Sri Lanka appears to have emerged from the worst phase of its recent economic collapse. Foreign reserves have improved, inflation is under control, and confidence has partially returned. Yet beneath the surface, the fundamental weaknesses that brought the nation to its knees remain largely unresolved.
Every day we read reports of the Central Bank purchasing dollars, introducing regulations to stabilize exchange rates, and government agencies proudly announcing record tax and customs revenue. Customs collects billions from duties imposed on imported vehicles, household goods, stationery, plastic products, and countless other items consumed by our people.
But taxation and import duties do not create wealth.
A nation becomes prosperous only when it earns foreign exchange through production, exports, investment, innovation, and services sold to the rest of the world.
Today, Sri Lanka continues to depend heavily on three vulnerable sources of foreign currency: tourism, worker remittances, and traditional exports such as tea, coconut products, spices, and garments. Any external shock, global recession, conflict, pandemic, or change in labour migration patterns can quickly destabilize these earnings.
This is not a sustainable model for a country aspiring to become a regional economic hub.
Trincomalee – The Sleeping Giant
For decades, policymakers have spoken about the strategic importance of Trincomalee. Yet little has moved beyond speeches, studies, and seminars.
Trincomalee possesses one of the finest natural harbours in the world. It has the potential to become an integrated industrial, logistics, energy, ship repair, offshore services, fisheries, and export processing hub serving the entire Bay of Bengal region.
If Sri Lanka is serious about economic transformation, Trincomalee must become the nation’s highest priority development project.
Instead of spending years navigating endless approvals, environmental clearances, committee reports, and bureaucratic procedures, the Government should establish a special economic regime with clear, transparent, and time-bound approvals for strategic investments.
Investors seek certainty. They do not invest where files move from desk to desk for years.
We Export Graduates Instead of Products
Every year Sri Lanka produces graduates in fisheries, marine sciences, engineering, information technology, and numerous technical disciplines.
Yet many leave the country because opportunities are limited.
Why are we not supporting fisheries graduates to establish export-oriented seafood ventures?
Why are we not encouraging marine technology startups?
Why are we not developing value-added industries around our mineral resources instead of exporting raw materials?
The world’s wealthiest nations export knowledge, technology, and value-added products—not merely commodities.
Foreign Direct Investment Must Become a National Mission
The President heads a government with a strong mandate. This is the moment to introduce bold reforms.
State officials often fear making decisions because future investigations may question their actions, even when taken in good faith to facilitate investment.
This culture of fear has become one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth.
Sri Lanka needs legislation that protects public officers who act transparently and honestly in facilitating approved investments.
Corruption must be punished severely.
But honest decision-making must be protected.
Otherwise, no official will take responsibility, and every project will remain trapped in bureaucracy.
Port City Alone Cannot Save the Economy
The Port City project is a valuable national asset. However, selling apartments and office space alone will not generate the economic transformation Sri Lanka requires.
The country must attract multinational corporations, technology firms, offshore engineering companies, marine services providers, energy enterprises, and global financial institutions.
Singapore did not become successful merely by constructing buildings.
It became a centre of excellence that attracted global talent, international businesses, and high-value industries.
Sri Lanka should follow a similar path.
India Must Become a Strategic Development Partner
India’s investment in Colombo Dockyard demonstrates the importance of regional partnerships.
The next logical step is large-scale investment in Trincomalee.
India has strategic interests in the region. Sri Lanka requires capital, technology, and markets.
The interests of both nations can converge in Trincomalee.
What is needed is urgency.
Time Is Running Out
Sri Lanka cannot afford complacency.
We cannot depend forever on remittances, tourism, and traditional exports.
We cannot celebrate tax collections while neglecting wealth creation.
We cannot continue debating while competitors such as Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and the Gulf states aggressively attract investment and create jobs.
History rarely gives nations a second chance.
Sri Lanka has been given one.
The question is whether we will seize it—or waste it.
The President, Parliament, public servants, and private sector leaders must act with courage and speed.
Otherwise, we may once again find ourselves like crabs dancing in a pot already placed on the fire, unaware of the danger until it is too late
Star-studded launch planned for Home Lands’ Port City project valued at US$300 million
The announcement of a US$300 million luxury residential development in Colombo Port City has generated considerable interest. While such investments are welcome, Sri Lanka must ask a fundamental question: Is Port City merely going to be a collection of high-rise apartments, or can it become a genuine Centre of Excellence that drives economic growth and foreign exchange earnings?
History offers valuable lessons.
Several decades ago, Singapore transformed itself from a small trading port into a global business hub. Rather than focusing solely on property development, it attracted multinational corporations, technical experts, digital professionals, maritime specialists, and financial institutions. Foreign companies established regional headquarters there, bringing with them highly skilled expatriates, employment opportunities, technology transfer, and international connectivity.
The result was not merely a property boom but the creation of an ecosystem that generated sustainable economic value.
Sri Lanka’s Port City has the potential to follow a similar path.
Located strategically along one of the world’s busiest maritime routes, Port City can become South Asia’s Centre of Excellence for maritime services, digital technology, financial services, offshore engineering, logistics, and innovation.
To achieve this vision, policy makers should focus on attracting global companies rather than merely selling luxury apartments. Incentives should be designed to encourage multinational corporations currently operating from hubs such as Dubai and Singapore to establish regional offices in Colombo.
Vietnam is aggressively marketing itself as a destination for technology companies and manufacturing investors. Sri Lanka must compete by highlighting its educated workforce, strategic location, favourable time zone, and improving infrastructure.
Port City should be supported by world-class infrastructure including an independent and reliable power supply, high-speed digital connectivity, efficient transport systems, and streamlined regulatory procedures. Investors seek certainty and efficiency as much as tax incentives.
Equally important is the integration of Port City with the rest of the island. The Southern Expressway and Airport Expressway provide rapid access to Negombo, Colombo, Galle, Mirissa, and Matara. This connectivity creates opportunities for expatriates and professionals to live, work, and travel conveniently throughout the country.
A vibrant marine economy could further strengthen the proposition. Fast ferry and cruise services linking Colombo with southern coastal destinations would create new tourism and leisure opportunities. Marina developments, yacht services, boat building, marine engineering, and recreational water sports can become complementary industries that enhance the attractiveness of Port City.
The lifestyle component should not be overlooked. International schools, healthcare facilities, diverse culinary experiences, entertainment venues, cultural attractions, and a vibrant nightlife are all essential ingredients in attracting global talent. Skilled professionals and entrepreneurs choose destinations not only for business opportunities but also for quality of life.
Perhaps most importantly, Port City should not become an isolated enclave. Foreign professionals and investors should be encouraged to establish roots within Sri Lanka, purchase property in surrounding regions, engage with local enterprises, and contribute to the broader economy. The benefits must extend beyond the boundaries of Port City itself.
The ultimate measure of success will not be the number of apartments sold. It will be the number of global companies headquartered there, the amount of foreign exchange earned, the quality jobs created for Sri Lankans, and the international reputation the country builds as a destination for innovation and excellence.
Sri Lanka has a unique opportunity. Port City can either become another real estate development or evolve into a world-class Centre of Excellence that transforms the nation’s economic future.
Many economists in Sri Lanka have debated for years. In an open economy, foreign exchange can leave the country not only through legitimate imports but also through over-invoicing, transfer pricing, unnecessary imports, and disguised capital flight.
However, the challenge is to control outflows without discouraging genuine business activity.
Some possible measures are:
1. Strengthen Customs Valuation
Many countries use international reference databases to compare declared import prices with prevailing world prices.
If a container of low-value consumer goods is declared at twice the normal international price, Customs should automatically flag it for investigation.
2. Joint Monitoring by Central Bank, Customs and Inland Revenue
Import payments above a threshold (say USD 50,000) could be cross-checked against:
Customs declaration value
Bank telegraphic transfer value
Supplier invoices
Tax records of the importer
Any major discrepancy should trigger an audit.
3. Prioritise Essential Imports
During foreign exchange shortages, countries often classify imports into:
Essential (fuel, medicine, food, industrial raw materials)
Productive (machinery, export-related inputs)
Non-essential (luxury and easily substitutable goods)
Higher duties or temporary restrictions can be imposed on non-essential imports.
4. Country-of-Origin Verification
Some low-cost products are imported through intermediary trading companies in third countries, increasing invoice values.
Direct sourcing verification could reduce artificial markups.
5. Digital Trade Monitoring
A modern system linking:
Customs
Ports
Banks
Inland Revenue
Import and Export Control Department
would make it difficult to over-invoice imports and transfer money abroad under the guise of trade.
6. Encourage Domestic Manufacturing
Rather than banning imports, Sri Lanka should encourage local production of:
Building materials
Household items
Agricultural equipment
Marine equipment
Consumer goods
Every locally produced item saves foreign exchange and creates jobs.
7. Address Transfer Pricing
Multinational companies sometimes shift profits abroad through management fees, royalties, and inflated service charges. Strong transfer-pricing regulations can reduce this leakage.
The Balance Required
Sri Lanka’s economy depends on exports, tourism, remittances, and foreign investment. Excessive controls can create black markets and discourage investment. Therefore, the objective should be smart monitoring and risk-based controls, not a return to the rigid import licensing regimes of the 1970s.
Port of Trincomalee commands a large, natural and a wide body of sheltered water in Sri Lanka. The Port of Trincomalee could be developed to play a major role in this unique economic region considering its locational advantage, deep water port facilities, large hinterland for establishing industries and accompanied with quick land connection to Port of Colombo, with the expansion of express way network.
1. Proposed Action Plan
The Export Development Board has initiated a consultancy service to carry out the Feasibility study on market, technical and financial aspects for creation of business opportunities for layup and to receive the possibility of attracting investors to develop certain sections of Trincomalee Port to facilitate construction and assembly of structures related to marine and offshore sectors. This includes enhancement of Port facilities and continue layup stacking and stacking of structures of oil rigs and other vessel.
1.1. The Chairman/ CEO of EDB through a letter Sri Lanka Ports Authority(SLPA), has requested assistance from SLPA to collaborate with EDB to conduct the study and provide technical support whenever necessary for the feasibility study of marine and offshore sector development.
1.2. In addition to the Port related industry development in the lands of Port of Trincomalee, and explore the business opportunities in the field of marine and offshore sector related investment in Port of Trincomalee EDB is of the opinion that it can generate much needed foreign currency in the country and would be a great opportunity to overcome the ongoing crisis.
1.3. Currently, the Clapenburg area of Trincomalee Port, year marked to be used for development of a Repair and Construction yard to carryout marine and offshore sector related heavy engineering work.
1.4. the land parcel which may be require to develop marine and offshore sector facilities and the location for future LNG facility has been studied in the feasibility study has been done by SLPA .
Interested investors for the Development of a yard to carry out Marine and Offshore related work in Port of Trincomalee may be selected using an EOI (Expression of Interest) followed by an RFP (Request for Proposal) process through open competitive bidding process on prioritybasis with a view to entice foreign investors with FDI.
As an alternative to calling offers which may take long time Sri Lanka can approach Indian Government to request a G to G ( Government to Government ) investment proposal on PPP ( Private Public Partnership) basis with plans to allow local companies like ColomboDockyard to join,
2. Approval
Considering the above facts, EDB has proposed to Sri Lanka Ports Authority with Ministry of Industries may seek the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers to
1.
2.
2.1. Conduct EOI process from interested investors through open competitive bidding process for the Development of Marine and Offshore Sector in Port of Trincomalee followed by a RFP process once the prequalification is made from EOI process.
2.2. Appoint Cabinet Appointed Negotiation Committee and a Project Committee including technically competent officials and a treasury representative to handle all procurement matters pertaining to the Project and to determine successful proposals and make recommendations to the Cabinet of Ministers.
3 Proposed contents of the Cabinet Memorandum
CABINET MEMORANDUM m DEVELOPMENT OF MARINE AND OFFSHORE INDUSTRY
1. Background
Marine and Offshore is a key industry in Sri Lanka which is yet to be grown its full potential. SriLanka is blessed with several competitive advantages, compare to other regional countries who are reaping very lucrative benefits and strongly positioning for future opportunities. Sri Lanka has one of the best, safest and sheltered natural deep-water port located in Trincomalee
amongst other strategic ports such as Colombo and Hambantota located near the world’s busiest sea routes, where it is stated that nearly 200-250 vessels sail passing Sri Lanka per day from west to east and the country will benefit immensely if we venture into this market segment.
The Marine and Offshore industry can be developed in Sri Lanka due to its strategic location, with available competitive labor cost, technical capabilities, shipbuilding led industrialgrowth and with the government support through industrial parks, free zones, and special economiczones. Also, the absence of a marine hub between Dubai and Singapore is a deserving factor for the development of this sector. In addition to Oil and Gas exploration and development activities in offshore India has drawn a large traffic of Oil and Gas marine assets to go pass Sri Lanka for their jobs in India both in and out of India.
The Trincomalee Port is one of the largest natural deep-water harbors in the world. However, it hasnot been effectively utilized to its fullest capacityat present and has high potential to cater to the global Marine and Offshore
industry if properly developed. Also, the other ports such as Hambantota, Galle, Colombo can be developed or expand its capacity to provide Marine and Offshore Services.
By developing facilitates in the port of Trincomalee as the nucleus, the Marine and Offshore Engineering sector can contribute to the Sri Lanka Economy to generate high amount of foreign income. According to the available statistics from the industry and the projection for next few years, the country could earn US$ 10bby year 2034. By developing Offshore Construction projects, it is expected to generate income to Sri Lanka from 2025 to 2030 over 10 billion US $
In Sri Lanka there are few Sri Lankan companies who are able to provide most of the servicesrelated to Marine and Offshore Sector, particularly for all Oil Rig Layup facilities.
The Term Lay-up” means ships are temporarily taken out of regular operations/service and placed on idle mode due to lack of business, lack of cargo, freight rates are not feasible to operate, having major repairs to be carried out or that the ship is arrested by law” or is under sale or waited to be scrapped. When ships are placed on lay-up, they are either berthed inside port at quayside with safe mooring or tied to a Mooring” at a safe anchorage location in sheltered waters. Not many ports/locations in the world or in our region offers the above basic requirement to ships, however, Sri Lanka is blessed with the Ports of Trincomalee and Hambantota They Have successfullymanaged to intercept this market segment withthe aggressive and smart promotion/business creation by selected private Sri Lankan companies.
The Sri Lankan lay-up locations (Trincomalee, Hambantota, etc.) are located closer to major shipping routes – enables quick reactivation when business commence. Multiple Industries will also be benefited by developing this sector. Considering Oil Rig layup, repair and maintenance, sectors involved in logistic /supplies to rigs laid up, bonded ware housing companiesto store parts, Ship Chandeliers, Fuel suppliers to rigs, local companies involved in renting equipment. are directly benefited. Among the indirect benefits recognized are training locals and foreign personnel through uplifting existing curriculum in higher education relating to this sector, on charging fees, enticing Foreign Offshore Design/construction companies to utilize Port City facilities and tax benefits to establish their offices in Sri Lanka, Training Staff to get involved in pending LNG Industry in management.
However, Marine and Offshore Industry currently faced some issues which is a huge impact for thedevelopment of the sector. Some of the short-termissues faced by this sector are given below. Byaddressing the below issues, sector can contribute more to the economy soon.
1. Lack of Berthing facilities for Quayside lay-ups, servicing, and repairs of Rigs/Offshore Assets.
2. Lack of Mooring facilities for Anchorage work/lay-ups, servicing, and repairs of Rigs/Offshore Assets.
3. Rig Height Restrictions imposed by Sri Lanka Air force for vessels that can enter and stay at
Trincomalee Port for lay-up and other services.
3. Recommendation / Approval
In view of above, the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers is sought for the following short termpriority proposals.
1. To resolve the lack of Berthing facilities for Quayside lay-ups, servicing, and repairs of
Rigs/Offshore Assets.
Ashraff Jetty in Trincomalee has been selected as a suitable site to established berthing facility for large vessels and oil rigs (Capsize, max. 300 m long). Expand the Jetty to accommodate the berthing of large ships facilities to be upgraded to have good strong bollards and fenders.
2. To resolve the lack of Mooring facilities for Anchorage work/lay-ups, servicing, and repairs ofRigs/Offshore Assets.
To lay-up ships, a port should have ample berthing space at anchorage. Further, the anchorage position should be in sheltered waters protected against winds and waves. Trincomalee has these conditions and increase services into this business segment. Therefore, it is suggested to
fix mooring buoys for the identified ship layup locations within Trincomalee bay and providenautical mooring facilities in case coal or gas fire powered project in Sampur will emerge.
To resolve the Rig Height Restrictions imposed by Sri Lanka Air force for vessels that can enter and stay at Trincomalee Port for lay-up and other services. Due to China Bay Airport, Trincomalee flying path falling over the Trincomalee Port, the Sri Lanka Airforce has imposed restrictions to bringing ships over 45m of height. This is a bigbarrier for the growth and sustenance of the Trincomalee Port which is a natural treasure ourcountry is blessed with to earn much needed foreign exchange revenue and generate job /
business opportunities. The Sri Lanka Airforce conducts training school/flights and they consider the vessel height over 45m is a risk for their training flights. Sought out this issue with the Ministry of Defense and Sri Lanka Airforce.
investments to development Marine & Offshore industry in Sri Lanka under the leadership of
Sri Lanka Ports Authority can provide Night time navigation during the operations/
For night time navigation the ports need lights, buoys, and lighthouses to
ensure safety and maintenance can be outsourced to private parties. SLPA will beremunerated for these costs by increased traffic to the port for which it will receive port dues.
New deep-water oil jetty or CBM/SPM to be installed can accommodate larger mainline vessels up to 80,000 DWT with a maximum draught of 13.0 m.
New 350 m long jetty may be built with a draught of 12.0 m for an LNG floating storage hub atClappenburg Island.
Long term: marina and dedicated cruise berth in front of the city; 360 m long berth dredged at CD -11.0 m to allow for the largest cruise vessels with a maximum draft of 10 m currently in service.
The proposed high income generating projects are as follows
Invite Mega players from worldwide (i,e. Chinese, Singaporean
Keppel/Sembawang, South Korea Hyundai /Samsung) to invest jointly with Sri Lanka and initiate a plan to develop the Trincomalee harbour as an Offshore Construction center focusing on Ship /Tanker conversion / modification to FPSO(Floating Production storage and Offload) units.
Development of Trinco Tank farm as storage /slop reception facility for Super Tankers with future for a super-size graving dock
Initiate development of Offshore Wind Farm Construction can be initiated Promotion of PortCity can be done as the center of excellence in establishing design and digital outsourcing activities and invite local companies to development of Warehousing in Trincomalee. Colombo Corridor for Bonded warehouses
Establishment of an LNG power plant in Trinco to provide power to future Shipyard can also be considered
The problem I am facing is that nobody wants to take my advise
Religious freedom varies widely across the world in 2026. While Buddhism is practiced peacefully in many nations, there are countries where legal systems, state policies, or strong social pressures make it difficult for Buddhists to openly practice their faith. In this video, we explore 10 countries where Buddhists face legal or social restrictions, based on public laws, government structures, and internationally documented religious freedom conditions. ⚠️ This video is for educational and awareness purposes only. It does not promote hate or target any religion or country. The focus is on legal frameworks and social realities affecting minority religious communities. 📌 In this video, you’ll discover: ✔ Countries with strict religious governance ✔ Places where public Buddhist worship is limited ✔ Nations with heavy state control over religion ✔ Social pressures facing minority faith groups ✔ The difference between legal bans and social restrictions Understanding these realities helps promote awareness, dialogue, and global respect. 👉 Watch till the end for the full list. 👍 Like, 💬 Comment respectfully, and 🔔 Subscribe for more global insight videos.
A recent newspaper report highlighted concerns raised by a policy think tank regarding the quality of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in Sri Lanka. While the report correctly points out deficiencies in some EIA studies, it stops short of addressing a more fundamental question: Have EIAs become an instrument of environmental protection, or have they evolved into bureaucratic obstacles that unnecessarily delay development projects?
As an engineer who has been involved in planning and implementing infrastructure projects for several decades, I have observed both the strengths and weaknesses of the EIA process. Environmental protection is essential. No responsible developer would advocate the destruction of ecosystems, pollution of waterways, or displacement of communities without due consideration. However, the current EIA system often fails to achieve these objectives efficiently.
One of the biggest criticisms of EIAs is the quality of the reports themselves. In many cases, consultants are paid substantial sums to prepare voluminous documents running into hundreds of pages. Yet, a closer examination sometimes reveals that these reports are little more than cut-and-paste” compilations from previous studies.
A friend who sought an EIA for a proposed mini-hydropower project paid a considerable amount for the assessment. Upon reviewing the document, he discovered that portions of the report still contained the name of another client from an earlier project. The consultant had apparently forgotten to replace all references from the original document. Such incidents raise serious questions about the integrity and value of some EIA studies.
The irony is that these reports are often treated as authoritative documents by approving agencies. Lengthy reviews, requests for clarifications, public hearings, and committee deliberations can stretch over months or even years. During this period, project costs escalate, investors lose confidence, and opportunities for economic growth are delayed.
In many instances, the environmental impacts identified in EIAs are obvious from the outset. A road project will generate dust and noise during construction. A power project will affect land use. A harbour development may influence coastal processes. Experienced engineers and environmental scientists can often identify these impacts and propose mitigation measures without producing hundreds of pages of repetitive documentation.
The problem is not environmental regulation itself but the manner in which it is implemented. Too often, the EIA process becomes a procedural exercise focused on paperwork rather than outcomes. Consultants are rewarded for producing thicker reports rather than better analyses. Regulators are compelled to review extensive documents rather than concentrating on critical environmental risks.
There is also the question of accountability. If an EIA contains misleading, inaccurate, or copied information, there should be consequences. Consultants who submit substandard reports should face professional sanctions, and approving agencies should maintain a register of performance standards. The credibility of the entire system depends on ensuring that assessments are based on sound science and independent analysis.
A more practical approach would be to adopt a risk-based framework. Projects with limited environmental impacts should undergo a simplified and expedited review process. Comprehensive EIAs should be reserved for projects with significant ecological, social, or public health implications. This would reduce delays while allowing regulators to focus their resources where they are most needed.
Sri Lanka urgently requires investment in energy, transportation, water resources, housing, and industrial development. Environmental protection and economic development should not be viewed as opposing objectives. A well-designed EIA process can balance both. However, when assessments become little more than bureaucratic rituals or copy-and-paste exercises, they undermine public confidence and discourage investment.
The objective should not be to produce more reports. The objective should be to make better decisions.
An Environmental Impact Assessment should be a tool for informed development, not a mechanism that delays projects indefinitely while generating paperwork of questionable value.
Only then can EIAs serve the public interest, protect the environment, and support the nation’s economic progress simultaneously.
Sarath Obeysekera Marine Engineer and Former Chairman, Sri Lanka Ports Authority
Whenever the Islamic siege of Europe, including the UK, or the US is brought up, some insular Hindus react by arguing that Britain colonized India and now it’s payback time. Yes, Britain colonized India, looted $ 45 trillion worth of its wealth, and committed a massive genocide of Indians. As the researches of Dylan Sullivan have shown, this resulted in the genocide of 100 million Indians just between 1880 and 1920. Not only that, Europeans imposed the scourge of Christianity on Indians and laid waste to our educational institutions. They exacerbated the Hindu-Muslim and caste divides. They forced Indians into bonded labor, which is a form of slavery. No argument against any of these. Britain is not the only guilty colonizer. Many European countries have been guilty of colonizing Asia, Africa, and South America. Nobody would deny any of these gruesome facts.
However, that’s history. As Chanakya said in the Arthashastra, polity is underlined by pragmatism, not idealism. The UK is not colonizing India today. Besides, in the last 150 years, Europe and the US have led the way in innovation and wealth creation. Unlike in the pre-industrial era, India today doesn’t have any natural wealth. It’s extremely overpopulated. The average IQ of Indians is an abysmal 76 and this reality is only shielded by the achievements of the extremely intelligent clusters with a very high average IQ.
India is not going to benefit from an adversarial relationship with the west. It imports almost all hi-tech from the west even today. Thanks to socialism and caste politics (e.g., reservation), India is not going to emerge as an economic powerhouse in the AI-driven future unless a drastic reset is made and meritocracy and capitalism are embraced. This is why it’s all the more important that Hindus realize the importance of the west for their own survival. What do you wish for your child if he’s intelligent? You want him to go to an IIT and then to the US or UK for higher studies and find a lucrative job there. How can you then rejoice over the Islamic siege of the west? Besides, westerners are welcoming of Indians whereas Muslims are hostile to us. That alone should make our choice easy. Think of the worst case scenario where Muslims occupy significant power in western countries through demographic siege. Do you think the west would be friendly towards India then? Think of what Trudeau did when he had to dance to the tunes of Sikhs in Canada.
It’s just common sense. You don’t experience the sufferings of your ancestors vicariously. That’s history, nothing more. You don’t treat the descendants of colonizers as proxies of their ancestors to vent your frustrations out. That’s stupidity, nothing less. Every epoch has seen great civilizations rise and fall. India had its golden age as did Persia, Greece, and Rome. Today, it’s the west which offers the very best of civilization. Liberty, pursuit of wealth, indulgence in every aspect of life, high quality of living – you name it, it’s all in the west. Countries which have embraced the west have flourished, e.g., Japan, South Korea. At the dawn of independence, South Korea was dirt poor as India was, Today, it’s a very wealthy nation with an extremely high average IQ whereas India scores poorly on both metrics.
The fall of the west would lead to the destruction of India and the rest of the world. The west must thrive for India to thrive – or even survive. Christianity is already either dead or dying in the west. Many aspects of Hinduism such as yoga and dhyana would flourish in the west. Why abandon this natural synergy just because you cannot get over your insular thinking?
When Technology Meets Red Tape: The Reality Behind Sri Lanka’s Digitisation Drive
Digitisation or Paperisation? A Senior Citizen’s Experience
At my age, climbing several flights of stairs is no longer easy. Fortunately, my wife, a medical doctor, anticipated this challenge years ago and arranged for a lift to be installed in our home. To ensure reliability during power failures, I also installed a diesel generator.
I own a diesel vehicle and purchase fuel regularly. Yet when I attempted to buy a small quantity of diesel for the generator, the fuel station refused to sell it into a can without official approval.
I then entered the familiar maze of government bureaucracy.
The local authority provided a form. The form required certification by the Grama Niladhari. Thereafter it had to be forwarded to the Divisional Secretary for approval. Additional documents, including company registration papers, had to be submitted before I could legally obtain fuel for a generator installed in my own home.
The irony is striking.
We constantly hear speeches about digitisation, smart government, artificial intelligence and modern public administration. Yet the ordinary citizen is still expected to move paper files from one desk to another.
If digitisation is working, why must I collect signatures manually?
Why cannot the relevant officer verify my details online?
Why cannot approvals be granted electronically?
Why must a senior citizen travel between offices carrying documents that already exist in government databases?
This is not digitisation. It is merely old bureaucracy dressed in new language.
A truly digital system would allow citizens to apply online, upload supporting documents once, and receive approval electronically. Fuel stations could verify eligibility instantly through a central database. The process would take minutes rather than days.
The purpose of technology is to make life easier for citizens, not to preserve outdated procedures.
Sri Lanka does not suffer from a shortage of computers. It suffers from a shortage of administrative reform. Until processes are redesigned around the citizen, digitisation will remain a slogan rather than a reality.
The public is not asking for miracles. We are simply asking for a government system that works with the efficiency that modern technology already makes possible.
The wife of retired Major General Suresh Sallay, Manori Sallay, and their son reportedly have met the Chief Prelates of the Malwatta and Asgiriya Chapters yesterday (08), requesting their intervention to ensure justice for him.
Our correspondent reports that Manori Sallay and her son spent more than an hour in discussion with the two leading theras during the visit.
During the meeting, Manori Sallay has requested the Chief Prelates to act as an intermediary to help secure justice for her husband.
Free Lawyers Sri Lanka, an association of legal professionals dedicated to the rule of law, access to justice, and protection of fundamental rights, expresses profound alarm at the continued administrative detention of retired Major General Thuwan Suresh Salley for over 100 days under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
Mr. Salley was arrested on 25 February 2026 in connection with investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks. A medico-legal examination report (MLEF No. 50/2026), prepared by the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Colombo, following a court-ordered referral by the Colombo Fort Magistrate through the Chief Judicial Medical Officer on or about 4 May 2026, and filed in the Magistrate Court of Colombo Fort (report received on 18 May 2026), was accessed by Free Lawyers Sri Lanka. The findings were presented in court on 3 June 2026. The report reveals disturbing conditions of detention and significant deterioration in his health:
• Harsh detention conditions: Held in a small cell (approximately 6 ft 4 in × 4 ft) with 24-hour lighting, sleeping on the floor for around 40 days, presence of cockroaches and rats, restricted toilet access, and placement in a punishment cell for four nights.
• Invasive procedures: Subjected to a humiliating body search involving stripping and physical inspection in the presence of others.
• Physical effects: Significant weight loss of 6–7 kg in two months, intertriginous dermatitis, nutritional deficiencies (including Vitamin D insufficiency), marginally elevated blood sugar and cholesterol, and exacerbated pre-existing migraines.
• Mental health impact: Diagnosed with a moderate to severe depressive episode accompanied by prominent anxiety symptoms and features of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The forensic psychiatrist described these as typical of” torture or ill-treatment, noting a high risk of suicide. Mr. Salley reported feelings of internal collapse, nightmares, poor appetite, guilt, and constant stress.
While the report notes no acute external physical injuries and confirms he remains fit to plead and stand trial, it underscores the urgent need for comprehensive multidisciplinary medical and psychiatric care in a safe therapeutic environment.
Despite police claims of equal treatment, these findings highlight serious risks of ill-treatment and neglect in PTA detention. The Act’s provisions allow prolonged administrative detention potentially up to one year or more—without prompt judicial oversight or formal charges. Mr. Salley’s high-profile case draws attention to the plight of numerous other lesser-known PTA detainees who may endure similar conditions outside effective judicial scrutiny.
This situation raises grave questions about Sri Lanka’s compliance with its international obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), particularly ahead of the upcoming visit by the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT).
Free Lawyers Sri Lanka urgently calls upon the Government of Sri Lanka, the Inspector General of Police, the Criminal Investigation Department, and relevant authorities to:
1. Immediately ensure independent, comprehensive medical and psychiatric treatment for Mr. Salley and all PTA detainees in appropriate therapeutic settings, with regular access for family members and legal counsel.
2. Bring all detainees before competent judicial authorities without further delay, either to file recognizable charges or order their release.
3. Guarantee fundamental safeguards against torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention in all places of custody, in line with Sri Lanka’s constitutional and international commitments.
4. Initiate meaningful reform or repeal of the PTA to eliminate provisions enabling prolonged detention without judicial oversight.
We stand ready to engage with the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (as the National Preventive Mechanism), the authorities, and the forthcoming UN SPT delegation to provide detailed information and contribute to strengthening preventive mechanisms against torture and ill-treatment.
The case of Mr. Salley is not isolated. It reflects systemic vulnerabilities in Sri Lanka’s detention framework that threaten the dignity and rights of all persons deprived of liberty. Immediate action is essential to restore public confidence in the justice system and uphold the rule of law.
Maithri Gunarathna PC Former Governor Keerthi Tennakoon
A recent news item showed former students who studied in socialist countries joining hands with the Russian Cultural Centre to clean parts of Colombo. While such initiatives are commendable, they also remind us of a painful reality: Sri Lanka’s cleanliness problem is not caused by a lack of cleaning campaigns. It is caused by a lack of discipline.
Having studied in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, I witnessed first-hand how a society could function with remarkable order and civic responsibility.
During my years there, I never saw members of the public casually dumping garbage on roadsides, canals, parks, or public spaces. Waste collection was organized systematically, often during late-night hours when public inconvenience was minimized. The streets were clean not because thousands of people were mobilized for periodic cleaning drives, but because people simply did not litter.
In the student dormitories where we lived, responsibility was shared. Occupants of each floor were assigned duties to clean common kitchens, sweep corridors, and maintain shared facilities. Anyone neglecting these duties faced reprimand from fellow residents and administrators. Cleanliness was not considered somebody else’s responsibility.
The same discipline was visible throughout society.
Power cuts were virtually unheard of. Water supplies were uninterrupted. Telephone connections in residential flats were provided without the exorbitant charges common elsewhere. Residents did not have to worry about municipal rates and multiple taxes for basic services. The state planned, maintained, and delivered services with clockwork precision.
The Soviet system certainly had its shortcomings. Yet one lesson stands out clearly: a nation cannot progress without discipline, accountability, and respect for public property.
Today in Sri Lanka, millions of rupees are spent annually cleaning drains, canals, beaches, roads, and public parks. Within days, many of these places are polluted once again. Plastic bottles, food wrappers, polythene bags, and construction debris reappear because the mindset has not changed.
We continue to treat public spaces as nobody’s property.
The “Clean Sri Lanka” initiative will succeed only if it goes beyond slogans and ceremonial events. Citizens must understand that keeping the country clean is not the responsibility of municipal workers alone. Schools, workplaces, apartment complexes, businesses, religious institutions, and households must all be held accountable.
Local authorities should be empowered to impose substantial fines for littering. Public institutions should be evaluated on cleanliness standards. Schoolchildren should be taught civic responsibility from an early age. Apartment residents should share responsibility for maintaining common areas. Commercial establishments that pollute should face strict penalties.
Most importantly, political leaders must lead by example.
A clean nation is not created by one-day campaigns, media events, or speeches. It is created by a culture of discipline practiced every day by every citizen.
Sri Lanka does not need to copy every aspect of the Soviet model. But it would do well to adopt one of its most valuable lessons: public order and national progress begin when citizens understand that their rights come with responsibilities.
Until that happens, “Clean Sri Lanka” risks becoming another slogan. With discipline, however, it can become a national transformation.
I placed a snippet in face book about the precarious road side garbage dumped along the RDA road in Kimbulawala in Kotte
Irony is garbage dumped near the police post where the cops sitting inside surging mobile phone and does not bother about garbage on drain and next to the police post
When I told him they said Sir we cannot do much Public should learn !
The readers of a venerated newspaper from Guwahati noticed an unusual full front-page advertisement on 26 May 2026 stating that the English daily was not for sale. Grabbing the most important space for hard news (meant for valued readers who buy the newspapers every morning), the arrogant management did not hesitate to use the front page for an issue that could have been dealt otherwise. But the question remains, why the Assam Tribune management propagated the advertisement asserting that the acclaimed daily is not being sold to anyone. Refuting rumours on social media, the managerial authority took the unusual step that was read by the media observers not as a clarification, but overreaction to something appearing in the alternate media.
The strongly worded disclaimer/ statement with the sturdy line THE ASSAM TRIBUNE IS NOT FOR SALE claimed that the widespread speculation on social media regarding its alleged sale is unjustified. For the past 88 glorious years, The Assam Tribune has stood as an independent, credible and responsible institution committed to serve the nation and the people with integrity, courage and journalistic excellence,” read the advertisement, adding that the management reserves the right to initiate appropriate legal action against any individual, group entity found involved in creating, spreading or promoting such baseless and defamatory content.
Earlier in its verified social media account, the newspaper pointed out that the rumour was amplified by prominent personalities and even media outlets, many of whom apparently felt verification was an unnecessary formality. No official confirmation. No credible source. No due diligence. Just pure confidence and a share button, it added. For nearly nine decades, The Assam Tribune has remained committed to preserving the trust of its readers, and it will continue to do so in the years ahead. In an era where everyone claims to value journalism and fact-checking, it’s fascinating to see how quickly baseless speculation can be repackaged as ‘news’ simply because it trends online,” stated the newspaper.
The issue got momentum, when many Assamese social media users in the fourth week of May apprehended that the prestigious newspaper was already sold to industrialist Gautam Adani (Chairman of Adani Group) for around Rs 421 crore. It was later amplified by many prominent personalities, who also claimed that the management failed to pay the Assam Tribune employees for months and over 75 ex-workers were yet to get their legal financial dues which compelled them to approach the competent court. Needless to mention that, the social media respondents genuinely expressed their concern at the pathetic financial condition of the media house.
The history of newspapers in Assam of northeast India began as the first issue of Arunodoi (Sunrise) hit the market in January 1846. Published from Sibsagar in eastern Assam by the American Baptist Missionaries, the monthly publication in Assamese language continued its presence till 1879. The second Assamese monthly news magazine named Asam Bilasini started its publication in 1871 from Majuli river island by Deva Dutta Goswami and its journey continued till 1883. Several newspapers and magazines in Assamese later followed the footsteps where Dainik Batori emerged as the first daily published in 1935 by tea-planter Siva Prasad Baruah.
Eminent Assamese entrepreneur Radha Govinda Baruah founded the Assam Tribune group in 1939 and added a few other publications in Assamese language. First published as a weekly newspaper from Dibrugarh, it was brought to Guwahati and transformed into a daily in 1946. The diamond jubilee celebration of The Assam Tribune was graced by the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on 7 December 1999. On the other hand, its platinum jubilee was attended by PM Narendra Modi on 29 November 2014, where he highlighted the strength of media and the positive role it could play in transforming a society.
Lately, the oldest media group in northeast India faced a financial crisis and it was reflected in the official statements of Assam Tribune Employees’ Union, where it alleged delays in regular salaries and other due post-retirement benefits to the employees. The union organized a series of demonstrations at the office premise and even addressed a press conference claiming that a huge amount of money (advertisement revenues) was pending at Assam government’s information and public relations department. The management also echoed similar versions stating that it was expecting those pending millions of rupees urgently.
Amid all disturbing developments, the management handed over the responsibility of Dainik Asom, a sister publication, to a separate media house owner. The new owner, while taking leadership of the six-decade old daily on 17 September 2025, denied taking liability of over 75 employees (who were associated with Dainik Asom). The old management was supposed to clear all the dues for the ousted employees at the earliest, but it did not happen. Finally they knocked on the doors of the legal fraternity and the court had recently asked the Tribune management to pay them off.
The Guwahati-based media house was recognized as an honest news entrepreneur across the region. The Tribune group implemented the recommendations of the Majithia Wage Board in 2010 for the first time in the country. Just before evading the responsibility of Dainik Asom, the current batch of owners silently put their seven-decade-old tabloid Asom Bani to die silently. The mainstream weekly was merged with Dainik Asom as a Sunday supplement. However, the buyer didn’t own the weekly and thus it faced an unceremonious death. Asom Bani was last published on 12 September last year as a supplement, but the Tribune management did not issue any statement over its closure.
The media group, which witnessed and reported various important socio-political developments of the trouble-torn region like the medium school instruction movement, anti-influx agitation, sudden rise of separatist militancy, common social unrest, emergence of regional politics, etc with commitment to the indigenous population. Soon after the Covid-19 pandemic all newspapers in Assam faced existential crisis because of drastic fall of circulations and revenues. Media observers note that the Tribune house historically maintained credibility in disseminating information, editorials, and articles, but in recent years, these principles were largely compromised.
The Assam Tribune extensively covered the anti-citizenship act movement in 2019, providing significant space to public protests against the Union government’s initiative to politically support persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and Christian families from Muslim majority Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The coverage fuelled weeks of unrest in Assam’s Brahmaputra valley, with the narrative suggesting that the new citizenship law would undermine the Assam accord which was signed in 1985 to culminate the six years long anti-foreigner agitation.
Moreover, the people of Assam remember a series of biased media reports prepared for the English newspaper on the eve of a city press club election in 2020. Those low-credible reports were full of personal attacks against the then secretary of Guwahati Press Club, which ultimately put its hard-earned reputation at stake. Later when the particular scribe won an international award from Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign in 2021, the editorial desk denied space to it.
While the current financial status of Assam Tribune is dire, it was seemingly not created by the pandemic alone, but the habit of exercising editorial liberties without accountability by some of its ill motive news-desk workers, who made the situation worse. Those media professionals even after enjoying all benefits fomented disorder inside the institution inviting colossal troubles, when the management too remained a mute spectator, reasons best known to them only, which finally invited the disaster.
In 1989, five years after returning to Sri Lanka from the United Kingdom and Norway, where I had worked on offshore oil and gas projects in the North Sea, an unexpected opportunity changed the course of my life.
One afternoon, a friend visited my home and asked whether I would be interested in heading a government institution known as the Road Development Authority. At the age of 39, with a background in mechanical engineering rather than civil engineering, I was surprised by the suggestion. Nevertheless, I believed that management, discipline, and integrity were more important than professional labels, and I agreed.
My name was forwarded to the President. However, I later learned that the Secretary to the Ministry of Highways was not enthusiastic about the appointment and was reluctant to accept me as chairman.
Weeks passed. Then I received a message from the Secretary to the Treasury asking me to come to the President’s Office.
At that time, I had never been involved in politics. I had never met the President, nor had I met the Secretary to the Treasury. Wearing my best suit, I arrived at the President’s Office and waited nervously in the reception area.
Soon, the Secretary opened the door and called my name.
I walked into the President’s office. The President was seated with his senior secretary. He looked up and asked a simple question.
How old are you?”
Thirty-nine, Sir,” I replied.
He paused for a moment and then asked, Can you run the Colombo Land Development Board, which was later renamed the Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation?”
Throughout my professional career, I had never been in the habit of saying, I will try.” Instead, I answered confidently:
Yes, Sir.”
The President then instructed me to read the Act governing the institution and prepare to take over.
Within a week, my appointment letter arrived. A driver was sent to my house to take me to the Corporation’s office at Almanat Building, where I officially assumed duties as Chairman.
The very next morning, while being driven to the office, I noticed one of the Corporation’s tractors hauling a trailer full of earth at around seven o’clock in the morning.
I asked my driver to stop.
Opening the car window, I called the tractor operator and asked where he was taking the soil so early in the day.
Unaware that I was the newly appointed Chairman, he casually asked me whether I wanted some soil delivered privately.
I smiled and replied, I’ll let you know.”
Later that morning, I instructed security personnel to bring him to my office.
The poor fellow arrived visibly shaken when he discovered who I was. Rather than punish him immediately, I decided to let him go with a stern warning.
By then, word had already begun to spread throughout the organization that a new chairman had arrived with a determination to run a clean and disciplined institution.
That incident taught me my first lesson in leadership: people must know that integrity begins at the top.
The second lesson came only a few days later.
The Commissioner of Bribery contacted me personally to congratulate me on my appointment. During the conversation, she informed me that the Corporation’s Land Manager had allegedly solicited a bribe from her husband.
I immediately called the manager to my office.
Prepared in advance was a letter of resignation.
I confronted him directly and informed him that he had two choices: sign the resignation letter or face formal investigation by the Bribery Commission.
After a tense silence, he signed.
He then requested permission to return to his office to collect his personal belongings.
Instead, I instructed security officers to escort him directly out of the building.
The message was unmistakable.
Corruption would not be tolerated.
These early incidents marked the beginning of an extraordinary journey in public administration. Although I came from an engineering background, I quickly discovered that managing people was far more challenging than managing machines.
Technical knowledge can build roads, reclaim land, and construct infrastructure. But leadership requires courage, fairness, decisiveness, and the willingness to make difficult decisions when necessary.
My appointment by the President was not merely a career opportunity. It was a test of character.
Looking back today, I consider those experiences among the most valuable lessons of my professional life. They taught me that institutions can only be transformed when leaders are prepared to lead by example.
Sri Lanka’s public sector possesses immense talent and potential. What it requires is honest leadership, accountability, and the determination to place national interest above personal gain.
That was the principle I tried to uphold throughout my years of service to this country.
by Professor Nishan C Wijesinha of the German School of Medicine.
The Persian Gulf Formed when Ice Age glaciers melted and sea levels rose. Before that it was a river valley and dry basin called the “Gulf Oasis”. (Time frame as of Genesis 1:10).
In Biblical Genesis the Persian Gulf was already a sea by then, so whales, dolphins, humpbacks, and sharks would’ve been swimming there.
In Genesis 2:19, Scripture reveals something profound:
Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name thereof”.
Remember this included the great whales and the rest of the sea creatures.
Today the Persian Gulf still has whales, dolphins and sharks; but just fewer than the open ocean; because it’s now shallower than before the Noah’s flood.
On the open visions of the garden of Eden as expressed in the book of Genesis; the Euphrates River branches out as part of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, eventually merging with the Tigris to form the Shatt al-Arab, which discharges into the Persian Gulf. It shares tributaries like the Sajur, Balikh, and Khabur, and forms the four rivers of Eden alongside the Tigris, Pishon, and Gihon. (Notably Genesis 2:10 KJV – And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads).
The “Pong Pong tree” (Cerbera odollam); which is known as the “suicide tree”; throughout the ancient of days; is a tree which grows near the coastlines and was also instituted by God in the garden of Eden.
It got this reputation because the seeds/kernels are extremely toxic and have been used for suicide and homicide. The toxin is the chemical compound called “cerberin”, which is a highly potent cardiac glycoside.
In Genesis 2:25 – we read, that the very moment they both ate of the poisonous fruit which God warned them both, Adam and Eva of; they became naked.
(Clinically they both died the very moment they munched it’s fruit).
The cardiac toxins of it caused immediate cardiac arrest on them; as they were creatures born of flesh and blood; and were not born as Heavenly beings.
What’s more critical here is that Adam couldn’t see that when Eve offered him the fruit; that her body was already clinically dying of it’s poison.
The very presence of “the old serpent” the Devil made this distraction upon him.
When God called “Where are you Adam”? that’s the very moment they received back life.
Remember it’s conjunction where Jesus calls out to Lazarus:
(John 11:43b records;
“He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth”); and he came forth similarly out of death.
Sri Lanka’s rupee is under pressure, inflation is creeping up, and the debate over “money printing” is back in the spotlight. Did the Central Bank really print Rs. 2.1 trillion? Is money printing always bad? Who is actually responsible for the rupee’s depreciation? And are we heading toward another economic crisis? In this episode of Insight, former Central Bank Deputy Governor and economist Dr. W.A. Wijewardena explains: • Why exchange rate stability is no longer the Central Bank’s primary responsibility • The truth behind the Rs. 2.1 trillion money printing claim • How external shocks are impacting inflation and the rupee • Why Sri Lanka’s real economy remains vulnerable despite IMF-backed stabilization • Whether the country risks another debt crisis • What government and citizens must do to navigate the challenges ahead Watch the full conversation and share your thoughts in the comments.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 31 May – 06 June 2026
‘We have in the Tamil coolie a perfect machine for thecultivation of our tea, coffee, or other tropical produce.’ Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, Lovell B Clarence, 1896
The retired Chief Justice was celebrating the centenary of English rule in Sri Lanka. He had lived in the country for over 25 years, recalls SBD de Silva’s classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (see ee Focus). Justice Clarence was intimate with ‘tropical produce’. The plantation system, which derives from the system of chattel slavery, was first practised in the Americas, and ensured that children were also born enslaved, employing all members of the family for life. This system has informed the practices of wage slavery and the ‘human resources’ of Sri Lanka to this day, and SBD describes how the so-called ‘training’ imparted to plantation workers was primarily:
‘The conditioning of the labourer to adverse pay& working conditions involving the relentlessroutine of simple, repetitive tasks.’
SBD recalled that, in fact, no such other skills were imparted or required. The plantation system (neither modern, industrial nor capitalist) allows no use of technology to the majority of its workers (tea pluckers), whereas modern industrial organization has to entrust workers with expensive & complex machinery. On plantations, daily punishments were necessary, hence the reference to their routines as ‘tasks’:
‘The word ‘tasks‘ was suggestive of a moralistic basis on
which work was extracted. The expression originated
in the plantations of the Americas where the enslaved had
to be made obedient & industrious… The plantation kept
careful count & punished those who did not fulfil the
required amount of tasks just as Jesus Christ the
omnipresent overseer condemned them for neglecting
their religious duty. The Indian Labour Code, which
applied to plantation workers in Sri Lanka, asserted that
the eviction of the entire family of any worker who was
dismissed ‘preserved the sanctity of the family‘.’
So, while no use of machinery was to be allowed to the worker, the worker themselves were to be treated as machines. Hence the reference by the ‘Chief Justice’ (who, by the way, was an ‘acting’ CJ only for 1882). The recollections of the Chief Justices of Ceylon had also been a source of great insight to Karl Marx. In the last years of his life, Marx examined the 13th Chief Justice of colonial Ceylon 1877-79, John Budd Phear’s book The Aryan Village in India & Ceylon (1880), and the Colonial Council of India’s Henry Maine’s Ancient Law: on which English law (if they have such) is based to this day. While Marx called Phear a donkey, he (& Friedrich Engels) learned of Sri Lanka’s insights into the origins of class division, state formation, communal & private property (see ee 11 July 2020, Cool Marx on SL). Justice Phear, we should add, had an outré interest in linking the anthropological origins of the Sinhala to the marriage of China & Africa!
This ee Focus completes Chapter 10 of SBD’s classic (see ee Focus), which explains how the ‘largeness’ of plantations were neither an agronomic or technical necessity, but was due to justifying heavy management costs as well as the recruitment & treatment of labor. This in turn was due to absentee ownership (in Colombo & London), as well as the employing of migrant labor and paying them low wages. This primitive and inefficient plantation system has survived due to the colonial disabilities imposed on smallholdings, which are more productive than plantations. Rice cultivation, which is a much more complex endeavor, has also been deprived of important technological inputs (cooperative organization, irrigation, fertilizer, cultivation & harvest) which are left to the depredations of the finance companies, financed by imperialist ‘development’ banks, who promote their second-hand industrial machineries.
*
‘Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the USA, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.’
– US Constitution
Slavery is still legal in the USA. It was never fully abolished. The 1865 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which claimed to abolish slavery permits bondage in prison. Hence the hugely disproportionate incarceration of African & non-Anglo-American men & women in the USA to this day. That old world of always new ironies & contradictions made us recall that ‘13th loophole’ for enslavers, since the US government this week has threatened an additional 12.5% tax on imports from Sri Lanka & 54 other countries. They claim we have failed to prevent the entry of goods produced through forced labour. As usual the imperialists’ own mouthpieces in Sri Lanka, the chamber of commerce, and the rag traders aka apparel businesses, immediately squawked in dismay. Many of them rely on the USA as their single largest export destination. However, these chambers and traders and their channels will not point out to the USA’s own enslaved workers.
In November 2025, a lawsuit was filed against colonized Korea’s car companies Hyundai & Kia for using imprisoned labor in Alabama & Georgia violating some of the USA’s own internal states’ laws & public purchasing standards. The imprisoned workers are underpaid & mistreated, providing Hyundai & Kia an ‘unfair competitive advantage in the automotive sales market’; suppressing the wages and working conditions of the most oppressed affects all workers. In the USA most states require prisoners to work, and those who do, work for government agencies, even as most are forcibly kept idle. The lawsuit also points to children (many Mexican & Central American citizens) working in the Hyundai & KIA plants. Yet, child labor was purportedly abolished only in the 1940s.
So, when the US-funded National Peace Council, Amnesty International & the US Trade Representative stick their heads out of their thorny nests and crow like hungry birds in shrill unison about ‘forced labor’, all we can do is titter in a studied revulsion. The ‘coolie’ in Sri Lanka, contrary to the exculpations of politicians & separatist nationalists, is a product of the English government and their colonial satraps and grey sahibs in Delhi, Colombo and Jaffna, no matter their lamentations of the fate of the now-renamed Malaiyaha Tamils who they seek to counterpose to the reparations due to the highland Sinhala. The USA, however, cares not a pretty penny for slaves in Sri Lanka, but only about blocking any modern economic relationship with China…
*
England’s Ceylon Tobacco Company (CTC), owned by the British American Tobacco Co (BAT), as well as Unilever PLC, has been the subject & object of much of ee’s inquiries into the inordinate role they play, both in Sri Lanka’s economy as well as our culture (marketing, media, arts), etc (see ee 01 March 2025). The US-funded think-tank Verité, which is not known for their pugilistic style, per se, unless they are repeating the verities of the IMF, etc, should be congratulated for recently taking on Ceylon Tobacco Co & their massive avoidance of taxes (see ee Random Notes, English Smokes). Of course, Verité only mentions the company’s name just once, nor is there reference to CTC being a monopoly, which would normally be abhorred by the whoremongers of selective free-trade, let alone by the USA’s other yipping poodle Advocata. The CTC chairman Suresh Shah is also the head of the Catholic-Church-linked Hatton National Bank, and was responsible for privatizing national resources (SOERU) which would have given him & his sidekicks open access to state secrets, no? Nevertheless, while it bravely alludes, without naming CTC, to its promotion of fake news, it doesn’t mention CTC’s sponsorships of politicians, including footnote fetishist Harsha de Silva. Let us see where this leads them, though we wonder whether they will stop at this multinational behemoth alone, and extend their inquiries into the banks such as Standard Chartered, Citibank, HSBC, and other MNCs, that enable this drainage, and more importantly prevent investment in modern industry…
Why do these traders, merchants, moneylenders, their chambers of commerce & related thinktanks submit to a clearly unfair economic & political system? We suggest it is due to their stashing away of the country’s wealth in the banks & real-estates of the USA, England & Europe, and the knowing wink & a shrug by their related envoys who get to spend days in coats & ties and skirts in air-conditioned hotel halls, and issue nauseating, clearly hypocritical sermons on ecology & gender equality & the rule of law, while arming & waging horrific wars on the world. A Centre for Wealth Analysis is truly a crying need in Sri Lanka, even as the German government is fixated on continuing their funding of ‘poverty analysis’, which only serves to fatten the offshore bank accounts of selected economists & NGO operators, who toe the import-export plantation line… and its rooms…
The recent tremendous hikes of oil prices in Sri Lanka, over & above world indices, have seen calls for closer auditing of the actual shipments of oil coming, and if they correspond to this huge expense.
*
‘They are close to 3 times the average monthly import bill on petroleum.
These excessive imports could possibly be an incidence of over-invoicing
of imports to shift capital & US$s out of the economy disguised as
legitimate imports. With over 50% of the market being controlled by foreign
suppliers the risk of capital flight through these channels increases rapidly.’
– Dhanusha Pathirana, FB
*
This stashing away and related tax evasions also explain why our merchant media cannot get simple terminology exact. The current upsurge in turmoil is due to the latest US wars on Iran & West Asia, and yet the merchant media calls it an ‘oil crisis’. Even Muslim & Borah (who are Shia, and it’s their spiritual leaders, the Ayatollahs, being murdered) are happy to play tribal games and blame Jews & Zionists. But Israel is just the latest white settler statelet of Europe, the subsidiary of their subsidiary, the United Settlers of the Americas (USA). These Zionists running Israel are actually Nazis who helped send their co-religionists into gas chambers. The UAE etc are hand in pocket with Israel in genociding East Africa, and belong to the same Arab strains that allied with the Nazis. Israel is the USA, spiritual white settler model for the fascists. The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce is the USA. So are the thinktanks – Advocata (whose Catholics & Borahs & Chettiar – Maharajas – have an eerie fixation on menstruation, real-estate & car importation), IPS, Verite, etc, & media. The Persian Gulf (now reduced to the Straits of Hormuz) was closednot by Iran, but by the USA (& their shipping insurance agencies) from the very beginning. The incessant arrivals in Colombo of warships from India, Pakistan, Europe & Japan don’t intend to defend their countries from the greatest warlords the world has ever known, for whom peace is a provocation, whose actual ‘overcapacity’ is in weaponry for mass murder. Meanwhile, their NGOs have switched from attacking the Executive Presidency to attacking the Sangha. Perhaps it may also have to do with this season of Vesak & Poson, which acutely relates to the organization of agriculture (but this real ‘national question’ is neglected, instead the printed word is given over to ravings about saving exotic species of flamingos, leopards, snakes, ice caps, etc). There’s always something rotting in England and the impending visit this coming week of their ‘Lord Chamberlain’ commanded by the gay Charles III to visit the London Vihara, portends some ‘return’ is suppurating and in the offing (see ee Random Notes).
The Sangha like every other institution in this country – including University Professors, & bankers & CEOs – are a reflection of the constituencies they serve. The Sangha has an even greater history of serving the country – many are organically linked to the rural peasantry – and have given leadership to the resistance to colonial depredations, hence being recipients of both repression & inducements.
*
A pseudonymous article in the Wijeya Group’s FT on the X-press Pearl, by the anonymous ‘Lighthouse Guard’, takes up the cause of the ship’s captain who has been held without trial for several years. The Lighthouse Guard alludes to mysterious ways by which so-called corruption (tho in a merchant-run society it really should be termed ‘rentier business as usual’) and how the courts work. This week saw the President meet ‘privately’ with judges including those magistrates & judges pursuing high-profile cases against political opponents. We wonder if the Wijeya Group’s FT, if not the Seafarers’ Union, let alone the numerous Rockefeller-related agencies promoting the education of seafarers, could take up the cause of the lonely unnamed Sri Lankan seafarer held hostage in the USA for over a year now after the crash of that ship Dali, carrying curious containers headed for Sri Lanka, which crashed the Baltimore bridge. He is being held hostage along with a crew, of mostly Indian workers. If it helps to publicize his arrest, the FT could add that he is Tamil, which may get the NGO-oids going, but this involves confronting their wet nurse, the USA…
*
‘In the handful of media engagements I have participated in, I’ve
always found the line of questioning about the economy to be
deeply limiting & shortsighted. ‘What is the state of our reserves?
Will the rupee go up or down against the dollar?’ It is in the nature
of a financial speculator to obsess over day-to-day market fluctuations,
and we have all been taught to think like that. It is not the journalist
but the institutionalisation of neoclassical economics that is to blame.’
Neither JVP-NPP (in power, and yet having no power, other than to prepare for re-election to no-power) nor Opposition (nor merchant media) have a plan to stabilise the economy and spur growth. If they do, they are not telling. In this ee Focus, Shiran Illanperuma brilliantly explains how to analyse the media’s take on the economy. The ‘news’ turns out to be all about how to maintain the casino. He dissects the obsession with the rupee-dollar dance, and ‘money printing’. He shows why the US government (via their Federal Reserve – actually a cosa nostra of commercial banks, US Treasury, IMF, World Bank, ADB etc) has been so single-minded in ensuring the government cannot finance modern industry, undermining the country’s production structure. He also points out that the actual purpose of depreciation is to rob the wages of the worker.
‘Neoclassical economics has long abandoned
the bigger questions that classical political
economy & development economics sought
to answer: Why do nations get rich (or stay
poor)? How is society organised in the
production of value? Who are the winners
& losers in the distribution of that value?’
*
Europe’s invasion of Lanka began in 1505, and while their invasion of the Americas began with the attack on the Caribbean in 1492, their actual militarized ‘trajectory as a world hegemon’ began in Africa, with the capture in 1415, funded by Genoese capital, of Ceuta in Morocco by Portugal, the first European colonial power. Genoan capital moved to Lisbon, after their defeat by Venice, who then monopolized Europe’s access to the east. Thus:
For the 1st time in over 600 years, there is now a credible economic
& political alternative to the domination of world affairs by the
Europeans & their descendant white-settler colonial states. First,
is the socialist grouping led by China. Second, are the growing
aspirations for national sovereignty, economic modernisation,
& multilateralism, emerging from the Global South.
This explains the current rage and outrageousness, genocidal fury & advertised irrationality of the cacophonous concert of whiteness on naked display on the world stage, that seeks to take down the entire planet in a conflagration of fire. ee continues to detail the factors behind the daily news, through the Tricontinental Research Institute’s amazing study of ‘Hyper-Imperialism: a Dangerous Decadent New Stage’ (see ee Focus). We begin ‘Part II: Evolution of Imperialism – the New Stage of Imperialism’ which dates the attempt at a unipolar world order, midst the USA’s dollar monopoly and its switch from ‘a creditor to debtor nation’. Tricontinental examines the nature of the inter-imperialist rivalries, and the rapid advance of hybrid warfare (including sanctions), seizing other nations’ reserves, as it seeks to rely on its military (rather than economic) power, while manipulating its dollar hegemony and soft-power over digital media.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world, outside of the USA’s armed poodles, eg, Germany & Japan, are growing tired of its conceits. Tricontinental details the efforts to unite a fragmented underdeveloped world, who yet have a shared history. Sri Lanka sits & stands at the crux & crossroads of this earth-shaking endeavor and it is no wonder that the USA (United Snakes of Amnesia) are desperate, despite a seeming coyness (there is no US envoy in sight, even as they are gifting us secondhand & ineffective machineries, minus any attempt to promote modern manufacture of the parts these dilapidated buckets will soon need) to undermine our cultural fastnesses and prevent our alliance with both China & Africa, a historically anticipated, and burgeoning unity which will surely determine the path of the remaining 3-quarters of the 21st century.
The legal counsel for Former State Intelligence Chief Major General (Rtd) General Sallay has written to CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekara, demanding urgent medical intervention for his client.
He emphasised that prolonged detention conditions pose an immediate risk to life, noting that the State has a non-delegable duty of care towards individuals in custody.
The letter calls for the immediate transfer of General Sallay to a fully equipped hospital, urgent examination by independent medical specialists, continued access for family and legal representatives, and a written update on his medical condition.
The legal counsel warned that any delay or failure to provide necessary medical attention may result in civil and criminal liability for the relevant authorities.
The letter sent to the CID Director is below:
07th June 2026
SSP. Mr.G. S. Abesekara The Director, Criminal Investigation Department, Colombo 02.
Mr. Abesekara,
URGENT DEMAND FOR IMMEDIATE MEDICAL INTERVENTION AND TRANSFER TO HOSPITAL – Detainee Rtd. Major General Suresh Sallay.
I write in my capacity as Counsel for Retd. Major General Suresh Sallay following a family visitation conducted today by his wife, son, and brother.
The family observed that Mr. Sallay’s physical condition has deteriorated to an alarming and critical level. He was reportedly unable to attend the visitation without the physical assistance of two officers. During the visit, he informed his family that he has refused medication, saline, food, and water. He further expressed a belief that his death is imminent and requested that arrangements be made for the donation of his eyes. He also requested an immediate visit from his attorney for the purpose of executing his last will and other related legal documentation.
These statements and circumstances demonstrate a grave deterioration in his physical and psychological condition. It is apparent that he is no longer capable of making rational decisions concerning his own welfare, health, and survival. The prolonged conditions under which he is presently being held have, at the very least, created a serious and immediate risk to his life.
The State assumes a non-delegable duty of care toward every person held in its custody. Once an individual is deprived of liberty, the responsibility for safeguarding that person’s life, health, and wellbeing rests squarely upon the authorities exercising control over that individual.Any failure to discharge that duty in the face of a known and imminent medical emergency is a matter of the utmost legal seriousness.
You are hereby formally notified that Mr. Sallay requires immediate medical intervention by qualified independent medical professionals and urgent transfer to an appropriate hospital facility capable of providing comprehensive assessment and treatment. Any delay, refusal, or failure to act despite clear knowledge of his precarious condition may give rise to personal and institutional liability under the criminal and civil law of Sri Lanka.
Should General Sallay suffer irreversible injury or death while remaining in the present conditions despite this explicit warning, it will be open to the relevant authorities, courts, and investigative bodies to examine whether such conduct amounts to a deliberate disregard of a known and foreseeable risk to life. Those responsible for decisions concerning his continued detention and medical care may be required to account personally for their actions and omissions.
Accordingly, I demand that:
1. Mr. Sallay be transferred forthwith to a government or private hospital equipped to provide urgent medical treatment;
2. He be examined immediately by independent medical specialists, including psychiatric professionals if necessary; His legal representatives and family be granted reasonable access to him;
3. A written update on his medical status and the measures taken for his protection be provided without delay.
This letter constitutes formal notice. Any further failure to act despite knowledge of the circumstances set out herein will be relied upon in any future judicial, criminal, constitutional, or international proceedings arising from harm suffered by my client.
Yours faithfully,
Asith Siriwardena Counsel for Retd. Major General Suresh Sallay
