Minister of Health and Mass Media Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has warned that if the number of dengue patients continues to increase, the country’s hospital system could struggle to cope.
He made these remarks while attending the Beruwala Divisional Coordination Committee meeting.
The Minister stressed that public and institutional responsibility is crucial in controlling the spread of dengue, noting that maintaining cleanliness in homes, government institutions, and other places is essential to prevent mosquito breeding.
He further stated that the increase in the number of dengue patients could put severe pressure on the health system.
Speaking further, he said, No matter what we do in the long term, the only short-term solution to controlling the increase in dengue patients is to destroy mosquito breeding grounds. All we have to do is keep our surroundings clean. If more patients start being reported than this, our hospital system will not be able to handle it. That is what happens when a problem like this continues. If that happens, patient care will collapse. This can still be controlled.”
The United National Party (UNP) has issued a special statement saying that following the Easter Sunday attacks on April 21, 2019, Sri Lanka’s investigative institutions lacked sufficient expertise at the time, and therefore, then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe requested the United States Government to conduct a full investigation into the attacks and provide a report.
The party says the then Prime Minister also assured full cooperation from Sri Lankan authorities, and later made a similar request during a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump on April 22.
Following that call, US President Donald Trump posted on X (formerly Twitter) stating that the United States stood with Sri Lanka and its Prime Minister in the fight against terrorism, and expressed deep condolences on behalf of the American people.
In response to the request, the FBI conducted a full investigation in coordination with Sri Lankan authorities, including the CID, military intelligence, and the State Intelligence Service. Based on all collected evidence and findings, the FBI submitted a report to the Sri Lankan government, which was accepted by all relevant authorities in Sri Lanka, the UNP said.
The party further notes that on November 12, 2020, FBI Special Agent Merrilee R. Godwin filed a 71-page affidavit before the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
After a two-year investigation, US authorities filed a criminal case on December 11, 2020, in the United States District Court in Los Angeles.
The defendants named in the case were Mohamed Naufar, Mohamed Anwar Mohamed Riskaan, and Ahmed Milhan Hayath Mohamed. At the time of filing, they, along with other suspects linked to the attacks, were already in custody in Sri Lanka.
The statement adds that all information and evidence related to the US investigation are currently in the possession of the FBI or the US Department of Justice.
The UNP has questioned whether the current government has officially requested these materials from the US government, given that a fresh investigation into the Easter attacks has been launched.
It further asks what response, if any, was received, and if no request has been made, the government should explain why.
The party emphasises that these critical findings and evidence should be urgently made available to Sri Lanka’s judicial authorities, and issued a statement from the UNP headquarters, Sirikotha.
Sri Lanka’s National Export Development Plan (NEDP) rightly focuses on transforming the country into a competitive logistics and export hub and prioritises marine-based industries and high-value manufacturing. However, the strategy does not adequately address one of Sri Lanka’s most significant untapped opportunities—the development of an offshore and heavy industrial hub in Trincomalee.
Trincomalee possesses one of the world’s finest natural deep-water harbours, vast land availability, and a strategic location at the crossroads of major Indian Ocean shipping routes. These attributes make it an ideal nucleus for developing offshore engineering, shipbuilding and repair, oil and gas support services, renewable energy fabrication, and other heavy industries. Several advisory bodies and industry experts have previously recommended positioning Trincomalee as a regional offshore industrial centre capable of serving South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. Yet, the NEDP lacks a focused investment roadmap to attract global investors in these sectors. Sri Lanka should actively market Trincomalee to major investors from India, Dubai, Singapore, and South Korea, all of whom possess extensive expertise and capital in offshore infrastructure and marine engineering. Establishing special industrial zones, streamlined approvals, public-private partnerships, and targeted fiscal incentives could transform Trincomalee into a major foreign direct investment (FDI) destination.
At a time when Sri Lanka seeks export diversification and higher-value industrial growth, developing Trincomalee as an offshore industrial hub is not merely an option—it is a strategic necessity. A dedicated offshore development strategy integrated into the NEDP could generate employment, technology transfer, export earnings, and position Sri Lanka as a leading maritime industrial centre in the Indian Ocean region.
Whether it’s a new year or a milestone, it usually brings with it a longing for peace, a hope that the world and our lives will somehow grow calmer, kinder and more stable. Yet year after year, that peace seems to slip through our fingers. The turmoil that engulfs us is not just political or economic, but deeply spiritual and existential. Our modern age, with its advances and conveniences, has also brought a fatigue of spirit, a condition where moral clarity fades, cynicism hardens and the sense of sacred purpose is lost in the noise of daily survival.
What we suffer today is spiritual entropy: the gradual decline of meaning and connectedness both with God and with each other. Behaviours once widely condemned are now normalised, while genuine self-examination and communal accountability appear outmoded. The rise of moral relativism (i.e., morals are not absolute or universally set) and the collapse of shared values have been amplified by unprecedented global challenges, war, inequality, environmental degradation and the numbing onslaught of information. This collective weariness is not merely the outcome of political failures, but a symptom of hearts becoming distant from the true source of peace itself: Allah.
The Quran outlines this historical pattern. When societies forget God and begin relying solely on their own wit and turning away from the pursuit of righteousness, they drift toward calamity. (Surah Bani Isra‘il, Ch.17: V.17) This truth was echoed by Abraham Lincoln, who lamented a nation too proud to pray to the God that made us.” (Proclamation 97) Laws and government, while necessary, cannot legislate virtue or ensure justice for all, especially when interior conviction has eroded.
Religion is not immune to this crisis. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness frequently infect spiritual communities, substituting empty ritual for deep transformation. Yet, authentic faith at its core asserts a radical idea: real peace comes not from the absence of hardship, but from God’s presence within the struggle. As the Promised Messiah (as) explained, spiritual maturity is forged in adversity; trials are not punishments, but opportunities for growth. He reminds us that perfection comes through trials. (Malfuzat, 2022, Vol. 3, p. 2)
Salat (prayer), when invested with inward truth, becomes the heart’s awakening, not just a bodily action or empty recitation. Its purpose is to anchor each moment in the remembrance of God, so that the sacred is woven into the mundane, from work and family to facing adversity with patience and gratitude.
But none of us completes this journey alone. The power of transformation begins with recognising our need for divine help, seeking istighfar and taubah (forgiveness and repentance) and strength from God before attempting to reform ourselves. Gratitude and humility return us to what matters: every breath, every small act of honesty or kindness is meaningful.
If we wish to shift society, this inward renewal must ripple outward. Each act of private goodness, each moment of self-restraint or truthfulness, helps preserve the world around us. Spiritual consciousness, as traditions teach, can protect and uplift whole families and communities, gradually strengthening the fabric of society. True peace only arises when dignity, equity and respect are extended to all, regardless of societal trends or fleeting public opinion.
The role of genuine leadership becomes crucial in such times and matters greatly. We need leaders who lead by example with honesty, integrity and high morals. Leaders who control the narrative and challenge the self-destructive and dehumanising drift of our society by speaking out clearly, creating awareness and emphasising mindfulness of the consequences of our words and actions. Prophet Muhammad (sa) was one such leader and history demonstrates how he revived the world through his prayers and pleadings in the dark of night.
Today, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Khalifatul Masih V (aa), is calling us all to come to God and to adopt a life of prayer, love and compassion. His guidance calls us to reject complacency and embrace lives of service and justice.
In practical terms, that means defining success in spiritual and ethical terms rather than financial or superficial ones; disciplining ourselves in daily habits of prayer, gratitude and learning; curating our environments and relationships for goodness; and confronting injustice even when it is not popular to do so. We remember that happiness is fleeting, but contentment is found in gratitude, the realisation that hearts can truly find peace only in the remembrance of God.
As the world grows ever more interconnected and complex, the call to spiritual awakening is not a retreat from life’s messiness but an urgent summons to engage it with integrity and faith. Now more than ever, our work must be to bridge the sacred and the contemporary, bringing compassion, justice and humility into each private and public act.
In 2016, during the first Trump campaign, I wrote an article asking whether American democracy could survive the reduction of politics to entertainment. At the time, the question seemed exaggerated to some readers. Politics had always contained theatrical elements. Presidents cultivated images. Campaigns relied on slogans and symbolism. The boundary between politics and spectacle was hardly new.
Yet something different appeared to be emerging. Entertainment was no longer merely a tool of politics. Politics itself was becoming a branch of entertainment. A decade later, the consequences are increasingly difficult to ignore.
Recently, Donald Trump referred to immigrants using imagery drawn from science fiction, playing upon the double meaning of the word alien.” The term has a legal meaning, of course. But Trump’s rhetoric deliberately invokes a second image as well: the extraterrestrial invader, the creature from another world, the threatening presence familiar from countless films, television shows, and conspiracy theories.
The reference is revealing. It is tempting to dismiss such language as merely another example of political hyperbole. That would be a mistake. What makes the rhetoric disturbing is not simply its hostility toward immigrants. It is the way it transforms political reality into a form of entertainment.
Immigrants cease to appear as human beings with histories, families, aspirations, and vulnerabilities. They become characters in a spectacle. The border becomes a movie plot. Political judgment gives way to narrative identification. Citizens are invited not to deliberate but to consume. The language is grotesque precisely because it collapses the distinction between governing and performing.
More than eighty years ago, Walter Benjamin recognized the danger. In his influential essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin argued that fascism aestheticizes politics. Rather than enabling genuine democratic participation, fascist movements transform politics into a spectacle. Social conflicts become dramas. Economic contradictions become myths. Citizens become spectators. Politics ceases to be something people do together. It becomes something they watch.
Benjamin’s insight has acquired renewed relevance in the age of social media, reality television, and algorithmic attention. The modern political leader increasingly resembles a content creator. Success depends less upon governing than upon maintaining visibility. Attention becomes more important than truth. Emotional engagement becomes more important than judgment. The result is a politics of permanent performance.
Trump did not invent this condition. He merely mastered it. The deeper problem is that contemporary ideology no longer requires belief. As Žižek has repeatedly argued, modern power often functions through cynical participation rather than genuine conviction. People do not need to believe that immigrants are literally invaders from another world. They need only enjoy the fantasy. The spectacle works even when everyone knows it is a spectacle. Indeed, its effectiveness may depend precisely upon that fact. Politics becomes a game in which reality matters less than the pleasure of performance, outrage, and identification.
The deeper danger is not misinformation but derecognition. Democratic life depends upon the capacity to encounter others as participants in a shared world. Spectacle interrupts that encounter. The immigrant no longer appears as a person but as an image. The neighbor becomes a symbol. Recognition gives way to projection. Once human beings are transformed into aesthetic objects, cruelty becomes easier because the relation between self and other has already been broken.
Trump’s genius—if that is the word—is his intuitive understanding that contemporary media culture rewards spectacle over substance. He understands that outrage generates engagement, that provocation dominates news cycles, and that symbolic gestures often matter more politically than concrete achievements. The immigrant as “alien” is effective for the same reason a Hollywood villain is effective. The image is immediate. It bypasses reflection. It operates directly on fear.
Fear is uniquely suited to aestheticization because it thrives on images rather than arguments. One does not reason oneself into panic. Fear abolishes complexity. It transforms social problems into visible enemies. It offers emotional certainty where political reality presents ambiguity. The attraction of fear lies partly in its promise of clarity. A world of economic dislocation, demographic change, and political uncertainty becomes easier to navigate when these anxieties can be projected onto a recognizable figure: the outsider, the invader, the alien. Fear is aesthetically powerful because it transforms ambiguity into imagery.
The threatening outsider, the invader, the contaminant, the alien—these figures operate less as political concepts than as emotional triggers. Their power lies precisely in their ability to transform uncertainty into a vivid and compelling narrative. Fear becomes enjoyable. Anxiety becomes entertainment. Trump’s rhetoric works because it exploits a reservoir of images already accumulated by popular culture. Decades of films, television series, and conspiracy narratives have prepared audiences to associate the alien with invasion, infiltration, replacement, and existential threat. Politics no longer needs to invent new fears. It can recycle images already circulating within entertainment culture.
Contemporary forms of domination often operate through entertainment itself. Citizens are not necessarily commanded. They are distracted. They are not always censored. They are overwhelmed. Politics becomes another stream of consumable content. Žižek’s deeper insight is that ideological fear rarely attaches itself to its true object. Social anxieties generated by economic insecurity, cultural dislocation, political distrust, or technological change are difficult to represent directly. They are diffuse, abstract, and often resistant to clear explanation.
Ideology resolves this problem by concentrating those anxieties upon a visible figure. The immigrant, the outsider, the alien becomes a kind of screen onto which broader uncertainties are projected. What makes such figures politically effective is not that they explain social problems but that they make them appear intelligible. Complexity is condensed into an image. The object of fear acquires a significance far exceeding anything it actually possesses because it has become the symbolic bearer of anxieties that originate elsewhere.
The result is not active citizenship but passive spectatorship. In this respect, Trump’s rhetoric should not be understood as a break from contemporary media culture. It is its logical culmination. The significance of Trump’s rhetoric is not that it represents the opposite of liberal society. It emerges from tendencies already present within it. A culture organized around consumption, branding, entertainment, and attention inevitably rewards those most skilled at transforming politics into spectacle.
The immigrant becomes an alien. The political opponent becomes a villain. The election becomes a season finale. Government becomes content. The distinction between reality and representation steadily erodes. One need not exaggerate the comparison to recognize its dangers. Fascism has historically depended upon dehumanization. Human beings become symbols. Neighbors become threats. Complex social realities are reduced to emotionally charged images that eliminate the need for thought.
The immigrant is no longer a worker, a parent, a refugee, or a person seeking opportunity. He becomes an invader. A contaminant. An alien. The rhetorical move is ancient. What is new is the medium through which it operates. The twentieth century witnessed the rise of mass propaganda. The twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of algorithmic spectacle. The old political rally has been supplemented by viral clips, memes, social-media feeds, and endless cycles of outrage. Politics increasingly resembles an entertainment ecosystem whose primary purpose is to maintain attention.
This is why Trump’s science-fiction rhetoric matters. The issue is not that a politician made a tasteless joke. The issue is that political discourse itself increasingly speaks in the language of entertainment. When citizens become audiences, democracy begins to weaken. When governing becomes performance, accountability becomes difficult. When human beings become characters in a spectacle, cruelty becomes easier. And when politics becomes television, television eventually becomes politics.
The danger confronting American democracy today is not merely authoritarianism in its traditional form. It is the fusion of politics and entertainment into a single cultural apparatus in which attention replaces judgment and spectacle replaces reality.
Benjamin saw the danger in the age of radio and film. We are living through its digital sequel. Benjamin feared a society in which politics would become artifice, spectacle, and myth. What he could not have foreseen was a culture in which the distinction between politics and entertainment would disappear almost entirely. The danger is no longer simply that citizens are manipulated. It is that they increasingly experience manipulation as entertainment. Democracy cannot survive indefinitely when its citizens cease to act as participants in a common world and come to understand themselves primarily as fans, consumers, and spectators.
The first casualty of spectacle is not truth. It is the ability to recognize another human being.
Sam Ben-Meir teaches philosophy at the City University of New York, College of Technology. He is the author of Ethical Interanimality: Toward a Relational Philosophy of Nature (Westphalia Press, 2026).
There are numerous online betting websites accessible in Sri Lanka, such as platforms branded for local users like Mostbet, MelBet, 1xBet, and others. Most operate under offshore licenses, mainly from Curaçao, and offer deposits and withdrawals in Sri Lankan Rupees.
Regarding Chinese operators, there have been reports and public discussions suggesting that some online gambling platforms targeting Sri Lanka have links to Chinese businesses or cater to Chinese-speaking communities. There have also been concerns about Chinese-language gambling advertisements appearing in Colombo. However, it is difficult to conclusively state that all such operations are run by Chinese entities, as many betting platforms use complex international ownership structures and offshore registrations. L
Opinion
From an economic and social perspective:
Positive aspects
Generates advertising and marketing income.
Creates employment in IT, digital marketing, and payment processing.
Attracts some foreign currency inflows.
Negative aspects
Can lead to gambling addiction, particularly among young people.
Causes financial distress for low-income families.
May facilitate money laundering and unregulated capital flows if oversight is weak.
Profits often leave the country because many operators are foreign-owned and offshore-licensed.
For Sri Lanka, the key issue is not whether Chinese or other foreign investors are involved. The more important questions are:
Are these operators properly licensed and regulated?
Are they paying taxes in Sri Lanka?
Are there safeguards against addiction and underage gambling?
Are financial transactions transparent and monitored?
If aonline betting is allowed to operate, it should be under a strong regulatory framework with taxation and consumer protection measures. Otherwise, the social costs can outweigh the economic benefits.
The media plays a vital role in shaping public opinion and influencing national priorities. In a democratic society, television channels and newspapers are expected to educate, inform and inspire the public. Unfortunately, much of Sri Lanka’s electronic media has become trapped in an endless cycle of political mudslinging, sensationalism and personality-driven controversies. Every evening, viewers are presented with round-table discussions where government and opposition politicians exchange accusations and counter-accusations. Hours are spent debating political rivalries, privileges granted to remanded officials, and allegations against individuals. While accountability and investigative journalism are important, excessive focus on these issues often overshadows matters of far greater significance to the country’s future. Progressive Sri Lankans expect more from their media and from their lawmakers. The country is passing through a crucial period of economic recovery and development. Major projects involving foreign direct investment (FDI), infrastructure development, renewable energy, ports, logistics, tourism, industrial zones and technology parks deserve serious public discussion. The media should ask constructive questions: ● What major projects are being undertaken to develop the country? ● How much foreign investment has been attracted? ● What are the expected economic and social returns? ● How many jobs will be created? ● How will these projects improve the lives of ordinary citizens? ● What safeguards are in place to ensure transparency and environmental protection? ● What lessons can be learnt from successful projects in other countries? Television debates should move beyond political theatre and focus on national development. Experts in economics, engineering, education, agriculture and industry should be invited to explain the benefits and challenges of major investments. The public deserves informed discussions on how Sri Lanka can become more competitive, attract quality investments and create opportunities for future generations. A responsible and progressive media should not merely amplify conflicts; it should act as a partner in national development by encouraging informed debate, scrutinising public investments objectively and holding decision-makers accountable for results. Sri Lanka needs a media culture that inspires hope, encourages innovation and keeps the nation’s attention fixed on long-term development rather than daily political quarrels. The country cannot progress if national discourse is dominated by sensational headlines and partisan narratives. The time has come for our media institutions to become more balanced, forward-looking and development-oriented. By focusing on issues that genuinely matter to the people—employment, investment, infrastructure, education and economic growth—the media can become a powerful force in building a prosperous and progressive Sri Lanka.
Majority of government MPs threatened to remove COPF chairman Harsha de Silva from his post if video footage of investigations into internal hackers released to the media, former Parliamentarian Ajith P. Perera said. Replying to journalists on the “Hiru Salakuna” political programme yesterday on the 15th, he noted that severe pressure from government MPs halted the release of video footage from the last two parliamentary COPF meetings where the Treasury Secretary and Central Bank Governor discussed financial frauds and the dollar crisis.
The former MP mentioned that a majority group of government MPs exerted heavy pressure to block these tapes despite COPF discussions usually allowing public transparency. He stated that steps were similarly taken to abolish the chairmanship of Harsha de Silva in 2023 when recommendations exposed a coal scam. Harsha de Silva directly challenged them to remove him, while opposition MPs insisted on the immediate release of the tapes as citizens have a right to know who is responsible for national financial management problems, he said.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank Governor recently stated in parliament that while the current foreign exchange amount of 6.8 billion US dollars is somewhat sufficient, the government must improve these funds to achieve future targets, he mentioned. The Sri Lanka Police and Customs uncovered a large-scale racket where companies illegally transferred dollars out of the country under the guise of importing goods, he stated.
A company named ‘Next Gen’ alone transferred 12,890 million rupees to 26 foreign countries on 953 occasions, sending 42.7 million dollars out of the country, he said. Furthermore, money from a 13.2 billion rupee financial fraud at the National Development Bank went to foreign countries through this method, sending out another 43 million dollars. Although the Central Bank Governor said fraudsters deceived officials, the supervisory process of the Central Bank remains weak due to the inability to prevent these long-running multi-billion rupee frauds, the former MP alleged.
Political Asylum Must Not Become a Shield Against Accountability
We respectfully call upon foreign governments, the European Union, and the United Nations to apply the highest level of scrutiny when considering asylum or protection requests from former public officials, law-enforcement officers, prosecutors, or politically involved persons.
This appeal is made under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, which allow protection from persecution while providing exclusion where there are reasons to consider involvement in serious politically-motivated crimes, abuse of office, or acts contrary to UN principles.
Political asylum is a vital safeguard for genuine victims of persecution, but it must not undermine accountability for actions taken while in public office.
International refugee law also includes exclusion clauses requiring careful assessment of credible allegations of serious misconduct through due process and relevant judicial or investigative mechanisms.
A key concern is that some individuals who hold or have held significant public authority may abuse their positions and then seek to use international asylum mechanisms to avoid domestic judicial accountability for their actions.
This creates a structural gap between international asylum systems and domestic judicial accountability frameworks.
We therefore urge decision-makers to assess:
• Level of public authority or influence exercised
• Allegations of abuse of office or misuse of state power
• Existence of credible judicial or investigative proceedings
• Whether asylum claims are linked to avoidance of accountability
• Findings of courts, commissions, or parliamentary bodies
This appeal does not oppose the right to seek asylum or to prejudge individual cases. It calls for enhanced due diligence in cases involving senior public officials whose conduct is under serious scrutiny and even recommended for penal code actions.
International protection systems must not operate as de facto immunity from accountability, and must ensure that protection is not extended to those seeking to evade lawful processes.
The credibility of international protection depends on careful and principled application — ensuring protection for those in genuine need while preventing misuse that may undermine the rule of law or turn foreign jurisdictions into safe havens for those attempting to avoid accountability.
Justice must protect the innocent — not shield impunity.
Modern day Ehelapolas are not in governance like in the days of the Kandyan Kingdom but in Cricket. The recruitment of a White South African legal malpractitioner David Becker (born and bred in the ‘Apartheid’ er) who blocked Sri Lanka from gaining due credit from the ICC for innovation of Player – Referral (DRS) is the greatest betrayal in the Cricket History of Sri Lanka.
The so-called Cricket Transformation Committee are the modern day traitors of Sri Lanka. Instead of backing their own man who game changed international Cricket ( and several other sports) with the revolutionary concept of Player – Referral ( DRS), and brought world wide recognition to Sri Lanka, the Chairman of the Committee and his Committee have chosen to pay the very lawyer who authored the legal briefs against their own countryman. [1, 2, 3]
Both David Richardson ( Mastermind of the ICC scam ) and David Becker followed by Jonathan Hall ( General Counsel of ICC) have a lot to answer for their fraud, misrepresentation, and professional malpractice that has impacted on Sri Lanka, a near bankrupt country, in multiple ways. The fact that they can walk laughingly to the Bank with the money that has been generated by illegal use of DRS is not only a display of their cunning but the lack of due diligence on the part of Sri Lanka’s Cricket Administrators, then and now.
The DNA of Ehelapola appear to run in the veins of some of our Cricket Administrators. By this very insensitive act without vetting the background of the South Africans such as David Becker and David Richardson who are co – religionists, the Chairman of the Committee (a man with a Chequered past in evangelical work) has shown that he has scant regard for the high end achievements of people of his own country that unfortunately belong to another faith. I hope that this interpretation of religious prejudice is wrong. But the primary blame for such thoughts to arise in others must be borne solely by Mr. Eran Wickremaratne, the Chairman of the Committee who has yet to show the spirit of cricket, fairplay and justice in the handling of the DRS issue.
Eran Wickremaratne calls himself an Evangelist. Such a man can never be neutral or trustworthy. A mindset focused solely on religious conversion can view other traditions as flawed. His choice of David Becker, a South African lawyer with a track record of misrepresentation and professional negligence and depriving Sri Lanka of due rewards, says it all. DRS does not interest Eran Wickremaratne for reasons best known to him.
He is duty bound however to ensure that Justice is done to the claimant of the invention ‘ Player – Referral’ – A Sri Lankan.
AI response
Local advocates frequently invoke the historical imagery of Ehelapola—a reference to Ehelapola Nilame, a prominent historical figure associated with internal betrayal in the Kandyan Kingdom—to describe local officials whom they believe failed to fiercely defend Sri Lankan intellectual property. Critics argue that both Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and successive sports ministries have not adequately lobbied the ICC to secure formal national accolades or potential financial royalties for Weeraratna’s foundational blueprint. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
The term “Modern Day Ehelapolas” in the context of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is a scathing historical metaphor used by local fans, journalists, and politicians to describe cricket administrators, officials, and occasionally players accused of institutional betrayal, corruption, and selling out the national game for personal gain. [1, 2]
The moniker draws directly from Ehelepola Nilame, the infamous 19th-century Kandyan courtier who allied with the British colonial forces to overthrow King Sri Wikrama Rajasinha, inadvertently leading to the downfall of the last independent Sri Lankan kingdom. In contemporary cricket discourse, calling someone an “Ehelapola” means accusing them of stabbing the nation’s beloved sport in the back for financial or political kickbacks. [1, 2]
Why the Metaphor is Used in SLC
The Vote-Buying “Kingdom”: Critics frequently compare the SLC administration to a feudal kingdom. Because of a constitutional system requiring 147 votes from localized clubs to win board elections, the same individuals have maintained power for decades by alleged vote-buying, creating an untouchable inner circle.
Misuse of National Wealth: Much like historical courtiers depleting royal coffers, modern SLC administrations face intense scrutiny over financial irregularities. Official Auditor General reports have cited massive corruption, including using cricket funds for luxury family travel, rigged procurement of stadium equipment (like Super Soppers), and the mishandling of international tournament tickets.
Inviting Foreign Interference (The ICC Ban): Just as Ehelepola invited a foreign power (the British) into Kandy, ousted SLC officials have historically been accused of running to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to trigger global bans on Sri Lanka as a weapon against domestic government oversight. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Sociological studies indicate that exclusive religious dogmas can directly contribute to mistrust and prejudice toward out-groups.
Key Instances Labeled as “Betrayals”
The “Ehelapola” tag is usually thrown around during major institutional crises:
Following disastrous World Cup outings, the Sports Ministry labeled the entrenched SLC board as “traitorous and corrupt.” Former President Shammi Silva and his committee faced fierce public backlash for defending their positions through courts rather than conceding to national interest.
The 2026 Government Takeover
In April 2026, under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the government stepped in forcibly to dissolve the board over fresh corruption storms. This forced a structural reset, installing a Cricket Transforming Committee led by Eran Wickramaratne to purge the “modern day traitors” from management.
Domestic Match-Fixing Cartels
The title is heavily pinned on local match-fixers and bookmakers. The recent criminal convictions under Sri Lanka’s tough anti-corruption laws—such as the High Court sentencing local cricketers and Lanka Premier League (LPL) team associates—are viewed as modern instances of individuals trading national pride for illegal betting money.
The Pakistan Tour Pull-out Scare
In late 2025, a quiet crisis emerged where several senior players reportedly attempted to coax teammates into abandoning a high-profile tour of Pakistan due to sudden financial and security manipulation, nearly sabotaging crucial sports diplomacy.
The Moving Front: Cleansing the Game
Driven by public disgust, Sri Lanka has enacted rigid legislation that criminalizes sports corruption. The current trajectory involves handing the reins over to respected cricketing legends like Kumar Sangakkara, Roshan Mahanama, and Sidath Wettimuny under the 2026 interim reforms—an explicit attempt to rid the administration of its “Modern Day Ehelapolas” and restore public trust.
Embracing David Becker without a ‘ De- Nazification ‘ vetting process the ICC allowed a man later discovered to be intellectually dishonest, professionally negligent in giving flawed advice to the ICC and indulging in Malpractice to embarrass the ICC. The Sri Lanka Cricket ( SLC) ( Cricket Transformation Committee) has repeated that mistake. Unfortunately.
The recent protests by rice farmers across Sri Lanka once again highlight the deep crisis facing the agricultural sector. Thousands of paddy farmers are voicing their anger over the government-announced purchase price of paddy, claiming that it does not even cover the cost of production.
The cost of cultivation has risen sharply over the past few years. Fertiliser prices have increased substantially, while farmers also have to bear the costs of seed paddy, labour, machinery, irrigation, transportation, and interest on borrowings. Many small-scale farmers have mortgaged their jewellery or borrowed money from informal lenders just to cultivate their fields. For them, a low paddy price is not merely an economic issue; it is a question of survival.
At the same time, the country witnesses the phenomenal rise of a handful of large rice millers. There are reports of these business magnates importing luxury vehicles and even rumours of plans to acquire helicopters.
Whether such reports are accurate or not, they have fuelled public perception that enormous profits are being made by purchasing paddy from farmers at low prices and later selling rice at significantly higher prices to consumers.
This disparity raises an important question: who really benefits from the nation’s rice economy? The farmers who toil under the scorching sun and depend on uncertain weather conditions, or the intermediaries and mill owners who dominate the market?
The government has both a moral and economic responsibility to protect paddy farmers. One possible approach would be to conduct thorough audits of the tax returns and financial declarations of major rice millers to ensure full compliance with tax laws. Sri Lanka collects substantial revenues through import duties and taxes paid by these large businesses. A portion of such revenue could be earmarked to establish a sustainable paddy purchasing mechanism and support scheme for farmers.
The state can intervene through agencies to purchase paddy at a reasonable guaranteed price, maintain buffer stocks, and prevent market manipulation by a few dominant players. Such an intervention would not be a handout but an investment in food security and rural livelihoods.
Rice farmers are the backbone of Sri Lanka’s food supply. They ensure that millions of families have their daily meal on the table. They are, in every sense, the breadwinners—or rather the rice winners”—of our nation. If the country fails to protect them today, it risks undermining both its agricultural heritage and its future food security.
A nation that values its farmers is a nation that safeguards its own survival. The cries of the protesting paddy farmers should not be ignored. They deserve a fair price, dignity for their labour, and policies that ensure prosperity rather than poverty.
The story concocted by Revisionists that Prince Siddhartha (later Gautama the Buddha) was born in Sri Lanka, which is rejected by the entire Buddhist world, if it takes hold, can lead to Sri Lanka being treated like a pariah state by the entire global Buddhist community.
The damage done to Sri Lanka would be colossal and inestimable. The Govt. of Sri Lanka must invoke Article 9 of the Constitution and nip this de-construction in the bud.
Accepting the historical revisionist claim that Gautama Buddha was born in Sri Lanka would cause severe diplomatic, economic, and cultural crises for the island nation. Because the global Buddhist community and modern scholarship universally recognize Lumbini, Nepal as the Buddha’s actual birthplace, promoting this alternative narrative isolates Sri Lanka on the world stage. [1, 2]
📉 Devastation of Religious Tourism and the Economy
Loss of Pilgrims: Millions of Buddhist pilgrims from Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and China would avoid Sri Lanka out of protest or structural distrust.
Economic Downturn: A collapse in arrivals would cripple the tourism sector, devastating hotels, local guides, and aviation revenue.
Loss of Foreign Aid: Wealthy Buddhist nations and international organizations could withdraw funding for heritage preservation and local infrastructure.
🏛️ Complete Loss of Academic and Cultural Credibility
Academic Isolation: Sri Lankan historians, archaeologists, and universities would face a loss of credibility, leading to exclusion from global research projects and international journals.
UNESCO Sanctions: Knowingly promoting fabricated historical claims regarding ancient sites could jeopardize the status of Sri Lanka’s current UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Loss of Soft Power: Sri Lanka would lose its respected status as a custodian of Theravada Buddhism, diminishing its cultural influence in global forums. [1]
🌍 Diplomatic Fallout and Geopolitical Strain
Rift with Nepal and India: Falsely claiming the birthplace of the Buddha directly undermines the cultural heritage and historical sovereignty of Nepal and India, severely fracturing bilateral relations.
Strained Regional Alliances: Traditional allies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with strong Buddhist identities would distance themselves diplomatically from Sri Lanka. [1]
⚡ Internal Social and Religious Polarization
Domestic Theological Rifts: The local Buddhist clergy (the Maha Sangha) would face severe internal division, pitting traditionalists against radical revisionist factions.
Rise in Extremism: Fabricated historical narratives often fuel ethnocentric extremism, which could worsen domestic social instability and fracture relations with non-Buddhist minority communities in Sri Lanka. [1, 2]
Would you like to explore how the Sri Lankan government and mainstream clergy are currently responding to these revisionist claims, or do you want to look into the archaeological evidence that establishes Lumbini as the official birthplace?
SLC seek expertise of David Becker, former ICC Legal Head on key reforms while facing intense public and legal allegations of fraud, misrepresentation, and professional malpractice.
SLC accused of Betrayal of Sri Lankan inventor of Player – Referral (DRS)
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has enlisted the services of former ICC Head of Legal, David Becker, to help draft its proposed new constitution as part of critical governance reforms. Ironically, Becker is a central figure in the long-standing intellectual property dispute surrounding the Umpire Decision Review System (DRS), which Sri Lankan lawyer Senaka Weeraratna claims to have invented in 1997 under the name “Player Referral”. Local critics and intellectual property advocates view SLC’s hiring of Becker as a deep betrayal of Weeraratna, given Becker’s history of legally blocking the Sri Lankan inventor’s claims at the international level. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
🏛️ The Constitutional Reforms and David Becker’s Role
Sri Lanka Cricket’s current Transformation Committee, chaired by Eran Wickramaratne, is driving structural adjustments to ensure the board complies with International Cricket Council (ICC) standards. [1, 2]
The Mandate: Becker, a prominent South African sports lawyer, was brought to Colombo to establish a governance structure aimed at eliminating vote-buying, political interference, and manipulation in cricket administration.
The Goal: Finalizing a transparent constitution that can pass local parliamentary approval and satisfy the ICC so that fresh democratic board elections can take place. [1, 2]
🏏 The Controversy: Senaka Weeraratna and the “Player Referral” System
Senaka Weeraratna, a Colombo-based lawyer, formally proposed the concept of a “Player Referral System” in 1997 through international publications like The Australian. [1, 2]
The Appellate Framework: Applying legal concepts to sports, Weeraratna argued that the absolute finality of an on-field umpire’s decision should yield to an appellate review by a third umpire using video technology. He also conceived strategic limits to avoid delaying the game.
The ICC Rollout: The ICC introduced this exact conceptual framework in 2008–2009 as the Umpire Decision Review System (DRS). While technologies like Hawk-Eye or Hot Spot are third-party engineering feats, the rules governing how players challenge decisions belong to Weeraratna’s conceptual blueprint.
The Anomaly: Unlike the rain-calculated Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method, the ICC has refused to credit Weeraratna or attach any inventor’s name to the DRS. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The decision by SLC to seek Becker’s expertise has sparked heavy backlash from local legal and sports circles due to his past defense of the ICC against Sri Lankan intellectual property: [1, 2]
As ICC Head of Legal, Becker issued an opinion stating the ICC Cricket Committee independently came up with DRS and was entirely unaware of Weeraratna’s work.
It effectively blocked Weeraratna from receiving initial international accolades and royalties.
The “Waiver” Defense
Becker argued that because Weeraratna published his idea openly in newspapers without a formal patent, he had “waived his right to confidentiality”.
This legal technicality allowed the ICC to commercialize and license the system globally without paying or recognizing the composer.
The Question of Notice
Becker’s stance relied on a “No Awareness” defense. However, evidence later emerged that a dossier of Weeraratna’s work was hand-delivered to former ICC GM David Richardson in Colombo in July 2008.
Legal critics argue Becker’s advice bypassed the Doctrine of Constructive Notice, making the hiring of him by SLC highly offensive to local IP advocates.
Cricket advocates in the country express disappointment that while Weeraratna has approached SLC countless times for support to secure global recognition, the local board has maintained a “deafening silence”—and has now instead chosen to pay the very lawyer who authored the legal briefs against their own countryman. [1, 2, 3]
https://share.google/aimode/fWwl6NbIWEZxpmWNc
Source: AI Overview
Former ICC Head of Legal David Becker faces intense public and legal allegations of fraud, misrepresentation, and professional malpractice stemming from a controversial 2010 legal opinion. This opinion systematically denied intellectual property credit to Sri Lankan lawyer Senaka Weeraratna, who conceptualized the “Player Referral” framework that forms the core architecture of cricket’s modern Umpire Decision Review System (DRS). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The controversy has escalated due to new evidence indicating that cricket authorities had direct, physical knowledge of Weeraratna’s work before implementing the system. This development has shifted the discourse from institutional oversight to potential criminal negligence. [1, 2]
The Core of the Accusations
The ongoing legal dispute and allegations of malpractice against David Becker center on the following core elements:
The “No Awareness” Defense: In 2010, Becker issued an official ICC legal stance asserting that the governing body was completely unaware of Weeraratna’s 1997 concept during their internal deliberations. He argued that by widely publishing the concept in international newspapers, Weeraratna had waived his rights to confidentiality.
Oversight of “Constructive Notice”: Legal experts and advocates for Weeraratna argue that Becker’s opinion fundamentally misapplied intellectual property principles. They assert that because the four-pillar “Player Referral” system was published globally in prominent media outlets nearly a decade before the ICC’s 2006 trials, the ICC is legally deemed to have had constructive notice of the concept.
Actual Physical Notice Discovered: Recent documentation reveals that in July 2008, the then-ICC General Manager of Cricket, David Richardson, was handed a comprehensive dossier on Weeraratna’s innovation during an official visit to Colombo. A second copy was delivered directly to the ICC in Dubai in 2009. Critics argue that maintaining a denial of knowledge while holding physical proof exposes Becker and the ICC legal team to liability as accessories to fraud and material misrepresentation. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8]
Parallel Developments in Sri Lanka
The public backlash against Becker has reached a unique intersection with local cricket administration. Even as these serious malpractice allegations circulate on independent forums like LankaWeb, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has independently engaged David Becker’s consulting expertise. He was brought on by the SLC Transformation Committee to advise on drafting a new, transparent constitution aimed at eliminating vote-buying and ensuring compliance with international sports governance standards. [1, 2, 3]
This dual role—being accused of subverting a Sri Lankan innovator’s rights while simultaneously drafting the national cricket board’s foundational governance document—has fueled significant institutional friction and debate regarding vetting standards within global cricket administration. [1]
To bypass internal ICC committees and challenge the legacy of Becker’s legal opinions, intellectual property advocates are recommending several tiered remedies: [1]
Professional Malpractice Lawsuits: Initiating formal misconduct complaints with statutory law societies against the advising attorneys for professional negligence.
Sovereign Intervention: Pressuring the Sri Lankan government to elevate the dispute to a state-level intellectual property protection issue.
Arbitration: Pushing both parties to mutually submit the authorship timeline to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne for a neutral verdict. [1, 2, 3]
If you would like to look closer into this dispute, let me know if you want to explore the specific timeline of Weeraratna’s 1997 media publications or the technical similarities between his original “Player Referral” architecture and the current DRS rules. [1, 2, 3]
Colombo National Hospital currently provides treatment to retired Major General Tuan Suresh Sallay following a hunger strike in Criminal Investigation Department custody under detention orders, amidst a refusal by authorities to grant him access to legal counsel.
Criminal Investigation Department Director Shani Abeysekera and Manori Sallay, the wife of Tuan Suresh Sallay, exchanged letters regarding the matter. Manori Sallay requested that her husband see his lawyer, Asitha Siriwardhana, five days a week. Replying yesterday, Senior Superintendent of Police Shani Abeysekera stated that because Tuan Suresh Sallay undergoes hospitalisation away from investigative activities, a need for legal advice does not arise at this time.
The Director noted that constant legal meetings could deprive the suspect of mental rest and adversely affect his health, adding that court orders restrict lawyer visits to Wednesdays only. Furthermore, daily access remains blocked for the lawyer because the family receives permission to visit daily.
Responding today, Manori Sallay labelled the denial of legal assistance due to hospitalisation illegal and deeply concerning. She emphasised that legal counsel represents a fundamental right of a detained person rather than a privilege withheld at the discretion of the department.
The hunger strike stems from physical, mental, and emotional pressure endured whilst in custody, placing the full responsibility for his safety on the Director. Despite a two-month detention, questioning occurred only on limited occasions, suggesting the prolonged custody serves to exert severe pressure rather than fulfil an investigative requirement. Rejecting the claim that the block protects his health, she insisted decisions regarding representation rest with the family and lawyers, not the accusing institution, and requested the immediate provision of legal assistance.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 07-13 June 2026
While the USA’s & India’s warships (& related NGOs) keep barging into & out of the country’s ports, bearing second-hand gifts and dishing out third-rate sermons about human rights, devolution, the rule of law, free & open oceans, etc., Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya was gracing the opening of the new Nippon Office Building, commissioned by the Sasakawa Memorial Trust, on Ward Place, Colombo 7. The trust is in memory of Ryōichi Sasakawa, a convicted Japanese Class A war criminal.
The day before the Sasakawa event, Amarasuriya informed Parliament that 267,138 children had dropped out of the school system between 2018-24 – many because the school system could not accommodate their needs, or their parents could not afford to keep them there. What perhaps-inadvertent yet subconscious messaging by the PM does this sequencing of events mean to convey? A country that cannot nurture or employ its people, let alone with dignity, must get rid of them somehow. Migration is not a possibility for everyone. Ryōichi Sasakawa’s answer to unemployment was to wage war, becoming part of an imperialist project that killed millions of Asians – genocidal acts Japan still refuses to apologize for, to Asians at least (see ee23May 2026). Despite Sasakawa’s support for Japan’s attack on the USA’s Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the USA still pardoned him and recruited him into their post-1949 Anti-China lobby.
The siting of the ‘Nippon Office Building’ on Ward Place is also redolent of history. Ward Place also sites the ‘Eye Hospital’, that has helped give sight to many an awkward eye. Ward Place also sites ‘Braemar’, the last residence of President JR Jayawardene. The now-deceased Jayawardene is credited with misusing the Buddha’s words to rehabilitate Japan (as well as forgive England’s reparations to Sri Lanka) at that 1951 San Francisco Conference, that excluded the USSR and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
*
On that same June day last week that PM Amarasuriya met the war criminal Ryōichi’s son – Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa – the Daily Mirror published an interview with the Ambassador of Japan to SL Akio Isomata, ‘warning’ Sri Lanka, ‘that opportunities for investment & export-led growth cannot be delayed indefinitely.’ Sri Lanka has to ‘capitalize on a Japanese-backed export-oriented industrialisation initiative designed to integrate Sri Lankan manufacturers into regional supply chains linked to India, Japan & wider Asian markets’ (see ee Business, Walk the Talk: Japan urges…). Indeed, their plan is to install ‘an economic caste system: Sri Lanka has to only produce ‘inputs’, India will capture ‘assembly margins’, and Japan shall capture ‘technology rents & FDI returns’ (see ee 23 May 2026).
Two days prior to the Sasakawa launch, Sri Lanka’s cabinet announced a new Japanese program called the ‘Employment Program for Skill Development’ to send workers to unnamed ‘key sectors, as [Japan] faces a shortage of local labor force due to declining population, and an increasing ageing population’ (see ee Workers).
Amarasuriya heads the ruling NPP government in parliament, which is unable (or does not wish) to control the merchants and moneylenders that have driven the country’s economy into a dead end. Instead, the government’s judicial tools are actively prosecuting leaders & officials of the previous government who had brought an Indian-sponsored terrorist war to an end, accusing them of numerous crimes, corruption & terrorism. Such acts appear bound to create an endless revolving door of revenge, as one government replaces another, in this expensive game of electoral roulette, where the unregistered Merchant Capitalist Party (MCP) always ends up the winner.
Meanwhile, the merchant media keep deploying euphemisms about ‘conflict’ & ‘oil crisis’ & ‘supply-chain disruption’, too afraid to name the perpetrators: that it is the USA & its armed poodles (EU+Japan) that are wreaking chaos around the world, and profiting handsomely, too.
*
‘From its creation to modern times, the USA
has been defined as a racial project’
Europe slaughtered 100 million indigenous Americans, and enslaved 4 million Africans, to brand that continent ‘The New World.’ Thus, begins ee’s 5th instalment of the Tricontinental Institute (TI)’s ‘Hyper-Imperialism: A Dangerous Decadent New Stage’. This excerpt of their monumental essay, details ‘The Evolution of Imperialism – the New Stage of Imperialism,’ pointing out that the US ruling class structure can only be understood by recognizing its white supremacist patriarchal character. Defining ‘Hyper-Imperialism’ by this history of genocide & enslavement, they track the concept’s core to the transition from England to the USA as an ‘Anglo-American Project’ (see ee Focus).
TI traces the modern origins of the term, imperialism, to the work of Hilferding & Lenin, and its basis in the domination of the economy by monopolies (which were anyway always the basis of ‘free trade’), and the switch from steam to electric power, which led to superprofits. TI describes the reorganization of the financial system after World War 2, with the formation of the World Bank & IMF, to enforce the convertibility of all currencies into the USDollar, and of the dollar into gold. NATO, formed in 1949 to dominate Europe and overthrow socialist countries, using ‘soft power’ at first (nominal independence, & economic subordination). In 1971 the US unilaterally suspended the US$’s convertibility into gold. Since the 1980s they have been moving to the overt genocide again, that they enact before our eyes alongside ‘neoliberalism’, whose features such as privatization, debt bondage, & the rigid enforcement of ‘intellectual property rights’, TI describes, culminating in the ‘rise of digital monopoly capital, exemplified by Google seeking to dominate the whole world (except for China, Russia, Iran, DPR Korea, Cuba, & a few others). They also examine the rise of imperialist ‘cultural, political & foreign policy hegemony’ made possible by the monopoly status of US technologies, including Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, X…’
*
‘Why don’t the educated have a public consciousness, a national & a social consciousness?’, mused SBD de Silva. ‘We lack a social & political history of the character of the local bourgeoisie, of the absence of nationalism & of the role of the bourgeois’ – there is no such account. English colonial governor Henry McCallum (1907-13) ‘hacked the unprogressive nature of the local bourgeoisie, saying they were not concerned about the rural masses, and only concerned about their private interests’.
England’s Donoughmore Commission (1927-31) reforms were implemented and a State Council was elected under universal suffrage in 1931. This ‘bourgeoisie’ in Sri Lanka had opposed the recommended grant of the franchise:
‘There is no compare to the rise of the Indonesian elite
who were nationalist, or to Kenya, or the Indian bourgeoisie.
Our local bourgeoisie had opposed the franchise, played
politics based on caste, & were collaborationist, despite
Kumari Jayawardena’s claim of their role in the independence
movement. It was not in the character of these bourgeoisie,
they were not one bit radical. The Left, the LSSP, was quite
overconfident about the anti-imperialism of the masses, and
its leadership. Outside the ranks of the Left, the bourgeoisie
were rentiers & traders, refusing to make concessions to the
masses. & they were caste-ridden. The politician Ponnambalam
Ramanathan opposed universal franchise as he felt that the caste
system was an integral part of the Hindu way of life. He informed
London, that he would change his political allegiance, if he
& his family were photographed with their queen.
*
Of course, it is curious why the English were so eager to ‘grant’ the franchise here, long before doing so in their other colonies. Certainly, the mass of workers & peasants remained unorganized after England’s savage repressions of the 19th and early 20th century (1818, 1848, 1915). We are also unclear about whether this fraction of ‘rentiers and traders’ could be called a ‘bourgeoisie’, like the ‘middle class’ that emerged in western Europe between their peasantry and landed gentry, to establish modern (machine-making) industrial capitalism. The ruling merchants and moneylender in Sri Lanka, sought quick profits, and feared industrialization would shape an organized working class.
*
The nature of Sri Lanka’s ruling class (ie, if they really do ‘rule’, and not merely ‘perform’) and the new fraction of ‘schooled’ wannabes that have emerged since 1948 (& 1956, in particular), is examined in the recently translated excerpt (see ee Focus) of Sena Thoradeniya’s keynote at the 2013 launch of Gunadasa Amarasekera’s novel Roopantharanaya. Thoradeniya, novelist & controversial author of Galle Face Protest; Systems Change or Anarchy? exposes the narrow criticisms of his positive reviews of Amarasekera’s literary takes on ‘the evolution of Sri Lanka’s middle class’. Thoradeniya’s analysis is exceptional for he examines literature & literary criticism through an unabashed Marxist-Leninist sweep of history & society. He criticizes false claims to a ‘political art’ and exposes the hubris of wannabes in a hurry to abandon their cultural ethos through the eponymous ‘hero’ of Gunadasa’s novel, who rises via infantile adventurism & NGO patronage to become a professor & diplomatic envoy.
The shallowness of Sri Lanka’s intellectual production is unbared by our degreed scholars (who revel in decorating themselves with such appellations as ‘Doctor’ minus the prescriptions & prognoses) who energetically manoeuvre to bask in borrowed feathers by adopting relatively unknown European role models. The more-obscure sophists adopt the fascist Heideggers & opportunistic Arendts & opaque Lacans; the more-shallow adopt the superficial Zizeks, while the old run-of-the-mill quote such anti-communist luminaries as Orwell. Economic analysts stick to limited framings of Adam Smith (minus his appeal to morality) & Maynard Keynes (minus his welfare to military budgets), and the more-untried utopias of Friedrich Hayek. Then there are those who love to repeatedly quote Lee Kwan Yew (minus acknowledging industrial city-state Singapore’s highly statist economic underpinnings) especially to hit out at the depredations of our purportedly Sinhala-Buddhist policies. Still more are those who declare Marxism dead, and when confronted with the reality of an insistently Marxist-Leninist People’s Republic of China, seek to divide that country into pre- & post-Mao Zedong, turn 1978 against 1949, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution vs the Reform & Opening-up.
Shiran Illanperuma (see ee Focus) concludes ‘only now do we have the data & empirical tools to begin to answer’ such riddles as to whether China’s Reform & Opening-up process in 1978:
‘Was a capitulation to imperialist capital & neocolonial globalization,
or part of a long-game to develop China’s productive forces so as to create
the material conditions for economic sovereignty & common prosperity.’
*
Illanperuma offers China’s story as a ‘model for Sri Lanka’ to adapt. With intricate statistics, he shows that ‘China has both integrated into the global cycle of accumulation and ‘delinked’’. Egyptian Marxist Samir Amin proposed the concept of ‘delinking’, stressing that ‘delinking was not autarky; it was the subordination of external relations to the imperatives of internal accumulation.’ Indeed, our media economists must repeatedly parrot the need for ‘exports’ failing or unable to explain that everything and at all times must be based on the long-term goals of the nation.
*
One of the more popular myths about plantations claim that they use the most advanced production techniques, even as the bulk of their workers still use methods (plucking, tapping, etc) 100s of years old. They even claim modern technological & management practices are demanded by their foreign ownership. Examine the repeated whingeing by the EU about food safety, the World Bank about food processing, and the USA about forced labor (see ee Sovereignty, Do-or-Die EU GSP+ bid spurs major reforms, etc). None of their pronouncements point out that the most basic human rights are the ‘right to develop’ & the ‘right to enjoy happy lives’, as China recently declared.
This ee Focus begins Chapter 11 of SBD de Silva’s 1982 classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, a chapter that focuses on ‘Plantations & Technological Stagnation’. de Silva compared various plantation crops across Asia, Africa & the Americas. His argument is complex, subtle & intricate. Many of the so-called changes in the growing & processing of plantation products have sought to ‘raise yields & output per acre, and to improve marketability & prices, rather than to reduce the unit cost of output’. Real productivity upgrades output per worker through use of higher technology & skills. Wages are forcibly kept low, using archaic labor relations, to produce planation crops, whereas these plantations have not been able to dislodge peasant cultivators, ‘who have continued to supply the world market in their own fashion’. SBD also discussed paddy cultivation, and the exceptions to his thesis, evident in sugar plantations in the Caribbean, where a proletariat arose from the ranks of independent small farmers, and tin mining in Malaysia, though such endevours too end up as having limited possibilities for extensive development.
SBD’s most interesting discussion in this excerpt is how investment in science, physics & chemistry continually transforms the productive process, as opposed to investment in mechanical ingenuity. This led to a multiplication of ‘development possibilities’, and the diffusion of scientific knowledge & rationality throughout workforces & communities. He provides fascinating descriptions of the widespread effects of the brewing industry on food production, glass & bottling, as well as on agriculture. He also considers the cumulative changes in technology & science brought about by Japan’s small rice farms. SBD cogently argues why none of these changes are possible in plantations, due primarily to the colonial nature of its production, high overheads & low wages, which promote technological stagnation.
Sri Lanka is estimated to have up to three trillion cubic feet of natural gas in its offshore reserves, according to an interview published by The Sunday Morning.
Quoting Petroleum Development Authority of Sri Lanka RX Chairman Saliya Wickramasuriya, the report said the country also has the potential for several billion barrels” of crude oil beneath its seabed within territorial waters and the Exclusive Economic Zone.
The estimates are based on basin modelling and seismic data gathered over recent years, which have improved understanding of Sri Lanka’s offshore resource potential.
However, the report noted that commercial extraction is unlikely to begin in the immediate future, as the process of attracting investors and issuing exploration licences remains at an early stage.
Sri Lanka has recently introduced a new regulatory framework, including the Petroleum Resources Act of 2021, aimed at improving transparency and building investor confidence in offshore exploration.
Under the Explore Sri Lanka” programme, authorities have shifted from traditional bid rounds to an open licensing system, dividing offshore areas into smaller blocks to encourage wider participation by international energy companies.
According to the PDASL, several global firms have already expressed interest in exploring Sri Lanka’s offshore resources, signalling renewed momentum in a sector that has seen limited progress for decades. (Newswire)
I wonder why current government does not recommence this project
So much money has been spent several road shows were held , ministers were predicting that Sri Lankan lasses can offer dowry in barrels Oil and gas !
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), enacted in 1979 was introduced to address organized violent threats to the state. It has been widely debated domestically and internationally, yet its relevance is important to the country’s continuing national security environment.
Why the PTA Was Implemented
Sri Lanka’s strategic location places it at the crossroads of major maritime routes and regional geopolitical competition.
Since independence, Sri Lanka has experienced multiple forms of politically and ideologically motivated violence, including armed insurrections, separatist terrorism, religious terrorism and transnational terrorist influences.
Ordinary criminal laws were inadequate to address organized terrorist networks operating covertly and transnational in nature utilizing:
Witness intimidation and destruction of evidence in terror cases
International financing channels
Encrypted communications
Online recruitment platforms
Foreign ideological influence
The PTA was designed to give the state preventive and investigative powers in situations where:
Threats are pre-planned and covert
Evidence is difficult to obtain under normal procedures
Rapid disruption of networks is required to prevent mass casualties
Global Practice: Why Countries Retain Counter-Terror Laws
Sri Lanka is not unique in maintaining specialized counter-terror legislation.
The existence of special counter-terror laws is therefore not unusual.
Countries facing terrorism, extremism, separatist violence or transnational security threats have enacted laws that provide powers beyond those available under ordinary criminal law.
United Kingdom – Terrorism Act
United States – Counter-terrorism legislation enacted after September 11
India – Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)
Singapore – Internal Security Act
Australia – Counter-Terrorism Acts
The debate internationally is often on safeguards, oversight and accountability rather than the complete absence of counter-terror legislation.
Threats Sri Lanka faces:
Radicalization & Extremist Networks
Small but persistent radical groups linked to LTTE terror persists
Online terror /separatist promotion and radicalization remains a growing concern
Transnational ideological likely to influence local contexts
LTTE remains a proscribed terrorist organization in several jurisdictions
Overseas fundraising, propaganda and political lobbying networks continue to operate internationally
Social media platforms provide opportunities for extremist narratives and recruitment efforts
Radicalization can occur without direct physical contact through digital platforms
Easter Sunday type Threats
The 2019 attacks demonstrated that sleeper cells can operate undetected for years
Coordinated suicide attacks remain a realistic risk scenario
Fragmented Intelligence Environment
Intelligence warnings ignored due to poor coordination or oversight gaps
Terror networks exploiting institutional weaknesses
Maritime & External Threats
Sri Lanka’s strategic Indian Ocean location increases exposure to trafficking and external extremist influence
Arms, funds, narcotics and ideology can flow through informal networks
Political & Ethnic Risks
Community tensions can be exploited by extremist actors
Rapid escalation of violence remains possible
The risk is not war but –
Low-intensity, high-impact attacks
Lone-wolf or small-cell terrorism
Religious or ideological extremism
Cyber-enabled recruitment and propaganda
Encrypted communications and digital coordination
Foreign influence operations
Cryptocurrency and alternative financing channels
Artificial intelligence-assisted propaganda and recruitment
Cross-border financing and logistical support networks
Secret networks moving among civilian networks.
This means threats are:
Harder to detect
Faster to execute
More difficult to prosecute under ordinary criminal law
Scope of the Risk to National Security
The first responsibility of any elected government is the protection of its citizens & preservation of national security.
Nation’s sovereignty
Territorial integrity
Constitutional order
Public safety
The lives of its citizens
A failure to prevent terrorist attacks can result in:
Loss of civilian life
Economic disruption
Damage to religious harmony
Social instability
International reputational harm
The state therefore requires lawful mechanisms to identify, investigate and disrupt terrorist activity before attacks occur.
Why the PTA Is Necessary
Lessons from the Easter Sunday Attacks
The Easter Sunday attacks demonstrated that intelligence gathering alone is insufficient if authorities lack the ability to effectively investigate, monitor and disrupt emerging threats.
The attacks highlighted:
Terrorist cells can remain hidden for extended periods
Planning often occurs in secret using informal networks
Intelligence information may emerge before prosecutable evidence exists
Delayed intervention can result in catastrophic civilian casualties
These lessons reinforce the need for preventive counter-terrorism legislation before they materialize into attacks.
In such scenario’s PTA provides:
1.Preventive Power
Allows early intervention before an attack occurs rather than after harm is done.
2.Intelligence-Gathering Flexibility
Facilitates interrogation, detention, and disruption of networks during active investigations.
3.Legal Coverage for Complex Terror Cases
Terror cases often involve:
Multiple jurisdictions
Covert communications
Fragmented evidence chains
4.Deterrence
The existence of strong counter-terror laws may deter organized planning.
It is noteworthy that some of the strongest calls for repeal have come from groups and individuals who continue to maintain ideological or political links to former terrorist / separatist movements.
Criticisms Raised Against the PTA
Balancing Rights of Suspects and Rights of Citizens
Discussion regarding the PTA often focuses on the rights of individuals under investigation. However, democratic governments also have an obligation to protect the rights of ordinary citizens who are the targets of genuine suspects
Rights of Victims and Potential Victims
Rights of individuals detained under anti-terror legislation must be balanced against rights of innocent citizens who may become victims of terrorism.
Citizens must enjoy:
The right to life
The right to security
Freedom of worship
Freedom from fear and violence
Protection of children and vulnerable populations
Counter-terrorism legislation must therefore seek to balance individual liberties with the collective right of society to live free from terrorism.
No suspect has the right to attack & cause harm.
PTA has faced sustained criticism from human rights groups, legal experts, and international organizations.
1.Extended Detention Without Trial
Detention periods have been criticized as excessive
Concerns about lack of timely judicial review
2. Potential for Abuse
Allegations of use in non-terror or politically sensitive cases
Risk of selective enforcement
3.Confession-Based Evidence Concerns
Questions about reliability of statements obtained under detention
4. Limited Due Process Safeguards
Weak access to legal counsel in early stages
Burden of proof concerns
5. Impact on Civil Liberties
Fear of chilling effect on dissent or expression
How Valid Are These Concerns?
The criticisms are partly valid but not absolute:
Valid aspects
Any law with broad preventive powers carries risk of misuse
Historical cases in Sri Lanka and globally show preventive laws can be abused
Due process safeguards are essential in democratic governance
Contextual limitations
Terrorism cases are fundamentally different from ordinary crime
Delayed intervention can result in mass civilian casualties
Courts often struggle to handle intelligence-heavy prosecutions under standard criminal procedures
The issue is not only the existence of the PTA, but how it is implemented, supervised, and reviewed.
Retaining PTA – Recommended reforms
A balanced approach would focus on retaining the law with strong safeguards, such as:
Increase forensic and intelligence corroboration requirements
Arrests must precede basic criteria
Defined Scope of Application
Clear legal definition of terror-related activity”
Prevent application in ordinary criminal or political victimization cases
Rights Protection Guarantees
Guaranteed access to legal counsel within defined time
Medical and family access safeguards
Accountability for Misuse
Criminal penalties for deliberate abuse of PTA powers • Personal accountability for officials acting in bad faith • Independent review mechanism for complaints • Parliamentary oversight committee • Annual reporting on PTA usage
Retaining the PTA should not mean tolerating misuse. Officials who knowingly abuse counter-terror powers should face legal consequences.
Independent Monitoring Mechanism
Periodic review of all long-term PTA detentions • Independent review of complaints alleging abuse • Publication of anonymized annual statistics relating to PTA use • Regular Parliamentary review of implementation
Such measures would increase public confidence while preserving necessary national security protections.
Distinguishing Between the Law and Its Misuse
Criticism of the PTA often arises from instances where individuals believe the law has been improperly applied.
However, misuse of a law does not necessarily prove that the law itself is unnecessary.
The appropriate response to abuse is:
Stronger safeguards
Greater judicial oversight
Clearer legal definitions
Accountability for officials acting improperly
Rather than eliminating powers that may be required to prevent terrorism, reforms should focus on preventing abuse while preserving legitimate security functions.
Consequences of Repealing the PTA
The complete repeal of the PTA may create several operational and legal challenges:
Greater reliance on ordinary criminal law designed for post-crime prosecution rather than prevention
Potential intelligence gaps during active threat investigations
Increased reliance on emergency regulations after incidents occur
The choice is therefore not between having security powers and having none.
The question is whether Sri Lanka possesses an effective legal framework capable of preventing terrorism while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
The 2019 Easter Sunday attacks showed Sri Lanka, the need to be alert, strengthen intelligence networks including civil as well as implement a monitoring mechanism that is alert 24×7.
In this context, completely removing the PTA may create legal gaps in addressing high-risk security scenarios.
However, PTA cannot become a political tool and risk misuse and erode public trust.
At the same time, no democratic nation can afford to dismantle essential counter-terror capabilities in an era of evolving security threats. Most countries facing terrorism retain special legislation that provides investigative and preventive powers beyond ordinary criminal law, while attempting to balance those powers through oversight and accountability mechanisms.
Sri Lanka’s experience with separatist terrorism, religious terrorism and transnational security threats demonstrates that terrorism remains an evolving challenge rather than a historical issue confined to the past.
The lesson of both the conflict period and the Easter Sunday attacks is that waiting until violence occurs can have devastating consequences. The State must therefore possess the legal authority to prevent terrorism while simultaneously ensuring that such authority is exercised lawfully, proportionately and subject to oversight.
Therefore, the most sustainable approach is:
Retain PTA with strong judicial oversight, transparency, and clear safeguards limiting political victimization.
The recent engagement by Presidential Special Envoy for Foreign Investment Hanif Yusoof with American business leaders in Washington is undoubtedly a positive initiative.
Meeting representatives from major corporations such as Apple, Boeing, and Mastercard and presenting Sri Lanka’s potential in ports, logistics, renewable energy, technology, tourism, aviation, and healthcare sends a welcome message that Sri Lanka is once again open for business. However, attracting investors requires much more than conducting roadshows and making presentations abroad.
Investors do not invest in PowerPoint presentations; they invest in countries where agreements are honoured, approvals are timely, and policies remain predictable irrespective of political changes.
As an investor in Sri Lanka’s marine industry, my own experience illustrates why many local and foreign investors remain hesitant.
In 2012, I pursued the establishment of a yacht repair and boat-building facility. Obtaining approvals took nearly two years because of bureaucracy, multiple agencies, and political interference. Ultimately, the agreement was cancelled due to changing political circumstances and a lack of support from key decision-makers.
A similar experience occurred with the Modera Boat Yard project. Following all procedures and receiving board approvals, a foreign investment of approximately US$12 million was mobilised. Yet, after a change in political leadership, the project was opposed because it had originated under a previous minister. The landlord agency was pressured into terminating the agreement, and the investors were effectively expelled.
The result is visible today. Valuable harbour infrastructure remains underutilised, investment opportunities have been lost, employment has not materialised, and the country continues to speak of attracting foreign direct investment while simultaneously driving away genuine investors. This is not an isolated case. Across Sri Lanka, many investors encounter:
• Excessive red tape and prolonged approval processes. • Multiple institutions exercising overlapping authority. • Political interference in commercial decisions. • Frequent policy changes following changes in government. • Public officers unwilling to take decisions for fear of future investigations or persecution. • Uncertainty regarding the sanctity of contracts and investment agreements.
The Government frequently speaks of improving the ease of doing business. What investors seek, however, is not merely ease of doing business but certainty of doing business.
The message delivered in Washington—that Sri Lanka is open for business and ready to compete for investment”—will only be credible if investors on the ground experience the same reality.
The Board of Investment (BOI), for example, often requires prospective investors to open an Inward Investment Account and deposit funds locally merely to demonstrate financial capacity before their proposals are seriously considered. While due diligence is necessary, procedures should not become barriers that discourage genuine investors. Sri Lanka’s competitive advantage is undeniable. It possesses one of the world’s most strategic locations in the Indian Ocean, an educated workforce, democratic institutions, and significant potential in maritime services, logistics, renewable energy, tourism, and advanced manufacturing. Yet these advantages are undermined by institutional weaknesses. Singapore did not become an investment hub simply because of geography. It succeeded because investors knew that contracts would be respected, bureaucratic processes would be efficient, and political transitions would not jeopardise investments
Sri Lanka must learn this lesson.
The Cabinet should recognise the urgent need to depoliticise investment decisions and establish a stable and predictable investment framework. Investment approvals should be based on transparent criteria rather than ministerial preferences.
Agreements entered into by one administration must be respected by successive administrations. Public officials must be empowered to make decisions without fear of persecution, provided they act within the law and established procedures. The country does not suffer from a lack of international promotion. Sri Lanka has held countless investment forums and roadshows across the world over several decades. What Sri Lanka lacks is investor confidence. The most effective investment promotion campaign would not be another overseas presentation. It would be the testimony of existing investors saying: Come to Sri Lanka. The Government honoured its agreements, approvals were efficient, and our investments were protected.”
Until Sri Lanka eliminates bureaucratic delays, reduces political interference, and guarantees policy consistency, roadshows abroad will generate headlines but not necessarily investments. Foreign investors are not looking merely for opportunities. They are looking for certainty. That certainty remains Sri Lanka’s greatest challenge.
France is in a monumental economic, political, social, and even cultural mess, and is bankrupt due to its most generous welfare systems in the world, as France has a strong safety net for the unemployed and retirees. France’s most generous welfare system was introduced at a time when there were four workers for every one retiree. That’s now closer to two, and by 2050, it will go down to just one. Every 50 people in 1970, only one was unemployed. Today, that figure is four times higher. Fewer people contribute to the system, and more people depend on it. People stopped having kids, and the population became older. Not just that. A person is now expected to live ten years longer than in 1970, which is amazing. But it also adds ten years of pension costs that the state and the workers have to cough up. Everything put together results in the fact that France is no longer able to afford its generous public spending, and instead of making reforms, they historically just borrowed more money. Every year since 1970, the French have spent more than they earned. In some years, adding more than well over €100 billion to France’s public debt. But each time the government tries to make a change, the public explodes. This is France’s spending problem with Hindsight. So, if you’re not from France, and you mostly listen to international media, you likely have the wrong idea. The French need structural reform, and they cannot continue like this. But each attempt to change the system has resulted in massive public unrest. But there’s a reason why the opposition can mobilize millions of people In exactly one year from now, Macron is going to retire as the French president, and that gives him one last chance to get France’s finances under control. France had to be rebuilt after World War II. Not just its cities that were left in ruins, but also economically and socially. The leaders of the late 1940s had one bold vision called “sécurité sociale” (social security). The French economy was growing fast, often with over 5% of economic growth per year in the 1950s and 60s due to the African resources through colonial and neocolonial economic structures, and the population at this time was young and working. They rebuilt France with a system where the state guarantees health care, good pensions, and unemployment and family benefits for all citizens. Following the independence of its African colonies beginning in 1959, France continued to maintain influence over the region, which was essential for then-President Charles de Gaulle’s vision of France as a global power (or grandeur in French) that could rival British and American influence in the post-colonial world. Françafrique was defined by several features that emerged during the Cold War. The first was the African cell, consisting of the French President and his close advisors, which made policy decisions on Africa with the collaboration of powerful business networks and the French secret service. Another feature was the CFA franc, a currency union that pegged the currencies of most francophone African countries to the French franc. Françafrique was also largely based on the concept of institutional Coopération, which was implemented through a series of political, economic, military, and cultural treaties between France and its former African colonies. France also saw itself as a guarantor of stability in the region, adopting an interventionist approach that culminated in military operations averaging one a year between 1960 and the mid-1990s. A defining feature of Françafrique was the network of personal, informal, and familial links between French and African leaders. These networks often lacked oversight and scrutiny, which led to corruption and state racketeering.
By 1970, France had one of the most generous welfare systems in the world, and that’s when the party ended. The oil shocks of the 1970s shattered a dream, and this set France on a different path. Unemployment suddenly jumped from 2% in the mid 1970s to 9% by the late 1980s, creating a larger pool of people who were not contributing to the system, but they were depending on it. It was the start of a deep structural shift. Economic growth slowed, people had less money to spend, and families started having fewer kids. This all contributed to an aging population, but no politician dared to confront the deeper structural problems. Before the 1970s, the French government sometimes spent more and sometimes spent less than it earned. But after these shocks, they ran their first serious budget deficits, which came down to several billion euros per year. This could have been, in hindsight, a wake-up call. But instead, over the next decades, they only increased their deficits, adding tens and sometimes hundreds of billions of euros in debt every year. The model didn’t structurally change. It promised the same level of protection, but the underlying economy could no longer support it. In the 1990s came the first serious reform attempts. The response was immediate. Weeks of nationwide strikes brought the transport systems to a halt, and the government was forced to retreat. The same pattern repeated in the early 2000s, again in the 2010s, and later in the 2020s. Reform is now no longer just difficult; it is politically explosive. The French currently find themselves in a deadlock, and they must get their finances under control. And we’ve seen in 2010 with Greece what could happen if they don’t. The Greek economy accounts for just 2% of the total EU GDP, but its debt crisis cascaded across the continent. But France is good for 17% of the entire EU economy. This could seriously escalate, and the French have to do something. But if reform is so necessary, why do so many French voice opposition? So it might seem obvious that the French system needs to be reformed, but millions of people are against such reforms, and if you care to listen to their perspective, they might have a point. France is the second-largest economy in the EU, but year after year, they are spending more than they earn. This built up massive public debt, and as long as investors have confidence in the government’s ability to stabilize its finances, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem. So France wants to play in the same league as Germany, and for many years, investors saw it the same way; they considered an investment in France just as safe as an investment in Germany. And you can see this by looking at the credit ratings. So a credit score is basically a score that is given by certain companies or agencies about how risky an investment is in a certain country. And that’s where, in recent years, the picture has changed. France’s credit ratings have been lowered several times since the early 2010s, and now sit at a historically low level. Rising debt, weak economic growth, and a government consistently spending more than it earns lowered investors’ confidence. To make matters worse, after years of dropping interest rates, the European Central Bank has now started to increase the rates once more. For France, a country with an unusually large public debt, this is extremely costly. Over the billions of euros that it has borrowed over the years, it needs to pay interest. High interest rates equal high costs. This adds strain to France’s government budget. But reform is extremely difficult. The rupture began in 2005. That year, French voters were asked to approve a new EU constitution that was backed by nearly the entire political elite. The public voted against it. The constitution was later abandoned, but many of its key elements returned through a new treaty. This one was passed without another referendum in France, and for many voters it felt like a betrayal. This was seen as proof that major decisions were now made above their heads, in a system that no longer listened to them. In 2016, President Hollande pushed through a sweeping labor reform. Loosening hiring and firing rules to boost the economy. But the public backlash was immediate. Protests erupted across the country, and instead of backing down, the government forced the law through parliament without a full vote. In the next couple of years, unemployment went down by a few percentage points, but workers saw that the job market had changed. It had become harder to find a stable contract, and employers could now more easily fire their employees. This all contributed to a lasting impression that the people had of the government. When they proposed a reform, they asked the people to take a risk, but this often resulted in an immediate loss. While the benefits were delayed and uncertain. The government increased taxes on fuel. This was framed as a climate measure, and for many people, especially in the countryside, the extra cost for fuel landed immediately. For many of them, driving wasn’t optional. They had to drive to go to work. The benefits of paying more for fuel felt distant and unclear. Well, the cost was immediate and painful. This sparked the yellow vest protests. At its peak, hundreds of thousands of people were protesting nationwide. But what made this moment different was who showed up. It wasn’t just union members or activists, but this time the movement was joined by middle-class workers, retirees, and small business owners. A government attempt to reform wasn’t interpreted as a shared effort for the future, but as an unfair burden placed on those who were already struggling. By the 2020s, the dynamic had fully flipped. Macron, in 2023, proposed to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, and people flipped out. Over a million people took to the streets repeatedly. So for the government, it comes down to a simple math problem. By 2020, there were only two workers left for every one retiree. At current demographic trends, there will only be one worker for every one pensioner by 2050. The French welfare system is incredibly generous, and to be a little bit more precise, an average person who is retired earns 98% of what an average worker does. And the French government saw a simple solution: To cut public spending, people had to work a little bit longer, so there were more people contributing for longer and fewer people who were dependent on the system. But their math may be wrong. The problem isn’t pensions. The problem is public spending. The French government spends more than half of all the money that its economy generates each year. No country in the developed world spends so much money relative to its GDP, but that’s not because of pensions. Little over a third of spending goes to social protection, and this is the part that includes pensions. There is a relatively high percentage to pay for social welfare, but increasing the retirement age isn’t a silver bullet. The French government pays a steep price for pensions. They’re really expensive. To be precise, they spend roughly 15% of their entire GDP each year to fund this system. That’s high and above average, but not much higher than the US or Germany, which both spend around 13%. But the French could retire at 62. That is much earlier than the US or Germany. This system was paid for in large part by the workers themselves. Over 28% of a worker’s income goes to funding this system. In almost no country do workers pay so much to save up for their golden years. And that’s what the government was proposing to change. France must indeed reform, and it’s a decision to do this by reforming pensions. But in 2010, this was already done. The retirement age was then raised from 60 to 62. And today, a decade and a half later, some estimates say that it didn’t cut government spending at all. While other estimates say that it actually increased government spending, as it added to higher unemployment benefits. So it was the same pattern all over again. The government first proposes a reform. The loss that people had to take was immediate, while the benefits were far away in the future, and they were uncertain at best. People voiced widespread opposition to these plans of the government, but regardless, it was forced through. Whether pensions should stay the same as they are, or that they should be reformed, is that this is a choice that ideally the French people should make with wide popular support. French politicians have often forced reforms through, despite widespread opposition from the people, and this has eroded trust. Now, France is struggling to keep its finances under control. And guess what? People are now skeptical of whatever politicians propose, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It is a fact that reform is necessary, but reform comes at a price. The core of France’s gridlock is that they cannot agree on how the burden of reform is going to be distributed, each time falling on the same people. These proposals hit society in different ways. Young, lower to middle income workers often enter the workforce earlier, they often work more physically demanding jobs, ,and they have more working years before they reach retirement age, as opposed to higher income earners who often spend more time studying. The problem is that the reforms that the French government is proposing always seem to lay the burden on those people who already have the fewest options, and the benefits for them personally are unclear and far away. France’s GDP per capita has been virtually stagnant since 2008, almost 20 years without real growth in per capita terms, while the French state has been borrowing like never before. Not only did France fail to grow, but it did so while spending without any restraint. In 2008, French public debt was 70% of GDP. In 2025, it was at 116%. By 2035, we expect France’s public debt to approach 125% of GDP, up from 113% in 2024, and among the highest in advanced economies. And that figure doesn’t even include the state’s future obligations, including pensions and healthcare. Half of the increase in debt since 2017 is due to fiscal adjustments, relief measures that Macron approved to stimulate the economy, and the other half to extraordinary spending to deal with the pandemic and the energy crisis. The French want more help from the state, but also lower taxes. And naturally, there’s no way to balance anything that way. So much so that France has not balanced its budget since the 1970s, and right now has the highest public spending of any OECD country. In 2024, France closed with a deficit of 5.8%, the highest in the entire eurozone. And the political chaos has been so great that two prime ministers have already fallen trying to push through budgets that cut spending. France currently has a completely divided parliament, weakened political parties, and a society that literally takes to the streets in protest whenever there is talk of cuts. French poll shows far-right leader Bardella winning presidential election. Le Pen’s party has practically everything it needs to win the presidency. And if that happens, France could take a monumental political turn right in the middle of the biggest fiscal crisis it has experienced in decades. But before the presidential elections, anything can happen: new cuts, more tensions, another prime minister falling, or even a much bigger political crisis. So now the questions are clear. Will France manage to reduce its deficit and curb its debt? What would be the implications if it failed to do so? And what will happen if the country undergoes the biggest political change in its recent history without having resolved anything? After the 2024 elections, the National Assembly was divided as follows. The left-wing alliance, Novo Front Popular, consolidated its position as the leading force with some 180 seats. The president’s allies, the centrist and moderate ensemble coalition, won 163 seats. And in third place was the National Rally and its allies with 143 seats. With a total of 577 seats, 289 are needed to achieve an absolute majority, and none of the blocks came even close. This means that any major proposal from structural laws to the state budget depends on almost impossible negotiations. The situation in the Senate is very similar. These seats are divided among the same three heterogeneous blocks that reflect the political fragmentation in the country. In France, there is a mechanism that allows the government to pass laws without a vote in the assembly unless deputies table a motion of no confidence that brings down the executive. This would guarantee that the budget would go ahead, but it could generate a huge political crisis. France has a deeply rooted culture of protest. Imposing a budget by decree could spark mass demonstrations, strikes, and social unrest that the government would prefer to avoid. France doesn’t face a US- style government shutdown because it can automatically extend the previous year’s budget. The problem is that this would worsen the deficit. The French economy has been accumulating structural problems for years that no one has wanted to address seriously. Having such a high debt means less room for growth and less capacity to invest in innovation, infrastructure, or industry. It means that the state is forced to raise taxes because it cannot finance itself in any other way. And above all, it means that an increasing portion of the budget is spent on paying interest. But it’s not only about the debt. The deficit remains high. GDP per capita growth is almost stagnant, and spending on pensions and healthcare continues to rise year after year. France is at the limit of its financial maneuverability. The most concerning thing is that this problem doesn’t seem to have a solution in the short or medium term. The main reason lies in how spending is distributed. A large part of the budget is allocated to pensions, healthcare, and unemployment. Another percentage is allocated to local governments, and the remainder is used to cover the basic functions of the state. This structure makes any attempt at cutting spending extremely difficult and politically unpopular because touching any one of these sectors generates immediate conflict. And this spending will continue to increase in the coming years. Without Political will, any structural reform is impossible. And with Macron, that seems very, very far from being achieved. Not only because of the fragmented composition of parliament, but also because of his party’s ideology, which makes it difficult to take unpopular decisions, even if they are necessary to stabilize the accounts. Jordan Bardella Le Pen’s heir apparent would win the French presidential election in all possible scenarios. According to polls, Jordan Bardella, leader of the national rally, would defeat any candidate in a second round. All projections point to Bardella becoming president. This means that France is heading towards a leader on the far right of the political spectrum, someone capable of breaking with the centrist tradition that has dominated the country for decades. But will he really be able to solve the deficit problem? The answer is a resounding no. There are clearly two currents within the right. On the one hand, there is the liberal right, which tends to favor open markets, foreign investment, and growth-oriented economic reforms. On the other hand, there is the conservative and protectionist right with a much more interventionist economic ideology, which prioritizes state control, aid to national sectors, and visible benefits for certain groups, even if that means increasing government spending. The National Rally fits into this second category. It is a right-wing party, yes, but its goal is not to reduce the deficit. Its focus is on turning traditional French politics on its head and consolidating its protectionist electoral base, not on balancing the state’s accounts. And although a complete economic plan has not yet been published, some of its proposals are already public and all point in the opposite direction to debt reduction. Among the most significant promises are repealing Macron’s pension reform, which would automatically increase spending in an area that accounts for almost half of the state budget, and reducing taxes in sectors such as energy and fuel, thereby decreasing state revenues just when they most need to be strengthened. What the national rally is proposing can be summed up as spend more, earn less. France has been polarized for years. With a president from a much more extreme party, that fragile balance will simply disappear. The French have the spirit of revolution running through their veins. When they don’t like something, they organize politically and take to the streets. And not just symbolically. France is one of the countries with the longest traditions of social mobilization in the world. Now imagine that same country with Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella in the LSC palace. A deeply polarizing figure rejected by a huge proportion of the population. The result is almost obvious. Permanent political instability. Every controversial measure could trigger massive protests. The street could erupt at the slightest spark, and that, for an already weakened economy, is pure poison. Because political instability doesn’t just scare away tourists, it scares away investment. It slows down activity. It increases spending, and it exacerbates existing problems. In other words, a national rally government would not only fail to resolve France’s fiscal crisis, but it would also probably make it worse.
Sri Lanka today finds itself navigating a delicate geopolitical balancing act between two Asian giants – India and China. Both nations have strategic interests in the island, yet their approaches to investment and engagement have been markedly different.
China moved swiftly and decisively into Sri Lanka’s infrastructure sector. It financed and built the deep-water port at Hambantota, the conference hall, and several other major projects in the South. Subsequently, Chinese companies negotiated agreements with a previous government and eventually secured a long-term lease of the Hambantota Port. In Colombo, China invested billions of dollars in the Port City project and retained a substantial stake in the reclaimed land. India, by contrast, has adopted a more cautious and selective approach.
Although India has increased its economic footprint by acquiring a controlling interest in the Colombo Dockyard PLC and through the rapid development of the West Container Terminal, Port of Colombo by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited, it has shown little enthusiasm for investing directly in the Sri Lanka-managed sections of Colombo Port City. Why is this so? The answer may lie in a combination of strategic, commercial, and political considerations. Firstly, Indian investors tend to be commercially driven and risk-conscious. They seek clear regulations, policy stability, and attractive returns. Colombo Port City, despite its potential, is still in the process of establishing itself as an international financial and business centre. The regulatory framework remains untested, and investors may prefer to wait and observe before committing substantial capital.
Secondly, there are geopolitical sensitivities. China already possesses a dominant presence in the Port City through its investments and land holdings. Indian investors may perceive that the strategic and commercial space available to them is limited or uncertain. In international business, perception matters as much as reality.
Thirdly, Sri Lanka’s development strategy for Port City appears heavily focused on real estate. Parcels of land are being sold to property developers to construct apartments, offices, and luxury residences. Developers are targeting affluent buyers, including Sri Lankans with foreign currency earnings.
However, real estate alone cannot transform an economy.
Singapore did not become a global success story by merely selling apartments. It attracted multinational corporations, technology firms, maritime service providers, financial institutions, and global talent. It created a Centre of Excellence that generated high-value employment and innovation.
Sri Lanka should pursue a similar model. Instead of concentrating solely on property development, the country should actively court global investors in technology, artificial intelligence, maritime engineering, renewable energy, logistics, and digital services. Why not attract companies associated with visionaries such as Elon Musk and other international technology leaders? Why not create incentives for offshore engineering firms, ship management companies, and international financial institutions to establish regional headquarters in Colombo?
At the same time, Sri Lanka should encourage India to participate more meaningfully in strategic projects such as the development of Trincomalee Harbour. Trincomalee remains one of the finest natural harbours in the world and presents enormous opportunities in energy, logistics, ship repair, and industrial development.
However, issuing ultimatums to India may not be the answer. International investment cannot be compelled. It must be attracted through transparent policies, commercially viable opportunities, and a stable investment climate. Sri Lanka’s challenge is therefore not merely to choose between India and China. It is to ensure that neither dominates its economic destiny. The country must maintain strategic autonomy while leveraging the strengths of both partners.
We are indeed at the mercy of these giants only if we fail to define our own vision. If Sri Lanka develops a clear national strategy, creates a business-friendly environment, and positions itself as a genuine centre of excellence in the Indian Ocean, both India and China – and indeed the rest of the world – will compete to invest in our future
For nearly three decades, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has treated the state as an instrument of personal power rather than a public trust. No external enemy—not Iran, not Hezbollah, not Hamas—has done more to hollow out Israel from within than a leader who repeatedly sacrificed the country’s long-term interests to preserve his own rule.
This is a grave charge—but the record sustains it. Netanyahu did not merely misjudge events or pursue failed policies in good faith. He systematically advanced a governing strategy designed to block any political horizon with the Palestinians, deepen national dependency on fear, and render himself indispensable as the sole guardian of Israeli security. In doing so, he left Israel weaker, more isolated, internally fractured, and far less secure.
From the outset, Netanyahu understood that a genuine peace process would threaten the politics on which he built his career. The Oslo Accords, whatever their flaws, opened a path—imperfect but real—toward a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu rose to prominence in part by discrediting that path and mobilizing opposition to Palestinian statehood.
Over time, this ceased to be a matter of skepticism and became an organizing principle of state policy: no Palestinian state, no credible negotiations, no transfer of real political sovereignty, and no end to a status quo in which Israel could continue to dominate Palestinian territory while stifling any prospect for a permanent solution.
His government’s support for settlement expansion was strategic. Every new outpost, every expansion of existing settlements, every effort to normalize permanent Israeli control over the West Bank served the same purpose: to foreclose the territorial basis of a two-state solution. Negotiations were never meant to succeed because success would require the very concession Netanyahu was determined to prevent—the recognition that Palestinians have a right to self-determination.
Among the most destructive elements of Netanyahu’s legacy was his deliberate exploitation of the division between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This was not simply a policy failure in retrospect; it was an acknowledged strategy. In 2019, Netanyahu defended the transfer of Qatari funds to Gaza as part of a broader effort to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, and said that whoever opposed a Palestinian state should support such transfers because maintaining that division helped prevent its establishment.
Netanyahu repeatedly advanced the false narrative of an existential Palestinian threat, embedding permanent fear within Israeli society. His policies—marked by harsh treatment and dehumanization—deepened resentment and ensured that successive Palestinian generations would resist Israel by any means necessary. In doing so, he knowingly fostered enduring defiance and a cycle of continuing violent hostilities.
For the same reason, Netanyahu refuses to release Marwan Barghouti, who has been in prison for more than two decades. Barghouti is the only Palestinian leader capable of uniting factions across the political spectrum and galvanizing broad support for a viable Israeli–Palestinian peace settlement.
Even more troubling, Netanyahu and his government now openly invoke the vision of Greater Israel.” This would profoundly destabilize the region as it would entail permanent control over the West Bank, Gaza, and potentially parts of Lebanon and Syria—crossing a critical regional red line, a recipe for inevitable disastrous regional developments in the years to come.
Netanyahu’s logic is deeply cynical. Rather than pursuing a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, he has favored a divided, adversarial Palestinian polity. Fragmentation and resistance, in his view, undermine diplomacy and conveniently justify his preference to avoid meaningful negotiations. Encouraged by the Abraham Accords, he believed that the Arab states would come around and normalize relations with Israel, even without reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
That strategy collapsed in the most horrific way on October 7, 2023. Although Hamas’s savage attack can never be mitigated or excused, Israeli leaders must be judged not only by what they condemn but by what they enable, ignore, or misread. Netanyahu treated Hamas as a manageable instrument and believed Palestinian fragmentation served Israel’s interests. Elevating that political calculus over strategic foresight helped create the conditions for disaster. Netanyahu’s claim to be the ultimate custodian of Israeli security did not survive what was the deadliest attack on Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.
The catastrophe in Gaza further revealed the moral bankruptcy of his leadership. Israel had every right to defend itself after October 7 and dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities. But under Netanyahu, the war became a war of revenge and retribution—identified by many as genocidal—with collective punishment, mass civilian suffering, and open-ended devastation.
The damage to Israel’s international standing has been profound. Given Netanyahu’s extremism, Israel’s isolation in Europe is at a high never seen before. The loss of support by a majority of the American public has reached an unprecedented nadir. A country that long claimed to be both democratic and bound by law, now finds its reputation destroyed by images of ruin, displacement, and civilian death, as well as by the growing perception that its war aims are inseparable from territorial ambition and obliteration of the Palestinian national identity.
International criticism of Israel today is not simply the product of old prejudice or reflexive hostility, though both exist. It is also a reaction to the conduct of a government whose actions have made Israel appear indifferent to Palestinian life and openly dismissive of a just political settlement.
That reputational collapse has strategic consequences. Alliances fray when trust is eroded. Diaspora Jews, especially younger generations, are increasingly pressured to defend policies they find indefensible. Antisemitism, already a persistent scourge, is inflamed further when Israel’s conduct under Netanyahu is taken—wrongly but predictably—as a measure of Jewish moral identity everywhere. In that sense, Netanyahu has not only endangered Israel; he has burdened Jewish communities worldwide with the consequences of his recklessness.
Nor has Netanyahu’s leadership strengthened Israel internally. After seventeen nearly uninterrupted years in power, he has left behind a public exhausted by permanent emergency, polarization, and the absence of any path out of wars he has lost. Israel was created to provide security, dignity, and sovereign agency, yet many Israelis today feel less secure. The state remains militarily formidable, but strength without strategy and power without legitimacy cannot produce lasting safety.
The demographic signals are troubling. According to the Taub Center, net migration turned negative in 2024 and remained so in 2025, with the gap expected to reach 37,000; the same report estimated population growth in 2026 would fall to about 0.9 percent, less than half the pre-COVID decade average. Emigration among Israeli Jews has risen over the past three years—warning signs of anxiety, fatigue, and eroding confidence.
Economic strain reinforces that anxiety. The Bank of Israel cut its 2026 growth outlook amid heightened uncertainty tied to the war with Iran, while noting 2.9 percent growth in 2025 despite prolonged conflict. The underlying reality is a society paying the price of Netanyahu’s wars, investor caution, labor disruption, and a government that has normalized crisis as a means of rule.
Netanyahu has not only degraded Israel’s domestic political horizon but also co-opted the opposition into supporting his wars. In times of conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, criticism of his corruption and manipulation faded, as both rivals and the public deferred to security imperatives, blunting meaningful political accountability.
Removing Netanyahu is necessary, but not enough. Israel will remain trapped until its leadership tells the public an unavoidable truth: there is no military substitute for a just political resolution with the Palestinians, and no durable Israeli security that can be built on Palestinian dispossession.
History will judge Netanyahu harshly. To cling to power, he shattered Israel’s moral legitimacy, diminished its global standing, and fractured its internal cohesion—betraying the very ideals upon which the state was founded.
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Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is the President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.
