped the government trying. As the Sunday Times report noted, “losses in public enterprises reached a record level last year and this year’s losses are likely to be larger”. But now the government has extended the policy further, moving from holding on to state enterprises to actively acquiring (privatizing) other ‘strategic’ enterprises to ‘manage them in the national interest’.

Sri Lanka’s government is buying back Royal Dutch Shell's stake in the part privatized gas company, Shell Gas Lanka. Shell’s decision to sell follows long running quarrels with the Government over the price at which the company could sell gas in the country. The $63 million sale returns the LP gas business in Sri Lanka to 100% state ownership.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s populist government had been at loggerheads with the oil and gas giant over the price at which gas is sold: the government has been insisting gas be sold at less than international market prices.

The Sri Lankan mobile operator Dialog Axiata made a net profit of 1.69 billion rupees in the September 2010 quarter compared with a loss of 439 million rupees a year ago, Lanka Business Online reported.  While this was partially due to cost cutting, the main driver was a huge increase in sales (16.2% or 10.56 billion rupees) and the main area in which sales have increased is mobile – both phones and broadband, according to the report.

Sri Lanka’s fees for UK public relations firm Bell Pottinger (£3m) is greater than the amount pledged for development in Jaffna (£2.85m), the Sri Lanka Guardian reported today. The amount pledged for Jaffna, moreover, is uncertain to be followed through.