Messages of Condolence

I hope with time you are coping up with the great loss you, IPS and all of us have gone through. At RIS, we are all deeply perturbed over sudden demise of our great friend Saman. It is indeed an early and untimely loss.

As you are aware, he was closely associated with RIS work programme on economic integration within the South Asian region and its integration with the world economy. One of the major joint initiative that RIS and IPS had taken was launching of prestigious South Asia Economic Journal (SAEJ) in March 2000. Since then the SAEJ has been serving as the mouth piece of the South Asian countries. He was also the founder member of the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS). He was actively and closely associated with the organizing of South Asia Economic Summits (SAES) which takes place before the regional Summits.

In order to pay tribute to Prof Saman Kelegama and recall his immense contribution towards strengthening the economic cooperation in the region, we are organizing a special meeting on Tuesday, 11 July 2017 at 4.00 p.m. at New Delhi. H.E. Ms. Chitranganee Wagoswara, High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in New Delhi will also be present on this occasion. Dr. Nagesh Kumar, Professor Deepak Nayyer and Professor Muchkund Dubey would also be joining us. The event is jointly organised by RIS, SACEPS and UNESCAP Delhi Office.

Meanwhile, I am writing this to convey our heartfelt condolences and look forward working with you in the days to come.

Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi
Director General, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), India

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On behalf of the Think Tank Initiative, I am writing to send our condolences to you, and to all staff, Board members and associates of the Institute of Policy Studies, Sri Lanka on the untimely passing of Dr Saman Kelegama. We also extend our sincere sympathy to his family and colleagues.

We were truly devastated to learn of Dr. Kelegama’s very untimely passing. We note of course that this very sad event took place at a time when Dr. Kelegama was devoting himself tirelessly as ever to the well-being of others through his expert contributions to development issues.

It has been a great privilege to work closely with IPS, and Dr. Kelegama personally, since 2010 when IPS under his leadership successfully gained support from the Think Tank Initiative. During that period we recognise the tremendous contribution that Dr. Kelegama has made as Executive Director of IPS, supporting the Institute’s continued progress on a pathway to sustainability. This of course builds on the many achievements of Dr. Kelegama during his lifetime and of IPS since its establishment.

With such a range of contributions in his lifetime, it will remain for others to provide the fullest account of Dr. Kelegama’s achievements. However, I would wish in particular to commend IPS’s leadership, stewardship and participation in the annual South Asia Economic Summit (SAES), a major regional South Asian platform for dialogue on South Asian trade, investment and economic development. We recognise also that as a great believer in South Asian integration and peace, Dr. Kelegama was instrumental in representing IPS and Sri Lanka on many other regional policy dialogue platforms and groups, including with UNESCAP, South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), Asia Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNet) and South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS). We recognise that he also served on the editorial Board of several journals, including the South Asia Economic Journal which of course he started, and which is still housed within IPS.

A leading voice for economic and human development work in Sri Lanka, we note that Dr. Kelegama shaped the IPS portfolio to respond to Sri Lankan challenges and opportunities, including on health, education, migration, urbanisation, remittances, skills development, industrial policy, agriculture and climate change. IPS’s annual State of the Economy Report for Sri Lanka also continued as a flagship under his leadership, and has always been highly anticipated by economists, the Sri Lankan government, members of the public, media, international organisations and the private sector.

From the perspective of the Think Tank Initiative specifically, Dr. Kelegama’s contributions went far beyond his excellent steering of IPS, and wise stewardship of the core financial support that the Think Tank Initiative provided, enabling the Institute to deliver on its mandate of independent research as emblemised by the State of the Economy Report. IPS under Dr. Kelegama’s leadership also played an excellent role in hosting the Think Tank Initiative South Asia Regional Meeting in 2013. Dr. Kelegama and other representatives of IPS have participated in similar events and activities over the last 7 years, always in a positive, constructive way bringing benefit to many other South Asian policy research organisations as well as taking useful lessons to adapt and apply in the Sri Lankan national context.

On a personal note, I must give my sincere appreciation for the extremely warm welcome and hospitality that Dr. Kelegama always showed me during my visits to IPS and I know he extended this same welcome to my other colleagues in the Think Tank Initiative. I recall his great pride in showing me the new IPS premises after its construction, and creating this possibility was a testament to his ability to bring different types of resources to bear, indicated also by the strengthening of the IPS endowment fund.

With Dr. Kelegama’s passing we have lost a valued intellectual, a colleague and a friend. I know that all team members of the Think Tank Initiative will join me in expressing again our condolences to you, and the wish that you could please share our thoughts with the Board members and staff of IPS. The International Development Research Centre will also be expressing its condolences. We can only mourn the loss of Dr. Kelegama from the Think Tank Initiative family, joining the very many others nationally, regionally and globally who will be grieving at this time. We will keep him, and all those he has left behind, in our minds and hearts.

Peter Taylor
Associate Director, Think Tank Initiatives

I am writing this with a heavy heart on the loss of my very dear friend of 25 years here in Bangkok under most tragic circumstances. I send my sincere condolences to the members of his family and his colleagues at IPS. May his noble soul rests in peace and his family gathers strength to bear this greatest loss! I would appreciate if you would convey my condolences to his family and to the IPS colleagues. My thoughts are with them.

Nagesh Kumar
Director, Social Development Division, UNESCAP

On behalf of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), I am writing to express our deepest condolences to Saman Kelegama’s bereaved family, colleagues of IPS and friends at his unexpected and untimely demise. We are profoundly shocked and yet to reconcile with the fact that Saman is no more.

A pleasant person with simplicity and a great scholar with honest conviction, Saman was a very close friend of CPD and a fellow dreamer for South Asian integration and a just global trading system. We had the opportunity to interact with him closely through SASECPS, SAES and several other initiatives and programmes in the region and beyond. He was a fellow fighter at various global platforms to promote the region’s interests. He was a voice for South Asian think tanks that we observed during our TTI journey for the last seven years. He was also an excellent host. We will treasure Saman’s warmth during our visits to IPS programmes.

His departure at such an early age is an irreparable loss for South Asian community. May his departed soul rest in peace. Our prayers are with his family to withstand this shock with a brave heart.

CPD is beside IPS at this difficult time and would like to extend our support in taking forward the tasks of an integrated and a prosperous South Asia.

Fahmida Khatun
Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh

On behalf of CUTS family, let me express our heartfelt condolences to Dr Saman Kelegama’s family, friends and colleagues. It is difficult for many of us to come to terms of this loss that Saman is no more with us.

His legacy will remain with us. We will remember him as a top-class policy honcho, a committed SARCist/BOBist and a wonderful human-being.

All powers to your elbows at this difficult time. I am confident that under your leadership IPS will scale new heights. We are with you in our support.

On a personal note, it is a huge loss as I have learned so many nuances about regional cooperation and integration, particularly in South Asia, while interacting and listening to him. During the last two days of his life, I was sitting next to him and keep learning from his experience and expertise on preferential trade agreements.

Bipul Chatterjee
Executive Director, CUTS International

It is hard to imagine that Saman is no more. And worse still to think that something so sudden and unexpected would happen to a dear friend, a comrade-in-arms, and a kindred soul from my very first days of working on Sri Lanka.

I can still remember so many visits to Sri Lanka in the early 1990s after Saman had joined IPS on returning from Oxford. An inevitable highlight of these visits were the long hours over dinner chatting with Saman, learning about the intricacies of navigating the country, its institutions and politicians, talking and laughing about his years studying math at IIT Kanpur, and all the while enjoying the twinkle in Saman’s eyes and the wonderful way he saw the wry humour in everything that he would talk about, including the driest topics in trade policy and the latest twists and turns in his deft handling of the Sri Lankan political establishment. Saman once invited Malati and me home for dinner somewhere in the mid-1990s. We spent the entire evening delighting in his son Chandana’s encyclopedic knowledge of cricket, a side of Saman he had never revealed before.

Saman is supposed to have coined the term “brain gain” to counter the fears of the brain drain. He was so much the living example of that gain, not just for Sri Lanka, but for all of us South Asians. The picture of Saman in my mind is so clear with his characteristically rolled up white shirt sleeves and his elegant tie, his fingers linked together and hands just resting on the edge of the desk, the gentleness in his voice matched by the conviction and deep understanding of what he saying.

I owe so much of what I know and understand about Sri Lanka to Saman. I will miss him greatly.

Our hearts go out to Dushni, the IPS staff, and to Saman’s wife, son, and daughter.

Shekhar Shah
Director-General, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)

We at SAWTEE have been shocked by the news of the demise of Dr. Saman Kelegama. We would like to express our deepest condolences to his family and IPS.

Saman was a friend of SAWTEE and a very good friend of mine personally. A passionate advocate of regional cooperation in South Asia, he served on the Regional Advisory Board of SAWTEE’s network as well as that of Trade Insight magazine. He was his usual positive, humble self, offering constructive comments and suggestions, during an ESCAP dialogue held in Bangkok, also attended by a SAWTEE colleague. He was enthusiastically looking forward to the civil society-led South Asia Economic Summit, planned to be held in Kathmandu at the end of this year. He also had time to make a suggestion regarding the thematic focus of some future issue of Trade Insight.

We note Saman’s sterling role in steering IPS to its current level and understand the loss this tragedy means for IPS. We also believe that he has left behind a strong institution that can carry on its good work. We look forward to strengthening the ties between SAWTEE and IPS that Saman helped shape.

Posh Raj Pandey
Chairman, South Asia Watch on Trade Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), Nepal

I am extremely shocked at the unexpected demise of Dr Saman Kelegama. I had many occasions to interact with Dr. Kelegama and in each instance I felt intellectually enriched just by exchanging ideas with him. Most recently, during his visit to New Delhi for the First India Commonwealth SME Summit a few weeks back, we had a stimulating discussion on electronic commerce. We were also in the process of jointly organising a workshop for policy makers in Asian countries on e-commerce. Alas, this was not to be. On many occasion I was the beneficiary of his sagacious advice. I shall personally miss him immensely and feel terribly devastated.

Saman was a stellar individual who influenced the course of economic integration in South Asia. Of course, this was beset with challenges, but Dr. Kelegama was not the one to flinch from difficulties. He was a deep thinker, who was endowed with the rare quality of transcending contemporary impediments and instead, focused on long term opportunities from trade and investment integration. His capacity as an institution builder serves as an exemplar for those who think that international trade can serve as a force for economic betterment.

In the passing away of Dr. Kelegama, we have lost an individual who left his indelible imprint on trade ties between India and Sri Lanka. Without his untiring efforts and grand vision, the South Asian region would have been bereft of guiding philosophy, practical policies and facilitating institutions that have gradually steered the countries in the region to think in collective terms.

On behalf of the Centre for WTO Studies, and on my behalf, do accept our deep and heart-felt condolences. May his soul rest in peace

I want to send a short message to his family. I would be extremely grateful if you could provide me the contact details of his family members.

Abhijit Das
Professor & Head, Centre for WTO Studies, New Delhi

http://southernvoice.org/southern-voice-remembers-dr-saman-kelegama-1959-2017/

Please convey the condolences of the members of the Monash economics department to the family of Dr. Saman Kelegama and to his colleagues at IPS. Many of us, including myself, had met Saman during his visit to Monash some years ago and also during the conference in Colombo early this year. His passing is a great loss.

Michael Ward
Professor, Head of Department, Economics, Monash Business School

Tribute on Global Development Institute Blog

Dr Saman Kelegama: scholar, policy influencer and caring human being

Letter of Condolence from Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, United Nations ESCAP to Ambassador of Sri Lanka, Bangkok

Letter of Condolence from Jean Lebel, IDRC President

Letter of Condolence from ILO

Letter of Condolence from the Royal Norwegian Embassy

Letter of Condolence from the South Centre

Letter of Condolence from the High Commissioner of India

Letter of Condolence from ADB

Condolence Message from IORA

Press Release from Sri Lanka High Commission, New Delhi

Statement by the Ministry of Development Strategies & International Trade

Ceylon Today 26 June 2017 PDF

The Island 29 June 2017 PDF

Statement by the National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka (NCE)

Daily Mirror 01 July 2017 PDF

Condolence Message from Hon. Sushma Swaraj, External Affairs Minister of India

Joint Tribute PDF

SANEM Remembers Dr. Kelegama PDF

Condolence Message on ARTNeT Newsletter (July 2017) PDF

Condolence Message from the Board of Editors and the SAGE team of South Asia Economic Journal

I was shocked by hearing that Dr. Kelegama passed away. I wish to convey my deepest sympathy on behalf of my team.

Dr. Yasantha Mapatuna
Programme Director, IFAD_NADeP

The loss to your institution by the passing away of Dr. Kelegama must be immense. My deepest sympathies on behalf of the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka. On a personal note Dr. Kelegama’s wife was my classmate at Musaeus. I hope IPS will go from strength to strength which would have been his wish.

Visakha Tillekeratne
President, Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka

I am shocked and grieved on sudden and untimely demise of Dr Saman Kelegama. I pray to Almighty God to give peace to the departed soul and strength to all friends and family members to bear this irreparable loss.
Dr. Saman’s demise will create a big vacuum in economics profession and policy advisory in Sri Lanka and South Asia region. He was a globally known economist through his own contribution. He was leader in SAARC and ASEAN region. We have lost a great leader, outstanding researcher, wonderful friend, and kind human being.

On behalf of IFPRI and my own, I extend my deep condolences to the family members of Dr. Saman. May his soul rest in peace.

Messages of Condolence

Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi Director General, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), India

Peter Taylor Associate Director, Think Tank Initiatives

Nagesh Kumar Director, Social Development Division, UNESCAP

Fahmida Khatun Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh

Bipul Chatterjee Executive Director, CUTS International

Shekhar Shah Director-General, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)

Posh Raj Pandey Chairman, South Asia Watch on Trade Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), Nepal

Abhijit Das Professor & Head, Centre for WTO Studies, New Delhi

Michael Ward Professor, Head of Department, Economics, Monash Business School

Dr. Yasantha Mapatuna Programme Director, IFAD_NADeP

Visakha Tillekeratne President, Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka

P K Joshi Director-South Asia, International Food Policy Research Institute