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Time travel

Time travel at midnight on April 14, 2006, clocks in Sri Lanka were set back by 30 minutes, thereby returning to the time that the country followed until May 1996. The government's directive to reverse the clocks came soon after Sri Lanka ended its April 13-14 annual celebrations of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

Ten years back, the then president Chandrika Kumaratunga had advanced the clock by an hour (60 minutes) to confront with the country's worst-ever power crisis. But later reduced it to 30 minutes. Following the change, Sri Lanka is now back in sync with neighbouring countries such as India and Myanmar, who follow five and a half hours+Greenwich Mean Time (gmt) as their local standard time (lst).

The government says it made the decision because parents were complaining it was still dark when their children left for school. But economists and scientists do not appreciate the time reversal and say Sri Lanka can't afford to keep changing a fundamental attribute like local standard time every few years.

"Such a move could harm the perception of foreign investors, international banks, airlines and tourists,' says Arthur C Clarke, the renowned science fiction writer who now lives in Sri Lanka. "Besides, the country is practically six hours ahead of gmt,' he adds. "By retaining its lst at six hours+ gmt, the country would have saved energy,' says Sulochana Paranagama, an electrical engineer . " Reduction of daylight time by 30 minutes will raise power consumption in the evening, increasing the total energy consumption by one per cent,' she adds.

The Buddhist clergy and astrologers have, however, welcomed the reversal, as they were continuing to work according to the old clock. In Tamil rebel country in the northeast too it is business as usual for ltte had continued to operate according to the old clock.

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