Features

New job with a new government and a success story in Washington

Published

10 months ago

2025/11/30

Premadasa

The United National Party won the General Election held on February 15, 1989. On Saturday the 18th the new Cabinet was sworn in. There was a great deal of speculation on Saturday morning. We did not know to what Ministries we would be appointed or whether we would be appointed at all. No one thought President Premadasa a predictable person. A few Secretaries displayed a fairly high level of anxiety. Some of them telephoned me at home and discussed prospects.

I for my- part was quite relaxed. I felt that I had performed well in my public service career and if any government did not appreciate that, it was their problem, not mine. You could not compel a government to appoint you as a Secretary to a Ministry. It was entirely up to them. There was nothing you could do. I had long learned not to worry about matters beyond one’s control. In any case I was confident that I could always engage myself in something productive either in government or outside.

In fact this is what I said to those colleagues who telephoned me. Among the telephone calls I received early that afternoon was one from Mr. Lalith Athulathmudali. “For your misfortune,” he said, “I am your Minister.” I instantly replied “Give it a week or two, and let’s see whose misfortune it is.” He laughed. “Never mind all that, could you please come home? I have asked my State Ministers also to come. I want to discuss some matters,” he said. It was only then I came to know that the new

Ministry was exactly the one that the President had discussed with me on the 14th afternoon and it was in this manner that I began the relationship with the new Minister.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Co-operatives was one of the largest Ministries formed. Twenty seven Departments, Corporations, Statutory Boards and Secretariats such as the Fertilizer Secretariat came under it. Four Ministers of State, for Agriculture; for Food; for Co-operatives; and for Livestock Development and Milk Production were appointed to assist the Minister, together with four Secretaries. They were senior and experienced public servants such as Mr. Dixon Nilaweera; Mr. Sapukotana; Mr. Vamadeva; and Dr. Dhanapala. The State Ministers were., Mr. Wijeratne Banda for Agriculture, Mr. G.M. Premachandra for Food; Mr. Ravi Samaraweera for Co-operatives; and Mr. Mahendra Wijeratne for Livestock Development.

In terms of sheer size the two largest Ministries appeared to be the Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Information and ourselves. The President wished to ensure proper co-ordination within these Ministries and to achieve this, he ordered the operation of a “Mini Cabinet” system. This was to be a weekly or fortnightly meeting of the Minister, his Ministers of State, the Secretary and the Secretaries to the State Ministries. These meetings were expected to have a formal agenda, with minutes kept of the discussions and conclusions.

I had noticed that given a responsibility, Minister Athulathmudali wasted no time. Hence, our meeting at his official residence at Stanmore Crescent was just a few hours after his swearing in. The Minister discussed a broad programme of work with the State Ministers and the Secretaries. These included paddy production and the increasing of yields; the fragmentation of agricultural land; agricultural research; subsidiary food crops, such as chillies; onions and potatoes. Other important crops such as maize; minor export crops such as cloves, cardamoms, pepper, coffee and cocoa; the role of the Co-operatives; Marketing; Milk and Livestock Production and other matters. Naturally, this was not a discussion in depth, but a preliminary tour of the horizon. Certain administrative arrangements were also discussed.

The importance of the exercise lay in the serious and almost immediate focus on the issues that we were to grapple with. When we formally began work therefore on Monday morning, we were able without delay to hold meetings with our senior officials, including heads of departments and agencies and brief them on the main areas of concentration and the general thrust of policy.

The pace of work was hectic. A Ministry as large as this, covering vital sectors of the economy naturally threw up all kinds of problems. They ranged from policy issues to trade union activities, to dispute settlement, to co-ordination, to financial administration, to service on numerous committees, to tender boards, to discussions with numerous foreign delegations, to overseeing certain large projects, and being generally available for discussions with a stream of officials, Members of Parliament and others.

All this had to be done within an environment of grave insurgency where the potential threat to life was very real. There were days where practically the entire country shut down including government offices. But we never closed. We carried on, on some days with a skeleton staff. Working under these conditions made us feel a sense of isolation and vulnerability. The Minister was determined to keep his Ministry and Departments open, whatever the circumstances were. One could not fault him for that. But Ministers were protected. We were not. There was no alternative but to carry on with a degree of philosophic resignation, which interestingly enough gave one an element of strength and endurance.

Invitation to be Secretary, Ministry of Defence

Speaking of issues of insecurity and protection leads me to refer to an interesting episode that occurred a little earlier. One day General Cyril Ranatunge who was Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Defence at the time rang me at home. This was a time when General Attygalle was relinquishing his post as Secretary Defence. General Ranatunge was speaking to me on behalf of President Premadasa. He said that the President as well as other important persons had given great thought to General Attygalle’s successor. They had come to the conclusion that the post should once again revert to a civilian. They had further Concluded that the civilian should be me.

General Ranatunge said that the President was very keen that I should take up this position, and had mentioned that he wanted in this post not only a person acceptable to the government, but a person acceptable to the country as a whole. In the President’s view I was that person. He therefore urged me to accept. I politely but firmly declined.

There were several reasons for this. One was a pressing personal reason. This was a time that my mother was very ill and requiring much care and attention. Given the crucial role she had played in my life, I as an only child was determined to personally see that she lacked nothing. Her condition used to fluctuate and therefore some decisions had to be taken by me personally because my wife did not feel she could decide at certain times. In these circumstances, if I became Secretary, Defence at a time of twin insurgencies, one by the JVP and the other by the LTTE, I would have been totally bereft of any normal life or the ability to keep to any sensible hours of work. I would have had to forget almost everything else.

There were other considerations in addition. For instance, given the location of my private residence, I would probably have been advised to shift to a more secure official bungalow. We would have to be heavily guarded, and every time my wife went to the market or our son to the institution he studied in, some armed security person or persons would have had to accompany them.

But beyond all this, I had a strong underlying philosophical problem. Defence means also offence. I would therefore have found myself in an environment of armaments and death and particularly having to give my mind to counter offensives and killing. This I did not want to be involved in.

I explained all this to General Ranatunge. But he not only had a brief from the President, we had also known each other for a long time, beginning with my involvement in lecturing to senior level officers of the Army on current affairs in the early 1960’s. General Ranatunge at that time a Major was lecturing on Tactics. This acquaintance had grown over the years and we were now friends. He therefore also had a personal interest in getting me over. Generously, he said that he would continue as Additional Secretary and assist me in every way possible.

He was a sincere person and I had no doubt that he would have done so. But I had too many reasons to refuse. In the end all attempts by him to convince me in the course of a long conversation were of no avail. All my long official life I had never aspired to or worked to obtain any particular post. I had merely taken up whatever post that was given to me. This was the one single instance in a career of a few months short of 37 years that I declined a post. A subsequent attempt by Mr. Paskaralingam to change my mind was not successful either.

Visit to the USA

The disruption caused by the LTTE and JVP insurgencies were causing serious damage to the economy. Economic activity was being disrupted. Massive damage was being caused to public property such as buses, trains, telecommunication centres, electric transformers, public buildings and public works. The damage caused ran into billions of rupees. Further damage was caused by the disruption Of tourism. Foreign investment in this climate was not to be expected. Foreign exchange reserves were being drawn down and by the end of March they had reached critical levels.

Banks were finding it difficult to open Letters of Credit. There were times when Letters of Credit drawn on Sri Lankan banks had to be guaranteed by reputed foreign banks. They were otherwise not acceptable. All this led to delay, extra costs, and a general crisis of confidence which had further adverse effects on the economy.

It was in these rather desperate circumstances that the government decided to send a delegation to Washington for urgent discussions with the IMF and the World Bank, with the objective of obtaining assistance, and certain standby facilities. I was suddenly informed that I was to be a member of this delegation. I was puzzled as to what my role was going to be. The delegation were to conduct negotiations principally with the IMF and the World Bank, and were to consist of the new Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. R. Paskaralingam, the Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Neville Karunatilleke and the Director Fiscal Policy and Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Mr. R. Shanmugalingam, among others.

I did not understand, how I was going to fit in, in my present capacity to this group. I was soon enlightened. I was informed that my mandate was to try to obtain a US$ 25 million credit repayable in three years to purchase wheat from the United States. I was aware that there were two US credit programmes for the purchase of agricultural commodities. One of them was a three year credit and the other, a seven year credit. I wondered why I was asked to go for the three year credit instead of the seven year credit, in the extremely serious foreign exchange situation we were in.

When I inquired, I was informed that the seven year credit was currently exhausted and that some funds remained only under the three year credit. With my experience of things, I thought there could be an error somewhere. We had only a couple of days left for departure, and I was told only very late about my inclusion in the delegation. My instincts based on experience however, told me that certainly in the area of responsibility allocated to me and although time was very short, some work needed to be done before I started negotiations with the United States Department of Agriculture.

During the many years, I had been visiting Washington on food matters, I had had the occasion to meet with, and get to know a number of important and influential persons connected with my range of responsibilities. Some of them were in the private sector, but with sound knowledge and access to very high levels of the US Government. I decided to telephone one of them and obtain his views.

When I discussed matters with him, he promptly informed me that he thought that very little money was left in both credit programmes and that most of that money would have gone to Egypt after the conclusion of the visit of President Hosni Mubarak to the United States. He also however thought that there still could be a little money remaining. But he was certain that talking to the USDA was not going to bring results. He said “If you really want to get some thing, you will have to go much higher. You will have to go right up to the White House.”

By now I was quite disturbed. “But, how do we do that?” I inquired. Then he asked for my schedule in Washington, and said “I will see that you get an appointment at the White House, with President Bush’s Special Assistant on International Agriculture.” He went on to add that given the existing circumstances, it was only the White House that could steer our request through the powerful inter-agency committee consisting of the USDA; Office of Management and Budget; Agency for International Development; and the State Department.

It was just as well that I discussed this matter with some one so knowledgeable. If I went to the United States and talked only to the USDA even with all the goodwill we had there, there would not have been the faintest prospect of success. My going to Washington would have been a fruitless journey. I saw to it that the White House appointment was coordinated with our Ambassador Susantha de Alwis. He was modest enough to tell me that it would not have been possible for him to have got this appointment, at such short notice.

Discussions in Washington and an appointment at the White House

We began discussions at the IMF and the World Bank. It was difficult going. We had not met certain deadlines and understandings we had previously reached with them, due to numerous reasons. The IMF in particular was unbending. They were not satisfied with our record of compliance in the recent past. We gave reasons. We reminded them of the disruptive impact of two insurgencies which were still on going. But it was heavy going.

The World Bank appeared to be more understanding and more accommodating. We met two Vice Presidents and other senior dfficials. They were willing to assist in certain directions, but mentioned that our reaching an understanding with the IMF was crucial. It was in this context of near deadlock that I had to go for my White House appointment. I was accompanied by the Ambassador. I had thought carefully about the meeting.

Obtaining the food credit, in the situation we were in was of the highest importance. I was going to meet an official at the highest levels of the US government. He was bound to be extremely busy. He could not be expected to devote much time and attention to little Sri Lanka. I therefore concluded that whatever I had to say, and whatever impact I could make had to be done within 15 minutes. Therefore, I had to get this official’s attention fast. This could not be a routine encounter.

The Ambassador and I were duly ushered in, and nodded to the departing visitor, who was the British Minister of Agriculture. We were cordially greeted. When we were seated, my opening words, after conveying thanks for giving the interview, was that I came from a rare country, where there was a statue of an American in the heart of our capital city. That evoked instant interest.

I was referring to the statue of Colonel Olcott near the Fort Railway Station. I then briefly explained the significant contribution he had made to the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, which in turn was allied with the broad Nationalist movement struggling for the independence of Sri Lanka from the British. From this, I went on to talk briefly about the various shared values between our two countries. By this time, I had struck up a rapport. I had been able to obtain and retain his interest.

The atmosphere was extremely cordial and helpful. It was so to such an extent that I took the decision to exceed my brief. Instead of asking for US$ 25 million under the three year credit, I asked for US$ 50 million under the seven year credit. The Special Assistant to the President, said he would try. In our presence, he asked his Secretary to get the Secretary of the Inter-Agency Committee on the phone. He was not available.

We were promised that the utmost would be done in order to assist us to the maximum extent possible. Instead of 15 minutes, the meeting had lasted almost 45 minutes and it was quite a good one. As we shook hands and were leaving, I was requested that whenever I came to Washington, I was to call him. “Please come and see me,” was the kind invitation. We were quite happy with the meeting and the response we had evoked. But we did not want to raise the expectations of our colleagues who were very anxious to find out what had happened. They were still facing hurdles at the IMF. We only said that we had a good meeting.

Two days later came the decision; 40 million US dollars on a seven year repayment period. This was above all expectations we had when we set out. It was also the result of my exceeding my mandate on the basis of my judgment of what we should ask for, which in its turn was grounded on my instant assessment of how the negotiation with the Special Assistant to the President was proceeding. The decision was a major relief.

My colleagues told me that the IMF was mystified as to how we obtained this significant and favourable decision from the highest levels of the US government. My meeting with the President’s Special Assistant was not known to them. My colleagues told me further, that this decision was interpreted by the IMF as a vote of confidence on Sri Lanka by the US government.

Suddenly, the negotiations with the IMF had become much easier. They had become much more accommodating. They generously told me that the line of credit obtained from the US government became the key to the entire negotiations with the Bank and the Fund, which a couple of days later were successfully concluded.

I must add an amusing postscript to this. The first time I met the rest of our delegation on the corridors of the hotel after the US government announcement, Mr. Shanmugalingam, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury and Director Fiscal Policy, on spotting me, bounded forward and seizing me by the shoulders kissed me passionately on both cheeks. In my life time, I have never been kissed with such ardour by a male.

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Peiris)

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Features

Eastern University and the making of a culture of peace

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

There is an important change in the way peace is being understood in Sri Lanka. The notion that peacebuilding is not simply the responsibility of governments, politicians and peace organisations, but is also a responsibility of educational institutions, appears to be permeating the consciousness of at least a section of the academic community. This was visible on International Peace Day at an event held at Eastern University by the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences. The event was unusual not least because the medical and nursing faculty of the university had decided that peacebuilding was relevant to its academic and professional responsibilities.

Peacebuilding has too often been treated as something undertaken after conflict, when the fighting has stopped and the immediate task is to rebuild relationships between communities. But peace cannot be sustained by governments and peace organisations alone. If it is to become long lasting, the values and practices of peace have to become part of the institutions through which a society educates its younger generations. Universities and other educational institutions are therefore important to peacebuilding. They are among the places where the foundations of a culture of peace can either be built or neglected.

The experience of the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences at Eastern University provides a practical example of what this can mean. Led by its Dean, Prof Thillainathan Sathaananthan, the faculty organised an event which went beyond the ordinary academic scope of a medical faculty. University academics are experts in writing project proposals and applying for research grants. On this occasion, the members of the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences used those skills to apply for a UNESCO grant that they won to conduct an International Peace Day event. The significance lies less in the Rs 200,000 grant than in the decision to use the university’s institutional capacity and resources to invest in peacebuilding. The event at Eastern University needs to be understood as more than a successful university programme. It represents a possible paradigm shift in peace thinking.

Institutional Commitment

The Peace Day event obtained the support of the university administration, including Vice Chancellor Prof P Peratheepan, and reached out to secondary schools in the vicinity to mobilise their attendance. The event itself was meticulously organised. There were cultural items including traditional and modern dance and song in the three languages, performed by combinations of solo, duet and multiple singers, dancers and actors drawn in part from nearby secondary schools. There was a panel discussion by senior academics on the general theme of peacebuilding and how to prepare for it. A discussion among the students followed, where each student spoke on behalf of a religion that was not theirs. This is significant because peacebuilding cannot remain an idea discussed by specialists at conferences. It has to become part of the way institutions educate and prepare people for life in a plural society.

The Faculty of Health-Care Sciences at Eastern University has provided a model through its Peace Medicine course modules that were introduced to the curricular as a compulsory core course over 10 years ago. Two senior academics, Dr Kuveriel Eliyas Karunakaran and Dr Thillainathan Sathaananthan, have written a book on “Peace Medicine- A Health Care Concern” that was published five years ago. Its Peace Medicine Module integrates principles of medical ethics, compassion, equity, social justice and community engagement into health education and practice. In his introduction, former Vice Chancellor of Eastern University, Prof T Jayasingam noted “This book is an introduction to a theme which had already been operating in the Faculty of Health Care Sciences as a course.”

Doctors, nurses and health workers know better than anyone the harm that war and violence does. They are the people who treat the wounds and trauma that violence leaves behind. In a hospital, a patient is not asked what their religion or ethnicity is before they are treated. Health care is one of the places where peace is practised every day. The Faculty has therefore found a way of connecting its professional responsibilities with the wider social responsibility of peacebuilding. The question is whether this experience can be replicated throughout the country, at universities and at other educational institutions, so that peacebuilding becomes part of the consciousness of education itself. If that happens on a sufficient scale, it can begin to generate a culture of peace that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.

Local Action

The Eastern University event corresponded closely to the United Nations theme for this year’s International Day of Peace, “Invest in Peace – For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day”, which honours the “everyday architects of peace”, people driving local action, laying the groundwork for stability and building lasting peace from the ground up. The emphasis on investment is important. An investment means that something is put in: time, courage and resources. There is no more violent conflict in Sri Lanka today. But the absence of war does not automatically produce a culture of peace. The factors that fed the country’s conflict have not disappeared from the world. Racism, corruption and the violation of laws and human rights are the raw materials of conflict. So too are unresolved grievances, discrimination and the failure to recognise the suffering of others.

A country that does not deal with its past does not escape it. The past can return in the next generation. This is why the experience of Eastern University needs to be replicated countrywide, both at universities and at other educational institutions. The objective should not be to turn every academic discipline into peace studies. Rather, peacebuilding needs to become part of the consciousness of education itself. Eastern University shows that a medical faculty can develop Peace Medicine. A law faculty can examine the relationship between justice, rights and peace. Faculties of education can prepare teachers to work in diverse communities, while the humanities and social sciences can examine the different narratives through which communities understand their histories. Every institution can find its own way of making peacebuilding relevant to what it teaches.

Sri Lanka has had many declarations, pledges and programmes in the past. What matters is whether these produce changes in behaviour and institutional practice. Peacebuilding requires confronting difficult issues rather than avoiding them. It requires respect for different identities, but also engagement across those identities. It requires dealing with grievances in the present while also addressing unresolved issues from the past. It requires truth, accountability, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence. It requires people to learn that the rights of another community do not diminish their own rights. The International Peace Day event at Eastern University was evidence of a change in the way at least some academics in a part of the country deeply affected by war are thinking about their responsibilities. Peace needs to be invested in and the most important investment will be in the minds of those who will inherit the future.

Features

Quality assured education commodities

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Ahilan Kadirgamar

I have always noticed the little paper tags that are inside the packaging of some products that say quality assured or quality control. I often wonder who might have checked the product and stamped that tag, but I also forget the tag soon enough. Decades later, when I entered academia, I was taken aback by the emphasis placed on quality assurance in our universities. It is not something that could be forgotten and done away with; the entire university system is obsessed with quality assurance.

Beginning with the staff induction programme, quality assurance is drilled into the newly recruited lecturers. It is the norm, not seen as doing any harm and only trying to improve quality. It is accepted as given, and not questioned. Quality Assurance Cells and Committees are omnipresent and hover above the Departments and, at times, even the Faculty Boards. Quality Assurance reviews are feared by the Deans and Vice Chancellors. University life itself seems secondary to the rule of quality assurance. What do we make of this system of quality assurance and what are its implications for our university system?

Corporate speak

Universities globally have been going through major changes with neoliberal education policies. In many countries, universities increasingly became corporatised to be run like businesses in the 1980s. As state support for universities declined, cost cutting became the norm. They started hiring adjunct or part-time staff. Many public non-fee levying universities around the world began to charge fees. Decade by decade, tuition fees became more and more exorbitant, forcing students to take student loans. The total student debt in the United States now stands at close to US$ 2 trillion; which is about 20 times the GDP of Sri Lanka. As the higher education landscape transformed in the West, university administrations began to recruit Presidents, Vice Chancellors and administrative officials with corporate backgrounds and experience.

Such corporatisation of universities in the West has since been imported into countries like Sri Lanka, introducing a new corporate vocabulary, including quality assurance, graduate competencies, programme outcomes, intended learning outcomes, etc. University teaching has become secondary to documenting so-called outcomes. The teacher-student relationship, the environment of the lecture hall and even administering the university have been over-determined by the processes of ensuring quality. How did such major changes come about in such a short time? Indeed, academics of just two generation ago, would never have heard of these terms and processes in the Sri Lankan university system.

World Bank Trojan horse

Since the early 2000s there have been a number of World Bank projects that have drastically changed the character of Sri Lankan universities. Quality assurance as a central agenda within universities, and many other changes to the working of our universities, came through these World Bank initiatives. The Improving Relevance and Quality of Undergraduate Education (IRQUE) project and Higher Education for the 21st Century (HETC) project were two such earlier projects that set up the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Unit (QAAU) under the University Grants Commission (UGC) and established systematic quality assurance reviews for state universities. The public often thinks these are grants from the World Bank to modernise our universities. However, they are not grants but loans.

The most recent such project, Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) is a US$ 100 million loan from the World Bank implemented from 2018 to 2023, which consolidated the quality assurance structures from the earlier projects. Furthermore, these projects are implemented with tremendous arrogance, prioritising their implementation over all other concerns in the universities, when the project over six years for example accounts for just one fourth of our budget allocation for universities this year.

The AHEAD project drastically changed course curricula, sought to increase student enrolment in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) disciplines, commercialise the university research agenda and create university-business linkages. All of this was pushed to supposedly help us face development challenges. We have heard the ideological attack on our universities and even students claiming they are “unemployable graduates”. These changes to our higher education system were supposedly going to create jobs and increase employment.

The irony of the AHEAD project is that just as it was ending in 2023, apparently after having reached its targets, the Sri Lankan economy was collapsing. The World Bank often gets the direction of causality wrong. It is the economy that creates jobs for graduates, and not the training or kind of graduates that create jobs. It is decades of World Bank policies, and those of its ideological twin the IMF, that have led to such high youth unemployment, not only in Sri Lanka but also in many other countries in the global South.

Sri Lanka entered an IMF agreement in March 2023 and started a new Country Partnership Framework with the World Bank in June 2023. These programmes have little to say about, and actively discourage, government initiatives that aim to create an industrial policy or an employment creation policy. Instead, they push for austerity measures, which not only restrict the allocation for education among other sectors, but also end up contracting the economy to the detriment of increasing employment. Their goal is the commercialisation of higher education, to make universities into businesses and run them like factories.

In this context, the ideology of quality assurance is powerful. The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), whose different standards are necessary for marketing, is the institution that came up with the concept of “quality assurance”. It promoted quality assurance as a process of identifying defected products. Therefore, when the World Bank promotes this conceptual framing, our students are, in fact, seen as products on the assembly line, with quality assurance processes aiming to prevent the release of defected products from the university system. For the US$ 100 million we borrowed for the AHEAD project and the many more million dollars in similar World Bank projects, there is no evidence of increased employment of graduates.

Commodity fetishism

Over a century and a half ago, Karl Marx critiqued the economic analysis prevalent at that time that associated some inherent or monetary value for commodities without considering the social relations that underlie the production of those commodities. Marx called this commodity fetishism. Furthermore, he theorised that such commodity fetishism was also a reason for the alienation of human beings from the world. If our labour and what we produce is seen devoid of the social relations that underlie them, we lose our connection with the people and the world. In this process we become alienated from what we produce and the world.

We are now in a world where our students themselves are fetishised as commodities for the market. Universities are no longer communities concerned about knowledge and human growth, but mere factories producing commodities, which have to be produced without defects to be marketed. In this way, quality assurance has become the cause for the alienation of students, academics and our universities themselves, from the larger relationship with our economy and society.

Our university system does need reform. It is grossly underfunded and not providing the financial support and facilities for our students. Universities have become hierarchical spaces without the academic freedom and democratic ethos necessary for producing knowledge. Academics and students need to engage more with their communities to make their learning and research meaningful, not to mention their contribution to and integration with society. However, when it comes to even questions of governance and regulation of the universities, such concerns are merely reduced to improving quality. In our contemporary times, this singular focus on quality assurance, as opposed to addressing the larger structural issues, is crippling our universities. There may be no way out, but to put back quality assurance where it started, those little tags on goods, to perhaps be noticed but quickly forgotten.

Ahilan Kadirgamar is a political economist and Senior Lecturer, University of Jaffna.

(Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies)

Features

Thailand’s biggest new global star …

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

The entertainment scene, globally, is agog with excitement, and, why not!

Yes, a new global star has emerged … from Thailand, and she hit the headlines by winning America’s Got Talent.

Rattikarn Amloy, known to millions by her stage name Nene Royal, was crowned the winner of America’s Got Talent (AGT) Season 21 at the live finale at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, California, taking home the USD 1 million grand prize.

The 16-year-old rocker, from the holiday island of Phuket (I’ve been to Phuket, courtesy Tourism Authority of Thailand), has struck a power chord around the world, and is the first Thai national ever to win the hit NBC show.

She beat nine other finalists, including runner-up magician Geno Ploeger, after a blistering final performance.

Nene’s story is pure rock and roll fairy-tale. She says she picked up a guitar at age seven, fell in love at the first chord, and taught herself mostly by watching videos online. That dedication earned her a music scholarship to Kajonkiet International School Phuket.

Her audition at America’s Got Talent — a swaggering, shredding rendition of The Cranberries’ classic ‘Zombie’ — exploded online, amassing over 200 million views across AGT’s platforms, more than any act this season.

She kept wowing: ‘Hysteria’ by Muse, then ‘Black Hole Sun’ by Soundgarden which earned her Spice Girl Mel B’s Golden Buzzer, sending her straight to the live shows.

For the final, she unleashed ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes. Judge Howie Mandel shouted: “You should win. Give her the million, America.” Mel B praised her “mysterious, mystical stage presence”.

And for the grand finale, she lived every teen rocker’s dream — performing on stage, alongside US rock giants Linkin Park.

When host Terry Crews announced her as winner, the teenager collapsed to the stage floor in tears. “I’m very happy and you know I’m emotional right now,” she said.

And Thailand erupted. Her school held watch parties, posting: “You did it, congratulations, champion. We are so proud of you.”

Even Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul sent a personal congratulation. He had earlier hosted Nene at Government House in July, where she played guitar while he sang a Thai rock song. His office said her talent “brought pride to Thai people.”

Corporate Thailand also rallied behind her — Charoen Pokphand Foods, owned by billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont, even rented a giant billboard in Times Square, New York, to cheer her on.

With her blistering guitar solos, rock-ballad shrieks and fearless spirit, little Nene Royal has just become Thailand’s biggest new global star.

What’s more, this amazing teenager will be bringing her powerful vocals, guitar skills and signature rock-metal style to the stage, as opening act, before one of the world’s biggest rock bands, America’s Avenged Sevenfold, in Singapore, on 13 October.

Unfortunately, we are still to see a local artiste, grab the spotlight, on a global scale … like Thailand’s Nene.

Yes, they do shine, but mostly on social media, and that, too, with the aid of AI (Artificial Intellegence).