Since 2009, the UNHRC has overstepped its mandate, pushing demands that strip Sri Lanka of sovereignty — imposing foreign-run courts, forcing constitutional changes, and erasing LTTE crimes. These are political agendas, not human rights. Sri Lanka has also faced externally funded regime change. Nepal shows where this path leads: elected rule replaced by foreign-approved actors. Any elected government must act to protect the integrity of the Nation and its People, not to appease external powers. Sri Lanka must see these demands as a warning, never a roadmap.
Since 2009, the UNHRC has made a series of demands on Sri Lanka that go far beyond its mandate:
Hybrid courts with foreign judges – illegal under Sri Lanka’s Constitution, but the hidden expectation is to transfer judicial decision-making to outsiders, undermining sovereignty and setting a precedent that international actors can override domestic courts
Constitutional changes that dilute the unitary state– disguised as reform,” but designed to bypass Sri Lanka’s democratic and legal process, allowing external players who are not answerable to the people to decide national governance.
International investigations based on unverified NGO reports– outside UNHRC’s authority, but intended to replace Sri Lanka’s judicial system with external inquisitions, demoralizing the Armed Forces, weakening national security, and erasing the legitimacy of Sri Lanka’s victory over terrorism.
Selective targeting of Sri Lanka while ignoring LTTE terrorism– clear bias and discrimination, with the expectation to rewrite the narrative by erasing LTTE crimes and branding the State as the sole aggressor.
Repeated attempts to criminalize Sri Lanka’s war victory– in reality, an expectation to delegitimize the sacrifices of the Armed Forces, strip national pride, and keep Sri Lanka perpetually vulnerable to external dictates.
Every one of these demands is illegal in mandate, political in nature, and dangerous in expectation.
Beyond the illegality lies a coordinated attempt to weaken sovereignty and re-engineer Sri Lanka’s political and security architecture.
Parallel Warning: Nepal’s Experience
What is unfolding in Nepal today should serve as a grave warning to Sri Lanka.
Governance is being removed from elected representativesand transferred to externally approved actors. Foreign funded uprisings, driven by youth are being used as the tool to delegitimize entire political systems.
Sri Lanka’s Govt should not think that its popular vote” cannot be equally manipulated against them
Thenarrative of corruption — an easy sellable slogan — masks the real objective: creating a power vacuum where traditional parties and elected leaders are made redundant and in their place, individuals agreeable to international dictates are elevated to power.
The change agents are now masters at manipulating mentality of people. Social media can easily sway emotions against any Govt or Minister.
AI, algorithms, filters make people clueless as to what is fact or fiction!
This is a slow throttling of the Westphalian system of sovereignty, camouflaged as reform. Re-colonization is taking place without foreign boots — tragically, with people themselves enabling it.
Nepal’s institutions are increasingly bypassed;decisions are influenced externally, not by the will of its citizens. Citizens will be powerless. Those who resist risk severe repercussions if they challenge the new status quo
The result:foreign powers now hold leverage over Nepal’s governance structure, making it a pawn state under international management.
In Sri Lanka’s case – regime change has passed baton for the successor to complete the de-legitimizing of democratic governance through detrimental acts / legislation.
2015 – Co-sponsorship of UNHRC Resolution 30/1.
2015–2022 – Ousting of elected leaders, regime change by external engineering.
2023 – Central Bank made independent.” From the Govt
2024–2025 – Govt rushing to complete external tasks;
Danger of Internalization: If Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry ‘internalizes’ UNHRC’s demands, it means:
Turning illegal external pressures into domestic commitments.
Handing separatists a permanent state & hostile lobbies the keys to control Sri Lanka
Binding future governments (unlikely to be elected by the people) to foreign-dictated agendas
Erasing the sacrifices of the Armed Forces who defeated terrorism and subject them to mere uniformed personnel.
No sovereign nation has ever allowed the UNHRC to dictate its Constitution, judiciary, or post-war governance.
To do so would set a precedent of surrender — one that cannot be reversed.
Final Warning: Sovereignty cannot be Bartered
Sri Lanka cannot trade its sovereignty to please foreign powers. Any government that quickly implements illegal UNHRC demands — by making them part of domestic law — becomes a tool for outsiders. Such governments are only useful until the external agenda is finished; then they are the first to be discarded.
The government is walking a very thin line, distracted by false assurances of control, leaving no room to see the dangerous consequences they are creating for themselves.
Following these demands, as indicated by the Minister at the UNHRC, is a betrayal of the Nation, weakens the Armed Forces, and hands control to hostile foreign powers. What does the government gain? Nothing — only a fast track to its own removal. Already, external actors seem to be influencing key Ministers, seen in how new legislation is drafted with outside input. This is only fast forwarding the Ministers & the Govts exit from power.
An elected government exists to safeguard the Nation and its people. The moment it serves foreign interests over Sri Lanka’s, it becomes disposable — first to those outsiders who manipulated it, and then to its own citizens, who will demand accountability for its betrayal.
The message is clear: implementing UNHRC’s illegal demands at home is surrender.
Sri Lanka must reject these political pressures. Doing otherwise risks internal collapse, weakens national defense, and fast-tracks the government’s ouster. The government must remember — once it carries out these illegal tasks (Truth Commission, PTA repeal & new counter-terrorism law, foreign-influenced domestic tribunal, 13th Amendment implementation) it will be removed.
Once this Govt completes these tasks – they will be removed from power & another pawn” will be installed to carry forward next phase.
Shenali D Waduge
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— the proposed Sethusamudram / Sethudundaram project (a shipping canal or bridge between India and Sri Lanka through the Palk Strait) would have far-reaching implications for Sri Lanka.
Let’s break them down into political, geographical/environmental, and financial/economic aspect
1. Political Implications
• Strategic Balance in the Region
• India’s construction of a bridge or canal would consolidate its influence over the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar, potentially reducing Sri Lanka’s leverage over regional shipping routes.
• Sri Lanka may lose some control over maritime access currently enjoyed through its ports (Colombo, Trincomalee, Hambantota).
• Sovereignty Concerns
• Any structure close to Sri Lanka’s maritime boundary could raise disputes over territorial waters, fishing rights, and security zones.
• Sri Lanka would have to negotiate agreements on navigation, security, and customs.
• Diplomatic Rebalancing
• Increased Indian influence may push Sri Lanka to strengthen ties with China, the US, or other countries to balance power.
• Possible domestic political debates: Tamil Nadu’s proximity and links to Northern Sri Lanka could reignite sensitive ethnic or migration issues.
2. Geographical & Environmental Implications
• Alteration of Tidal Flows
• A bridge or canal may change the natural tidal exchange between the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Mannar, affecting fisheries and coastal erosion on both sides.
• Impact on Marine Biodiversity
• The area around Adam’s Bridge / Ram Setu is ecologically sensitive and rich in coral reefs, seagrass, and fish nurseries. Changes could reduce fish stocks for Sri Lankan fishermen.
• Increased Risk of Natural Disasters
• Changes in water flow might affect cyclone paths, sedimentation, and storm surges, with possible new coastal vulnerabilities for Sri Lanka’s northwestern shoreline.
• Navigation and Safety
• A bridge with limited height or a canal with depth restrictions could redirect certain ship types, possibly reducing future potential for Sri Lankan ports to act as transshipment hubs.
3. Financial & Economic Implications
• Competition to Sri Lankan Ports
• A direct navigable link between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea through Indian territory could bypass the need for ships to transship in Colombo or Hambantota, reducing cargo volumes and port revenues.
• Opportunities for Cross-Border Trade
• If well negotiated, Sri Lanka could benefit from joint ventures: ferry services, tourism corridors, or logistic hubs linked to the bridge.
• Fisheries and Livelihoods
• Northern Sri Lanka’s fishermen could face reduced catches or restricted access due to new security zones.
• Tourism Potential
• The bridge could also facilitate easier travel between southern India and northern Sri Lanka if immigration rules are liberalized — possible gains in pilgrim tourism, especially Jaffna and Mannar.
• Maintenance & Security Costs
• Sri Lanka may be required to upgrade its naval surveillance, coast guard presence, and customs capacity to manage increased traffic.
What Sri Lanka Could Do Proactively
• Demand a Joint Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and push for international oversight (UNESCO, IMO).
• Negotiate compensation / transit fees for loss of port revenues or fisheries.
• Develop Northern Ports (KKS, Mannar) as feeder hubs to integrate with new routes.
• Strengthen Navy & Coast Guard presence to secure borders.
• Market tourism / pilgrimage packages to Indian visitors using the bridge.L
Summary:
If India implements the Sethusamudram (or whatever Sethudundaram) project, Sri Lanka faces both risks and opportunities. Risks center on reduced port revenues, environmental changes, and sovereignty concerns; opportunities lie in cross-border trade, tourism, and joint ventures. The ultimate outcome will depend heavily on how proactively Sri Lanka negotiates terms and develops complementary infrastructure.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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The Colombo Robotics Meetup 2025” programme, organized collaboratively by the National Initiative for Research and Development Commercialisation (NIRDC), Sri Lanka Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA), National Enterprise Development Authority (NEDA) and Export Development Board (EDB) in partnership with NSBM Green University, was successfully held yesterday (12) at the NSBM Green University premises.
This programme, aimed at introducing robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related modern technologies to the agricultural sector while engaging small and medium-scale entrepreneurs, brought together over 200 participants, including entrepreneurs, students and innovators.
The event was attended by a distinguished group from academia, industry and the public sector, including Director of the Morph Lab at Imperial College London Professor Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Director General of NIRDC Dr. Muditha D. Senarath Yapa and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of NSBM Green University Professor Chaminda Ratnayake.
Dr. Muditha D. Senarath Yapa, Director General of NIRDC, delivered a presentation introducing NIRDC and emphasized the importance of new technologies for enhancing efficiency in Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector. He further highlighted how advancing related research could accelerate the government’s vision of building a production-based economy.
A key highlight of the event was the series of presentations on modern agricultural technologies.
The various countries in the World, both in the Developed and Under-developed areas are in utter chaos, with citizens moving en masse from the under developed countries to the developed world -North America and the European countries. One route is via North Africa and Italy to the European countries and Italy is finding it difficult to cope with the vast numbers of immigrants. The immigrants do not wait in Italy for long, they move on to the European countries. The fact that borders of European countries are unmanned helps them to move easily. Britain is finding itself unable to cope with the influx of refugees coming in from France, as of today(07/9/25) as much as over a thousand have somehow come in. The UK Prime Minister is lost in a quandry. All developed European countries like France, Germany are finding it difficult to cope with large numbers that somehow or other flock in.
Across the Atlantic ocean is another move from the southern countries to enter the United States of America via Mexico. This is a move mainly via Texas. President Trump has declared war with immigrants and is working on a plan to deport them en masse. President Trump is fairly unaware that the agricultural economy of his States like California and Texas depend on these illicit immigrants- it was they that did the task of plucking and packing the fruit and veg for years. The legitimate incumbents fight shy of attending to these menial tasks.
When and why did all this happen. This did not happen today.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw colonial empires, when the colonies produced the raw materials and industries all sprang up in the mother Developed countries. Living as a child in colonial Ceylon, everything we needed was made in Great Britain. .
Since becoming independent, the Third World countries mustered their resources and were helped in development – agriculture and industries. Universities, the depositaries of excellence in education played a major role. American and European countries came to the forefront to bring about development. Michigan State University provided the expertise to develop Bangladesh via the Comilla Programme which successfully created employment and doubled yields in Kotwali Thana, the experiment area.
The countries India, Sri Lanka, and African countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania were all making a sheer attempt at development- in agriculture and industry. In India President Jawahar lal Nehru with the active support of excellence in North American Universities spearheaded the Community Development Programme . In Sri Lanka and other countries, even in African countries like Kenya the Rural Development Programmes were carefully concentrated on. The aim was to bring about development. In this effort the countries were immensely helped by the United Nations organizations the FAO, UNIDO etc.
The countries were almost all democratic and they were fast developing. Countries like Sri Lanka and India managed to even feed themselves. The countries were , opening up land, establishing industries bringing employment to the people and also producing what the people required. Sri Lanka by 1970 even managed to be self sufficient in all food. Leaders like Nyerre in Tanzania, Nehru in India, Mahatir Muhammed in Malaysia and the Senanayakes and Bandaranayakes in Sri Lanka did wonders. I was an essential part and parcel of this development from 1955 to 1973 in Sri Lanka and speak from real experience.
The countries were fast developing. The World Bank did help the countries.
In the early Nineteen Seventies the Middle Eastern countries increased their oil prices threefold and Third World countries looked to the World Bank and the IMF for financial assistance. The United States then came up with the Structural Adjustment Programme when the countries requested assistance.
Countries were given funds provided they agreed to implement the provisions laid down in the Structural Adjustment Programme, the brain child of Milton Friedman of the Chicago School of Economics, intended to bring the Third World countries back under them- to be ‘colonies’ once again.
Instead of the gun, this time it was to enforce an economic model that caused the countries to become indebted, and submissive.
What were the provisions of the Structural Adjustment Programme?
the Structural Adjustment Programme liberalized the use of foreign exchange. The IMF prescribed that the countries should allow anyone any amount of foreign exchange for anything- for luxury travel, for importing anything, for foreign studies and advised the countries to raise funds by privatizing State assets and also by borrowing foreign exchange. The countries were required to give up all development programmes. The Private Sector was to be the engine of growth. (From How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka.(2006)
Earlier the countries had to manage with their earnings through exports and had to impose severe restrictions on the use of foreign exchange. I was a part and parcel, working as a Deputy Director of Small Industries in Sri Lanka attending to the development of small industries and also in charge of allocating foreign exchange to industrialists to import small machinery and also inputs for their manufactures. .
All this changed with the IMF enforcing the Structural Adjustment Programme on the countries that sought aid.
Professor Jeffery Sachs tells of what happened with this move in Africa:
Western Governments enforced draconian budget policies in Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. The IMF and the World Bank virtually ran the economic policies the debt ridden continent recommending regimes of budgetary belt tightening known technically as Structural Adjustment Programmes. These programmes had little scientific merit and produced even fewer results. By the start of the Twentyfirst century Africa was poorer than in the late 1960s when the IMF and the World Bank had first arrived on the scene, with disease, population growth and environmental degradation spiralling out of control. IMF led austerity had frequently led to riots, coups and the collapse of public services.(from Sachs: End of Poverty,2005)
Tanzania was also targetted. As stated by Cheryl Payer:
The IMF in routine consultations advised Tanzanian leaders that their reserves(of foreign exchange) were embarassingly large and might lead the country’s aid donors to reduce their contribution . A poor country, the IMF argued should not hold its reserves but spend them in order to develop more rapidly. They persuaded the Government to abolish the foreign exchange budgetary system, lift the controls on imports and consequently by the end of 1978 Tanzania had only reserves for ten days of imports. Then the IMF imposed its Structural Adjustment reforms. Tanzania which had a stable economy was broken down and brought to its knees.(From Cheryl Payer, Lent and Lost.)
My motherland Sri Lanka too had no foreign debt in 1976, when President Jayawardena went to the IMF for financial help. By 1994, when Jayawardena’s United National Party lost, the foreign debt was $ 6 billion. During the United National Party rule i.e. since 1977, the economy had been totally changed from a producer and sell economy , where all expenses had to be met with incomes, to a neoliberal import and live economy , where loans were freely obtained and the leaders never thought of repayment.(From: How the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Destroyed Sri Lanka(2021) by Garvin Karunaratne)
In this process the countries inevitably became indebted and could be controlled; they became ‘colonies’ once again.
So this is a long story of how many Third World countries were weaned to live on loans by the IMF imposing its Structural Adjustment Programme that created poverty resulting in a loss of jobs in the countries, making their people poor and not having incomes, with the result that they have to somehow bow down and submit to countries of affluence. This poverty, loss of incomes and employment in the Third World countries cause people to migrate to the affluent countries in search of a life of employment and incomes.
The only method of stopping this march of thousands from the Third World countries to the affluent countries lies is disbanding the Structural Adjustment Programme in total and finding in its place a programme that will enable positive development- employment creation in the process of creating what the country requires in agriculture and industry. This is a difficult task as the countries are saddled with a debt they cannot sustain with their earnings, but this is the only way ahead..
It is hoped that the eyes of the leaders of affluent countries will see what really did happen and make changes in development policy. This is a task that has to be done immediately before things do explode.
Garvin Karunaratne.Ph.D.(Michigan State University).M.Phil(Edinburgh) M.Ed.(Manchester)
Author of
How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternative Programmes of Success, (2006)
How the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Destroyed Sri Lanka(2021)
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IMAGE BY army.lk: Kokavil Memorial Site – Final Stand of Capt. Saliya Aladeniya (1990) Don’t worry sir, I will fight till I die.” These immortal words echo from this ground, where Capt. Aladeniya chose courage over retreat, defending his wounded comrades until the end. This site stands as a living tribute to Sri Lanka’s highest military valor.
In Geneva, they speak of justice. But here in Sri Lanka, we remember survival—and we defend those who gave their lives so our nation could stand.” –Palitha Ariyarathna
In Geneva, they speak of justice. But in Sri Lanka, we remember survival. Our soldiers those who stood against the most brutal insurgency in South Asia are now branded by foreign institutions as war criminals, thugs, and violators of human rights. This is not accountability. This is defamation. And it comes not from truth, but from selective memory and geopolitical bias. While the United Nations Human Rights Council continues to pursue the so-called Sri Lanka Accountability Project (SLAP), a new study published in The Lancet Global Health reveals a far greater crime: economic sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union have killed over 38 million people since 1970. These are not battlefield deaths. These are children who starved, elders who died without medicine, and families destroyed by economic collapse. Where is Geneva’s courtroom for that? Where is the global outcry for those innocent lives lost due to economic warfare? Instead, the focus remains on Sri Lanka—on the very men and women who risked their lives to protect civilians from suicide bombings, forced child recruitment, and ethnic cleansing. They call our defenders killers.” They call our protectors criminals.” But we know the truth.
Sri Lanka’s war ended in 2009. The LTTE a group internationally recognized as a terrorist organization was defeated. The final stages of the war were tragic, yes. But they were also decisive. The alternative was endless suicide bombings, child soldiers, and ethnic cleansing. Our forces fought not for conquest, but for Peace. And they did not fight alone. They moved forward with the merit of a mother’s hope,
the courage of youth, and the hope of a nation that refused to be torn apart. Let us speak clearly and without apology. The Sri Lanka Army held the front lines, liberated villages, and protected civilians from terror. The Sri Lanka Navy secured our maritime borders, intercepted arms shipments, and prevented coastal infiltration. The Sri Lanka Air Force provided strategic support, surveillance, and humanitarian airlifts under fire. The Sri Lanka Police, often overlooked, maintained civil order, investigated atrocities, and protected urban centers from sabotage. These are not criminals. These are guardians. Their uniforms carry the weight of sacrifice, not shame.
In the interest of historical clarity and national dignity, it is essential that we present the truth in full. The following comparison is not rhetoric it is a record. It reflects decades of suffering, sacrifice, and survival. It shows what Sri Lanka endured under the LTTE, and how our armed forces responded with discipline, duty, and humanity. The LTTE, from 1983 to 2009, carried out over 300 documented attacks on civilians, religious sites, and public infrastructure. They pioneered suicide terrorism, forcibly recruited children, assassinated national leaders, and held entire communities hostage. Their actions were condemned globally, yet today, some voices attempt to rewrite history portraying the Sri Lankan military as aggressors and the LTTE as victims. This distortion must be corrected. Our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Police did not target civilians. They protected them. They did not use suicide bombers. They rescued children from suicide squads. They did not desecrate temples. They defended them. They did not assassinate leaders. They prevented further killings. They did not divide the country. They restored peace.
Let us compare, point by point:
Category
LTTE
Sri Lankan Forces
Targeted Civilians
Yes — over 300 attacks on buses, trains, temples, and villages
No — operations focused on combatants; civilians protected through No Fire Zones and evacuations
Used Suicide Bombers
Yes — pioneered suicide terrorism with over 200 attacks, including Central Bank (1996), Temple of the Tooth (1998), and assassinations
No — suicide tactics never used; operations conducted under military law and command discipline
Attacked Religious Sites
Yes — bombed Buddhist temples, mosques, and churches; desecrated sacred grounds
Protected — deployed forces to safeguard Dalada Maligawa, Madhu Church, and Kattankudy Mosque during conflict
Recruited Child Soldiers
Yes — thousands of children forcibly conscripted into combat and suicide squads
Rescued — over 594 child soldiers rehabilitated by government programs post-2009
Assassinated Leaders
Yes — killed Sri Lankan President Premadasa, Foreign Minister Kadirgamar, and Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi
Prevented — neutralized assassination networks and protected political stability
Used Human Shields
Yes — held over 300,000 Tamil civilians hostage during final phase of war
Rescued — largest humanitarian extraction in South Asia; 295,000 civilians evacuated with ICRC and UN oversight
Violated Ceasefires
Yes — broke every peace agreement from 1985 to 2006; used ceasefires to rearm
Complied — upheld ceasefires, participated in all peace talks, including the 2002 Norwegian process
Ethnic Cleansing
Yes — expelled Muslims from Jaffna in 1990; massacred Sinhalese villagers in border areas
Prevented — restored multi-ethnic coexistence in liberated areas
Restored Peace
No — sought permanent division of Sri Lanka through armed struggle
Yes — restored national unity, ended terrorism, and enabled post-war reconciliation
This is the truth. It is not negotiable. It is not subject to revision by foreign tribunals or politically motivated reports. It is the lived experience of a nation that stood firm against terror and emerged with dignity.
In his recent Police Day address, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake openly acknowledged that respect toward the Sri Lanka Police has eroded in the public eye. This is not a minor concern it is a national crisis. The President’s words reflect a deeper truth: that the moral authority of our law enforcement institutions is being systematically dismantled. But this erosion is not limited to the Police. It is part of a broader, coordinated mission one that targets the entire tri-forces of Sri Lanka. Through cinematic campaigns, dramatic articles, and social media manipulation, a narrative is being spread that defames our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Police. This is not domestic criticism—it is an international operation. Travel bans are imposed. Geneva cases are filed. Fake human rights reports are circulated. And behind much of this machinery stands a foreign-funded Tamil diaspora network, whose interest is not reconciliation, but separatism.
These campaigns do not seek justice they seek to rewrite history, to vilify our defenders, and to weaken the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan state. They aim to dismantle the monopoly of our national institutions, especially those rooted in the protection of the Buddha Sasana and the constitutional unity of the land. Let us remember that King Dutugemunu did not fight for personal glory he fought to protect the sustainability of the Buddha Sasana. Our tri-forces have done the same. They did not fight for power they fought to protect all communities, including minorities, in alignment with the Constitution of Sri Lanka. No foreign envoy, no dollar-pumped activist, and no cinematic revisionist has the moral right to visit this land and promote separatism under the guise of human rights. Because in the longer run, what they seek is not peace—but the demise of Buddhism, the fragmentation of Sri Lanka, and the silencing of those who stood for truth.
In addition to the foreign-funded campaigns and cinematic defamation, we must also confront the internal erosion of respect driven by certain leftist political movements, NGOs, and so-called human rights activists who follow foreign doctrines without understanding the soul of this land. These groups repeatedly claim that militarisation must stop, that the presence of our armed forces is a threat to democracy. But if we are truly patriotic leaders in this country, our actions must align with our words. It is not enough to speak of sovereignty while dismantling the very institutions that protect it. The recent Aragalaya movement, while born out of economic frustration, was hijacked by dollar-backed propaganda networks that deliberately targeted the public image of the military. What began as a protest became a campaign to humiliate the tri-forces, to strip away the honour of those who stood for national unity. This was not accidental it was orchestrated. The Kumantharanaya, funded and amplified through social media and international platforms, aimed to collapse the moral standing of our defenders in the eyes of the youth. They did not just attack the economy they attacked the guardians of the state. And behind this effort was a coordinated push to replace Sri Lankan constitutional values with foreign ideologies, to weaken the Buddha Sasana, and to fragment the nation. We must not allow this. We must not allow the doctrine of other lands to dictate the future of our own. Our tri-forces are not symbols of oppression they are symbols of protection. They have defended all communities, upheld the Constitution, and preserved the spiritual and cultural heritage of this island. If we abandon them, we abandon ourselves.
Beyond ideological defamation, there exists a quieter but equally devastating campaign one that targets the very survival of the Sinhalese people through demographic suppression.
As Colonel Asoka Alles observed, between 1960 and 2020, over 11 million birth control operations were conducted in Sri Lanka primarily targeting the Sinhalese population. This was not a natural demographic shift, but a deliberate intervention with long-term cultural consequences. In 2002, the Sinhalese were officially highlighted among the world’s vanishing nations a warning not just of demographic decline, but of cultural erasure. If such suppression is carried out systematically and silently, it constitutes a form of genocide, violating international law and the moral conscience of humanity. What happened to the Sinhala nation was not accidental. It was engineered. And it must be acknowledged.”
In recent months, there has been growing concern among citizens, clergy, and veterans that the government is not doing enough to protect the dignity of our war heroes. While commemorations like the 16th War Heroes’ Memorial Ceremony offered symbolic tribute, many feel that policy-level protection remains weak and inconsistent. The President’s speech at the memorial rightly called for unity, peace, and reconciliation. He acknowledged the pain of families across all communities and emphasized the need to reject division. These are noble words. But remembrance must be matched by action. Across the country, many voices have raised alarm over what they describe as the increasing harassment” of war heroes under recent administrative decisions. There is growing concern that certain actions appear to appease external actors and anti-military groups, while neglecting the sacrifices made by our armed forces.
There are troubling signs: reduced visibility of national commemorations, lack of legal safeguards for veterans facing international accusations, tolerance of events that glorify terrorism both locally and abroad, and silence in the face of defamation campaigns targeting military personnel. These gaps must be addressed not tomorrow, but today.
Don’t worry sir, I will fight till I die.” – Capt. Saliya Aladeniya Let this not be a forgotten echo. Let it be a national promise. Our defenders gave everything. Now it is our turn to defend their dignity.
We call upon the Presidency and Cabinet to establish a National Protection Framework for war heroes, ensuring legal, social, and diplomatic support. We urge the government to reaffirm Sri Lanka’s sovereign right to defend its own soldiers, especially against politically motivated international tribunals. We ask that commemoration be not just ceremonial, but embedded in policy, education, and public messaging. And we insist that any form of ideological appeasement that undermines the legacy of those who defended this nation be rejected outright. Our war heroes are not just names on a wall. They are living symbols of sacrifice. They deserve more than speeches. They deserve protection, respect, and truth.
This is not just a rebuttal. It is a declaration of truth. A defense of dignity. A tribute to those who gave everything so that Sri Lanka could stand. Let us not allow our war heroes to be punished while the architects of mass suffering are celebrated. Let us not allow Geneva to become a courtroom for the weak and a sanctuary for the powerful. Justice must be universal. Not selective. Not political. Our defenders stood between terror and peace. They deserve our gratitude—not defamation
By Palitha Ariyarathna
This article is lovingly dedicated to my mother, who passed away two years ago today. Her strength, wisdom, and quiet courage continue to guide my voice and my purpose. In defending the dignity of our war heroes, I honour the values she lived by—truth, compassion, and unwavering devotion to our motherland
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India has long been a dominant regional power in South Asia, using its economic, cultural and security influence to shape the policies of its smaller neighbors. Over the last decade, New Delhi has intensified its engagement with Sri Lanka through a combination of trade, investment, defence cooperation and people-to-people links. While this may create opportunities for growth and stability, it also raises questions about sovereignty and policy independence.
India’s Expanding Footprint
Indian companies have secured significant stakes in Sri Lankan infrastructure — from renewable energy projects in the north and east, to port operations, hotels, manufacturing, and technology parks. India has also moved to establish joint ventures in the Trincomalee oil tank farm, renewable energy projects in Mannar and Pooneryn, and other strategic locations. This activity, combined with diplomatic activism and high-level visits, reflects a deliberate push to consolidate India’s position in Sri Lanka amid competition from China.
Strategic Competition in the Indian Ocean
The growing Indian presence is closely linked to India’s concerns about Chinese investment, particularly at Colombo Port City, Hambantota Port, and other Belt and Road Initiative projects. To counterbalance Beijing, India is offering development credit lines, security assistance, and more favorable market access to Sri Lankan exports. While this creates a hedge against overdependence on China, it also risks turning Sri Lanka into an arena of great-power rivalry.
Implications for Sri Lankan Politics
Indian investment and diplomatic influence can affect Sri Lanka’s domestic policy choices in several ways:
Policy Alignment: Increased Indian involvement may pressure Sri Lanka to adopt positions closer to India’s on regional and global issues, including defense and trade.
Federalism and Devolution: New Delhi has historically advocated for devolution to the Northern and Eastern Provinces under the 13th Amendment. Expanded Indian leverage could revive this agenda, influencing domestic constitutional debates.
Economic Dependence: Heavy reliance on Indian credit and investment may reduce Colombo’s bargaining power and ability to diversify partners.
Party Politics: Political parties may reframe their foreign policy platforms — some promoting deeper Indian ties for investment and stability, others warning of erosion of sovereignty.
Navigating a Balanced Approach
Sri Lanka faces the challenge of harnessing Indian capital and technology while maintaining independence in policy-making. Clear investment guidelines, transparent procurement, and diversified foreign partnerships can help preserve sovereignty. Diplomatic skill will be required to avoid aligning too closely with any one power — India, China, or Western countries — and instead emphasize Sri Lanka’s role as a neutral hub in the Indian Ocean.
Conclusion
Indian expansionism need not be a zero-sum threat to Sri Lanka, but without strategic planning and bipartisan consensus it can reshape domestic politics and undermine sovereignty. A balanced, transparent approach to foreign investment and security cooperation will be essential for Sri Lanka to manage this growing influence.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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Let us not be swayed by doctrines that promise salvation through division, nor by ideologies—Eastern or Western—that glorify destruction in the name of freedom. History has shown us that when belief becomes blind, it breeds violence. Whether it’s religious extremism, political fanaticism, or social media-fueled rage, the result is the same: suffering.
Buddhism teaches us that true liberation is not won on battlefields or in viral posts—it is cultivated in the heart. Peace is not imposed; it is practiced. Discipline is not oppression; it is the foundation of wisdom.
Nepal is not just a land—it is a legacy. A nation born from the footsteps of the Enlightened One. To burn it in anger is to forget the very soil that gave birth to compassion. To destroy in the name of justice is to betray the teachings that call us to rise above hatred.
Let us reject the seductive noise of ideologies that have led to countless deaths across history. Let us instead embrace the silence of meditation, the strength of unity, and the clarity of wisdom.
Conquer anger by love, evil by good, greed by generosity, and falsehood by truth.” — Buddha
This is not weakness. This is the path of the strongest.
Dr sarath obeysekera ( Ex CEO Colombo Dockyard pvt ltd )
Answer
You’re asking whether China could object, from a legal or diplomatic standpoint, if India’s state-owned shipyard (Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, MDL) takes over Colombo Dockyard in Sri Lanka—especially given Mazagon’s status as a premier Indian defence contractor. The short answer is:
Yes, China could object—but such an objection would be political or strategic, not legal under international law.
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Legal Perspective
• Sovereign Business Decision
The acquisition—where MDL seeks a controlling (51%) stake in Colombo Dockyard—is a commercial transaction involving a Sri Lankan company listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange, with shares being purchased from Japan’s Onomichi Dockyard and supplemented by new equity offerings .
• Regulatory Oversight
The deal is subject to standard regulatory approvals in Sri Lanka and India, such as stock exchange filings and capital raising clearances . China has no legal grounds to invalidate or obstruct this process—unless there are cross-border treaty obligations or foreign direct investment restrictions that specifically involve Chinese interests, which does not appear to be the case here.
• No Multilateral Enforcement Role
Unless revived in international dispute venues or bilateral treaties, there’s no supranational body that China could invoke to halt or reverse the transaction.
In short: From a legal standpoint, it’s between Sri Lanka and India/joint investors.
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Political or Strategic Objection
• Regional Geopolitics
China has substantial strategic and economic interests in Sri Lanka—from Hambantota Port’s 99-year lease to investments in Colombo Port City. India’s footprint via MDL’s acquisition is clearly seen as a counterbalance to Chinese influence .
• Past Chinese Reactions
Sri Lanka’s growing alignment with India on maritime matters has spurred unease. For instance, India raised concerns when Chinese surveillance and research ships (Yuan Wang 5, Shi Yan 6) entered Sri Lankan waters .
• Diplomatic Pressure
While China has expressed disapproval of other Indian-linked developments in Sri Lanka (e.g., Indian-operated container terminals), their actions have mostly taken the form of political and diplomatic signals—not direct intervention .
All signs point to China potentially lodging diplomatic protests or exerting influence, but not having legal veto power over the deal.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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”We are not here to retaliate with violation, but to rise with reason. The strength of Sinhala Buddhists lies not in vengeance, but in the wisdom of Dhamma, law and the dignity of heritage.” — Palitha Ariyarathna
”When a doctrine teaches sons to forsake their fathers, and subjects to bow before foreign relics instead of their sovereign, the soul of a nation begins to unravel”. – Han Yu, the Tang dynasty Confucian scholar, condemned Buddhism not only as a spiritual threat but as a force that weakened filial piety, drained civic duty, and fostered poverty through monastic withdrawal. He saw it as a foreign ideology that encouraged people to abandon their families, reject ancestral rites, and divert wealth toward rituals that fed neither body nor nation. In just 14 years, 30 million died alone—disconnected from kinship, purpose, and tradition.
Today, Sinhala Buddhist civilization faces a different but equally insidious threat. Foreign academic agents and imported communist ideologies—cloaked in intellectual discourse—have begun to infiltrate Sri Lanka’s cultural landscape. Through lectures, publications, and policy influence, these frameworks subtly reframe our heritage as oppressive, our spirituality as outdated, and our nationalism as dangerous.
Neo-Marxist interpretations cast Sinhala Buddhist identity as a tool of exclusion, rather than a source of resilience and unity. These ideological incursions, often backed by external interests, pose a severe challenge to our cultural continuity.Yet true Buddhists need not respond with violation or vengeance. Justice and strength lie not in retaliation, but in the luminous clarity of reasoned law.
Sri Lanka is blessed with the 9th Article of the Buddha Sasana law—a radiant safeguard against spiritual and cultural erosion. It protects the dignity, continuity, and sacred heritage of Sinhala Buddhists through wisdom, not wrath. In the face of ideological subversion, this law stands as a beacon of lawful resistance—empowering Buddhists to defend their civilization with compassion, clarity, and unwavering resolve.
Let us not be swayed by imported narratives that seek to fracture our foundations. Let us instead honor the legacy of our ancestors, uphold the principles of justice, and protect the soul of our nation through the enduring light of the Buddha Sasana.
by Palitha Ariyarathna
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The international community in particular Nations across Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe and even Asia Pacific may not be aware that Sri Lanka listened to the international solutions:
Peace Talks & Negotiations – some even held in foreign shores
Cease Fires
Peace Accord with India in 1987
Sri Lanka even had the presence of foreign troops:
Indian Peace Keepers
Sri Lanka also had foreign monitoring missions:
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission
ALL THESE FAILED TO DELIVER PEACE
ALL THESE FAILED TO PREVENT LTTE KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE
· 1. The initial peace talks were held in Thimpu in 1985
· 2. Peace Talks with President Premadasa -1989 – failed
· 3. Peace Talks with President Chandrika – 1994 – failed
· 4. Ceasefire – 2001
· 5. Ceasefire Agreement under foreign supervision – 2002
Peace talks in Thailand – 2002 – failed
Peace talks in Geneva – 2006 – failed
· The Indian Peace Keepers were stationed from 1987 to 1990 – they are accused of raping some 3000 Sri Lankan women & indiscriminate killing as they didn’t know the language nor could they identity Sri Lankans.
· The Nordic Monitoring Mission came after the infamous 2002 cease fire agreement & was stationed in Sri Lanka from 2002 to 2008. The SLMM comprised nationals from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark & Iceland.
They recorded over 3800 violations by LTTE against 356 violations by Sri Lanka Armed Forces a strong argument to deny wild allegations against the Armed Forces.
It was during this ceasefire that LTTE assassinated Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mr. Lakshman Kadiragamar inside his residence. He was a Tamil.
LTTE used every peace talk to recoup, restrengthen itself & the devastation immediately after the talks failed was devastating for the victims.
The international community must understand that a sovereign state has every right to exercise its legal right to defend its territory & its people.
The human rights of terrorists cannot come before the human rights of innocent civilians.
The UN Human Rights Council did nothing to stop LTTE killings. – did nothing to stop LTTE kidnapping Tamil children – did nothing to stop LTTE turning children into child soldiers – did nothing to stop LTTE torturing & killing their dissidents – did nothing to stop LTTE running their own courts, police, taxing system, banks, currency – no country can allow defacto rule within a sovereign state.
It was not the UNHRC who saved 300,000 Tamils being held hostage by LTTE
That they braved LTTE fire to come to the Armed Forces proves they preferred to be with the Sri Lanka Armed Forces than the LTTE.
The main allegation for war crimes & genocide” is a 40,000 figure.
This is just a figure – even after 16 years even the UNHRC has failed to produce names of the supposed to be dead, there are no mass graves and no skeletons. To cover this a propaganda is being made out of a grave site in 1990 which is nowhere near where the battles during the last phase took place.
These are the truths that the UNHRC has to face first – instead of wasting UN funds to call for tribunals of a conflict that has finished 16 years ago.
UNGA & UNSC must prevent UNHRC exceeding its original mandate 60/251 as these precedents would have dangerous impact for other UN Member states too.
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The Exercise Pacific Angel 2025” which commenced on Monday (Sep 08) came to a successful conclusion yesterday (12). The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka, together with the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) and the Ministry of Defence, marked the conclusion of Exercise Pacific Angel 2025 at a closing ceremony in Katunayake this evening.
Defence Secretary Air Vice Marshal Sampath Thuyacontha (Retd), graced the closing ceremony along with the U.S. Ambassador Julie Chung, and Air Force Commander Air Marshal Bandu Edirisinghe.
Pacific Angel 2025 brought Indo-Pacific partners together to strengthen disaster response and humanitarian cooperation. The exercise united participants from across the region including U.S. Pacific Forces, Royal Australian Air Force, Japan Air Self- Defence Force, Maldivian National Defence Force, and the Bangladesh Air Force, together with the Sri Lanka Navy and Army.
The program featured eight Subject Matter Expert Exchanges (SMEEs) covering aircraft maintenance, search and rescue, jungle survival, aeromedical patient movement, mass casualty response, and airlift operations. Training at SLAF Katunayake, China Bay, and Ampara gave participants hands-on skills to enhance regional readiness and coordination.
Defence Secretary, Air Vice Marshal Sampath Thuyacontha (Retd), extended his deepest gratitude on behalf of the government of Sri Lanka to all participating Nations to the Exercise Pacific Angel – 25, which highlighted the vital contribution of regional air forces in enhancing humanitarian assistance and disaster response capabilities. The Exercise strengthens interoperability and knowledge-sharing among Indo-Pacific partners, while also reflecting the longstanding and cooperative relationship between the United States and Sri Lanka. Such engagements provide an important platform to build resilience, strengthen mutual trust and contribute to the peace and stability of the region.
U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka, h. E. Julie Chung, highlighting the significance of the Exercise said Pacific Angel 25 is the largest multilateral exercise hosted in Sri Lanka this year, and we are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Indo-Pacific partners. This Exercise demonstrates how we prepare together for real-world challenges from disaster response to humanitarian crises and how cooperation strengthens our collective ability to safeguard peace, stability, and prosperity across the region, she said.
Apart from operations, the Pacific Air Forces Band Final Approach” performed with the Sri Lanka Air Force Band, building camaraderie through music. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force and SLAF, working with Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Health, completed a refurbishment of the Divisional Hospital at Akaragama, bringing lasting benefits to local communities.
Pacific Angel 2025 demonstrated how Indo-Pacific partners are working side by side in Sri Lanka the host of the year’s largest multilateral exercise to prepare for crises, strengthen disaster response, and build lasting regional cooperation.
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To be truly functional and durable, even eternal, a state doesn’t just need a leader, a party or an ideology. It needs functional and robust institutions.
Illustration: Manali Ghosh | ThePrint
Heart of a functional state is law and order. Functional is the key word here. What collapse in Kathmandu with just one push underlines is it was a non-functional state. Today’s discourse confuses absence of an opposition for a hard-state essential. It’s the opposite
Is there such a thing as a hard or a soft state? What if we said that any state is indeed just that, the state? It has to have it in its guts to stay together, cohesive, orderly. That last is not my line. Who it’s borrowed from, I’ll tell you as we go along.
Take Nepal. The fall of its constitutionally elected government to just over a day of Gen Z protests in the capital is the third such in three years in the Subcontinent, after Sri Lanka (Colombo, July, 2022) and Bangladesh (Dhaka, August, 2024). As we keep saying, invoking the primer of journalism, this conforms to the three-example rule. We can also note much clamour on social media, mostly from the BJP base, which includes many prominent and respected names, that this is just what the powers that be” would want done with the Modi government in India. The regime-change toolkit, as they’d put it.
Let’s also look at exceptions. Not every government collapses under a public protest. I know it is a super-provocative example, but remember Pakistan on 9 May, 2023?
Imran Khan’s supporters rioted not in one city but across many, even stormed Lahore’s Jinnah House, the Corps Commander’s home. The situation had many more ingredients for a ‘regime’ overthrow than Colombo, Dhaka or Kathmandu. A widely hated civilian government, handmaiden of a then reviled army for jailing the most popular mass leader.
That revolution” ended within 48 hours. The leader (Imran Khan) is still in jail, now handed a 14-year sentence, the same coalition is still in power, having been rebirthed through another rigged election, and all socio-economic and democratic grievances remain. More than 250 protest leaders are being tried in military courts. The state looks way stronger.
Did the Pakistan establishment survive because they are a hard state, while Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal weren’t? Definitely, even Asim Munir doesn’t think so. Or, he wouldn’t have given Pakistan a we have to become a hard state” call in that infamous 16 April speech.
The fact is, the regime survived in Pakistan because it is still a functional state. The heart of a functional state is law and order. Functional is the key word here, not hard or soft. No state can be functional unless it’s capable of maintaining law and order. And when there is law and order, catastrophic state failures like Colombo, Dhaka and now Kathmandu will not take place.
Regime change can always be a democratic aspiration. But it will take more to achieve it than a few days of protests, riots and arson. It will take long months if not years of toil and struggle to build a political counter, go to the people, and create the revolution you want, through elections or mass movement.
What the collapse in Kathmandu with just one push underlines to us is that it was a non-functional state. It had an elected government, but its leaders did not have the first prerequisite for governance: democratic patience.
The leadership trained as guerrilla fighters through their youth to the middle ages and then ran cynical musical chairs through defection and alliance-switching, as elected politicians had no experience in dealing with ‘other’ angry people. The Maoists were once heroic change agents. Once they came to power they no longer thought the same people could also get angry with them. And when they did, they needed some negotiations to revive trust and credibility, not bullets.
Guns were an instrument of winning popularity and power. Nor had they spent any of the past 17 years since the end of the monarchy in 2008 to build and strengthen institutions of democracy. If they had, the same institutions would have protected them. If in the end the only institution the protesting masses trust is the army, it shows what a colossal failure the revolutionary political class in Nepal has been. They never built a functional state.
A hard state can be quite fragile. My most valuable case study is Georgia, then a Soviet republic. History has rarely seen a state harder than the USSR. It panicked when the first protests broke out in Georgia in 1988-89? It sent out the Red Army with special forces and armed KGB, who unleashed bullets and poison gas. This was a classical bull-headed hard state. It unravelled.
Its discredited party state had a broken economy, and didn’t know how to handle disagreements. Individual dissenters it could kill, or pack off to distant gulags. A mass protest wasn’t its glass of vodka.
We got a better understanding shortly afterwards as we were hosted for dinner, with my then editor Aroon Purie by Buta Singh, Rajiv Gandhi’s home minister. He said he had recently hosted Russian foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze (a Georgian) who asked me how we handled protests by lakhs when his army unleashed poison gas on a much smaller crowd” in Tbilisi.
I said, your excellence,” said Buta Singh, I can lend you a few companies of CRPF.” The lesson is that a state must maintain law and order. For this, it must have three prerequisites: the uniformed forces with the right training, negotiating skills and democratic patience or the willingness to trade spaces.
Today’s discourse confuses the absence of an opposition for a hard-state essential. It’s the opposite. The opposition serves as a pressure-release valve. People can vent through it rather than sack your president, prime minister or corps commander’s homes. All four of our neighbours banished their opposition in different degrees of extreme.
At which point, we return to our earlier question. Could this happen in India? A regime change through any tool kit”? A quick way to explain why it can’t happen is to remind ourselves that constitutional democracies do not have a ‘regime.’
While there are a couple of dozen mutinies going on across India at any point, we have seen two serious challenges to the state from the street” in the past 50 years. The first was Jayaprakash Narayan’s (JP) Navnirman Andolan, beginning 1974 compounded by the George Fernandes-led railway strike that paralysed India. Yet, failed to dislodge Mrs Gandhi. It took an election.
The second was Anna Hazare’s so-called anti-corruption protests fully backed by new TV and strong elements in the Opposition, especially the RSS as was the case with JP’s movement. But even a government as weak as UPA-2 had the strength to ride it out.
A debate on the Jan Lok Pal Bill going well past midnight sealed the issue. It was that line from late Sharad Yadav in response to self-proclaimed Gandhi, Anna Hazare pouring scorn over Parliament and elected leaders. Think of an Indian with the name Pakauri Lal he said, pointing to fellow MP (Samajwadi Party, Forbesganj). In this system a man as humble as him can be here. And this is the system you’ve come to destroy? The Anna movement was over at that moment. Parliament had risen to protect the state.
Finally, I will let you know that a state needing to have it in its gut to stay together” observation. In 2010 when mass stoning and terror had peaked in the Valley many mainstream voices were rising, saying if Kashmiris are so unhappy why don’t we just let them go? M.K. Narayanan, then NSA, spoke this line in a conversation, pointing his fist where else, but at his gut. It was 15 years ago so I hope he’d forgive me for recounting this. See where the Valley is, now. This, by the way, was the same UPA-2, now seen widely to be running a soft state.
As many as 42 per cent of all employed Sri Lankans in the public and private sectors have educational qualification levels only up to grade 10, and only 26.7 per cent of people have qualifications above Advanced Levels, according to the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS).
This statistic is relatively high compared to the European Union (EU), with only 15 per cent of the employed population having a low educational qualification level.
The DCS, in its labour force report for the first quarter of 2025, says Sri Lanka’s current employed people stand at 8.1 million, out of which 1.3 million are public employees and 3.8 million are private sector employees.
Even though 42 per cent of employed people have qualifications up to Grade 10, the data indicates a decreasing pattern of 3.9 per cent from 2019 to the first quarter of 2025.
The DCS further addresses issues in the labour market, saying that 62.4 per cent of total employed individuals are at the ages of 40 and above, and only 15.3 per cent are in the age category of 20 to 29, highlighting that youth participation in the labour market in Sri Lanka remains low.
Male participation in employment has always been higher than females, according to data from the DCS.
The economically inactive population is about 8.6 million. Out of the economically inactive population, 27.6 per cent are males and 72.4 per cent are females.”
The unemployment problem in Sri Lanka is more acute for educated females than educated males, the survey bulletin stated, referring to its consistent observation over the past years.
According to the recent World Bank report on the public finance review, 40 per cent of all secondary sector public employees are non-specialised, which means those with a general secondary school education but no specialised or professional training.
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Nepal’s unrest has exposed the mask of youthful heroism. Each day, footage exposes looting, vandalism, and arson. The very youth who claim to rally for anti-corruption” cannot even control the chaos they unleash. Yet, they stand on podiums declaring themselves champions of the people, blind to the truth that their own hands are stained — not with money, but with the corruption of duty, discipline, and responsibility. Before pointing fingers at others, they must first confront the mirror.
From the Colored Revolutions in Europe to the Arab Spring and the so-called Asian Spring, one fact is clear: youth are recruited, funded, trained, and deployed with slogans designed to inflame. They are hyped as heroes through speeches and social media theatrics, but once the fire is lit, they vanish. Youth reinforcements fuel outrage from safe havens abroad, while the real victims are ordinary citizens. And when the dust settles, it is never these youth leaders” who govern — they are discarded pawns, replaced by another hand-picked team for the next agenda.
Their mission is not to build, but to burn. Once the chaos is ignited and the state brought to its knees, leaders flee, their role ends. They fade into obscurity, leaving behind a trail of destruction, while those who engineered the disorder unveil a different, hand-picked team to seize power. They call for justice from the leaders but why have none of these youths been held to account by the justice system for the arson and damage they have caused?
The cycle repeats — nations weakened, societies divided, futures stolen.
The youth that became stars” in every youth revolt from Europe to Middle East, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia are not to be seen. Nepal’s youth leaders will equally disappear too. Sri Lanka however had one jeenie akka” and a motivation appachchi” and a Pathum – where are they now?
Nepal’s Gen Z have now repeated this same betrayal. Under the banner of anti-corruption,” they torched buses, ransacked government offices, destroyed vital public records, looted shops, that left 19 people dead. They even set fire to Nepal’s Supreme Court, burning land deeds, pensions, school certificates, and files critical to citizens’ lives. Hotels, businesses, and shops — some uninsured — were reduced to ashes, leaving workers jobless and families destitute.
The mental pattern was unmistakable: jealousy, envy, revenge, and hatred.
Their driving motto seemed to be — If I cannot have, you shall not either.”
Instead of striving to improve their own lives, they chose the path of destruction, robbing others of what they possessed.
If wealth had been stolen, there were legal avenues to hold the guilty accountable. But storming homes, destroying property, beating people, stripping them of their clothes, and humiliating them in public is not justice. It is barbarism. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BNVZEcmxu/
This is not reform, it is vandalism disguised as revolution.
And if their same ruthless logic were applied to hold the youth accountable for the national loss they have caused — would they accept their fate?
Nepal’s youth did not rise to lead; they rose to ruin.
By wrecking the present, they have disqualified themselves from any claim to the future. The same goes for all the so-called youth who led riots in other nations.
This is not leadership — it is destruction.
A generation that ruins today cannot claim to inherit tomorrow.
Once the chaos is ignited, the first set of hired hands” — the youth mobilized to burn, loot, and destabilize — complete their role. History shows that they are then discarded. Baton is passed on to a different hired team.
The planners always prepare a second set of operatives to take over, knowing that the first set will comply for money or ideology.
Thus, hired hands 1 – the youth are neutralized or sidelined; they are expendable.
But the damage they caused is irreversible.
The nation bleeds, the streets burn, and the youth are left to vanish into obscurity, while the real agenda marches forward.
The Cost of Gen Z’s Betrayal in Nepal
We have questions for all these youth movements to answer
Public Property Destroyed
Will youth pay for the buses, government buildings, and public utilities that were burned?
Will youth rebuild schools and courts where vital public records — land deeds, pensions, and certificates — were turned to ash?
Will youth restore the priceless historical documents and archives that cannot be replaced?
Livelihoods Stolen
Will youth compensate daily wage earners who lost their income when roads were blocked and shops looted?
Will youth repay shop owners, especially those without insurance, for goods and property destroyed?
Will youth provide jobs for hotel workers, restaurant staff, and employees of businesses such as Nepal’s Hilton Hotel that were gutted by flames? https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AkH7tzwEP/
Human Suffering Inflicted
Will youth take responsibility for the hundreds injured — some permanently disabled — during clashes or for the 19 killed?
Will youth leaders visit these grieving families and offer restitution, or will they vanish into the shadows like their counterparts in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia?
Economic Collapse Triggered
Will youth compensate the state for the loss of revenue from tourism and business disruption – transport, trade and other means of revenue for the State?
Will youth pay the investors and small entrepreneurs now forced into bankruptcy because of their anti-corruption” protests?
Will the youth bear responsibility for the inflation, shortages, and price hikes that will follow unrest?
Moral Responsibility
If corruption was the excuse to flood the streets, why did their solution” become looting, arson, and destruction – destroying historic & iconic monuments that were part and parcel of Nepal’s pride & history?
How does stealing goods from shops or burning offices fight corruption – is the world not laughing at Nepal seeing the footage?
When history records this uprising, will youth be remembered as reformers — or as pawns who sold their nation’s future for chaos?
The Moral Collapse of Gen Z Protestors
Disrespect Toward Elders
Where is the culture of reverence for elders that has guided Asian and Eastern civilizational societies for generations?
Why were elderly citizens and officials shouted down, insulted, and humiliated in public by these so-called youths?
What or who gave them the power to raise their hands at elders, based on social media clips circulated to fuel hatred?
Will they apologize to the parents and grandparents whose dignity they trampled while claiming to fight corruption”?
If youth claim politicians or others are corrupt, why did they not raise funds — even from the same foreign sources that trained them to revolt — to take the accused before a court of law? Is this not better than destroying an entire nation?
We challenge the youths in other nations — already being lined up to stir unrest and unleash similar chaos — to first prove their courage in courts of law by taking the corrupt before judges, instead of dragging innocent people to the streets and destroying an entire nation.
Ridiculing the Armed Forces
What right do these youths have to jeer, mock, and shout at men and women who serve and defend the nation?
Who gave them the license to ridicule soldiers and police officers sworn to protect the very freedom these youth abuse?
Do they understand that an army mocked is an army weakened — and a weakened army means a vulnerable nation?
Why do they scream about rights” while ignoring their most basic duty — to respect the state, the elders, and the defenders of the nation?
Can those who destroy courts, torch buses, and attack institutions that bring revenue to the Nation claim a moral right to demand anything from society?
A generation that neglects duties has no ground to demand rights.
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and now Nepal stands as a warning.
Youth who destroy the present cannot claim the moral right to lead the future.
They have shown themselves not as saviors, but as pawns — and pawns can never be kings or leaders.
Shenali D Waduge
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Globally, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to business self-regulation with the aim of being socially accountable.” From a broader perspective this definition includes improving working conditions, reducing carbon footprints, participating in Fairtrade, and many more actions. On its most basic level, CSR is a manifestation of a business’ recognition of a duty to the world and the potential to be a power for good -Casey Schoff, Ecolytics
Sri Lankan organizations have engaged in informal corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities for over 30 years, though public concern and formal CSR policies have only emerged since the early 2000s. However, SriLankan Cares, a specialized branding and institution for charity by SriLankan Airlines, was established in 2003, representing one of the first such initiatives in the country’s commercial sector.
Some Sri Lankan organizations were involved in informal CSR practices for more than 30 years mainly as informal activities, while public awareness and concern about CSR activities grew in Sri Lanka starting around 2000. Later, in 2013, a revised code of corporate governance by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SECSL) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) included principles on sustainability reporting, further embedding CSR concepts into the corporate framework.
Today, several leading private sector entities are engaged in CSR activities, and some contribute a regular percentage their gross profits or nett profits to these activities. Some entities have setup Foundations devoted entirely to CSR activities. While these activities are very noble endeavours, this article would like to present some proposals as to how CSR funding, or at least some of the funds may be employed in a more structured and strategic way in specific national projects such as the Rural Upliftment project or the Praja Shakti Program, the Clean Sri Lanka project, in the education reforms envisaged over the next few years, especially engaging in teacher training support programs and improving learning facilities, climate resilience projects focusing on environment protection activities, in research activities focusing on long term sustainability and profitability of primary export crops, disability awareness and opening more opportunities for disabled persons, more care facilities for the disabled and the elderly, and in supporting long term, sustainable food security endeavours. These are just some projects that the private sector is either already engaged in, or they may consider future engagements.
The private sector being the engine of growth in the country’s economy, many of these projects could be looked at from the prism of self-preservation and growth for the companies engaged in CSR activities while considering community and social responsibility as a duty of care for the community by the private sector, and rightly so as per the classical definitions of CSR. A happier, more content and cared for community, economically and socially uplifted will always remember the services provided to them by a private sector entity engaged in commercial activities that serve the community, and the consequence could be increased loyalty to those entities that provide such much-needed services to the community.
In general, it is felt that the relationship between the private sector and governments of the day has been looked at from narrow political prisms, rather than a broader national prism. Mutual benefits for both parties from such relationships perhaps have assumed greater importance than any particular community service, and often communities too have been drawn towards a particular political party and community projects launched conditional on how the community would support a particular party. Such three-way symbiotic relationships have contributed to the evolution of a partisan political culture rather than a national culture.
One way this situation, by no means applicable to all CSR projects, may be overcome could be by launching discussions with the private sector at central level and regional level, and the government of the day as well as the major Opposition parties participating in such discussions to work towards consensus of what may be identified as national priority projects that would continue even if governments of the day changes, and thereafter how the private sector could be associated with relevant CSR activities.
Due to space considerations, only extracts from this paper are cited here and readers are encouraged to read the full article via the above link.
What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?
Schoff states that at its core, CSR refers to business self-regulation with the aim of being socially accountable.” From a broader perspective this definition includes improving working conditions, reducing carbon footprints, participating in Fairtrade, and many more actions. On its most basic level, CSR is a manifestation of a business’ recognition of a duty to the world and the potential to be a power for good. He says that while widespread adoption of CSR has been relatively recent, the concept itself has been around for over a century. It has its roots in the late 1800s, when the rise of philanthropy combined with deteriorating working conditions made some businesses reconsider their current production models. Business tycoons began donating to community causes, and some business owners (although somewhat reluctantly) reduced working hours and improved factory conditions, laying the foundation of responsible corporations.
The term Corporate Social Responsibility,” however, was not coined until 1953, when American economist Howard Bowen published Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. In this book, Bowen identified the great power of corporations and recognized that their actions had a tangible impact on society. Therefore, he argued, businessmen have an obligation to pursue policies that are beneficial for the common good. The concept of CSR has changed over time, and it has since widened to include many more social issues that are related to a wider range of business decisions.
As Schoff says this transformation began in the 1960s, when scholars began to approach CSR as a response to the emerging problems of the new modern society, and businesses in turn started implementing these practices. Business adoption of CSR continued steadily in the 1970s and 80s and became all the more important in the 80s due to greater deregulation of business, meaning corporations had to engage in more self-regulation and take responsibility for the social impact of their operations. Increasing globalization in the 1990s was instrumental in widening the scope of CSR and laid the foundation for how we understand CSR today. Several international developments that occurred in the 1990s like the adoption of Agenda 21, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Kyoto Protocol were also instrumental in reshaping the CSR concept. Throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, CSR began to shift from minimizing local harm to tackling global issues. Now, companies craft their CSR programs around the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from gender equality to the protection of ocean life. CSR is also increasingly related to growing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, as socially responsible corporations must foster a welcoming work environment and combat discrimination. While not every corporation follows CSR principles and those that do are far from perfect, it is encouraging that businesses are beginning to recognize the myriad of ways that they affect society and can change it for the better.
Sri Lanka’s GDP in 2025 is estimated to be around USD 100 Billion. While the specific percentage of the Sri Lankan national GDP contributed directly by the private sector is not available, the country’s economy relies heavily on private consumption and private investment as key drivers of growth. Private consumption accounted for 73.3% of Sri Lanka’s nominal GDP in September 2024. The private sector also plays a critical role in generating employment and facilitating the adoption of new technologies, although it has faced challenges in translating its potential into a vibrant contribution to national growth. The private sector funds available for CSR projects is therefore very substantial.
Enhancing strategic and sustainable Corporate Social responsibility
Based on sparse research data on CSR projects and outcomes publicly available, it is not clear whether projects have had long term sustainable outcomes. It is possible they may have, and an apology is sought from private sector entities who have funded such projects. However, a suggestion is made here that at least some of the funds are employed in national projects, ideally agreed to by the government and the Opposition, and they are strategic in nature, spanning a period of at least five years with guaranteed State and private sector funding to ensure their sustainability.
It is also suggested that CSR funding is provided for research and development in primary export industries and also for interventions related to food security. As an illustration, CSR could look into how the private sector could play a more active role in reducing post-harvest losses in the country. In a report by Nimal Gunathilake published in the Island newspaper,the loss is stated as Rs 180 Billion (https://island.lk/post-harvest-losses-amount-to-rs-180-billion-a-year-study/). It is mentioned that according to a new study by the Department of Agriculture and several partners, the quantity lost is sufficient to feed the entire nation for two to four months. The research has found that more than 500,000 metric tons of produce goes to waste annually, during transportation alone. Of this, around 200,000 metric tons are vegetables, and 300,000 metric tons are fruits. About 30%-40% of harvest is lost in transit, with the heaviest damage occurring between farms and retail markets. Experts add that household-level waste also contributes to the losses.
The study has also revealed that transportation-related waste, which makes up about 10 percent of the Rs. 180 billion annual losses, could be cut down, delivering a 60 percent boost to both the national and farming economies. If recommended practices are followed, the study says that waste could be reduced to as little as 5.7%. These losses naturally enhance food insecurity and also affect export income for produce that is exported. This is an area where the government could engage the private sector in discussions and explore ways and means of assisting the country to reduce this colossal waste. There is no doubt many areas which would benefit from CSR contributions.
Finally, in order to encourage more private sector entities to engage in CSR activities, a suggestion is made that some company tax benefits are afforded as incentives to the private sector for the contribution they make to CSR activities, This will hopefully increase the number of entities engaging in CSR activities and consequently, the amount of funds and expertise available to support projects that benefit the community strategically and sustainably.
In conclusion, the Corporate Social Responsibility theme could become the bridge that links initiatives of the government of the day and the private sector in a non-partisan way and projects undertaken through discussion and mutual agreement, hopefully from a long-term perspective, rather than just for immediate gains. Objective of both entities no doubt is the social, economic, environmental, health and education upliftment of the community so that the country prospers, and when that happens, the private sector prospers and grows being the biggest contributor to the country’s economy.
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Speaking at the 60th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 8, 2025, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism, Vijitha Herath, made an unequivocal pledge on behalf of his country, ‘to advance the rights and well-being of all Sri Lankans through our own domestic processes’, thereby rejecting any kind of external intervention or mechanism in investigating alleged human rights violations; all patriotic Sri Lankans must have heaved a sigh of relief, before applauding him.
This was because, in the lead up to the Geneva session, there were growing fears among concerned citizens of Sri Lanka that the government they elected was going to give in to undue UN coercion and betray the military and political leaders who saved the country from terrorism sixteen years ago. The menacing, prejudiced behaviour of visiting UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk towards the end of June did nothing to allay these fears. Vijitha Herath concluded his detailed statement with the following words:
The Government is fully cognizant of the responsibility that accompanies the unprecedented mandate it has received from the people, and is committed to fulfilling their aspirations of a just, fair and prosperous society. We sincerely believe that external action will only serve to create divisions, thereby jeopardising the genuine and tangible national processes that have already been set in motion. The Government is opposed to any external mechanism imposed on us such as the Sri Lanka Accountability Project.
Therefore, Mr. President, my earnest submission to members of this Council, its observers and all stakeholders is to collaboratively join hands with the government, to deepen our mutual understanding and extend your support to Sri Lanka. Our genuine and sincere approach, which is visible, needs to be reciprocated with deeper understanding and noticeable appreciation. We urge that all of you assist us in seizing this historic opportunity to advance the rights and well-being of all Sri Lankans through our own domestic processes.”
But his agreement with the OHCHR on the appointment of a so-called ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ must be reconsidered, because it will be incompatible with the independent stance he’s expressed. Herath’s aides have done a professional job making his speech shipshape. It contained a fairly satisfactory response to Volker Turk’s mostly platitudinal remarks introducing his OHCHR report. Turk touched on some key areas that his report set out to address including ‘delivering accountability, fundamental legal and institutional reforms and eliminating the discrimination and division that have poisoned politics for generations’ (an unsubstantiable allegation).
A highlight of evidence of ‘the continued suffering of human rights violations and abuses’ that he claimed he witnessed was a mass grave site at Chemmani, but social and political activist of Jaffna Arun Siddharth (a Tamil) pointed out several times that this was a traditional burial place where bodies belonging to ordinary dead residents of the place, and those killed by the LTTE and some by the army in clashes were interred. This gives an idea about the seriousness of the UNHRC boss’s evidential proof of such allegations.
But he said, at the end of his remarks: I encourage Sri Lanka to seek international assistance with the exhumation of mass graves and other investigations”. What bunkum!
He concluded ‘Together the international community can support Sri Lankans to escape from the twin threats posed by persistent impunity and deep inequality’. I think Turk got a satisfactory answer from Herath.
But this is not going to be the end of our problems with the UN. Perhaps, a backward look is in place at this point.
In an X post uploaded on June 1, 2025, Volker Turk wrote:
For many, the freedom to be yourself and follow your heart is woven into daily life and goes unnoticed.
For others, it’s been hard-won-with courage day after day
#Pride celebrates how far we’ve come and moves us forward to a world where everyone can live with dignity, equality and pride.
There is nothing more human than who we are and who we love.
He must have realised by now that, as far as Sri Lanka is concerned, this is the least of its problems.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk of Austrian nationality, a lawyer by profession, was on a three-day visit to Sri Lanka from June 23 to 26, 2025. If my memory is correct, he is the fourth UN Human Rights chief to visit the island since the end (in May 2009) of the armed Tamil separatist rebellion. The then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, South Korean citizen, Ban Ki-Moon, who had earlier been serving his country as a civil servant and a diplomat, rushed to Sri Lanka immediately after the crushing of the three decades long separatist terrorism by the Sri Lankan armed forces, for a two-day visit on May 22 and 23, 2009; his indecent haste was a sign that the UN did not welcome the defeat of separatist terrorism. His apparent bias was an early sign of the poisoning of general UN opinion about Sri Lanka’s successful response to the Tamil separatist terror campaign through both disinformation and misinformation by the so-called diaspora Tamil separatist lobbyists.
The same anti-Sri Lanka (to be more precise, anti-Sinhala Buddhist majority of Sri Lanka) bias was more pronounced in the second UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Sri Lanka, Navanethem Pillay. Her visit was from August 25 to 31, 2013. The South African jurist of Indian Tamil origin, popularly known as Navi Pillay, visited the island nation at the invitation of the then incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa who, in the first flush of victory, was confidently enjoying the undisputed approval and popularity that he had earned among all Sri Lankans by eliminating mindless LTTE terrorist violence, irrespective of their different ethnicities, religious identities, and political loyalties. Rajapaksa decided to invite the influential UN official (Navi Pillay) to visit Sri Lanka, most probably because he believed that she, coming from Hindu Tamil origins, would be especially empathetic to the culturally kindred Sinhalese Buddhist majority and the Tamil Hindu largest minority of Sri Lanka to appreciate the truth that the domestic conflict was really between the legitimate government of Sri Lanka and a group of rebels who were resorting to armed violence in order to carve out a separate state within its territory, but NOT between the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic communities. Demographically, the Sinhalese are the majority, nevertheless a global minority whereas the Tamils are a minority within Sri Lanka but belong to a global majority. This is a truth that was hidden by a thick veil of anti-Sri Lanka false propaganda disseminated by the defeated Tamil separatist rump.
The following year (2014) saw what could be called the UN-led selective witch-hunt, based on unsubstantiated war crimes allegations, against the hierarchy of the Sri Lankan security forces that brought an end to nearly three decades of armed Tamil separatist violence on May 19, 2009. (Incidentally, Australian media reported June 29, 2025 that Navanethem Pillay, aged 83, had been selected for the Sydney Peace Prize for her contributions to accountability and human rights and that she would be felicitated in Australia in November this year (2025).
The third UN High Commissioner to visit Sri Lanka after the military victory over terrorism in 2009 was Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a Jordanian diplomat, who came in February 2016, just over a year after the nationally uncalled for, foreign engineered regime change of 2015. According to the spokesman for the Federation of National Organizations, Dr Wasantha Bandara, the Yahapalana government installed through foreign intervention passed seven laws that pushed forward the unilateral UN war crimes allegations process against some selected war winning Sri Lankan military leaders. For that diabolical scheme to be complete, only two more parliamentary bills remain to be passed, as Dr Bandara points out: a bill for establishing a Truth Commission, and an Independent Prosecutor’s Office. The current JVP/NPP administration is required to pass those two final laws.
Among the top UN panjandrums who visited Sri Lanka during the past sixteen years, Turk easily takes the cake for the most outrageously undiplomatic conduct towards a member country of the United Nations.
In 2009, we were all hopeful that after the elimination of separatist terrorism, a prosperous and peaceful country would emerge. Instead, Sri Lanka began to face increasing destabilisation schemes launched against it by meddlesome geo-political grand strategists (especially US and India working in collusion) apparently under the aegis of the UN, which was created after the end of World War II to stop threats to international peace and security, not to meddle in the domestic security concerns of small vulnerable nations like ours. Superpowers try to get involved in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka in order to promote their own national interests in their home countries and to pursue their economic and military agendas in the geopolitically sensitive Indo-Pacific region where the island is located.
These attempts have markedly intensified over the years since 2009. America and India find a common enemy in China. They want to contain the rising Chinese influence in the region. Sri Lanka seems to be caught up in the crossfire between China on the one side and America and India on the other. The Tamil diaspora benefits from the vote bank politics exploited by unscrupulous local politicians of those international community countries. They persecute Sri Lanka by raising non-existent issues, such as alleged human rights violations by the Sri Lanka Army during the last phase of its war on terror, domestic communal divisions or instances of religious disharmony. They pretended that the war was fought between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, whereas the truth was that the legitimate government army fought against a bunch of separatist terrorists who massacred members of all communities in the name of their macabre goal of creating a separate state on Sri Lankan soil, while the ordinary Sinhalese and Tamil civilians lived together in accustomed peace, along with members of other ethnic communities everywhere in the country, such as Muslims and Burghers.
There was no alienation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, to put it differently, between the Sinhala speaking community and the Tamil speaking community, which includes Muslims as well as Tamils. But the powers that be conjured up the chimera of ‘reconciliation’ to justify their meddling in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. At the end of ‘reconciliation’, we have a politically, economically and socially destabilised country, which is a far cry from where, according to Michael Naseby (Sri Lanka: Paradise Lost Paradise Regained, page 167),
‘PEACE’ was achieved on 18th May 2009 when the Tamil Tigers were finally defeated and nearly 300,000 human shield hostages were rescued into government hands and looked after. Peace is the overwhelming need of the country and the first priority mentioned in a recent poll. There have been no bombings since May 2010 (sic) (still the position at the time of writing in 2018). People of all ethnic groups travel the length and breadth of the country by day or night without fear.”
Post-Geneva, let’s restore the reconciliation that we achieved on our own in 2009 with sparing external help, and that the international wreckers of our peace set out to destroy soon after.
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Please join us online to welcome Dr Asoka Bandarage who will be giving a public talk on Wednesday 17th September at 6.30pm UK time. Existential Crisis, Mindfulness and the Middle Path to Social Action by Asoka Bandarage Dr Bandarage will deliver a public lecture for The Buddhist Society on Wednesday 17th September 6:30pm online through Zoom about the Buddhist Middle Way approach to the social issues and challenges in contemporary life.
Join the online talk through Zoom Wednesday 17th September at 6.30pm https://thebuddhistsociety.zoom.us/j/81005223686 Meeting ID: 810 0522 3686 Scholar and practitioner Asoka Bandarage has taught at Yale, Brandeis, Mount Holyoke (where she received tenure), Georgetown, and other universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad. Her research interests include social philosophy and consciousness; environmental sustainability, human well-being and health, global political-economy, ethnicity, gender, population, social movements and South Asia. Prof. Bandarage is the author many books including: The Middle Path to Environment, Society and the Economy; Women, Population and Global Crisis: A Political-Economic Analysis andotherpublications on political-economy, ecology as well as mindfulness and social action. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards of Critical Asian Studies, and Interfaith Moral Action on Climate. Dr. Bandarage has been a student of vipassana meditation teacher S.N. Goenka and a hatha yoga practitioner and currently serves on the Advisory Boards of Critical Asian Studies and Interfaith Moral Action on Climate. www.bandarage.com Connect With Us: MeditationThe Middle WayMembershipBuddhismDonateTwitter Contact Info: Phone: 020 7834 5858 Email: info@thebuddhistsociety.org Website: www.thebuddhistsociety.org The Buddhist Society, 58 Eccleston Square, London, SW1V 1PH Company No: 5730715 Charity No: 1113705 Terms | Privacy | Unsubscribe
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Govt.-wide strategy should cover edu., health, social services taking cognisance of the gypsy ethnicity being a protected trait
A Government-wide strategy should be formulated to foster the social inclusion of gypsy children, whose ethnicity is a protected trait, in sectors such as education, healthcare, and social services.
These recommendations were made in ‘A comprehensive study on the discontinuity of the primary school education of children in the gypsy community (with special reference to a primary school in Siyambalagaswewa in the Mihinthale education division sector)’ which was authored by D.O. Meththasinghe (attached as an Assistant Lecturer to the National Institute of Social Development’s School of Social Work), and published in the Student Journal of Social Work‘s Fourth Volume’s First Issue, September 2025.
Conflicts between gypsy community learnings and mainstream edu.
Gypsy education differs greatly from mainstream education. A gypsy community education is considerably different from education received in a traditional classroom environment, which is where the majority of learning takes place. The bulk of a child’s day is spent in the family camp, at the residence of a family member, or following a family member on work, where he/she may or may not engage with non-gypsy people and their environments.
In most traditional classrooms, students are not given the opportunity to choose their own educational activities, to spend as much time as they like on them, or to organise their own study groups to complete those tasks. Children are supposed to sit quietly and pay attention to what is being spoken to them in a restricted place, and they are expected to observe precise standards on their behaviour as well as the topics that they may discuss; discipline, regularity, the ability to remain silent, and the aptitude to recall abstract information are the features of a child’s everyday experience that distinguishes them as different from other children. Because the teachers are unfamiliar with the children’s way of life, there are misunderstandings. The interest of children in going to school declines.
The importance and usefulness of conventional education are not understood by many children. Many children don’t appear to get anything out of education activities like philosophising and asking hypothetical questions. When asked to carry out unfamiliar tasks or make use of abstract concepts, these children exhibit signs of anxiety and frequently lose interest. Camping trips turned out to be the most popular and successful activity for this group. The end of elementary school or the beginning of middle school is when aboriginal/indigenous children start to lose interest in education.
The majority of gypsy communities place a high value on the significance of having a solid family unit and a large extended family network in the process of moulding the lives of children. The media, education, and the culture of the dominant society all have an impact on a child’s understanding of the world around them. Family members teach gypsy children to respect other adults, themselves, and the group by including them in everyday communal life. Children are encouraged to find and make their own meals, dress themselves, and go to bed alone. They are also encouraged to look after younger children.
Lack of funding by the Govt.
Some organisations that support gypsy people’s education are almost entirely run by volunteers and must compete with non-gypsy organisations that nominally provide services for them in order to secure even the most basic funds. In Sri Lanka, the educational needs of children who are always on the go are typically met with band-aid solutions rather than through thoughtful help and programmes.
Remote education is considered as a last option for children who are forced to attend school. On the other hand, pre-school, primary, secondary, and even tertiary education should all be available to gypsy children through the use of online learning. Colleges that provide distance education make a wide range of educational materials and technological resources available to students, with the goal of supporting the teaching that is provided by qualified teachers of distance education. Despite the fact that nomadic lifestyles are not actively encouraged, the education that a child may acquire through distance learning is seen as being on par with, if not superior to, traditional education.
The degree to which a group is able to exercise its right to self-determination is directly proportional to the policies of specific Governments as well as the help that such Governments give to meet the requirements of minority groups. Minority groups, such as gypsy people, will not be able to achieve self-determination unless they have greater agency in the formulation of education policies and practices.
Racism and bullying
Gypsies endure racism and bullying in the school system, both as a technique of exclusion and as a manner of labelling the gypsy diaspora as ‘foreign’ and ‘other’. According to certain academics, the gypsy community ought to be against participation in conventional education. It has been suggested that cultural anxiety and a desire for cultural isolation are key factors that lead to social isolation.
Gypsies are concerned that if they fully merge into the mainstream culture, their cultural identity would be compromised. Because of this, it is possible that some parents may be less likely to send their children to school, which will have an effect on the overall participation rate.
Parents’ own education
Parents’ thoughts of the value of a formal education generally reflect their own sentiments towards the value of their own formal education. Only a small fraction of the parents surveyed had finished all years of elementary and secondary education. Their own education was marred by a great deal of difficulty, and as a result, they had negative preconceptions about what their children would go through in the educational system.
The parents (especially the men) had often become estranged from one another in numerous homes. Despite this, they wished to encourage their children to stay put and complete a fundamental education. As an investment in their children’s future prosperity, they were normally extremely supportive of their children’s education. Nonetheless, there were those fathers who held the opinion that they are unable to force their children to attend school if they so choose. Parents usually provided the same justifications for their children’s absence from school as the children themselves did. The children’s justifications for leaving are consequently given cultural weight.
Educational achievement
All of the parents who participated in the survey expressed excitement about sending their children to school, and the great majority of the parents expressed a wish for their children to complete secondary education. Everyone was in agreement that their children stood to benefit much from an education and training that would make it easier for them to obtain employment in the future.
There was a worry that a significant portion of the work that had traditionally been associated with the gypsy lifestyle was ‘drying up’ and would not be accessible in the future; as a result, this was seen to be an important issue given cultural weight.
Methodology
For this research study, Meththasinghe applied the qualitative research method. The research design considered the population of the gypsy students (23), who are learning at A/Siyambalagaswewa Primary School of the Mihinthale DS, in the Anuradhapura District of the North Central Province. A total of 12 gypsy students were taken as the sample (which covers four students each from Grades Three, Four and Five with the filtration of two boys and two girls from each class), along with three parents whose children are studying in Grades Three, Four and Five on the basis that the parents were experiencing the pros and cons and also the barriers faced by their children in the continuity of school education, two chieftains of the community because they have ruled the village for a long period of time and are aware of the behavioural pattern of the gypsy community that lives in the village, two villagers because they have experience on the behaviours, status of living, beliefs and ethics of the gypsy community including that of gypsy children, and 11 key informants. The sampling method was non-probability and purposive.
Findings
Poverty puts parents in a position of not being able to support students in their requirements such as books, bags, the school uniform, shoes, etc., which makes the children refuse attending school. Racism and discrimination make the students create social boundaries towards the rest of the society which diminishes their interest in communicating and interpersonal connection.
An unsupportive family background gives little or almost no guidance to students in continuing their education. The physical health of the children weakens them both mentally and physically where the ability of endurance, tolerance, cooperating, etc., decreases within the classroom. The school community including the teachers and the principal makes much effort to continue the attendance of the gypsy children.
Gypsy student-centralised approach
A centralised approach in the context of gypsy student management refers to a system or framework where all gypsy student-related information and processes are centralised and managed from a single location or platform. Some steps to create a gypsy student centralised approach include identifying objectives, selecting a centralised platform, gathering gypsy student data, implementing a gypsy student information system, establishing communication channels, streamlining administrative processes, providing training and support, and continuously evaluating and improving. Implementing a centralised approach requires careful planning, coordination, and ongoing support. Therefore, it is essential to involve all the relevant stakeholders and ensure their buy-in to maximise the success of the initiative.
Gypsy child-centred family-based approach
When considering a child centred family based approach for gypsy children, it is important to be mindful of their unique cultural and social context. Some key considerations which require practice and awareness include cultural sensitivity, collaborative engagement, individualised support, holistic development, culturally-responsive education, language support, family support services, community involvement, anti-discrimination and equality, and continuous learning and improvement.
Gypsy children, like any other children, deserve to have their voices heard, their rights respected, and their potential nurtured within a supportive and inclusive family-based approach.
Gypsy student-centred school-based approach
When implementing a gypsy student-centred school-based approach, it is important to consider the specific needs, culture, and experiences of gypsy students, and such should be based on social and educational approaches.
The social approach is approached with cultural fluency. Cultural fluency is crucial for supporting the educational journey of gypsy students. It fosters identity affirmation, academic engagement, effective communication, a positive school climate, personalised support, and strong family-community-school relationships. By embracing and understanding the gypsy culture, educators can create an inclusive and empowering educational environment that promotes academic success, social integration, and the overall wellbeing of gypsy students. This approach includes a culturally responsive environment, cultural awareness and training, individualised support, community engagement, and a culturally relevant curriculum.
The educational approach of the model goes hand in hand with personalisation. Personalised education is of utmost importance for gypsy students as it recognises and addresses their unique needs, strengths, and circumstances. Gypsy students often come from diverse cultural backgrounds, and personalised education allows for tailored approaches that cater to their specific requirements. By understanding their individual learning styles, interests, and challenges, educators can design instructional strategies that maximise engagement and promote academic success. The educational approach includes language support, academic support, career and college readiness, safe transportation, and continuous evaluation and improvement.
A gypsy student-centred school-based approach requires ongoing collaboration, cultural sensitivity, and continuous improvement. By embracing the gypsy culture, valuing diversity, and creating an inclusive environment, schools can help gypsy students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
Social worker intervention
A social worker can provide intervention in numerous ways in order to support the continuous school attendance of gypsy students. The intervention can be provided under several approaches: as an educator, a facilitator, and an initiator.
Social workers can play a significant role as educators to support the continuous school attendance of gypsy students. Some ways in which social workers can intervene include home visits and relationship building, case management and advocacy, individualised support plans, parent and community engagement, truancy prevention programmes, crisis intervention and support, and data collection and analysis.
Social workers can also serve as facilitators to support the continuous school attendance of gypsy students. Some ways in which social workers can intervene in this capacity include collaboration and coordination, attendance monitoring and early intervention, individualised attendance plans, counseling and support, life skills and resilience building, family engagement and education, and advocacy and systemic change.
Social workers can play a crucial role as initiators to support the continuous school attendance of gypsy students. Some ways in which social workers can intervene in this capacity include needs assessment, community engagement, cultural sensitivity training, resource mobilisation, mentoring and support programs, policy advocacy, and data monitoring and evaluation.
In conclusion, Meththasinghe made a number of recommendations in this regard: Sponsoring a State-wide training program to promote these resources, and to revisit, update, and re-release the materials that were developed under the National Strategy Programme; Allotting funds for the financial assistance of gypsy families and designating a national coordinator for this endeavour; The reestablishment of funding that is particularly designated for Local Authorities and is subject to monitoring in order to provide services to support gypsy populations with educational inclusion, participation, transitions, and opportunities; Ensuring that all initial teacher training courses (primary and secondary) include a section on strategies to facilitate the participation of gypsy, Roma and traveller children and young people as part of the curriculum; Keeping an eye on racial bullying and taking action against it if it is shown to be widespread, issuing warning letters to schools where it has been established that racist bullying takes place on a regular basis, and implementing an anti-bullying policy that is consistent and understandable across the entirety of educational institutions; Ensure that each and every worker receives training on their equality-related responsibilities so that they are informed that the gypsy ethnicity is a protected trait and that it is against the law to discriminate against gypsy students; and Fostering an environment in which school districts are encouraged to interact with families in a manner that is transparent, inclusive, and truthful.
This is the final part of a two-part series of articles. The first was published in an earlier issue of The Daily Morning
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China has agreed to provide all school uniform materials required for 2026 as a grant, benefiting over 4.4 million students in government and government-aided schools.
The agreement was exchanged between Education Ministry officials and the Chinese Ambassador at a ceremony in Colombo.
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