Sri Lanka is set to relax a ban on some vehicle imports in a sign the country is returning to normal after a severe economic crisis that toppled a president.

From 1 February, imports of buses, trucks and utility vehicles will be allowed to resume, while restrictions on other vehicles are expected to be gradually lifted.

Many Sri Lankans are waiting for authorities to also drop an import ban on private cars, sport utility vehicles and three-wheeled trishaws – which are commonly used as taxis.

But with prices of vehicles forced up by a scarcity of new ones to buy, a weak currency and high taxes, some are asking who will be able to afford a new car.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced a severe foreign currency shortage, which meant it was unable to meet its obligations to creditors for the first time in its history.

The island nation of 22 million people was thrown into turmoil as it faced crippling shortages of fuel, food and medicines.

Massive anti-government protests toppled then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa just months later.

Colombo negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.3bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while Rajapaksa’s successor introduced austerity measures including hiking taxes and ending energy subsidies.

The country’s finances have since improved and the economy is gradually returning from the brink.

The announcement to lift the import ban on vehicles has triggered a buzz among Sri Lankans who have been waiting for years to buy a new car or a van.

Murtaza Jafeerjee, chair of Advocata, an economic think tank based in Colombo, told the BBC he thought the move was long overdue.

“The vehicle imports will not only increase the government’s revenue but will also trigger other economic activities like car financing, dealer revenue, car servicing and other related activities, creating jobs,” he said.

But Nalinda Jayatissa, the country’s information minister told a media briefing on Tuesday that the country was “moving very cautiously because we don’t want a surge of imports that will deplete our foreign reserves”

Gayan Indika says he has lost money as he struggled to buy a new car

‘We’ve been waiting for a long time’

The country, which doesn’t have any major factories producing cars and trucks, imports almost all its vehicles, many of them from countries like Japan and India. Now there’s a also lot of interest in Chinese cars, particularly electric vehicles.

Prices of used cars in Sri Lanka have soared, with some models now costing two or three times as much as they did before the ban.

The restrictions have been particularly difficult for people like Gayan Indika, who provides vehicles for weddings and is a part-time cab driver.

“I want to buy a new car so that I can do my work and resume my private cab rental. Without a car, without mobility, I am losing a lot of my revenue,” he said.

In a country with poor public transport, a car can be vital, Sasikumar, a software professional from the central city of Kandy explained.

“As we don’t have a good public transport system, a car is essential to travel to other parts of the country. Either the government should lift the ban on cars or improve the public transport.”

Sri Lanka imported about $1.4bn worth of vehicles in the year before the ban was imposed. This year the central bank says it’s planning to allocate up to a billion dollars for vehicle imports, but said the money will be released gradually.

Arosha Rodrigo, from the Vehicle Importers Association of Sri Lanka, and his family have been running a car dealership for more than four decades.

The firm was importing about 100 vehicles a month before the ban. Since the restrictions came into force they have not been unable to import a single vehicle.

He points out that even if the ban is relaxed further, to allow passenger cars and other vehicles to be imported, many people won’t be able to afford them because of increased taxes and Sri Lanka’s weak currency.

The government has sharply raised excise duties on imported vehicles, both new and second hand, to 200% and 300% depending on engine size.

On top of excise duty, there is also 18% Value Added Tax (VAT) for any vehicle brought from abroad.

The price of imported vehicles will also be impacted by the weakness of the Sri Lankan rupee against major world currencies like the US dollar.

Those soaring costs are putting off people like school teacher R Yasodha.

“We have been waiting to purchase a vehicle for a long time. But if we calculate the tax and the price, the cost of an average sized car has doubled from 2.5 million rupees ($8,450; £6,800) to five million rupees,” she told the BBC.

“It would cost a fortune for us.”

– Anbarasan Ethirajan
South Asia Regional Editor, BBC

Stargazers are in for a treat early this new year, as the sky is full of stars – quite literally so!

January is set to witness an alignment of not one, not two – but six planets in the night sky! As they sang in the song – A Sky Full of Stars!

Although this time – it’s not stars, it’s the planets; the event being called ‘Planet Parade’.

What is Planet Parade?
Three or more planets coming together in the sky, usually in the same area, to form a visually spectacular alignment is known as a ‘planet parade’. Because of their orbits and our perspective from Earth, the planets appear to be grouped together even if they may not form a perfectly straight line.
As John Conafay, CEO of Integrate Space, told TODAY.com, “A parade of planets, also sometimes referred to as a planetary alignment, is when several planets in our solar system appear to line up in the sky from our perspective here on Earth.”
The planet parade occurs when the planets’ positions in their elliptical orbit around the sun line make them seem like they are close in the sky. As per Conafay, “It’s happening because of the specific orbital speeds and paths of the planets around the sun.”
Earlier EarthSky astronomer John Goss revealed that Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will align in the night sky. Goss shared in a video on the platform, “The whole month of January is a great time to see the planets.”

When to watch the planet parade?
Beginning on January 21 and reaching its peak around January 29, this breathtaking phenomenon will continue to be visible until mid-February. Although the six planets – Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – can be best viewed on January 25, the alignment is taking over the sky for two months, with Mercury joining the parade of planets by the end of February; which eventually will make a planet parade of seven planets. Mercury will reach its peak visibility from February 28 to March 12, completing the cosmic display of seven planets. While the planets won’t be perfectly aligned, their placement will follow the orbital plane of our solar system.

How to watch the planet parade?
To witness a planet parade, you can primarily use your naked eyes to see the brighter planets like Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; however, for a better view of fainter planets like Uranus and Neptune, you’ll need binoculars or a telescope. Choose a place darker and away from the city lights for a better view. This celestial event, visible to the naked eye, offers a rare chance for everyone to marvel at the wonders of our solar system! And you shouldn’t miss it.

What’s so special about the planet parade?
What makes this event noteworthy? The fact that six planets will be visible, four of them with the naked eye. However, such events are not just a spectacle for stargazers – they can also have a real impact on our Solar System and offer the potential to gain new insights into our place within it.
The eight major planets of our Solar System orbit the Sun in the same flat plane, and all at different speeds. Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, completes an orbit – a year for the planet – in 88 days. Earth’s year, of course, is 365 days, while at the upper end, Neptune takes a whopping 60,190 days, or about 165 Earth years, to complete a single revolution of our star.

The different speeds of the planets mean that, on occasion, several of them can be roughly lined up on the same side of the Sun.

From Earth, if the orbits line up just right, we can see multiple planets in our night sky at the same time. In rare events, all the planets will line up such that they all appear in our night sky together along the ecliptic, the path traced by the Sun.

On the other hand, while, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, Uranus and Neptune require binoculars or a telescope to spot.

In January and February, you can witness the rare event of the planet parade taking place.

The planets are not exactly lined up, so they will appear in an arc across the sky due to their orbital plane in the Solar System. During clear nights in January and February, all of the planets except Mercury will be visible. On 28 February, all seven planets will be visible, a great spectacle for observers on the ground.
According to Jenifer Millard, a science communicator and astronomer at Fifth Star Labs in the UK, “There is something special about looking at the planets with your own eyes. Yes, you can go on Google and get a more spectacular view of all these planets. But when you’re looking at these objects, these are photons that have travelled millions or billions of miles through space to hit your retinas.”

What is the best time to watch?
The best time to catch the event is about 45-90 minutes after sunset. The four planets – Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn – will be visible to the naked eye just after the sun goes down, but Uranus and Neptune will require a telescope.

Apps that can be handy:

If you wish to witness the celestial spectacle but are unable to attend a session, there are some apps as well that can help you navigate on your own. Popular options include Star Walk, Star Tracker, and Sky Map, which provide easy-to-use tools for identifying planets and stars, ensuring you don’t miss out on the planet parade.

Sky gazers, do not miss this rare opportunity to witness the wonders of our universe.

In conclusion, the Planet Parade is a rare and spectacular event, with six planets visible in the sky during January and February 2025. This cosmic display offers a unique opportunity for stargazers to marvel at the alignment of planets like Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Whether viewed with the naked eye or through a telescope, this celestial event promises to be a memorable experience for all. Don’t miss out on this chance to witness the beauty of our solar system!

(TOI)

On a chilly December morning, a group of women wrapped in colourful saris, warm shawls and woollen caps huddled outside a three-storey building in a busy neighbourhood in Delhi.

Within the walls of the building ran a unit of one of India’s oldest social enterprises, owned and run by women.

The co-operative – now called Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad – was started in 1959 in Mumbai (then Bombay) by seven housewives who made the humble papad or poppadoms, a crispy, savoury snack that is a staple of Indian meals.

Sixty-five years later, the co-operative – headquartered in Mumbai – has spread across India with more than 45,000 women members. It has an annual turnover of 16bn rupees ($186m; £150m) and exports products to countries including the UK and US.

Working mostly from home, the women in this co-operative produce items including detergents, spices and chapatis (flatbreads), but their most-loved product is the Lijjat brand of poppadoms.

“Lijjat is a temple for us. It helps us earn money and feed our families,” says Lakshmi, 70, who manages the Delhi centre.

Ms Lakshmi, who uses only one name, joined the co-operative about four decades ago after her husband died, which forced her to look for work.

“I hadn’t finished my studies and didn’t know what else to do. That’s when my neighbour told me about Lijjat,” she says.

The decision to join the women’s co-operative transformed her life, she says. She now manages 150 women at the centre.

For women like Ms Lakshmi, the co-operative offers a chance to earn a decent income while balancing their work at home.

The women produce spices and detergents among other products

Every morning, the women members take a bus hired by the co-operative to the nearest Lijjat centre. There, they collect their share of pre-mixed dough made with lentils and spices, which they take home to roll into poppadoms.

“I used to go home with this dough and do all my housework, feed my children and sit with my chakla [a flat wooden board] and a belan [rolling pin] in the afternoon to make small round thin papads,” says Ms Lakshmi.

Initially, it took her four-five hours to make 1kg of dried lentil papad, but she says she can now produce that amount in just half an hour.

The head office in Mumbai buys raw materials like lentils, spices and oil in bulk, mixes the flour and sends it to Lijjat offices around the country.

Once the women make and dry the poppadoms at home, they deliver them back to the centre for packaging. Lijjat’s distributor network then transports the products to retail shops.

The enterprise has come a long way since it was founded.

In the 1950s, a newly independent India was focusing on rebuilding itself, trying to strike a balance between promoting small-scale, rural industries and pushing for large urban factories.

It was also a time when the government owned most of the factories in the country. Life for women was especially challenging as they had to negotiate a deeply conservative and patriarchal society to get educated and work.

The group of women who founded Lijjat – Jaswantiben Jamnadas Poppat, Parvatiben Ramdas Thodani, Ujamben Narandas Kundalia, Banuben N Tanna, Laguben Amritlal Gokani, Jayaben V Vithalani and Diwaliben Lukka – were in their 20s and 30s, living in a crowded tenement in Mumbai and looking for ways to support their families.

Their idea was simple – work from home and earn money by using the cooking skills passed down to them through generations of women.

The Lijjat brand of poppadoms is much-loved in many parts of India

But they did not have money to buy ingredients and sought financial assistance from Chhaganlal Karamshi Parekh, a social worker.

He offered them a loan of 80 rupees ($0.93; £0.75 at today’s rates), which was enough to get started at the time.

But the women soon realised that there were no takers for their poppadoms. Narrating the story, Swati Paradkar, the current president of the co-operative, says that the women had to return to Parekh for help.

He again lent them 80 rupees, but this time with the condition that they would repay 200 rupees to him. Parekh – whom the women called Bappa (meaning father) – and other social workers took the poppadoms to local shopkeepers, who agreed to stock them only if they could pay after the products were sold.

Only one shopkeeper agreed to pay the women immediately. “He began purchasing four to six packets daily and gradually the poppadoms became quite popular,” Ms Paradkar says.

As the business grew, more women joined the co-operative – not as employees, but as co-owners with a say in decision-making. The women call each other ben or sister in Gujarati.

“We are like a co-operative and not a company. Even though I am the president, I am not the owner. We are all co-owners and have equal rights. We all share profits and even losses,” Ms Paradkar says. “I think that’s the secret of our success.”

For decades, the co-operative produced its poppadoms without the iconic Lijjat brand name.

In 1966, the Khadi Development And Village Industries Commission, a government organisation to promote small rural industries, suggested that they come up with a brand name.

The co-operative placed an advertisement in newspapers asking for suggestions. “We received a lot of entries but one of our own sisters suggested Lajjat. We tweaked it to Lijjat, which means taste in Gujarati”, Ms Paradkar says.

Over the decades, the co-operative has allowed generations of women to attain financial independence.

“Today I have put my children through school, built a house and got them married,” says Ms Lakshmi.

“Working here, I have found not just an income but respect.”

– Devina Gupta

(BBC News)