Sri Lanka Central Bank, retrospect 1950 to 2010

Sept 27, 2010 (LBO) - In the modern era, the best recorders of history, as and when the important events occur, are the newspapers. But it is seldom that one attempts at unearthing history by tapping this source. Perhaps the enormous labour which one has to shed in perusing voluminous newspaper articles and the time taken for copying the same would have prompted the historians to shun it.

Yet, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, as one leg of its multi faceted diamond jubilee celebrations, has very successfully ventured into this unpleasant impossible task.

Newspapers as Recorders of History

The Bank has painstakingly perused all the newspapers from 1950 to 2010, selected carefully news items on the economy, the Bank and socio political developments and reproduced in newspaper form a book titled ˜Central Bank of Sri Lanka Retrospect 1950 to 2010’.

The Bank’s intention would have been to put this out as a coffee table book so that readers could casually leaf through the pages while waiting in antechambers for meetings or sipping tea or coffee. But, given the valuable information it contains, its proper place should be shelves of libraries. The publication which we can