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difference between the two Web sites is the level of customization.[270] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.[271] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[272] Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see;[273] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then tells a user that he or she has been poked);[274] Photos, that allows users to upload albums and photos;[275] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[276] Facebook also allows users to tag various people in photographs. Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.[273] Facebook also differs from Myspace in the form of advertising used. Facebook uses advertising in the form of banner ads, referral marketing, and games. Myspace, on the other hand, uses Google and AdSense.[277] There is also a difference in the userbase of each site. MySpace, initially, was much more popular with high school students, while Facebook was more popular among college students. A study by the American firm Nielsen Claritas showed that Facebook users are more inclined to use other professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, than Myspace users.[277]
Privacy
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278]
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[281]
On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283]
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they interact with.[284]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285]
In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs.
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you."[288][289]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws. "Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview. "Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them. They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did special work for Facebook.'"[290]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted in a post.[292]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country
Facebook
Twitter
VKontakte
QZone
Odnoklassniki
Facenama
no data
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.[293] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of Mashable questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".[294] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,[295] 300 million in September 2009,[296] 400 million in February 2010,[297] and 500 million in July 2010.[48] According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[49]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83][298] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.[84] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,[299] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,[300] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,[301] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,[302] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.[11][12]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an "active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the Facebook Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.[303]
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.[304]
Population pyramid of Facebook users by age as of January 1, 2010[305]
Statistics
According to analytics firm comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[306][307] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[308] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors per month, as of 2015.[309][310][311] SimilarWeb, Quantcast, and Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.[310][312][313] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.[314] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed the biggest threat to security," well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[282]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[315] the United Kingdom,[316] and the United States.[317][318][319] However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely preferred.[320] In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[321] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by Mashable.[322]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[323] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[324] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the "second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[325]
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award[326] for the third year in a row.[327] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[328]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[329] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[330][331] Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[332]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[333] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[334] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.[335]
Criticisms and controversies
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Graffiti in Berlin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The caption is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[336][337] possible indefinite records of user information,[338] automatic facial recognition software,[339][340] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.[341]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[342][343] and stress,[344][345] a lack of attention,[346] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.[347][348]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[349] tax avoidance,[350] real-name user requirement policies,[351] censorship,[352][353] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.[354]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including copyright and intellectual property infringement,[355] hate speech,[356][357] incitement of rape[358] and terrorism,[359][360] fake news,[361][362][363] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality.[364][365][366]
Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[367] China,[368] and Iran.[369] Facebook worked on special censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in Communist-controlled China.[370]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[371][372][373][374] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.[375][376][377] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[378][379] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.[380]
On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[381] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[382] According to The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[383] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.[384]
Impact
Facebook on the ad:tech 2010
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[385] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[386] News and media outlets such as The Washington Post,[387] Financial Times[388] and ABC News[389] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.[390]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's spillover effect. Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact: platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.[391]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly innovate new ideas. Scalability is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18% year-over-year[392] and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in 2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean renewable energy.[393]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638 billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year was $10.188 billion.[394]
Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy. Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An econometric analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion.[395]
Facebook companies
Facebook, Inc.[396]
Facebook Payments, Inc.
Atlas
Instagram LLC
Onavo
Moves
Oculus
WhatsApp, Inc.
Masquerade
CrowdTangle
Social impact
Main articles: Social networking service § Social impact, Social impact of the Internet § Social networking and entertainment, and Social capital
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.[397][398] It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through open, closed and private groups and other pages.[399][400]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate. Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage others or be engaged with others' posts.[401]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town, despite the move to larger cities.[402] As per Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall population gets news through Facebook.[403]
Privacy
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278]
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[281]
On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283]
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they interact with.[284]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285]
In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs.
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you."[288][289]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws. "Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview. "Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them. They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did special work for Facebook.'"[290]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted in a post.[292]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country
VKontakte
QZone
Odnoklassniki
Facenama
no data
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.[293] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of Mashable questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".[294] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,[295] 300 million in September 2009,[296] 400 million in February 2010,[297] and 500 million in July 2010.[48] According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[49]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83][298] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.[84] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,[299] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,[300] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,[301] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,[302] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.[11][12]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an "active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the Facebook Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.[303]
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.[304]
Population pyramid of Facebook users by age as of January 1, 2010[305]
Statistics
According to analytics firm comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[306][307] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[308] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors per month, as of 2015.[309][310][311] SimilarWeb, Quantcast, and Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.[310][312][313] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.[314] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed the biggest threat to security," well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[282]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[315] the United Kingdom,[316] and the United States.[317][318][319] However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely preferred.[320] In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[321] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by Mashable.[322]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[323] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[324] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the "second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[325]
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award[326] for the third year in a row.[327] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[328]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[329] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[330][331] Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[332]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[333] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[334] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.[335]
Criticisms and controversies
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Graffiti in Berlin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The caption is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[336][337] possible indefinite records of user information,[338] automatic facial recognition software,[339][340] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.[341]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[342][343] and stress,[344][345] a lack of attention,[346] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.[347][348]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[349] tax avoidance,[350] real-name user requirement policies,[351] censorship,[352][353] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.[354]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including copyright and intellectual property infringement,[355] hate speech,[356][357] incitement of rape[358] and terrorism,[359][360] fake news,[361][362][363] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality.[364][365][366]
Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[367] China,[368] and Iran.[369] Facebook worked on special censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in Communist-controlled China.[370]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[371][372][373][374] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.[375][376][377] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[378][379] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.[380]
On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[381] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[382] According to The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[383] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.[384]
Impact
Facebook on the ad:tech 2010
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[385] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[386] News and media outlets such as The Washington Post,[387] Financial Times[388] and ABC News[389] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.[390]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's spillover effect. Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact: platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.[391]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly innovate new ideas. Scalability is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18% year-over-year[392] and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in 2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean renewable energy.[393]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638 billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year was $10.188 billion.[394]
Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy. Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An econometric analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion.[395]
Facebook companies
Facebook, Inc.[396]
Facebook Payments, Inc.
Atlas
Instagram LLC
Onavo
Moves
Oculus
WhatsApp, Inc.
Masquerade
CrowdTangle
Social impact
Main articles: Social networking service § Social impact, Social impact of the Internet § Social networking and entertainment, and Social capital
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.[397][398] It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through open, closed and private groups and other pages.[399][400]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate. Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage others or be engaged with others' posts.[401]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town, despite the move to larger cities.[402] As per Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall population gets news through Facebook.[403]
Last edited:
difference between the two Web sites is the level of customization.[270] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.[271] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[272] Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see;[273] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then tells a user that he or she has been poked);[274] Photos, that allows users to upload albums and photos;[275] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[276] Facebook also allows users to tag various people in photographs. Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.[273] Facebook also differs from Myspace in the form of advertising used. Facebook uses advertising in the form of banner ads, referral marketing, and games. Myspace, on the other hand, uses Google and AdSense.[277] There is also a difference in the userbase of each site. MySpace, initially, was much more popular with high school students, while Facebook was more popular among college students. A study by the American firm Nielsen Claritas showed that Facebook users are more inclined to use other professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, than Myspace users.[277]
Privacy
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278]
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[281]
On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283]
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they interact with.[284]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285]
In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs.
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you."[288][289]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws. "Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview. "Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them. They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did special work for Facebook.'"[290]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted in a post.[292]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country
Facebook
Twitter
VKontakte
QZone
Odnoklassniki
Facenama
no data
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.[293] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of Mashable questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".[294] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,[295] 300 million in September 2009,[296] 400 million in February 2010,[297] and 500 million in July 2010.[48] According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[49]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83][298] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.[84] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,[299] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,[300] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,[301] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,[302] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.[11][12]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an "active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the Facebook Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.[303]
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.[304]
Population pyramid of Facebook users by age as of January 1, 2010[305]
Statistics
According to analytics firm comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[306][307] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[308] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors per month, as of 2015.[309][310][311] SimilarWeb, Quantcast, and Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.[310][312][313] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.[314] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed the biggest threat to security," well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[282]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[315] the United Kingdom,[316] and the United States.[317][318][319] However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely preferred.[320] In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[321] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by Mashable.[322]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[323] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[324] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the "second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[325]
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award[326] for the third year in a row.[327] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[328]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[329] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[330][331] Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[332]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[333] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[334] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.[335]
Criticisms and controversies
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Graffiti in Berlin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The caption is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[336][337] possible indefinite records of user information,[338] automatic facial recognition software,[339][340] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.[341]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[342][343] and stress,[344][345] a lack of attention,[346] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.[347][348]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[349] tax avoidance,[350] real-name user requirement policies,[351] censorship,[352][353] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.[354]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including copyright and intellectual property infringement,[355] hate speech,[356][357] incitement of rape[358] and terrorism,[359][360] fake news,[361][362][363] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality.[364][365][366]
Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[367] China,[368] and Iran.[369] Facebook worked on special censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in Communist-controlled China.[370]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[371][372][373][374] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.[375][376][377] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[378][379] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.[380]
On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[381] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[382] According to The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[383] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.[384]
Impact
Facebook on the ad:tech 2010
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[385] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[386] News and media outlets such as The Washington Post,[387] Financial Times[388] and ABC News[389] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.[390]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's spillover effect. Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact: platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.[391]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly innovate new ideas. Scalability is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18% year-over-year[392] and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in 2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean renewable energy.[393]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638 billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year was $10.188 billion.[394]
Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy. Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An econometric analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion.[395]
Facebook companies
Facebook, Inc.[396]
Facebook Payments, Inc.
Atlas
Instagram LLC
Onavo
Moves
Oculus
WhatsApp, Inc.
Masquerade
CrowdTangle
Social impact
Main articles: Social networking service § Social impact, Social impact of the Internet § Social networking and entertainment, and Social capital
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.[397][398] It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through open, closed and private groups and other pages.[399][400]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate. Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage others or be engaged with others' posts.[401]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town, despite the move to larger cities.[402] As per Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall population gets news through Facebook.[403]
Privacy
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278]
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[281]
On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283]
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they interact with.[284]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285]
In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs.
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you."[288][289]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws. "Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview. "Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them. They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did special work for Facebook.'"[290]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted in a post.[292]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country
VKontakte
QZone
Odnoklassniki
Facenama
no data
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.[293] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of Mashable questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".[294] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,[295] 300 million in September 2009,[296] 400 million in February 2010,[297] and 500 million in July 2010.[48] According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[49]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83][298] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.[84] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,[299] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,[300] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,[301] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,[302] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.[11][12]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an "active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the Facebook Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.[303]
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.[304]
Population pyramid of Facebook users by age as of January 1, 2010[305]
Statistics
According to analytics firm comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[306][307] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[308] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors per month, as of 2015.[309][310][311] SimilarWeb, Quantcast, and Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.[310][312][313] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.[314] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed the biggest threat to security," well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[282]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[315] the United Kingdom,[316] and the United States.[317][318][319] However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely preferred.[320] In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[321] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by Mashable.[322]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[323] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[324] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the "second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[325]
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award[326] for the third year in a row.[327] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[328]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[329] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[330][331] Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[332]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[333] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[334] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.[335]
Criticisms and controversies
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Graffiti in Berlin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The caption is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[336][337] possible indefinite records of user information,[338] automatic facial recognition software,[339][340] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.[341]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[342][343] and stress,[344][345] a lack of attention,[346] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.[347][348]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[349] tax avoidance,[350] real-name user requirement policies,[351] censorship,[352][353] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.[354]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including copyright and intellectual property infringement,[355] hate speech,[356][357] incitement of rape[358] and terrorism,[359][360] fake news,[361][362][363] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality.[364][365][366]
Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[367] China,[368] and Iran.[369] Facebook worked on special censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in Communist-controlled China.[370]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[371][372][373][374] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.[375][376][377] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[378][379] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.[380]
On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[381] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[382] According to The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[383] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.[384]
Impact
Facebook on the ad:tech 2010
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[385] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[386] News and media outlets such as The Washington Post,[387] Financial Times[388] and ABC News[389] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.[390]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's spillover effect. Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact: platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.[391]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly innovate new ideas. Scalability is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18% year-over-year[392] and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in 2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean renewable energy.[393]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638 billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year was $10.188 billion.[394]
Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy. Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An econometric analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion.[395]
Facebook companies
Facebook, Inc.[396]
Facebook Payments, Inc.
Atlas
Instagram LLC
Onavo
Moves
Oculus
WhatsApp, Inc.
Masquerade
CrowdTangle
Social impact
Main articles: Social networking service § Social impact, Social impact of the Internet § Social networking and entertainment, and Social capital
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.[397][398] It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through open, closed and private groups and other pages.[399][400]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate. Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage others or be engaged with others' posts.[401]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town, despite the move to larger cities.[402] As per Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall population gets news through Facebook.[403]
difference between the two Web sites is the level of customization.[270] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.[271] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[272] Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see;[273] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then tells a user that he or she has been poked);[274] Photos, that allows users to upload albums and photos;[275] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[276] Facebook also allows users to tag various people in photographs. Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.[273] Facebook also differs from Myspace in the form of advertising used. Facebook uses advertising in the form of banner ads, referral marketing, and games. Myspace, on the other hand, uses Google and AdSense.[277] There is also a difference in the userbase of each site. MySpace, initially, was much more popular with high school students, while Facebook was more popular among college students. A study by the American firm Nielsen Claritas showed that Facebook users are more inclined to use other professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, than Myspace users.[277]
Privacy
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278]
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[281]
On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283]
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they interact with.[284]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285]
In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs.
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you."[288][289]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws. "Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview. "Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them. They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did special work for Facebook.'"[290]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted in a post.[292]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country
Facebook
Twitter
VKontakte
QZone
Odnoklassniki
Facenama
no data
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.[293] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of Mashable questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".[294] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,[295] 300 million in September 2009,[296] 400 million in February 2010,[297] and 500 million in July 2010.[48] According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[49]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83][298] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.[84] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,[299] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,[300] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,[301] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,[302] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.[11][12]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an "active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the Facebook Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.[303]
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.[304]
Population pyramid of Facebook users by age as of January 1, 2010[305]
Statistics
According to analytics firm comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[306][307] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[308] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors per month, as of 2015.[309][310][311] SimilarWeb, Quantcast, and Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.[310][312][313] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.[314] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed the biggest threat to security," well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[282]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[315] the United Kingdom,[316] and the United States.[317][318][319] However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely preferred.[320] In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[321] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by Mashable.[322]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[323] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[324] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the "second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[325]
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award[326] for the third year in a row.[327] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[328]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[329] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[330][331] Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[332]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[333] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[334] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.[335]
Criticisms and controversies
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Graffiti in Berlin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The caption is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[336][337] possible indefinite records of user information,[338] automatic facial recognition software,[339][340] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.[341]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[342][343] and stress,[344][345] a lack of attention,[346] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.[347][348]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[349] tax avoidance,[350] real-name user requirement policies,[351] censorship,[352][353] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.[354]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including copyright and intellectual property infringement,[355] hate speech,[356][357] incitement of rape[358] and terrorism,[359][360] fake news,[361][362][363] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality.[364][365][366]
Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[367] China,[368] and Iran.[369] Facebook worked on special censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in Communist-controlled China.[370]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[371][372][373][374] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.[375][376][377] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[378][379] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.[380]
On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[381] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[382] According to The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[383] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.[384]
Impact
Facebook on the ad:tech 2010
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[385] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[386] News and media outlets such as The Washington Post,[387] Financial Times[388] and ABC News[389] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.[390]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's spillover effect. Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact: platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.[391]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly innovate new ideas. Scalability is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18% year-over-year[392] and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in 2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean renewable energy.[393]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638 billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year was $10.188 billion.[394]
Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy. Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An econometric analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion.[395]
Facebook companies
Facebook, Inc.[396]
Facebook Payments, Inc.
Atlas
Instagram LLC
Onavo
Moves
Oculus
WhatsApp, Inc.
Masquerade
CrowdTangle
Social impact
Main articles: Social networking service § Social impact, Social impact of the Internet § Social networking and entertainment, and Social capital
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.[397][398] It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through open, closed and private groups and other pages.[399][400]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate. Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage others or be engaged with others' posts.[401]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town, despite the move to larger cities.[402] As per Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall population gets news through Facebook.[403]
Privacy
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278]
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[281]
On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283]
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they interact with.[284]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285]
In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs.
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you."[288][289]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws. "Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview. "Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them. They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did special work for Facebook.'"[290]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted in a post.[292]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country
VKontakte
QZone
Odnoklassniki
Facenama
no data
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.[293] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of Mashable questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".[294] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,[295] 300 million in September 2009,[296] 400 million in February 2010,[297] and 500 million in July 2010.[48] According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[49]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83][298] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.[84] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,[299] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,[300] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,[301] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,[302] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.[11][12]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an "active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the Facebook Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.[303]
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.[304]
Population pyramid of Facebook users by age as of January 1, 2010[305]
Statistics
According to analytics firm comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[306][307] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[308] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors per month, as of 2015.[309][310][311] SimilarWeb, Quantcast, and Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.[310][312][313] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.[314] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed the biggest threat to security," well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[282]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[315] the United Kingdom,[316] and the United States.[317][318][319] However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely preferred.[320] In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[321] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by Mashable.[322]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[323] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[324] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the "second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[325]
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award[326] for the third year in a row.[327] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[328]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[329] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[330][331] Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[332]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[333] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[334] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.[335]
Criticisms and controversies
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Graffiti in Berlin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The caption is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[336][337] possible indefinite records of user information,[338] automatic facial recognition software,[339][340] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.[341]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[342][343] and stress,[344][345] a lack of attention,[346] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.[347][348]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[349] tax avoidance,[350] real-name user requirement policies,[351] censorship,[352][353] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.[354]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including copyright and intellectual property infringement,[355] hate speech,[356][357] incitement of rape[358] and terrorism,[359][360] fake news,[361][362][363] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality.[364][365][366]
Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[367] China,[368] and Iran.[369] Facebook worked on special censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in Communist-controlled China.[370]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[371][372][373][374] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.[375][376][377] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[378][379] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.[380]
On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[381] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[382] According to The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[383] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.[384]
Impact
Facebook on the ad:tech 2010
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[385] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[386] News and media outlets such as The Washington Post,[387] Financial Times[388] and ABC News[389] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.[390]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's spillover effect. Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact: platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.[391]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly innovate new ideas. Scalability is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18% year-over-year[392] and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in 2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean renewable energy.[393]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638 billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year was $10.188 billion.[394]
Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy. Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An econometric analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion.[395]
Facebook companies
Facebook, Inc.[396]
Facebook Payments, Inc.
Atlas
Instagram LLC
Onavo
Moves
Oculus
WhatsApp, Inc.
Masquerade
CrowdTangle
Social impact
Main articles: Social networking service § Social impact, Social impact of the Internet § Social networking and entertainment, and Social capital
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.[397][398] It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through open, closed and private groups and other pages.[399][400]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate. Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage others or be engaged with others' posts.[401]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town, despite the move to larger cities.[402] As per Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall population gets news through Facebook.[403]
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
Last edited:
Construction of the JICA-funded Kelani Bridge will commence in January.
The road network in the Colombo district is to undergo a major transformation next year with multiple road development projects commencing under the initiative of the Ministry of Highways and Higher Education.
The three road development projects connected to the New Kelani Bridge includes a three-kilometre elevated highway connecting the New Kelani Bridge and Colombo Fort, while a new road extending from Orugodawatta to Rajagiriya is also in the offing. The new road networks will see the construction of the New Kelani Bridge and its extensions while developing the road system to ease traffic congestion.
According to the Secretary to the Ministry of Highways and Higher Education, D.C. Dissanayake, the construction of the JICA-funded Kelani Bridge will commence in January.
“Two contractors have been awarded the contract,” Dissanayake said, adding that JICA has provided Rs. 45 billion for the project.
The new Kelani Bridge will be constructed from the Peliyagoda entrance of the Katunayake expressway, further extending to Orugodawatta and Ingurukade junction.
“An elevated highway will also be constructed connecting Orugodawatta to Colombo Fort,” he confirmed. Funding for the elevated highway project will be provided by the Asian Development Bank, Dissanayake said.
The three-kilometre long elevated highway will be constructed from the Ingurukade junction. “Tenders for the project is expected to be called soon,” Dissanayake said, adding that the designing of the bridge has already commenced.
“The new bridge and its extensions along with the elevated highway will reduce the traffic currently seen at the entrance to the Katunayake Expressway especially during rush hours,” Dissanayake said.
- http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2017/1...ts-colombo-next-year-government-launches-road
The road network in the Colombo district is to undergo a major transformation next year with multiple road development projects commencing under the initiative of the Ministry of Highways and Higher Education.
The three road development projects connected to the New Kelani Bridge includes a three-kilometre elevated highway connecting the New Kelani Bridge and Colombo Fort, while a new road extending from Orugodawatta to Rajagiriya is also in the offing. The new road networks will see the construction of the New Kelani Bridge and its extensions while developing the road system to ease traffic congestion.
According to the Secretary to the Ministry of Highways and Higher Education, D.C. Dissanayake, the construction of the JICA-funded Kelani Bridge will commence in January.
“Two contractors have been awarded the contract,” Dissanayake said, adding that JICA has provided Rs. 45 billion for the project.
The new Kelani Bridge will be constructed from the Peliyagoda entrance of the Katunayake expressway, further extending to Orugodawatta and Ingurukade junction.
“An elevated highway will also be constructed connecting Orugodawatta to Colombo Fort,” he confirmed. Funding for the elevated highway project will be provided by the Asian Development Bank, Dissanayake said.
The three-kilometre long elevated highway will be constructed from the Ingurukade junction. “Tenders for the project is expected to be called soon,” Dissanayake said, adding that the designing of the bridge has already commenced.
“The new bridge and its extensions along with the elevated highway will reduce the traffic currently seen at the entrance to the Katunayake Expressway especially during rush hours,” Dissanayake said.
- http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2017/1...ts-colombo-next-year-government-launches-road
ඕකටද සංවර්ධනේ කියන්නේ ගොන්සෝන් ලියවිලි අත්සන් කරලා කොමිස් එක ගත්තම සේරම හැදෙයි.. තියන එකටවත් එක කෝච්චියක් වැඩි කරගන්න බැරි වික්කාමසිංහ.. ඕව හදයි
බලන් ඉදපන් ඕව හදයි අලයක් Banner logo
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
This November is the Wikipedia Asian Month. Come join us.
Hide
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
This November is the Wikipedia Asian Month. Come join us.
Hide
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
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Mahinda Rajapaksa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable
Mahinda Rajapaksa
MP
Mahinda Rajapaksa.jpg
6th President of Sri Lanka
In office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
D. M. Jayaratne
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
In office
6 April 2004 – 19 November 2005
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Preceded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Succeeded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Leader of the Opposition
In office
6 February 2002 – 2 April 2004
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
Preceded by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Succeeded by Ranil Wickremesinghe
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In office
19 November 2005 – 15 January 2015
Preceded by Chandrika Kumaratunga
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development
In office
1997–2001
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
Minister of Finance
In office
23 November 2005 – 9 January 2015
President Himself
Preceded by Sarath Amunugama
Succeeded by Ravi Karunanayake
Minister of Labour
In office
1994–1997
President Chandrika Kumaratunga
11th Chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth of Nations
In office
15 November 2013 – 9 January 2015
Preceded by Tony Abbott
Succeeded by Maithripala Sirisena
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Kurunegala District
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2015
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Hambantota District
In office
15 February 1989 – 19 November 2005
Member of the Sri Lanka Parliament
for Beliatta
In office
27 May 1970 – 21 July 1977
Preceded by D.P. Atapattu
Succeeded by Ranjit Atapattu
Personal details
Born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa
18 November 1945 (age 71)
Weerakatiya, Southern Province, British Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka)
Nationality Sri Lankan
Political party Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Other political
affiliations United People's Freedom Alliance
(2004 – Present)
People's Alliance
(1994 – 2004)
Spouse(s) Shiranthi Rajapaksa
(née Wickremesinghe)
Children Namal
Yoshitha
Rohitha
Alma mater Richmond College
Nalanda College Colombo
Thurstan College
Sri Lanka Law College
Profession Politician, Lawyer
Website Official website
Percy Mahendra "Mahinda" Rajapaksa, MP (Sinhalese: මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ (පර්සි මහේන්ද්ර රාජපක්ෂ), pronounced [maˈhində ˈraːɟəˌpakʂə], Tamil: மகிந்த ராசபக்ச; born 18 November 1945[1]) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 19 November 2005 to 9 January 2015. A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa was first elected to the Parliament of Sri Lanka in 1970, and he served as prime minister from 6 April 2004 until his victory in the 2005 presidential election. He was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was re-elected for a second term on 27 January 2010. He was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena and left office on 9 January 2015.[2]
Several months after leaving office, Rajapaksa unsuccessfully sought to become prime minister in the 2015 parliamentary election, where the United People's Freedom Alliance was defeated. He was, however, elected as Member of Parliament for Kurunegala District.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 Legislative career
2.1 Sri Lankan Parliament
2.2 Appointment as cabinet minister
2.3 Leader of the Opposition
2.4 Prime minister
3 Presidency
3.1 Sri Lankan Civil War
3.2 Infrastructure development projects
3.3 Relations with Sarath Fonseka
3.4 Controversies and criticisms
4 Post-presidency
4.1 Election defeat
4.2 Alleged coup d'état attempt
4.3 Corruption investigations
4.4 Prime Ministerial candidate
5 Return to legislature
6 Domestic policy
6.1 Ethnic relations
7 Recognition and public image
8 Family and personal life
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
Early life and career
Mahinda Rajapaksa was born in Weeraketiya in the southern rural district of Hambantota.[4] He hails from a well-known political family in Sri Lanka. His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government. D. M. Rajapaksa, his uncle, was a State Councillor for Hambantota in the 1930s who started wearing the earthy brown shawl to represent kurakkan (finger millet) cultivated by the people of his area, whose cause he championed throughout his life. It is from his example that Rajapaksa wears his characteristic shawl.[4]
Rajapaksa was taught at Richmond College in Galle, before moving to Nalanda College Colombo and later Thurstan College, Colombo.[4] Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with Nalanda Keerthi Sri award in 2004 by his alma mater Nalanda College, Colombo.[5] He also had a few cameo roles as a movie actor in Sinhalese movies and worked as a library assistant at Vidyodaya University.[6]
Following the death of his father in 1967, Rajapaksa took over as the SLFP candidate for Beliatta constituency and was elected to Parliament in 1970 as the youngest Member of Parliament at just 24.[6] Later he studied law at the Sri Lanka Law College and took oaths as an attorney-at-law in November 1977.[7] Throughout his parliamentary career, except for the period from 1994–2001 when he was a minister, he continued his law practice in Tangalle.[4]
Legislative career
Sri Lankan Parliament
Losing his parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977,[4] he was re-elected in 1989 to Parliament to represent Hambantota District under Proportional Representation. He came into prominence as a leader, together with Manorani Saravanamuttu, of the Mothers Front, which organised the mothers of the "disappeared" in the white terror of 1988–90 instigated by a rebel group that called themselves Deshapremi Jathika Vyaparaya or 'Patriotic National Movement'.[4]
During this time he frequently attempted bring third party intervention and frequently complained about Sri Lanka in Geneva and has claimed it is neither treacherous nor unpatriotic to seek third party intervention to restore democratic ideals. He also demanded in the parliament that United Nations alongside NGOs such as amnesty international be allowed to come to Sri Lanka and investigate. He also requested foreign nations to put conditions on Sri Lanka when giving aid. On 25 October 1990 he said “If the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” [8][9]
Appointment as cabinet minister
In 1994, following the election victory of the People's Alliance a political front led by Sri Lanka Freedom Party and headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Labour. He held this post until 1997 when, following a cabinet reshuffle, his portfolio was changed to Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.[4]
Leader of the Opposition
When the United National Party (UNP) defeated the People's Alliance in the 2001 elections, Rajapaksa lost his position in the Government. He was however appointed as Leader of the Opposition in March 2002.[4]
Prime minister
After the Parliamentary Elections of 2004, in which the United People's Freedom Alliance gained a slim majority in Parliament. Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s 13th Prime Minister on 6 April 2004.[4] While Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister, he also held the Ministry of Highways.
Presidency
Mahinda Rajapaksa was chosen by Sri Lanka Freedom Party to contest with former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party in this Presidential Election held on 17 November 2005. Despite the huge election campaign led by UNP, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to gain a narrow victory by 190,000 votes. The Opposition claimed that LTTE calling for a boycott of the polls in the North and East from Tamil voters in areas within their control lead to their defeat. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained from voting, and it is said that they would have favored Ranil Wickremasinghe and his UNP party in the said election.[10] Rajapaksa received 50.3% of the vote.
After becoming President of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa reshuffled the cabinet and took the portfolios of Defence and Finance in the new cabinet, which was sworn on 23 November 2005.
Sri Lankan Civil War
Although styling himself as a man of peace and a willing negotiator, Rajapaksa signaled his intention to end the peace process once in power by forging an alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The JVP had opposed the original 2002 peace process as treasonous.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the World Economic Forum session in Jordan on May 15, 2009 just 3 days before the death of LTTE head Vellupillai Prabhakaran
The agreement made with Rajapaksa included provisions which called for a revision of the ceasefire agreement to give the military broader powers against the LTTE, as well as ruling out of any devolution of power to the Tamil people. Furthermore, the cessation of aid to the tsunami struck LTTE occupied areas, and the sidelining of the Norwegian facilitators due to their alleged bias were included.[11]
Immediately following his election victory, a series of mine blasts blamed on the LTTE in the country claimed the lives of many off-duty servicemen and civilians, pushing the country back to the brink of war.[12] Following the closure by the LTTE of a reservoir supplying water to 15,000 people named "Mavil Aru" in government controlled areas on 21 July 2006,[13] the Sri Lankan military launched an offensive against the LTTE, bringing the entire reservoir under government control. Further military engagements have led to the LTTE been driven out of the entire Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and loss of 95% of the territory they controlled.[14][15][16][17] The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. on 19 May 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism.[18][19]
Infrastructure development projects
His presidency after ending the Civil war in 2009 is known for the initiating the large scale infrastructure projects such as the, Colombo Lotus Tower,[20]Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port,[21]Colombo Harbour South Container Terminal, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, Colombo - Katunayake Expressway, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka also made it into the "high" category of the Human Development Index during this time.[22] Initiating, completing and development of many Highways, Roads, Colombo beautification project, Rural infrastructure development projects are some several major projects.[23] However the roadways are known for extremely high costs and is suspected of corruption and the large amount of Chinese loans tripled the countries foreign debt and created an economic crisis.[24][25] Rajapaksa claimed that under him Sri Lanka started to experienced a rapid economic growth and the GDP growth rate reached over 7%[26] However this has been disputed and after his fall the successor government revealed that GDP growth was inflated by using the year 2002 as the base year; which is usually revised once in five years. GDP growth for 2013 and 2014 which was 7.2% and 7.4% using 2002 as base year was reduced to 3.4 and 4.5 percent respectively.[27][28]
An forsenic audit was launched with IMF help on various projects initiated by Rajapaksa.[29] The audit confirmed that Sri Lanka has an additional liabilities of 1.3 Trillion rupees [30]
Relations with Sarath Fonseka
Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2010 – Winners of Districts
Immediately following his election in 2005, Rajapaksa extended the term of the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka, less than 30 days before he was scheduled to retire. Over the next three and a half years Fonseka and Rajapaksa's brother and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa led the country's armed forces in their battle against the LTTE, ultimately defeating the Tigers and killing their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Following the end of the conflict, a rift emerged between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, over reasons which are still disputed. On 15 November 2009, Rajapaksa ordered Fonseka to leave his post as Chief of the Defence Staff with immediate effect through a letter from his secretary.[31] Fonseka then joined opposition as the candidate against Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election, at which Rajapaksa emerged victory. Fonseka was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail for various offenses by a military court martial. President Rajapaksa signed the order documents for the release of Fonseka in May 2012.
Controversies and criticisms
Nepotism & cronyism
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.[32][33]
Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.[33]
Media freedom
Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as president.[34] In 2008 Reporters Without Borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index.[35] The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However, these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.
RSF’s 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested. Sri Lanka is obviously not this bad. – Indi Samarajiva, The Sunday Leader[36]
Alleged Election Fraud
Main articles: Sri Lankan presidential election, 2005 and Sri Lankan presidential election, 2010
During the 2005 presidential election opposition parties have accused Rajapaksa of bribing LTTE for avoiding People in North and East from voting. Most voters in these areas were forcibly restrained by LTTE from voting, and it is said that they would have favored opposition candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe.[37] In the 2010 election he was accused of manipulating election results using computers.[38]
Allegations of war crimes
WikiLeaks made public secret US cables (Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Sri Lanka)) from 2009–10, stating that American diplomats including Patricia A. Butenis believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the massacres of Tamil civilians and captured LTTE fighters at the end of the war with the LTTE. The cable also states the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka.[39]
In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces. A number of foreign journalists and news teams, such as the UK's Channel Four News, have reported and filmed evidence of targeted shelling of civilians, executions and atrocities.[40] Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.[41]
For their part, Rajapaksa and his government have denied all allegations of war crimes.[42] Former Sri Lankan Army chief Sarath Fonseka was later prosecuted for an interview which he gave to Frederica Jansz, editor of the Sunday Leader, in which he is stated to have said that he is aware of a rumor that surrendering LTTE fighters were executed on the orders of Defence Secretary at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Helping Hambantota case
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of corruption by the opposition before his election as president, citing the "Helping Hambantota" case, where he was accused of appropriating close to USD 830,000 into a Treasury approved private fund, known as Helping Hambantota, to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Hambantota - his hometown and electoral district. Before the election, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka put a hold on the case. Later dismissing the case, Chief Justice Sarath Silva said the court case had been brought as soon as Rajapaksa was nominated as a presidential candidate. "The court sees this as an attempt to get political mileage for [UNP leader] Ranil Wickramasinghe and to discredit Mahinda Rajapaksa." It was said in parliament that the cabinet was aware of the existence of the Helping Hambantota fund.[citation needed][verification needed] His office said he had held donations in Helping Hambantota fund to speed up the rate at which aid money was being handed out to victims of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The money in question had been put in a state account and Rajapaksa had not taken "even a cent" for his use, then Prime Minister's secretary Lalith Weeratunga told the AFP news agency at the time.[43]
ඕකටද සංවර්ධනේ කියන්නේ ගොන්සෝන් ලියවිලි අත්සන් කරලා කොමිස් එක ගත්තම සේරම හැදෙයි.. තියන එකටවත් එක කෝච්චියක් වැඩි කරගන්න බැරි වික්කාමසිංහ.. ඕව හදයි
Megapolis wada tikanam karanawa ban
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