is in no mood to
celebrate ‘Avurudu’, or New Year, the biggest annual festival that Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community observes mid-April, while Tamils celebrate the Tamil New Year around the same time.
Tensions are brewing between some Dalit groups and protesting farm unions. The latest trigger is the Samyukt Kisan Morcha’s plans to block Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s from unveiling a statue of B.R. Ambedkar on his birth anniversary on April 14.
The BSE Sensex tanked 1708 points or 3.44% driven by the fear of fresh pandemic effects, taking the Rupee past the ₹75 mark against the dollar on a manic Monday for the economy, even as inflation surged further in March and industrial output collapsed sharply in February as per official data.
M. Champa Irangani
is in no mood to
celebrate ‘Avurudu’, or New Year, the biggest annual festival that Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community observes mid-April, while Tamils celebrate the Tamil New Year around the same time.
“The New Year will dawn only the day our debts are cancelled. Until then we cannot celebrate. Surely not, when so many women have died by suicide under the pressure of microfinance loans,” she says, seated with dozens of affected women who have been observing a ‘satyagraha’ off the main road in Hingurakgoda town, in Sri Lanka’s Polonnaruwa district, for a month now.