title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 6 April 2022, the CBSL allegedly printed 119.08 billion rupees, making it the highest reported amount printed on a single day by the CBSL for the year 2022. The total money added to financial markets for the year 2022 increased to Rs. 432.76 billion.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Until mid-2000s, the Sri Lankan debt was mainly from multilateral lending agencies, after which it was reoriented under the leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa to foreign investors and lenders. Sri Lanka issues its first international sovereign bond in 2007, with high interest rates to incentivise investors. According to commentators, the money was used to fund vanity projects rather than projects of national utility.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Sri Lanka's foreign debt increased substantially, going from US$11.3 billion in 2005 to $56.3 billion in 2020. While foreign debt was about 42% of the GDP in 2019, it rose to 119% of its GDP in 2021. By February 2022, the country had only $2.31 billion left in its reserves, yet faces debt repayments of around $4 billion in 2022, which also includes a $1 billion international sovereign bond (ISB) maturing in July.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In 2020, US economist Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, published a report that blamed the quantitative easing policy made by US banks after 2008, for exporting debt bubbles to developing countries including Sri Lanka. In the same year, Chatham House published a report that concluded that Sri Lanka's debt crisis was primarily "a result of domestic policy decisions and was facilitated by Western lending and monetary policy". Their research pointed that after 2008, western central banks had favored a monetary policy of quantitative easing, which created low global interest rates, and had largely facilitated Rajapaksa’s borrowing-and-spending spree as he borrowed low interest ISBs heavily. However the winding-down of quantitative easing in the US after 2013, had later sharply increased Sri Lanka's borrowing costs, and the interests rates doubled, to approximately 10 percent for short term loans, while long-term rates had jumped from 7 to 8 percent to 11–13 percent . Failure to defend their currency, further shrank Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves to only $6 billion by 2016.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In 2020, S&P Global Ratings said Sri Lanka's existing funding sources did not appear sufficient to cover its debt servicing needs, estimated at just over $4.0 billion in 2021. According to the agency Bellwether, "To solve Sri Lanka's 'budgetary problem' in repaying debt, Treasuries auctions have to succeed. When that is done, the 'transfer problem' of foreign exchange will be automatically solved... Instead, with failed Treasury bill auctions filled with printed money, the country is slipping deeper into debt."


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: To resolve the debt crisis, Bellwether noted that Sri Lanka would need a credible fiscal plan and monetary policy, increasing taxes to repay debt, and interest rates and opening of imports would allow taxes to flow back to the Treasury. While it is possible to raise rates and generate dollars to repay the foreign debt by curtailing domestic credit, it is not practical to do so on an ongoing basis for many years. If investors see foreign reserves going up after debt repayments, confidence may come back but it is an arduous affair, which may or may not work given the current ideology.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In September 2021, the government announced an economic emergency, as the situation was further aggravated by the falling national currency exchange rate, inflation rising as result of high food prices, and pandemic restrictions in tourism which further decreased the country's income. This drove Sri Lanka to the brink of bankruptcy due to foreign reserves falling to $1.9 billion as of March 2022, this being insufficient to pay the foreign debt obligations of $4 billion and an International Sovereign Bond (ISB) payment of $1 billion for the year 2022. The national inflation rate increased to 17.5% in February 2022, according to the National Consumer Price Index.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The government repaid $500 million International Sovereign Bonds which was due in January 2022 despite growing opposition coming from economic analysts and experts who all advised the government to postpone the ISB payment in order to preserve the foreign reserves.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 12 April 2022, Sri Lanka announced that it will be defaulting on its external debt of $51 billion.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Numerous observers have described the loans made to Sri Lanka by the Exim Bank of China to build the Hambantota International Port and the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, which turned out to be unprofitable white elephants, as examples of debt-trap diplomacy and predatory lending. China is Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral lender.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In 2007, the state-owned Chinese firms China Harbour Engineering Company and Sinohydro Corporation were hired to build the port for $361 million. Exim funded 85 percent of the project at an annual interest rate of 6.3 percent. After the project began losing money and Sri Lanka's debt-servicing burden increased, its government decided to lease the project to state-owned China Merchants Port on a 99-year lease for cash. The $1.12 billion lease to the Chinese company was used by Sri Lanka to address balance-of-payment issues.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Debt-trap diplomacy is considered "a severe concern to developing countries like Sri Lanka" by the Institute for Security and Development Policy. Both the U.S. Trump and Biden administrations described the occurrence of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy, especially in the case of Sri Lanka.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Former Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa defended the country's relationship with China and rejected the country's debt trap image, adding that "China provided concessionary loans for many infrastructure projects [during the post-conflict development]." In regards to the Hambantota Port, he added, "The Hambantota Port is not a debt trap." Rajapaksa dismissed the view that Sri Lanka was forced to enter a 99-year lease with a Chinese company because of a failure to pay the project's debts, stating that the project is commercially viable and is transforming Sri Lanka's overall port infrastructure.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Deborah Bräutigam has disputed the usage of the term "debt-trap diplomacy". She said that the Canadian International Development Agency financed the Canadian engineering and construction firm SNC-Lavalin's feasibility study for the port, and its study concluded in 2003 that construction of a port at Hambantota was feasible. A second feasibility report, concluded in 2006 by the Danish engineering firm Ramboll, reached a similar conclusion.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: According to Bräutigam, the port in Hambantota had to secure only a fraction of the cargo which went through Singapore to justify its existence. Bräutigam was told by several Sri Lanka Central Bank governors that Hambantota (and Chinese finance in general) were not the major sources of the country's financial distress, and Bräutigam said that Sri Lanka did not default on any loans to China.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Colombo had originally arranged a bailout from the IMF, but decided to raise the required funds by leasing the under-performing Hambantota Port to an experienced company as the Canadian feasibility study had recommended. Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, a Sri Lankan academic warned of a Chinese ‘strategic trap’ in Sri Lanka. Strategic-trap diplomacy term was coined by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and published initially on 16 September 2021, assessing the Chinese Debt-trap diplomacy in Sri Lanka at an interview with Voice of America.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Chatham House published a research paper in 2020 concluding that Sri Lanka's debt distress was unconnected to Chinese lending, but resulted more from "domestic policy decisions" facilitated by Western lending and monetary policy than from Chinese government policies. However while external debt owed to China was officially 10% of the total debt by April 2021, some officials said that China’s total lending was much higher after taking into account loans to state-owned enterprises and the central bank.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Local newspapers have published cartoons of Sri Lanka pleading for cash from neighboring SAARC countries. Indian observers have noted that the Colombo Port project with China has accelerated the country's debt crisis. According to Chinese state media, it is the largest project by China in Sri Lanka and has a total value of $1.4 billion. The damage to the once-prosperous tourism industry from the COVID-19 pandemic has also been blamed for failing to generate enough revenue to pay the country's debts.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The Australian Lowy Institute said that Sri Lanka was "not engulfed in a Chinese debt trap", as 47% of Sri Lanka's external debt is owed to international capital markets, while 22% is held by multilateral development banks, followed by Japan having 10%. Supporters of the debt-trap theory noted that "calculating the volume of loans provided by other foreign nations and sovereign bonds/private commercial loans vis-a-vis that from China is an oft quoted argument to dismiss the theory of debt-trap diplomacy". In January 2022, President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's office stated that it would appeal to China to reschedule its debt burden during talks with the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. As of March 2022, there has been no official response from China.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The Central Bank of Sri Lanka under Cabraal attempted to maintain the Sri Lankan rupee pegged while continuing heavy money printing and strict exchange controls thus pushing down the market value of the rupee. Thus, by February 2022 while the government attempted to keep the currency pegged at Rs. 200/- to the United states dollar, the unofficial market value of the rupee exceeded 248 to the dollar. This led to foreign workers remitting money through unofficial channels causing Sri Lankan banks to run out of foreign currency and foreign remittances to crash with a 61% reduction in official remittances in January 2022.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In turn Cabraal threatened to freeze bank accounts of those that use unofficial money transmission methods. Then Cabraal began targeting merchandise and services exporters with exporter dollar surrender requirements forcing the residual after the utilization of export proceeds to be converted into rupees and forcefully converting dollars in forex accounts of resident Sri Lankans who earn dollar salaries ignoring concerns of this creating a similar situation to remittances.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: As Banks struggled, Cabraal issued warning letters to CEOs of banks demanding strict adherence to the fixed conversion rate. Former Deputy Governor of CBSL W.A Wijeywardana criticized the policies calling it "Cabraalnomics 2.0" noting that the dollars are disappearing from official markets while a superior dynamic black market has caused exporters and immigrants to shun the formal banking system resulting in dismantling the power of the Central Bank as the forex regulator.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The country's tourism sector represented over one-tenth of the GDP of Sri Lanka. The sector was negatively affected by the 2019 Easter bombings, and the COVID-19 pandemic prevented recovery. Tourism earned Sri Lanka $4.4 billion and contributed 5.6% to GDP in 2018, but this dropped to just 0.8% in 2020. In a failed prediction in April 2021 the World Bank stated, “Despite the heavy toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on Sri Lanka's economy and the lives of its people, the economy will recover in 2021, though challenges remain."


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Sri Lanka had been self-sufficient in rice production with imports limited to specialty rice such as Basmati. In April 2021, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that Sri Lanka would only allow organic farming, banning inorganic fertilizers and agrochemicals-based fertilizers. The drop in tea production resulting from the fertilizer ban alone resulted in economic losses of around $425 million and created a 20% drop in rice production within the first six months alone reversing previously achieved self-sufficiency in rice production and forcing the country to import rice for $450 million. The situation in the tea industry was described as critical, with farming under the organic program being described as ten times more expensive and producing half of the yield by the farmers.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The program was welcomed by its advisor Vandana Shiva, but it ignored criticism from the scientific and farming communities who warned about the possible collapse of farming, including a financial crisis due to devaluation of national currency, which pivoted around the tea industry. Multiple claims by the government to justify the transition to organic agriculture were compared to Lysenkoism by critics: for example, Anuruddha Padeniya, a member of the Presidential task force that carried out the transition to organic farming, claimed that Pliny the Elder had claimed that ancient Sri Lankans had lived for around 140 years while modern agricultural methods have resulted in it being halved to 74 years.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Both Padeniya and Gotabaya Rajapaksa has associated the use of chemical fertilizer with chronic kidney disease (CKDu), but scientific research has pointed towards high hardness of water due to high mineral concentration mainly of fluoride and magnesium of the water in areas with a high prevalence of CKDu combined with high heat as the most likely cause. The World Health Organization also doubted that chemical fertilizer use alone could cause CKDu.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The banning of the trade of chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced a severe economic crisis, since the population expects to remain without income and without food. In November 2021, Sri Lanka abandoned its plan to become the world's first organic farming nation following rising food prices and weeks of protests against the plan. The government cancelled some measures, including lifting the ban on urea and importing 44,000 Tons of urea under the line of credit. Sri Lanka is seeking to introduce peacetime rationing of essential goods.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 29 May 2022 the government stated that the Yala season cultivation would fail with a forecast of 50% of the maximum harvest and that the government cannot provide fertilizer to save the season while rice stocks in the country will only be sufficient until September.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The repercussions of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine are considered to have affected the already sluggish economic conditions of Sri Lanka. The invasion has further exacerbated the economic calamity of the country due to Russia being the second biggest market to Sri Lanka in tea exports and Sri Lanka's tourism sector is heavily reliant upon Russia and Ukraine, as most of the tourist arrivals are from the two nations.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: As a result, the Ukrainian crisis has put a halt to the economic recovery of Sri Lanka with both the tea and tourism sectors having been hit hard. On 13 July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russia is accountable for the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, accusing Russia of exacerbating a global food crisis and fueling inflation.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: A UN report in September 2022 highlighted that impunity of Sri Lankan officials for human rights violations and economic crimes in the country are reasons of its economic crisis.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In 2021, the Sri Lankan Government officially declared the worst economic crisis in the country in 73 years. In August 2021, a food emergency was declared. However, the government denied food shortages. Sri Lanka's Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila acknowledged the crisis could lead to a financial disaster. In early April 2022 the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Ajith Nivard Cabraal was replaced by Nandalal Weerasinghe. On 5 April, 41 members of the Parliament left the ruling coalition causing a loss of majority in the Parliament.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The economic crises has resulted in declines in electricity, fuel and cooking gas consumption, resulting from shortages. Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa urged all government authorities to switch off all street lights at least up until the end of March 2022 in an attempt to conserve electricity. Nearly 1000 bakeries have been shut as a response to shortages of cooking gas. Long queues have formed in recent months in front of petrol filling stations. The surge in global oil prices further aggravated the fuel shortage.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In order to conserve energy, daily power cuts have been imposed by the authorities throughout the country. On 22 March 2022, the government ordered the military to post soldiers at various gas and fuel filling stations to curb the tensions among people who line up in queues and to ease the fuel distribution. Casualties include four fatalities due to fatigue and violence. Daily seven hour power cuts were seen throughout March 2022, increased to 10 hours at the end of the month and again increased to 15 hours in early April.As of July 2022, the daily power cuts were reduced to 3 hours a day.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The dailies "The Island" and "Divaina" stopped print publication due to paper shortages and related price escalation and switched to e-papers. Sri Lanka's hydroelectricity generation has also been affected. On 28 June 2022, the government suspended fuel sales to non-essential vehicles. Only buses, trains, and vehicles used for medical services and transporting food could obtain fuel.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Due to the shortage of aviation fuel, the country's flag carrier SriLankan Airlines have to make refuelling stopovers for its long-haul flights along with other international airlines flying to and from Sri Lanka, at airports in the Indian cities of Chennai, Kochi and Trivandrum. The Civil Aviation Authority in Sri Lanka has also published an advisory, requesting all international airlines to carry extra fuel while flying into Sri Lanka.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: As of February 2022 inflation was 17.5%. The year on year increase inflation for food was 24.7% while non-food items saw an 11% rate. The year on year change (Feb 2021 to Feb 2022) for local red chilis increased by 60%, local potatoes by 74.8% and Nadu rice by 64%.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In March 2022, several schools in Sri Lanka announced that their term/mid-year examinations would be postponed indefinitely, due to paper shortages throughout the country mainly triggered due to the lack of foreign reserves to import paper. The term test examinations were stated to be held island-wide on 28 March 2022, but due to the acute shortage of printing paper and ink ribbons, a decision was made to either cancel or postpone the exams to a later date. Government-owned public and state-approved private schools were reopened on 25 July 2022, after being closed for a month due to fuel shortages.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 29 March, all scheduled surgeries at the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital were suspended due to a shortage of medicines.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Many other hospitals have also apparently suspended routine surgeries and have also reduced a large number of laboratory tests. Other state-run hospitals were also reported to be running out of life-saving medicines. On 8 April, the Medical Council of Sri Lanka issued a warning that there would be a catastrophic number of deaths, which is likely to be in excess of the combined death toll of COVID-19, the 2004 tsunami and the Civil War, unless a replenishment of supplies is made in a matter of weeks. Singapore Red Cross Society issued warning declaring Sri Lanka's medical crisis as an "unprecedented humanitarian crisis".


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: By 10 April, hospitals had begun to run out of endotracheal tubes for the ventilation of newborn babies, infants, and children. Doctors requested that overseas Sri Lankan communities provide neonatal ETTs of sizes 4mm, 3.5mm, 3mm, 2.5mm, and 2mm. The Sri Lanka Medical Association said that all hospitals in the country no longer had access to imported medical tools and vital drugs.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Doctors are reported to have been forced to reuse old and used medical equipment to treat the patients due to the shortage of new equipment. Doctors are also reported to have performed medical surgeries by using the light of mobile phones. Doctors in rural areas have also been forced to stitch wounds in the dark due to rolling power cuts. The emergency drugs to treat heart attacks are also reported to be in short supply.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In March 2022, the United Kingdom and Canada warned their travellers to be aware of the current economic situation in Sri Lanka.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Due to the prevailing economic crisis in Sri Lanka, leading textile brands including Zara, Mango and H&M have diverted their attention from Sri Lanka to India in order to place their orders. Following the worsening economic as well as political conditions in Sri Lanka, India has also witnessed a sharp surge in overseas orders for tea products.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Leading internet protocol television service provider in Sri Lanka, SLT PEO TV has temporarily stopped and suspended foreign channel telecast operations due to payment difficulties owing to dollar crisis and economic crisis in Sri Lanka. The 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League was also stopped midway due to inability to make payments to host broadcaster Star Sports.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The plummeting of dollar reserves also hampered the livelihood of sportspeople in Sri Lanka and many national sports associations were unable to send their teams to international sporting events, especially when multi-sporting events such as Asian Games and Commonwealth Games are around the corner.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In January 2022, the Sri Lankan High Commission in Nigeria and Sri Lankan consulates in Germany and Cyprus were temporarily closed down due to lack of foreign reserves. In March 2022, the Sri Lankan embassies in Iraq and Norway and its consulate in Australia were also closed due to lack of dollar reserves.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Since 1950, Sri Lanka has been part of 16 loans arrangements with the International Monetary Fund. Recent bailouts were in 2009 and 2016. The IMF did not accurately predict the severity of the following crisis.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Despite the growing concerns over the inflationary pressure, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), said in January 2022 that Sri Lanka does not need International Monetary Fund (IMF) relief, as he was optimistic that Sri Lanka could settle its mandatory outstanding debt, including its international sovereign debts. As of February 2022, the foreign reserves of Sri Lanka fell to US$2.36 billion. Sri Lanka has foreign debt obligations of $7 billion, including $1 billion worth sovereign bonds which is to be repaid by July 2022. The government is planning to hire a global law firm to provide technical support and assistance on debt restructuring.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: A delegation from the IMF made a visit to Sri Lanka from 7 December to 20 December 2021 in order to assess and review Sri Lanka's economic policies. The IMF's executive board had discussed Sri Lanka's economy after the end of the annual discussions which took place on 25 February 2022. As of 25 February 2022, the IMF had declared that the public debt of Sri Lanka is unsustainable and warned the Sri Lankan government to refrain from printing money to prevent monetary instability, but lauded the vaccination drive which had cushioned the impact of the pandemic. The IMF had assessed the prevailing economic calamity of Sri Lanka by compiling an Article IV Consultation Assessment. In addition, the IMF predicted that the economy of Sri Lanka is expected to grow by 2.6 percent by 2022.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: As of 7 March 2022, Ajith Nivard Cabraal reported that the regulator of the banking system was effectively devaluing its national currency with immediate effect, and the official rupee rate fell to a record historic low of Rs. 229.99/- against the US Dollar. The devaluation decision is also seen as a massive step-up in the country's attempt to seek IMF assistance and bailout. The former deputy governor of the CBSL, W. A. Wijewardana, criticized the monetary policy decisions undertaken by CBSL, especially for its decision to fix the rupee to Rs. 230/-, indicating that the FOREX crisis cannot be solved unless the floating exchange rate is implemented. Opposition MP Harsha de Silva opined that the devaluation of the rupee to Rs. 230/- is still insufficient and not enough to avert Sri Lanka's foreign reserve crisis.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In March 2022 President Rajapaksa had made a statement that his government would work with IMF. On 7 April an expert presidential advisory group consisting of Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Shanta Devarajan, Sharmini Cooray was formed by the President to assist with the situation including proceedings with the IMF.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The bailout talks got underway on 18 April 2022 in Washington with Ali Sabry on behalf of the government urged immediate emergency financial help through a loan package. The IMF initially insisted that any loans to Sri Lanka world require debt sustainability. IMF also considered Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) loans for Sri Lanka just like IMF used it to assist countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The IMF welcomed the Sri Lankan government's decisions and plans to hold negotiations with creditors. The IMF has pledged support for Sri Lanka to mitigate and solve the current economic crisis following the successful initial technical discussions between the Sri Lankan delegation led by finance minister Ali Sabry and the IMF officials in Washington. IMF termed the initial round of discussions as fruitful and vowed its assurance to help Sri Lanka overcome the economic crisis.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The initial round of discussions included several topics including recent economic and financial developments in Sri Lanka and the need for implementing a credible and coherent strategy to restore macroeconomic stability. In addition to the assistance from IMF and World Bank, Sri Lanka is discussing with India some $1.5 billion in bridge financing to facilitate imports while also approaching China, Japan and Asian Development Bank for further financial assistance. The World Bank has agreed to provide financial relief of $600 million with $400 million to be released shortly under the first phase.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 20 June, an IMF delegation arrived in Colombo to discuss a rescue package. After the which resulted in the resignation announcements of President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, IMF said that it is hoping for a resolution to Sri Lanka's political turmoil that will allow a resumption of talks for a bailout package.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 7 April 2022, the private sector of Sri Lanka collectively in writing requested to restore political stability to foster the economy. Around 38 organizations collectively representing exporters, importers, manufacturers, shipping and logistics sector and tourism sector have appealed to the parliament to resolve the economic crisis to prevent catastrophe. On 7 April 2022, the Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE) had also made an appeal to the government to solve the current economic and political crisis and had warned that if the issue had not been addressed with due diligence it could lead to closure of businesses.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Former justice minister Ali Sabry had pleaded for political stability and insisted that Sri Lanka needs an immediate bailout or a moratorium from multilateral agencies such as the IMF, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank. He also insisted that there are no other options except to seek assistance from multilateral agencies to cope with the crisis and especially called on the government to restructure the US$1 billion ISB bond repayment which matures around July 2022.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 8 April 2022, former World Bank official Shanta Devarajan warned that the biggest risk Sri Lanka is going to face is social unrest and turmoil. He highlighted that a cash transfer program can be initiated aiming at helping the poor people in addition to the reduction in subsidies on food and fuel to avoid the collapse of the economy. Moody's Investors Service had warned that the wave of the resignation of cabinet ministers would only heighten policy uncertainty and as a result, it will make hard when obtaining or borrowing external finance.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In March 2022, spontaneous and organized protests by both political parties and non-partisan groups over the government's mishandling of the economy were reported from several areas. Several protests were staged by the political opposition demanding the current administration to solve the financial crisis and to immediately resign in wake of the wider economic crisis.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Tens of thousands of supporters of the opposition party, the United People's Force led by Sajith Premadasa carried out protests on 16 March, in front of the President's office demanding that the president quit. On 30 March, when Namal Rajapaksa arrived for the opening ceremony of a sports ground in Bandarawela, angry locals blocked the road demanding fuel which resulted in Namal Rajapaksa avoiding the area and the grounds being opened by the mayor instead.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 31 March, a large group gathered around the residence of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Mirihana to protest against the power cuts that had reached over 12-hours a day. The protest was initially spontaneous peaceful protest by citizens until the police attacked the protestors with tear gas and water cannons and the protestors burned a bus carrying riot control troops. The government declared a curfew in Colombo. Simultaneous protests were also reported on the Kandy-Colombo Road which was blocked by the protesters. The government accused the protesters of being members of an extremist group and began to arrest them. Candle light protests were also continuing in several areas while car horn tooting protests were also reported.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In May 2022 the Rajapaksa family home was set on fire by protestors. Amidst the protests Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned as Prime Minister in May 2022, but Gotabaya Rajapaksa refused to resign from the position of President and the protests continued.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 9 July 2022, Rajapaksa fled his official residence in Colombo prior to protesters breaking through police barricades and entering the premises. Protesters were seen occupying the mansion, even swimming in the president's pool. Later that evening the Speaker of the Parliament confirmed that the president would resign his office on 13 July 2022. On 11 July, the Prime Minister's Office also reconfirmed it. On 9 and 10 July, Rajapaksa's whereabouts were unknown to the public until Sri Lankan military sources told the BBC on 11 July, that the President was on a Navy vessel in Sri Lankan waters. Later that day, the Speaker of the Parliament announced that the President was still in the country. It was later revealed that Rajapaksa and his wife had been evacuated from the President's House on the morning of 9 July by the navy and had boarded the SLNS Gajabahu which then departed Colombo harbour and sailed within Sri Lankan territorial waters allowing Rajapaksa to maintain communications.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In January 2022, India pledged a total of US$2.415 billion to overcome dire financial constraints caused by external debt payments and a lack of US dollars in Sri Lanka for business. Under SAARC currency swap arrangement, India extended a $400 million and also deferred an Asian Clearing Union settlement of around $500 million. India granted a new line of credit worth $500 million for the purchase of petroleum products.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 17 March 2022, Sri Lanka received a $1 billion credit line as a lifeline from India in order to buy urgently needed essential items such as food and medicine. The credit line was activated after India and Sri Lanka formally entered into a credit agreement during finance minister Basil Rajapakse's visit to New Delhi.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The Government of Singapore announced that it would provide seed money amounting to $100,000 as a relief package to support the Singapore Red Cross's humanitarian public fundraising efforts for the most vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In June 2022, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said China would provide emergency assistance worth 500 million yuan ($74.2 million) to Sri Lanka.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The Rajapaksa Government initially denied existence of any crisis and refused to seek assistance from the IMF. CBSL Governor Cabraal also criticized rating downgrades by Moody's as unwarranted, erroneous and reckless. By March 2022, while the Government accepted the existence of the economic crisis, they denied any responsibility. Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a speech blamed his critics for creating the crisis which was echoed by the Central Bank under Cabraal who blamed the media, the opposition's "doomsday reports", rating agencies and the COVID-19 pandemic for causing the crisis.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: In April 2022 President Rajapaksa accepted the agricultural crisis and the refusal to seek IMF assistance early on as "mistakes".


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 8 April 2022, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka further tightened the monetary policy (contractionary monetary policy) to curtain soaring inflation by raising both the Standing Lending Facility Rate and Standing Deposit Facility Rate by 700 basis points.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 30 April 2022 Finance Minister Ali Sabry claimed that the government is looking to increase taxes accepting that the tax cuts in 2019 were a mistake. The 8% VAT was termed "definitely not sustainable" for Sri Lanka and claimed that the rate should be around 13–14%.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: The ruling coalition had lost its majority and political turmoil increased including the resignations of cabinet ministers. The shift to organic farming was reversed following a drop in output and food shortages.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: As of 6 April, the Sri Lankan rupee had plunged to a record low to become the worst performing currency in the world with US$1 trading at Rs. 355/-.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: An 12 April report published by the Government of Sri Lanka it indicated that it has taken steps to temporarily default all of its external debts worth $51 billion in order to avoid the hard default. The announcement has also ended Sri Lanka's streak of having maintained an unblemished record of external debt service. Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe insisted that Sri Lanka will restructure the debt to avoid the hard default.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 9 May, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned from his position after protests on the country's economic crisis turned violent. According to a statement given by his office, he resigned from his position to help form an interim, unity government that can help ease recent protests over the shortage of fuel and other essential imported goods.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: On 16 May, the newly appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe revealed that the government has no usable dollar reserves and even finding a million dollars was a challenge, the revenue is not enough to cover expenses as a revenue forecast of Rs. 3.3 trillion is against a total government expenditure of around Rs. 4 trillion resulting in a deficit of around Rs. 2.4 trillion, inflation would continue to rise, daily power outages could increase up to 15 hours a day, medicine shortage has become severe, especially for heart disease and surgical equipment.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: Payments for medicine and equipment supplies have not been paid for four months and the government owes them around Rs. 34 billion. As a result the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation is being blacklisted by pharmaceutical suppliers. Wickremesinghe described the period as "the most difficult ones of our lives" and claimed that it would be more difficult than the worst periods Sri Lankans had faced in the past.


title: 2019–present Sri Lankan economic crisis

text: By November 2022 the economic condition had significantly improved. The inflation rate had significantly declined. It was reported that "Tourists are coming in slowly, with the country making a billion dollars in the first 10 months of the year. The fuel and gas queues have disappeared. Power cuts have reduced and despite the shrinking of the economy and the job losses, the situation has dramatically improved since the departure of Gotabaya. Therefore, a large section of Sri Lankans is willing to give Wickremesinghe a chance." The inflation rate rapidly declined. The country was declared safe and tourists resumed visiting the country again. The budget for the next fiscal year aimed to increase tax to help improve soften the economic crisis through self financing. It was however noted that total economic recovery would take until 2026.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebrum, telencephalon or endbrain is the largest part of the brain containing the cerebral cortex (of the two cerebral hemispheres), as well as several subcortical structures, including the hippocampus, basal ganglia, and olfactory bulb. In the human brain, the cerebrum is the uppermost region of the central nervous system. The cerebrum develops prenatally from the forebrain (prosencephalon). In mammals, the dorsal telencephalon, or pallium, develops into the cerebral cortex, and the ventral telencephalon, or subpallium, becomes the basal ganglia. The cerebrum is also divided into approximately symmetric left and right cerebral hemispheres.


title: Cerebrum

text: With the assistance of the cerebellum, the cerebrum controls all voluntary actions in the human body.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain. Depending upon the position of the animal it lies either in front or on top of the brainstem. In humans, the cerebrum is the largest and best-developed of the five major divisions of the brain.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebrum is made up of the two cerebral hemispheres and their cerebral cortices (the outer layers of grey matter), and the underlying regions of white matter. Its subcortical structures include the hippocampus, basal ganglia and olfactory bulb. The cerebrum consists of two C-shaped cerebral hemispheres, separated from each other by a deep fissure called the longitudinal fissure.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebral cortex, the outer layer of grey matter of the cerebrum, is found only in mammals. In larger mammals, including humans, the surface of the cerebral cortex folds to create gyri (ridges) and sulci (furrows) which increase the surface area.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebral cortex is generally classified into four lobes: the frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes. The lobes are classified based on their overlying neurocranial bones.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebrum is divided by the medial longitudinal fissure into two cerebral hemispheres, the right and the left. The cerebrum is contralaterally organized, i.e., the right hemisphere controls and processes signals from the left side of the body, while the left hemisphere controls and processes signals from the right side of the body. There is a strong but not complete bilateral symmetry between the hemispheres. The lateralization of brain function looks at the known and possible differences between the two.


title: Cerebrum

text: In the developing vertebrate embryo, the neural tube is subdivided into four unseparated sections which then develop further into distinct regions of the central nervous system; these are the prosencephalon (forebrain), the mesencephalon (midbrain) the rhombencephalon (hindbrain) and the spinal cord. The prosencephalon develops further into the telencephalon and the diencephalon. The dorsal telencephalon gives rise to the pallium (cerebral cortex in mammals and reptiles) and the ventral telencephalon generates the basal ganglia. The diencephalon develops into the thalamus and hypothalamus, including the optic vesicles (future retina). The dorsal telencephalon then forms two lateral telencephalic vesicles, separated by the midline, which develop into the left and right cerebral hemispheres. Birds and fish have a dorsal telencephalon, like all vertebrates, but it is generally unlayered and therefore not considered a cerebral cortex. Only a layered cytoarchitecture can be considered a cortex.


title: Cerebrum

text: Note: As cerebrum is a gross division with many subdivisions and sub-regions, it is important to state that this section lists functions that cerebrum "as a whole" serves. See main articles on cerebral cortex and basal ganglia for more information. The cerebrum is a major part of the brain, controlling emotions, hearing, vision, personality and much more. It controls all precision of voluntary actions.


title: Cerebrum

text: Upper motor neurons in the primary motor cortex send their axons to the brainstem and spinal cord to synapse on the lower motor neurons, which innervate the muscles. Damage to motor areas by chance of cortex can lead to certain types of motor neuron disease. This kind of damage results in loss of muscular power and precision rather than total paralysis.


title: Cerebrum

text: It functions as the center of sensory perception, memory, thoughts and judgement; the cerebrum also functions as the center of voluntary motor activities.


title: Cerebrum

text: The primary sensory areas of the cerebral cortex receive and process visual, auditory, somatosensory, gustatory, and olfactory information. Together with association cortical areas, these brain regions synthesize sensory information into our perceptions of the world.


title: Cerebrum

text: The olfactory bulb, responsible for the sense of smell, takes up a large area of the cerebrum in most vertebrates. However, in humans, this part of the brain is much smaller and lies underneath the frontal lobe. The olfactory sensory system is unique since the neurons in the olfactory bulb send their axons directly to the olfactory cortex, rather than to the thalamus first. Damage to the olfactory bulb results in a loss of olfaction (the sense of smell).


title: Cerebrum

text: Speech and language are mainly attributed to the parts of the cerebral cortex. Motor portions of language are attributed to Broca's area within the frontal lobe. Speech comprehension is attributed to Wernicke's area, at the temporal-parietal lobe junction. These two regions are interconnected by a large white matter tract, the arcuate fasciculus. Damage to the Broca's area results in expressive aphasia (non-fluent aphasia) while damage to Wernicke's area results in receptive aphasia (also called fluent aphasia).


title: Cerebrum

text: Explicit or declarative (factual) memory formation is attributed to the hippocampus and associated regions of the medial temporal lobe. This association was originally described after a patient known as HM had both his left and right hippocampus surgically removed to treat chronic temporal lobe epilepsy. After surgery, HM had anterograde amnesia, or the inability to form new memories.


title: Cerebrum

text: Short-term or working memory involves association areas of the cortex, especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as well as the hippocampus.


title: Cerebrum

text: In the most primitive vertebrates, the hagfishes and lampreys, the cerebrum is a relatively simple structure receiving nerve impulses from the olfactory bulb. In cartilaginous and lobe-finned fishes and also in amphibians, a more complex structure is present, with the cerebrum being divided into three distinct regions. The lowermost (or ventral) region forms the basal nuclei, and contains fibres connecting the rest of the cerebrum to the thalamus. Above this, and forming the lateral part of the cerebrum, is the "paleopallium", while the uppermost (or dorsal) part is referred to as the "archipallium". The cerebrum remains largely devoted to olfactory sensation in these animals, in contrast to its much wider range of functions in amniotes.


title: Cerebrum

text: In ray-finned fishes the structure is somewhat different. The inner surfaces of the lateral and ventral regions of the cerebrum bulge up into the ventricles; these include both the basal nuclei and the various parts of the pallium and may be complex in structure, especially in teleosts. The dorsal surface of the cerebrum is membranous, and does not contain any nervous tissue.


title: Cerebrum

text: In the amniotes, the cerebrum becomes increasingly large and complex. In reptiles, the paleopallium is much larger than in amphibians and its growth has pushed the basal nuclei into the central regions of the cerebrum. As in the lower vertebrates, the grey matter is generally located beneath the white matter, but in some reptiles, it spreads out to the surface to form a primitive cortex, especially in the anterior part of the brain.


title: Cerebrum

text: In mammals, this development proceeds further, so that the cortex covers almost the whole of the cerebral hemispheres, especially in more developed species, such as the primates. The paleopallium is pushed to the ventral surface of the brain, where it becomes the olfactory lobes, while the archipallium becomes rolled over at the medial dorsal edge to form the hippocampus. In placental mammals, a corpus callosum also develops, further connecting the two hemispheres. The complex convolutions of the cerebral surface (see gyrus, gyrification) are also found only in higher mammals. Although some large mammals (such as elephants) have particularly large cerebra, dolphins are the only species (other than humans) to have cerebra accounting for as much as 2 percent of their body weight.


title: Cerebrum

text: The cerebra of birds are similarly enlarged to those of mammals, by comparison with reptiles. The increased size of bird brains was classically attributed to enlarged basal ganglia, with the other areas remaining primitive, but this view has been largely abandoned. Birds appear to have undergone an alternate process of encephalization, as they diverged from the other archosaurs, with few clear parallels to that experienced by mammals and their therapsid ancestors.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: A rapid antigen test (RAT), sometimes called a rapid antigen detection test (RADT), antigen rapid test (ART), or loosely just a rapid test, is a rapid diagnostic test suitable for point-of-care testing that directly detects the presence or absence of an antigen. Such tests are a type of lateral flow test that detect antigens, distinguishing them from other medical tests that detect antibodies (antibody tests) or nucleic acid (nucleic acid tests), of either laboratory or point-of-care types. Rapid tests generally give a result in 5 to 30 minutes, require minimal training or infrastructure, and have significant cost advantages. Rapid antigen tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, have been commonly used during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: For many years, an early and major class of RATs—the rapid strep tests for streptococci—were so often the referent when RATs or RADTs were mentioned that the two latter terms were often loosely treated as synonymous with those. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, awareness of RATs is no longer limited to health professionals and COVID-19 has become the expected referent, so more precise usage is required in other circumstances.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: RATs are based on the principle of antigen-antibody interaction. Antibodies directed against the target antigen (generally a protein on the surface of a virus) are fixed to the indicator line of the chromatography substrate and the visualisation marker (generally a dye marker, though sometimes these antibodies are modified to fluoresce). When the dissolved sample is added it mobilises the visualisation marker, which then travels through the chromatography substrate with the sample. Virus particles (which the antibodies linked to the visualisation marker have already bound to) are immobilised by the antibodies fixed to the indicator line as they travel through the substrate. This also immobilises the bound visualisation marker, allowing visual detection of significant levels of virus in a sample.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: A positive result with an antigen test should generally be confirmed by RT-qPCR or some other test with higher sensitivity and specificity.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are one of the most useful applications of these tests. Often called lateral flow tests, they have provided global governments with several benefits. They are quick to implement with minimal training, offered significant cost advantages, costing a fraction of existing forms of PCR testing and give users a result within 5–30 minutes. Rapid antigen tests have found their best use as part of mass testing or population-wide screening approaches. They are successful in these approaches because in addition to the aforementioned benefits, they identify individuals who are the most infectious and could potentially spread the virus to a large number of other people. This differs slightly from other forms of COVID-19 tests such as PCR that are generally seen to be a useful test for individuals.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: As early as February 2021, the US Department of State considered the antigen test suitable for entry to the country. In Canada, although the antigen test appeared to be no route to entry in January 2021, Health Canada in August 2021 made available subsidized at no cost rapid antigen tests "to more small and medium-sized organizations through new pharmacy partners".


title: Rapid antigen test

text: RATs are immunochromatographic assays which give results that can be seen with the naked eye (with or without special illumination, such as a UV lamp). They are qualitative in nature, although within a certain range it is possible to make rough order of magnitude estimates of viral load from the results. RATs are generally screening tests, with relatively low sensitivity and specificity, thus results should be evaluated on the basis of confirmatory tests like PCR testing or western blot.


title: Rapid antigen test

text: One inherent advantage of an antigen test over an antibody test (such as antibody-detecting rapid HIV tests) is that it can take time for the immune system to develop antibodies after infection begins, but the foreign antigen is present right away. Although any diagnostic test may have false negatives, this latency period can open an especially wide avenue for false negatives in antibody tests, although the particulars depend on which disease and which test are involved. A rapid antigen test typically costs around US$5 to manufacture.


title: Adam Pally

text: Adam Saul Pally (born March 18, 1982) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for starring as Max Blum in the ABC comedy series "Happy Endings" and as Dr. Peter Prentice in "The Mindy Project". He also starred in the FOX comedy "Making History" and was the executive producer of "The President Show".


title: Adam Pally

text: Pally was born in New York City, to Dr. Steven Pally, an internist who owns his own medical office, and Caryn Pally, who managed the practice in Florham Park, New Jersey. He was raised Jewish. He grew up in New York City, Chicago, and New Jersey, and has two sisters, Erica and Risa.


title: Adam Pally

text: In 2004, Pally graduated from The New School University in New York City. He has performed improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCBT) in New York since 2002 and continues to perform in shows such as "Death by Roo Roo" and "ASSSSCAT 3000" at the theater's Los Angeles division. He is a member of the sketch comedy group "Chubby Skinny Kids" with comedians Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. Pally is also part of the improv group "Hot Sauce" with Gil Ozeri and Ben Schwartz; the group continues to perform their long-form improv show at UCBT occasionally.


title: Adam Pally

text: Pally has appeared in such films as "Iron Man 3", "Taking Woodstock", "Solitary Man", "Assassination of a High School President", "The To Do List" and "A.C.O.D." and "Slow Learners". He has made guest appearances on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver", "Californication" and "The Colbert Report". He has written and appeared on the Adult Swim series "". In 2012, it was reported that Pally and frequent collaborator Gil Ozeri wrote a script being produced by Will Ferrell & Adam McKay's company Gary Sanchez Productions.


title: Adam Pally

text: From April 2011 to May 2013, Pally starred as Max Blum, one of the lead characters on the ABC ensemble comedy series "Happy Endings", alongside Eliza Coupe, Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton, Damon Wayans Jr., and Casey Wilson. In 2013, Pally was nominated for "Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series" at the Critics' Choice Television Awards for his work on season three of "Happy Endings". The cast reunited in July 2020 for the pandemic-themed episode "And the Pandemmy goes to..." to raise money for the charities Color of Change and World Central Kitchen.


title: Adam Pally

text: Following the cancellation of "Happy Endings" in 2013, Pally joined the cast of "The Mindy Project" as a series regular for the second and third seasons, playing the role of Dr. Peter Prentice. He left the show midway through the third season, making his final appearances as a series regular in 2015.


title: Adam Pally

text: Pally filmed a lead role opposite T.J. Miller and Thomas Middleditch in the comedy "Search Party". This film serves as the directorial debut of screenwriter Scot Armstrong. He also starred in the indie films "Slow Learners" and "Night Owls", both released in 2015.


title: Adam Pally

text: Pally is a regular contributor to the humor website "Funny or Die", where he is best known for his series "Riding Shotgun with Adam Pally", in which he interviews celebrities in his car. In 2009, he created for UCB Comedy a parody of the "David After Dentist" internet phenomenon; his is called "David After Divorce," and he speaks almost exactly the same lines as David, though to a different set of questions. It has received about 5 million hits on YouTube.


title: Adam Pally

text: In 2011, Pally co-starred in the comedic stage-show "The Realest Real Housewives", created by his "Happy Endings" co-star Casey Wilson.


title: Adam Pally

text: Pally has appeared regularly on many podcasts on the Earwolf network such as "Comedy Bang! Bang!", "improv4humans", "Who Charted", and "How Did This Get Made?".


title: Adam Pally

text: On June 5, 2015, Pally and fellow comedian friends Gil Ozeri and John Gemberling gained attention when they teamed with Funny or Die to live-stream their 50-hour marathon of "Entourage", watching every episode in a row with no breaks for 50 hours straight.


title: Adam Pally

text: Pally lives in New York. He married Daniella Anne Pally (née Liben) on July 3, 2008; the couple have three children: a son Cole (b. 2012), daughter Georgia Grace (b. 2013), and another son, Drake (b. 2017).


title: Richard Briers

text: Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in "Marriage Lines" (1961–66), but it was a few years later, when he narrated "Roobarb" (1974–76) and "Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk" (1976–77) and played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom "The Good Life" (1975–78), that he became a household name. He starred as Martin in "Ever Decreasing Circles" (1984–89), and had a leading role as Hector in "Monarch of the Glen" (2000–05). From the late 1980s, with Kenneth Branagh as director, he performed Shakespearean roles in "Henry V" (1989), "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993), "Hamlet" (1996) and "As You Like It" (2006).


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers was born on 14 January 1934 in Raynes Park, Surrey, the son of Joseph Benjamin Briers and his second wife Morna Phyllis, daughter of Frederick Richardson, of the Indian Civil Service. He was the first cousin once removed of actor Terry-Thomas (Terry-Thomas was his father's cousin). He spent his childhood at Raynes Park in a flat, Number 2 Pepys Court, behind the now demolished Rialto cinema, and later at Guildford. His father, Joseph Briers, was the son of a stockbroker, of a family of Middlesex tenant farmers; a gregarious and popular man, he contended with a nervous disposition, and drifted between jobs, spending most of his life as a bookmaker but also working as, amongst other things, an estate agent's clerk and a factory worker for an air filter manufacturer, as well as a gifted amateur singer who attended classes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His mother, Morna Briers was a concert pianist and a drama and music teacher, and a member of Equity, who wished for a showbusiness career, having acted in her youth. The couple had met when Joseph Briers asked Morna to stand in for his regular pianist for a performance; by this time his first marriage had collapsed and six months later they had entered a relationship. The family occasionally received money from a wealthy relation, and Briers' maternal grandparents paid for his education, despite not being particularly well-off, and having lived in slightly reduced circumstances in India before returning to England and coming to live at Wimbledon.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers attended Rokeby School in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, and, having failed the examination for King's College School, the Ridgeway School in Wimbledon, which he left at the age of 16 without any formal qualifications.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers' first job was a clerical post with a London cable manufacturer, and for a short time he went to evening classes to qualify in electrical engineering, but soon left and became a filing clerk.


title: Richard Briers

text: Aged 18, he was called up for two years' national service in the RAF, during which he was a filing clerk at RAF Northwood, where he met future "George and Mildred" actor Brian Murphy. Murphy introduced Briers, who had been interested in acting since the age of 14, to the Dramatic Society at the Borough Polytechnic Institute, now London South Bank University, where he performed in several productions.


title: Richard Briers

text: When he left the RAF he studied at RADA, which he attended from 1954 to 1956. Placed in a class with both Peter O'Toole and Albert Finney, Briers later credited academy director John Fernald with nurturing his talent. Graduating from RADA with a silver medal, he won a scholarship with the Liverpool Repertory Company, and after 15 months moved to the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry for 6 months. He made his West End debut in the Duke of York's Theatre 1959 production of "Gilt And Gingerbread" by Lionel Hale.


title: Richard Briers

text: In 1961, Briers was cast in the leading role in "Marriage Lines" (1961–66) with Prunella Scales playing the role of his wife. In between the pilot and the series itself, Briers appeared in "Brothers in Law" (from the book by Henry Cecil) as callow barrister Roger Thursby in 1962. He was cast in this role by adaptors Frank Muir and Denis Norden, who had seen him in the West End.


title: Richard Briers

text: His other early appearances included "The Seven Faces of Jim" (1961) with Jimmy Edwards, "Dixon of Dock Green" (1962), a production of Noël Coward's "Hay Fever" (1968) and the storyteller in several episodes of "Jackanory" (1969). In 1970, he starred in the Ben Travers Farce "Rookery Nook", shown on the BBC. In the 1980s he played several Shakespearean roles, including "Twelfth Night".


title: Richard Briers

text: In a role specifically written for him by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, Briers was cast in the lead role in "The Good Life" (1975–78), playing Tom Good, a draughtsman who decides, on his 40th birthday, to give up his job and try his hand at self-sufficiency, with the support of his wife Barbara, played by Felicity Kendal. Briers persuaded the producers to cast his friend Paul Eddington, a fellow council member of Equity, in the role of Jerry. An enormously successful series, the last episode in 1978 was performed in front of Queen Elizabeth II. In 1977, he starred with his "The Good Life" co-star Penelope Keith in the televised version of Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy "The Norman Conquests". He also starred as Ralph in 13 episodes of "The Other One" (1977–79) with Michael Gambon.


title: Richard Briers

text: During the 1980s and 1990s, Briers had leading roles in several television shows. including "Goodbye, Mr Kent" (1982), a rare failure also featuring Hannah Gordon, the lead role of Martin Bryce in "Ever Decreasing Circles" (1984–89), and as Godfrey Spry in the BBC comedy drama "If You See God, Tell Him" (1993). He also starred in "All in Good Faith" (1985), "Tales of the Unexpected" as Albert Dobson (in episode 9/4 "The Verger" – 1988), and the first episode of "Mr. Bean" (1990) as Mr. Sprout. In 1987, he appeared as the principal villain in the "Doctor Who" serial "Paradise Towers", a performance which was described by "Radio Times" writer Patrick Mulkern as Briers' "career low". In 1995, he played the character Tony Fairfax in the BBC comedy "Down to Earth". In the "Inspector Morse" episode "Death is Now My Neighbour", he played the evil master of Lonsdale College, Sir Clixby Bream.


title: Richard Briers

text: During the 2000s, Briers was the curmudgeonly and extravagant father Hector MacDonald in the BBC television programme "Monarch of the Glen" (2000–05), appearing in series 1, 2, 3 and 7. Also in the 2000's, specifically 2006, he appeared in an episode of New Tricks entitled Old Dogs playing a character called James Farlow.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers spent much of his career in the theatre, including appearances in plays by Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. In 1967, one of his earliest successes was playing alongside Michael Hordern and Celia Johnson in the London production of Alan Ayckbourn's "Relatively Speaking".


title: Richard Briers

text: After a long career in television sitcom, and looking to expand his career, his daughter Lucy took him to Stratford-upon-Avon to watch Kenneth Branagh in "Henry V". After meeting Branagh backstage after the performance, Branagh offered Briers the role of Malvolio in the Renaissance Theatre Company production of "Twelfth Night". Briers joined the company, and went on to play title parts in "King Lear" and "Uncle Vanya". Briers also appeared in many of Branagh's films, including "Henry V" (1989, as Bardolph), "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993, as Signor Leonato) and "Hamlet" (1996, as Polonius). The theatre production of "Twelfth Night" (1988) was adapted for television, with Briers reprising his role as Malvolio.


title: Richard Briers

text: In 2010, Briers played in the Royal National Theatre revival of Dion Boucicault's "London Assurance", alongside Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw. A performance of this was broadcast live to cinemas round the world as part of the "NT Live!" programme. He also played the character of Captain Bluntschli, in George Bernard Shaw's play "Arms and the Man".


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers made his film début in the British feature film "Bottoms Up" (1960). He then took parts in "Murder She Said" (1961), "The Girl on the Boat" (1962), "A Matter of WHO" (1962), "The V.I.P.s" (1963); and Raquel Welch's spy spoof "Fathom" (1967).


title: Richard Briers

text: He latterly appeared in Michael Winner's "A Chorus of Disapproval" (1988) and the film "Unconditional Love" (2002) as well as the Kenneth Branagh adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993) in which he played the role of Leonato. In 1997 he played a minor role in the film "Spice World" as the Archbishop of Canterbury. His last film was "Cockneys vs Zombies" (2012).


title: Richard Briers

text: He was a familiar voice actor. Briers narrated the animated children's TV programme "Roobarb" (1974). Originally shown on BBC1 just before the evening news, each five-minute cartoon was written by Grange Calveley and produced by Bob Godfrey. He was the original narrator and voice actor for all the characters in the "Noddy" (1975) TV series based on the Enid Blyton character, and then another series with Godfrey, "Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk" (1976). He also provided the voice of Fiver in the animated film adaptation of "Watership Down" (1978). In 1990 Briers provided the narration and voiced all the characters in the five-minute animated series "Coconuts" about a monkey, a king lion and a parrot who lived on a tropical island. The series ran for ten episodes and first aired on ITV on 23 April 1990. In the 1990s, he voiced the part of Mouse, opposite Alan Bennett's Mole in the TV series "Mouse and Mole", based on books by Joyce Dunbar and James Mayhew. He latterly starred alongside Neil Morrissey in "Bob the Builder" (2005) as Bob's Dad, Robert to his credit. As well as performing all 12 of Fiona Waters' stories on the 1995 "Stories For Bedtime" book for audio cassette, he recorded all 4 of the seasonal "Percy the Park Keeper" stories for a grand CD release based on the books by Nick Butterworth, creating memorable voices for all of the animal characters as well as Percy the Park Keeper himself. Briers also featured in the television series adaptation of "Watership Down" (1999–2001), this time voicing a series exclusive character called Captain Broom, and was one of the very few actors who stayed for all three series.


title: Richard Briers

text: His work in radio included playing Dr. Simon Sparrow in BBC Radio 4's adaptions of Richard Gordon's "Doctor in the House" and "Doctor at Large" (1968), and a retired thespian in a series of six plays with Stanley Baxter "" (2008), and later the play "Not Talking", commissioned for BBC Radio 3 by Mike Bartlett. In 1986 he narrated Radio 4's "Oh, yes it is!", a history of pantomime written by Gerald Frow. Between 1973 and 1981, Briers played Bertie Wooster in the radio series "What Ho! Jeeves" with Michael Hordern as Jeeves.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers narrated numerous commercials, including adverts for the Midland Bank in which he was the voice of the company's Griffin symbol. Between 1984 and 1986 he made a series of commercials for the Ford Sierra done in a sitcom style portraying the Sierra as "one of the family". Briers narrated the public information film "Frances the Firefly", about the dangers of playing with matches, firstly in the mid 1990s when first made, and then in the early 2000s when re-made by the Government fire safety campaign Fire Kills. He also recorded the voice of a Sat nav specifically designed for senior citizens in the BBC 2's TV Show "Top Gear", Series 19, episode 5, which aired only a week after his death. Presenter Jeremy Clarkson paid a brief tribute to his memory at the end of the episode.


title: Richard Briers

text: After 1990, he appeared in "Lovejoy", "Inspector Morse", "Midsomer Murders" "Death's Shadow" as Stephen Wentworth in 1999, "Doctors", "New Tricks", "Kingdom", and "If You See God, Tell Him". Richard Briers starred as Hector in the first three series of "Monarch of the Glen" from 2000 to 2002 (and as a guest in series 7 in 2005), a role which saw him return to the limelight. He contributed "Sonnet 55" to the 2002 compilation album, "When Love Speaks", which features famous actors and musicians interpreting Shakespeare's sonnets and play excerpts. In 2005, he appeared alongside Kevin Whately in "Dad", a TV Film made by BBC Wales exploring issues of elder abuse. In 2006, he made an appearance in an episode of "Extras", and portrayed the servant Adam in Kenneth Branagh's 2006 Shakespeare adaptation, "As You Like It". He made a cameo appearance as a dying recluse in the 2008 "Torchwood" episode "A Day in the Death". In 2009 he appeared in Agatha Christie's Marple “Why didn’t they ask Evans?” as Wilson.


title: Richard Briers

text: On 17 December 2000, Briers was the guest on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs". Among his musical choices were "Di quella pira" from "Il trovatore" by Giuseppe Verdi, "I Feel A Song Coming On" by Al Jolson and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" by Louis Armstrong. His favourite piece was the Organ Concerto in F major "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" by George Frideric Handel.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers met Ann Davies while both were at Liverpool Rep. Davies was employed as a stage manager, and had acted on television and in films from the mid-1950s. Soon after meeting, he borrowed £5 from his mother, bought an engagement ring and they were married within six months. They had two daughters, one of whom, Lucy, is also an actress; Kate (or Katie) has worked in stage management, and is a primary school teacher.


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers and his friend Paul Eddington shared a similar sense of humour, and knew each other before being cast in "The Good Life". After Eddington was diagnosed with skin cancer, Briers accepted a role opposite him in David Storey's play "Home" in 1994, agreeing to take on all of the publicity interviews to allow Eddington time for his treatment. At Eddington's memorial service, Briers read both from "Cymbeline" and Wodehouse; he later read chapters from Eddington's autobiography on BBC Radio 4.


title: Richard Briers

text: In 2014, BBC Radio 4 broadcast "Memories of a Cad", an affectionate comedy drama by Roy Smiles about the relationship between Terry-Thomas and Briers, played by Martin Jarvis and Alistair McGowan respectively. Set in 1984 when he had suffered from Parkinson's disease for many years, Terry-Thomas is delighted by the visit to his home in Ibiza of the much younger Briers, whom he recognises from television, and who proves to be his first cousin once removed. Briers cheers him up by recalling the career the film-star has long forgotten. It was re-broadcast in 2016.


title: Richard Briers

text: As a result of Terry-Thomas's Parkinson's, Briers became President of Parkinson's UK. He also helped to launch a Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association campaign. Briers was also a non-medical patron of the TOFS (Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula Support) charity, which supports children and the families of children born unable to swallow.


title: Richard Briers

text: Interviewed by "The Daily Telegraph" in 2008, Briers admitted that, while on holiday, he enjoyed being recognised, saying, "I'm gregarious by nature, so I love chatting to people. It really cheers me up."


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers was a keen visitor of Britain's historic churches, and visited over one hundred for his book "English Country Churches" which was published in 1988. From his national service in the RAF, he was a supporter for a national memorial for RAF Bomber Command.


title: Richard Briers

text: According to Lucy Briers, his daughter, he quit smoking in 2001 immediately after a routine chest X-ray suggested he would otherwise soon be in a wheelchair. He was diagnosed with emphysema in 2007. He died at his home in Bedford Park, London, on 17 February 2013 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His funeral was held at the local church of St Michael and All Angels in Chiswick on 6 March 2013.


title: Richard Briers

text: The BBC referred to Richard Briers as "one of Britain's best-loved actors". Sir Kenneth Branagh paid tribute to him, saying, "He was a national treasure, a great actor and a wonderful man. He was greatly loved and he is deeply missed."


title: Richard Briers

text: Briers's agent, Christopher Farrar, said: "Richard was a wonderful man, a consummate professional and an absolute joy to work alongside. Following his recent discussion of his battle with emphysema, I know he was incredibly touched by the strength of support expressed by friends and the public."


title: Richard Briers

text: Fellow television star Penelope Keith said, "He was always courteous, always generous and always self-deprecating" adding, "He was also such a clever actor that he made you feel secure. You believed he was who he was portraying on the screen or on the stage... I just think of Richard and smile."


title: Richard Briers

text: Writing in "The Guardian", critic Michael Coveney described Briers as "always the most modest and self-deprecating of actors, and the sweetest of men," and noted: "Although he excelled in the plays of Alan Ayckbourn, and became a national figure in his television sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s, notably "The Good Life", he could mine hidden depths on stage, giving notable performances in Ibsen, Chekhov and, for Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance company, Shakespeare."


title: Richard Briers

text: On 30 March 2013, BBC Two broadcast a 1-hour long review of Briers' life and career, with tributes from many friends and colleagues.


title: Richard Briers

text: On Christmas Day 2013, BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a day of tribute to Briers titled "Ever Increasing Wonder", with a variety of his BBC Radio recordings, many of them introduced by those who knew him and worked with him. Guest speakers included: Prunella Scales, Stephen Fry, Michael Chaplin, Alan Bennett, Michael Ball, Kenneth Branagh, Ed Harris as well as Briers's widow Ann Davies and their daughters.


title: Valinor

text: Valinor (Quenya": Land of the Valar") or the Blessed Realms is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the home of the immortal Valar on the continent of Aman, far to the west of Middle-earth; he used the name Aman mainly to mean Valinor. It included Eldamar, the land of the Elves, who as immortals were permitted to live in Valinor.


title: Valinor

text: Aman was known somewhat misleadingly as "the Undying Lands", but the land itself does not cause mortals to live forever. However, only immortal beings were generally allowed to reside there. Exceptions were made for the surviving bearers of the One Ring: Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, who dwelt there for a time, and the dwarf Gimli.


title: Valinor

text: Scholars have described the similarity of Tolkien's myth of the attempt of Númenor to capture Aman to the biblical Tower of Babel and the ancient Greek Atlantis, and the resulting destruction in both cases. They note, too, that a mortal's stay in Valinor is only temporary, not conferring immortality, just as in Dante's "Paradiso", the Earthly Paradise is only a preparation for the Celestial Paradise that is above.


title: Valinor

text: Others have compared the account of the beautiful Elvish part of the Undying Lands to the Middle English poem "Pearl", stating that the closest literary equivalents of Tolkien's descriptions of these lands are the "imrama" Celtic tales such as those about Saint Brendan from the early Middle Ages. The Christian theme of good and light (from Valinor) opposing evil and dark (from Mordor) has also been discussed.


title: Valinor

text: Valinor lies in Aman, a continent on the west of Belegaer, the ocean to the west of Middle-earth. Ekkaia, the encircling sea, surrounds both Aman and Middle-earth. Tolkien wrote that the name "Aman" was "chiefly used as the name of the land in which the Valar dwelt" [i.e. Valinor]. The land has a warm climate generally, though snow falls on the peaks of the Pelóri mountains, the highest being Taniquetil. Tolkien created no detailed maps of Aman; those drawn by Karen Wynn Fonstad, based on Tolkien's rough sketch of Arda's landmasses and seas, show Valinor about 800 miles wide, west to east (from the Great Sea to the Outer Sea), and about 3000 miles long north to south – similar in size to the United States. The entire continent of Aman runs from the Arctic latitudes of the Helcaraxë to the subarctic southern region of Middle-earth – about 7000 miles.


title: Valinor

text: "Eldamar" is "Elvenhome", the "coastal region of Aman, settled by the Elves", wrote Tolkien. Eldamar was the true Eldarin name of Aman. In "The Hobbit" it is referred to as "Faerie". The land was well-wooded, as Finrod "walk[ed] with his father under the trees in Eldamar" and the Teleri had timber to build their ships. The city of the Teleri, on the north shore of the Bay is Alqualondë, the Haven of the Swans, whose halls and mansions are made of pearl. The harbour is entered through a natural arch of rock, and the beaches are strewn with gems given by the Noldor. In the bay is the island of Tol Eressëa.


title: Valinor

text: "Calacirya" (Quenya: "Light Cleft", for the light of the Two Trees that streamed through the pass into the world beyond) is the pass in the Pelóri mountains where the Elven city Tirion was set. After the hiding of Valinor, this was the only gap through the mountains of Aman. The Valar would have closed the mountains entirely but, realizing that the Elves needed to be able to breathe the outside air, they kept Calacirya open. They also did not want to wholly separate the Vanyar and Noldor from the Teleri on the coast.


title: Valinor

text: The city of the Noldor (and for a time the Vanyar also) is Tirion, which was built on the hill of Túna, raised inside the Calacirya mountain pass, just north of Taniquetil, facing both the Two Trees and the starlit seas. The city had a central square at the top of the hill and a tower called the Mindon Eldaliéva, a beacon visible from the seashore miles to the east.


title: Valinor

text: In the extreme north-east, beyond the Pelóri, was the Helcaraxë, a vast ice sheet that joined the two continents of Aman and Middle-earth before the War of Wrath.


title: Valinor

text: To prevent anyone from reaching the main part of Valinor's east coast by sea, the Valar created the Shadowy Seas, and within these seas they set a long chain of islands called the Enchanted Isles.


title: Valinor

text: Valinor is the home of the Valar (singular Vala), spirits that often take humanoid form, sometimes called "gods" by the Men of Middle-earth. Other residents of Valinor include the related but less powerful spirits, the Maiar, and most of the Eldar.


title: Valinor

text: Each Vala has his or her own region of the land. The Mansions of Manwë and Varda, two of the most powerful spirits, stood upon Taniquetil, the highest mountain of the Pelóri. Yavanna, the Vala of Earth, Growth, and Harvest, resided in the Pastures of Yavanna in the south of the land, west of the Pelóri. Near-by were the mansions of Yavanna's spouse, Aulë the Smith, who made the Dwarves. Oromë, the Vala of the Hunt, lived in the Woods of Oromë to the north-east of the pastures. Nienna, the lonely Vala of Sorrow and Endurance, lived in the far west of the island where she spent her days crying about all the evil of the world, looking out to sea. Just south of Nienna's home, and to the north of the pastures, were the Halls of Mandos. Mandos was the Vala of the After-life. Also living in the Halls of Mandos was his spouse Vairë the weaver, who weaves the threads of time. To the east of the Halls of Mandos is the Isle of Estë, which is situated in the middle of the lake of Lórellin, which in turn lies to the north of the Gardens of Lórien.


title: Valinor

text: In east-central Valinor at the Girdle of Arda (the Equator of Tolkien's world) is Valmar, the capital of Valinor (also called Valimar or the City of Bells), the residence of the Valar and the Maiar in Valinor. The first house of the Elves, the Vanyar, settled there as well. The mound of Ezellohar, on which stood the Two Trees, and Máhanaxar, the Ring of Doom, are outside Valmar. Farther east is the Calacirya, the only easy pass through the Pelóri, a huge mountain range fencing Valinor on three sides, created to keep Morgoth's forces out. In the pass is the city Tirion, built on a hill, the city of the Noldor Elves.


title: Valinor

text: In the northern inner foothills of the Pelóri, hundreds of miles north of Valmar, was Fëanor's city of Formenos, built upon his banishment from Tirion.


title: Valinor

text: Valinor was established on the western continent Aman when Melkor (a Vala later named Morgoth, "the black foe", by the Elves) destroyed the Valar's original home on the island Almaren in primeval Middle-earth, ending the Years of the Lamps. To defend their new home from attack, they raised the Pelóri Mountains. They also established Valimar, the radiant Two Trees, and their dwelling-places. Valinor was said to have surpassed Almaren in beauty. Later, the Valar heard of the awakening of the Elves in Middle-earth, where Melkor was unopposed. They proposed to bring the Elves to the safety of Valinor, but to do that, they needed to get Melkor out of the way. A war was fought, and Melkor's stronghold Utumno was destroyed. Then, many Elves came to Valinor, and established their cities Tirion and Alqualondë, beginning Valinor's age of glory. But Melkor had come back to Valinor as a prisoner, and after three Ages was brought before the Valar and he sued for pardon, vowing to assist the Valar and make amends for the hurts he had done. Manwë granted him pardon, but confined him within Valmar to remain under watch. After his release, Melkor started planting seeds of dissent in the minds of the Elves, including between Fëanor and his brothers Fingolfin and Finarfin.


title: Valinor

text: Belatedly, the Valar learned what Melkor had done. Knowing that he was discovered, Melkor went to the home of the Noldorin elves' High King Finwë, killed him and stole the prized jewels, the Silmarils. He then destroyed the Two Trees with the help of Ungoliant, plunging Valinor into darkness, the Long Night, relieved only by stars. Melkor and Ungoliant fled to Middle-earth.


title: Valinor

text: The Valar managed to save one last luminous flower from Telperion, and one last luminous fruit from Laurelin. These became the Moon and the Sun. The Valar carried out further titanic labours to improve the defences of Valinor. They raised the Pelóri mountains to even greater and sheerer heights. Off the coast, eastwards of Tol Eressëa, they created the Shadowy Seas and their Enchanted Isles; both the Seas and the Isles presented numerous perils to anyone attempting to get to Valinor by sea.


title: Valinor

text: For centuries Valinor took no part in the struggles between the Noldor and Morgoth in Middle-earth. But near the end of the First Age, when the Noldor were in total defeat, the mariner Eärendil convinced the Valar to make a last attack on Morgoth. A mighty host of Maiar, Vanyar and the remaining Noldor in Valinor destroyed Morgoth's gigantic army and his stronghold Angband, and cast Morgoth into the void.


title: Valinor

text: During the Second Age, the Valar created the island of Númenor as a reward to the Edain, Men who had fought alongside the Noldor. Centuries later the kingdom of Númenor grew so powerful and so arrogant that Ar-Pharazôn, the twenty-fifth and last king, dared to attempt an invasion of Valinor. When Eru Ilúvatar was called upon by the Valar, Númenor sank into the sea, and Aman was removed beyond the reach of the Men of Arda. Arda itself became spherical, and was left for Men to govern. The Elves could go there only by the Straight Road and in ships capable of passing out of the spheres of the earth.


title: Valinor

text: Keith Kelly and Michael Livingston, writing in "Mythlore", note that Frodo's final destination is Aman, the Undying Lands. In Tolkien's mythology, they write, the islands of Aman were initially just the dwelling-places of the Valar (in the Ages of the Trees, while the rest of the world lay in darkness) who helped The One, Eru Iluvatar, to create the world, but gradually some of the immortal and ageless Elves were allowed to live there as well, sailing across the ocean to the West. After the fall of Númenor and the reshaping of the world, Aman becomes the place ""between" (sic) Over-heaven and Middle-earth", accessible only in special circumstances like Frodo's, allowed to come to Aman through the offices of the Valar and of Gandalf, one of the Valar's emissaries, the Maiar. However, Aman is not, they write, exactly paradise: firstly, being there does not confer immortality, contrary to what the Númenoreans supposed; and secondly, those mortals like Frodo who are allowed to go there will eventually choose to die. They note that in another of Tolkien's writings, "Leaf by Niggle", understood to be a journey through Purgatory (the Catholic precursor stage to paradise), Tolkien avoids describing paradise at all; they suggest that to the Catholic Tolkien, it is impossible to describe Heaven, and it might be sacrilege to make the attempt. The Tolkien scholar Michael D. C. Drout comments that Tolkien's accounts of Eldamar "give us a good idea of his conceptions of absolute beauty," and notes that these resemble the paradise described in the Middle English poem "Pearl".


title: Valinor

text: The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey adds that in 1927 Tolkien wrote a poem, "The Nameless Land", in the complex stanza-form of "Pearl" which spoke of a land further away than paradise, and more beautiful than the Irish Tir nan Og, the deathless otherworld. Kelly and Livingston similarly draw on "Pearl", noting that it states that "fair as was the hither shore, far lovelier was the further land" where the Dreamer could not pass. So, they write, each stage looks like paradise, until the traveller realises that beyond it lies something even more paradisiacal, glimpsed and beyond description. The Earthly Paradise can be described; Aman, the Undying Lands, can thus be compared to the Garden of Eden, the paradise that the Bible says once existed upon Earth before the Fall of Man, while the Celestial Paradise lies "beyond (or above)", as it does, they note, in Dante's "Paradiso".


title: Valinor

text: The scholar of English literature Marjorie Burns writes that one of the female Vala, Varda (Elbereth to the Elves) is sung to by the Elf-queen of Middle-earth Galadriel. Burns notes that Varda "sits far off in Valinor on Oiolossë", looking from her mountain-peak tower in Aman towards Middle-earth and the Dark Tower of Sauron in Mordor: in her view, the white benevolent feminine symbol opposing the evil masculine symbol. Further, Burns suggests, Galadriel is an Elf from Valinor "in the Blessed Realm", bringing Varda's influence with her to Middle-earth. This is seen in the phial of light that she gives to Frodo, and that Sam uses to defeat the evil giant spider Shelob: Sam invokes Elbereth when he uses the phial. Burns comments that Sam's request to the "Lady" sounds distinctly Catholic, and that the "female principle, embodied in Varda of Valinor and Galadriel of Middle-earth, most clearly represents the charitable Christian heart."


title: Valinor

text: Kelly and Livingston state that while Aman could be home to Elves as well as Valar, the same was not true of mortal Men. The "prideful" Men of Númenor, imagining they could acquire immortality by capturing the physical lands of Aman, were punished by the destruction of their own island, which is engulfed by the sea, and the permanent removal of Aman "from the circles of the world". Kelly and Livingston note the similarity to the ancient Greek myth of Atlantis, the greatest human civilisation lost beneath the sea; and the resemblance to the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel, the hubristic and "sacrilegious" attempt by mortal men to climb up into God's realm.


title: Valinor

text: The scholar of English literature Paul H. Kocher writes that the Undying Lands of the Uttermost West including Eldamar and Valinor, is "so far outside our experience that Tolkien can only ask us to take it completely on faith." Kocher comments that these lands have an integral place both geographically and spiritually in Middle-earth, and that their closest literary equivalents are the "imrama" Celtic tales from the early Middle Ages. The "imrama" tales describe how Irish adventurers such as Saint Brendan sailed the seas looking for the "Land of Promise". He notes that it is certain that Tolkien knew these stories, since in 1955 he wrote a poem, entitled "Imram", about Brendan's voyage.


title: Shaktism

text: Shaktism (, , ) is one of several major Hindu denominations, wherein the metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically a woman and Shakti (Mahadevi) is regarded as the supreme godhead. It includes many goddesses, all considered aspects of the same supreme goddess. Shaktism has different sub-traditions, ranging from those focused on most worshipped Durga, gracious Parvati to that of fierce Kali.


title: Shaktism

text: The Sruti and Smriti texts of Hinduism are an important historical framework of the Shaktism tradition. In addition, it reveres the texts "Devi Mahatmya", the "Devi-Bhagavata Purana", "Kalika Purana" and Shakta Upanishads such as the Devi Upanishad. The "Devi Mahatmya" in particular, is considered in Shaktism to be as important as the "Bhagavad Gita".


title: Shaktism

text: Shaktism is known for its various sub-traditions of tantra, as well as a galaxy of goddesses with respective systems. It consists of the Vidyapitha and Kulamārga. The pantheon of goddesses in Shaktism grew after the decline of Buddhism in India, wherein Hindu and Buddhist goddesses were combined to form the Mahavidya, a list of ten goddesses. The most common aspects of Devi found in Shaktism include Durga, Kali, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati and Tripurasundari. The goddess-focused tradition is very popular in eastern India particularly West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tripura and Assam, which it celebrates festivals such as the Durga puja, which is popular in West Bengal and Odisha.


title: Shaktism

text: Shaktism also emphasizes that intense love of deity is more important than simple obedience, thus showing the influence of Vaishnava idea where passionate relationship between Radha and Krishna is also the ideal relationship. These older ideas still influence modern Shaktism. Similarly, Shaktism's ideas have also influenced Vaishnavism and Shaivism traditions. In Shaktism, the goddess is considered as the "Shakti/Energy" of Vishnu and Shiva respectively, and revered prominently in numerous Hindu temples and festivals.


title: Shaktism

text: The earliest archaeological evidence of what appears to be an Upper Paleolithic shrine for Shakti worship were discovered in the terminal upper paleolithic site of Baghor I (Baghor stone) in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The excavations, carried out under the guidance of noted archaeologists G. R. Sharma of Allahabad University and J. Desmond Clark of University of California and assisted by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer and J.N. Pal, dated the Baghor formation to between 9000 B.C and 8000 B.C.


title: Shaktism

text: Among the earliest evidence of reverence for the female aspect of God in Hinduism is this passage in chapter 10.125 of the "Rig Veda", also called the Devi Suktam hymn:


title: Shaktism

text: The Vedic literature reveres various goddesses, but far less frequently than Gods Indra, Agni and Soma. Yet, they are declared equivalent aspects of the neutral Brahman, of Prajapati and Purusha. The goddesses often mentioned in the Vedic layers of text include the Ushas (dawn), Vāc (speech, wisdom), Sarasvati (as river), Prithivi (earth), Nirriti (annihilator), Shraddha (faith, confidence). Goddesses such as Uma appear in the Upanishads as another aspect of divine and the knower of ultimate knowledge (Brahman), such as in section 3 and 4 of the ancient "Kena Upanishad".


title: Shaktism

text: Hymns to goddesses are in the ancient Hindu epic "Mahabharata", particularly in the "Harivamsa" section, which was a late addition (100 to 300 CE) to the work. The archaeological and textual evidence implies, states Thomas Coburn, that the goddess had become as prominent as God in Hindu tradition by about the third or fourth century. The literature on Shakti theology grew in ancient India, climaxing in one of the most important texts of Shaktism called the "Devi Mahatmya." This text, states C. Mackenzie Brown – a professor of Religion, is both a culmination of centuries of Indian ideas about the divine woman, as well as a foundation for the literature and spirituality focussed on the female transcendence in centuries that followed. The "Devi-Mahatmya" is not the earliest literary fragment attesting to the existence of devotion to a goddess figure, states Thomas B. Coburn – a professor of Religious Studies, but "it is surely the earliest in which the object of worship is conceptualized as goddess, with a capital G".


title: Shaktism

text: Other important texts of Shaktism include the "Shakta Upanishads", as well as Shakta-oriented Upa Puranic literature such as the "Devi Purana" and "Kalika Purana", the "Lalita Sahasranama" (from the "Brahmanda Purana"). The "Tripura Upanishad" is historically the most complete introduction to Shakta Tantrism, distilling into its 16 verses almost every important topic in Shakta Tantra tradition. Along with the "Tripura Upanishad", the "Tripuratapini Upanishad" has attracted scholarly bhasya (commentary) in the second half of 2nd-millennium, such as the work of Bhaskararaya, and Ramanand. These texts link the Shakti Tantra tradition as a Vedic attribute, however this link has been contested by scholars.


title: Shaktism

text: The 18th-century Shakta bhakti poems and songs were composed by two Bengal court poets, Bharatchandra Ray and Ramprasad Sen, as well as the Tamil collection Abhirami Anthadhi.


title: Shaktism

text: Shakta-universalist Sri Ramakrishna, one of the most influential figures of the Hindu reform movements, believed that all Hindu goddesses are manifestations of the same mother goddess.


title: Shaktism

text: Shaktas conceive the goddess as the supreme, ultimate, eternal reality of all existence, or same as the Brahman concept of Hinduism. She is considered to be simultaneously the source of all creation, its embodiment and the energy that animates and governs it, and that into which everything will ultimately dissolve. Maha Devi said in Devi Upanishad, verse 2, "I am essentially Brahman". According to V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar – a professor of Indian history, in Shaktism theology "Brahman is static Shakti and Shakti is dynamic Brahman."


title: Shaktism

text: Shaktism views the Devi as the source, essence and substance of everything in creation. Its texts such as the "Devi-Bhagavata Purana" states:


title: Shaktism

text: Shaktism's focus on the Divine Female does not imply a rejection of the male. It rejects masculine-feminine, male-female, soul-body, transcendent-immanent dualism, considering nature as divine. Devi is considered to be the cosmos itself – she is the embodiment of energy, matter and soul, the motivating force behind all action and existence in the material universe. Yet in Shaktism, states C. MacKenzie Brown, the cultural concepts of masculine and the feminine as they exist among practitioners of Shaktism are aspects of the divine, transcendent reality. In Hindu iconography, the cosmic dynamic of male-female or masculine-feminine interdependence and equivalence, is expressed in the half-Shakti, half-Shiva deity known as Ardhanari.


title: Shaktism

text: The philosophical premises in many Shakta texts, states June McDaniel – a professor of Religious Studies, is syncretism of Samkhya and Advaita Vedanta schools of Hindu philosophy, called "Shaktadavaitavada" (literally, the path of nondualistic Shakti).


title: Shaktism

text: "Do you know who is the real "Shakti-worshipper"? It is he who knows that God is the omnipresent force in the universe and sees in women the manifestation of that Force."