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RESEARCH AT 16 FIVE-STAR HOTELS – PART ‘A’

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4 years ago

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CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil
President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada
Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum
chandij@sympatico.ca

I was very pleased when in 1984 the University of Surrey (UoS) in the UK approved ‘Food and Beverage operations in the context of five-star London hotels’ as my M.Sc. dissertation topic. As directed by my supervisor, Professor Richard Kotas, I read all of the books – cover to cover and journal articles ever written in English about Food and Beverage management and operations. That took over two months. I was also directed by him to answer three questions, to provide context in my research undertaking:

  • = What are luxury hotels?

  • =What is the history of British luxury hotels?

  • =How does Food and Beverage management play a vital role in London five-star hotels?

What are Luxury Hotels?

Many have attempted to define a luxury hotel. The word ‘luxury’ has different meanings to different people depending on their experiences and expectations. In many classification guides in 1984, words such as ‘de-luxe’, five-star’, ‘first-class’ or ‘exclusive’ were used by hoteliers and writers.

Some felt that the large size of a hotel was a disadvantage for the hoteliers to maintain true ‘five-star’ standards. In 1984, none of the largest 18 hotels (with between 1,029 and 530 rooms) in UK, were five-star ranked. The average size of the 21 five-star hotels in UK, was 261 rooms (ranging from 509 to 86 rooms). In 1984, the average age of these 21 hotels was 55 years. A majority (16) of them were in London.

The 16 five-star London hotels had a total of 48 food and beverage outlets (an average of three per hotel). Average banqueting capacity for sit-down meals was 406. Grosvenor House had the largest banqueting operation able to accommodate 1,500 guests for a sit-down meal.

Most countries in the world use some form of hotel classification system, out of which 65 systems in 1984 were enforced by the public sector. In UK, in 1984, the key hotel grading schemes were carried out by private organizations. The most famous and respected hotel grading scheme was done by the Automobile Association (AA). In my research, I found that up to 1984, nothing academically significant had been written about the British hotel classification schemes or the five-star hotel grading. That gap provided me an opportunity.

What is the History of British Luxury Hotels?

During the eleventh century, a few monastic institutions as well as private homes in Britain were used to provide accommodation to travellers. The English inn had probably originated from the practice of receiving travellers by private householders. Religion played a vital part determining people’s habits in consumption of food and beverages. Towards the late fourteenth century, solid-stone built structures replaced the sheds operated as ale-houses and taverns in the provinces and inns in London.

With the popularity of wagons and other wheeled transport towards the end of the 16th century, a larger scale Tudor Inn operation replaced the Medieval Inn. The eighteenth century was the turning point for gastronomy in Britain. Influenced by major cities in continental Europe, such as Paris, Vienna, as well as the main cities of Switzerland, the word ‘Hotel’ became common in Britain after 1760.

Proper hotels, with managers, receptionists, porters and page-boys, gradually became common in Britain only at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Large British hotels such as The Grand, The Great Eastern, The Euston, The Charing Cross, The Great Western Royal, and The Grosvenor were developed in that era. One common feature of these hotels was that all of them were located near major railway terminals in London.

The opening of The Langham on Regent Street, London in 1865, is generally considered the origin of true luxury hotels in UK. Bailey’s Hotel was opened eleven years after that in 1876, and the world-famous London hotel, The Savoy, opened in 1889. Around the same time, a few luxury hotels were opened in well-known resort cities and towns. In 1984, the oldest British hotel with a five-star rating was The Imperial in Torquay, which was opened in 1866.

Using all British Connections for M.Sc. Research

The British hotel industry looked to London for the latest trends and London emerged easily as the trend setter of the industry. Within the five-star London hotels, the food and beverage departments appeared to be the most complex and versatile. In answering my third and most important research question – ‘How does food and beverage management play a vital role in London five-star hotels?’ I decided to work or observe in all 16 five-star hotels in London, and interview dozens of relevant managers.

During the first half of the twentieth century, most five-star hotels around the world did not make much profits from their food and beverage operations. From an economic stand point it was important to attempt to break even. More emphasis was given to rooms, because this was where the money was made. The concept of food and beverage manager or director was relatively new in the world. This concept was developed only in the 1960s by major hotel chains in USA, combining the technical know-how with the business administration skills, aiming to optimize profits.

The food and beverage manager/director of a five-star hotel usually was responsible for nearly half the hotel’s employees (in 1984, in London it was 48%) and administered a range of complex departments such as kitchens, restaurants, bars, banqueting, events, room service, stewarding, and at times, mini bars, as well as, food and beverage controls. Having gained experience as an executive chef and food and beverage manager of two small resort hotels in Sri Lanka in mid-1970s, I focused on securing the position of the food and beverage manager/director of a large five-star international hotel, by mid-1980s.

I developed a one-page research questionnaire which was mailed to all 16 five-star hotels in London. I used my previously established contacts in UK to ensure that I received prompt and positive responses from each hotel. For my research interviews, I used 14 open ended questions. I loved this research undertaking, and was passionate about it. I knew that it would help me to reach my next career goal. I wanted to do much more than what was required of me by the university. I was hungry for useful knowledge.

I commenced my research interviews with people I knew well. I travelled to Cosham and Portsmouth to interview a couple of hospitality experts who supported me during my ILO/UNDP fellowship in 1982. I also contacted two Senior Lecturers of the South Devon Technical College, who had presented a two-week Hotel Management seminar in Sri Lanka in 1982. Having attended this seminar, I became friends with them.

“Chandi, why don’t you take a break from your hectic schedule in London and visit Dr. David Dann and I in Torquay? You both spend a weekend at my home and try my wife, Clair’s British cooking skills”, Tim Hornsey invited us over the telephone. Torquay is a beautiful seaside town in Devon, with numerous archaeological remains dating back to pre-historic times. In addition to hosting us, Tim and David and their wives took us to see The Imperial. They also arranged for me to interview the renowned hotelier who managed it, Harry Murray.

Using Part-time Work for Research

My readings, research interviews and informal discussions provided an enormous amount of data pertaining to my research topic. In addition, I collected many brochures, menus, wine cards, promotional material, control documents etc. from most of the London five-star hotels. These were carefully analysed prior to writing the dissertation. However, mid-way during the research activity, I felt strongly that in order to obtain insight into the actual hotel operations, it would be ideal to work in different capacities in various hotels.

I continued to work at The Dorchester as a part-time banquet waiter. Due to that valuable experience in the best hotel in UK, I was able to find part-time work in two other five-star hotels on Park Lane – London Hilton and InterContinental London. I also began working as a part-time banquet waiter at Claridge’s, which had opened in the nineteenth century. Doing similar work in four five-star hotels concurrently, provided me an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast their standards in food and beverage operations and banqueting.

Although I liked the old-world charm of Claridge’s and The Dorchester, I found that the food and beverage operations of the newer (originally) American chain hotels, InterContinental and Hilton, were far more efficient. Having previously worked at two InterContinental hotels in two other countries (Sri Lanka in 1973 and Hong Kong in 1981), I was familiar with their standards of operation in banquets. I was most impressed with the London Hilton, which had the most efficiently managed banquet operation in London.

As the demand on me to work as a banquet waiter in London increased, I became very busy. Often, I did three-hour shifts for meal services only. For such a short shift, I was paid only £8.40. On some days, I did three shifts in three hotels for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In between, I did research interviews. I became keen in gaining different types of five-star hotel experiences in London at a higher level.

Using Management Trainee Positions for Research

I spoke with my friend, Mr. Wilfred Weragoda, the Food & Beverage Controller of The Dorchester. Based on my new request, he arranged for me to spend two weeks in his department as a Food & Beverage Controls Trainee. In addition to learning different aspects of Food and Beverage operations, that brief exposure opened new doors for me.

One day, I interviewed W. A. Lipscombe, Managing Director of Hallway Hotels in his office in London. He was a friend of Mark Bostock, then Chairman of John Keells Group, who arranged my first Management Trainee assignment in UK with Trust House Forte in 1979. Due to their friendship, I was able to secure with good pay an excellent management trainee position in a 500-room five-star hotel in London. Lipscombe told me, “Chandi, hotels in my company are not five-star. Therefore, I will use a good contact of mine – The Managing Director of The Churchill, to arrange six weeks exposure in six departments for you. I will tell Mark that I did you a favour.”

The Churchill experience was excellent. I spent a week each in six departments – purchasing, receiving bay and stores, food and beverage controls and accounts department, reservations, banquets, restaurants and room service, and finally, kitchen. I also did a few research interviews, there. The most useful interview was given to me on my last day at The Churchill, by the company’s Managing Director, G. Webb. I was also exposed to The Churchill’s four-star sister hotel in London, The Montcalm.

I was encouraged with the success of my Management Trainee assignments at The Dorchester and The Churchill, in the context of enhancing my graduate research and acquiring experience and knowledge. These exposures also improved my résumé. With that enthusiasm, I approached my contacts at Trust House Forte, who arranged a short Management Trainee assignment for me at the 85-year-old five-star, The Hyde Park Hotel. There, I worked directly under its veteran General Manager, A. Grosso, who also gave me an opportunity to conduct one of my longest and useful research interviews.

Soon after that I was sent to the Trust House Forte Group’s flagship hotel, Grosvenor House, for a couple of weeks. I was pleased with this opportunity as Grosvenor House had the largest five-star Food and Beverage operations in UK. I did a few more research interviews there. One of those I interviewed was Ben Davis, the Food & Beverage Manager. In 1990’s both Ben and I held the same position in the Caribbean, as the General Manager of Trust House Forte’s 360-room five-star hotel – Jamaica Pegasus/Forte Grand.

I enjoyed full-day orientations at four five-star hotels in London at the commencement of each of my Management Trainee assignments. The most memorable orientation was at The Dorchester, due to one gentleman who made a big, positive impact. It was Udo Schlentrich, General Manager of The Dorchester. He was the only General Manager who met each group of new employees during their orientation. This Austrian-born hotelier trained in the best two hotel schools in the world (Lausanne in Switzerland and Cornell in USA), said something during the orientation, which remained permanently in my mind.

Udo Schlentrich said, “Thank you for joining the best British hotel – The Dorchester. Ladies and gentleman, as the General Manager I am just the conductor of the orchestra, but it is all of you who provide the music. Please do your best, to make our customer happy.” After that he had his lunch at the staff cafeteria with the new employees in the orientation. He sat next to me and had a friendly chat over lunch. He also gave me a research interview. Udo was a big inspiration to me. In later years, like me, at the hight of his hotel career he did a doctorate and became a professor.

The rest of my career, whenever there was an orientation in a hotel which I managed, I thought of what Udo Schlentrich did at the Dorchester in 1984, and I did something similar. The best practices one learns in the real-world trumps academic learning in universities.

Will continue in next week’s column: ‘Research at 16 Five-star Hotels – Part ‘B”.


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Features

BRICS upholds inclusive growth; re-affirms South-South cooperation

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2026/09/17

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BRICS political leaders at the 2026 New Delhi summit.(BBC)

A principal highlight of the recently concluded BRICS 2026 summit in New Delhi was the grouping’s unambiguous championing of the empowerment of ordinary people everywhere. This was yet another notable coming together of Southern governments over matters of common concern alright but it was the grouping’s people-oriented thinking that struck the impartial commentator as particularly important this time around.

The latter accent merits underscoring in view of the widespread perception that Southern oriented international organizations, such as the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), have had their day, so to speak. However the BRICS summit not only re-affirmed NAM principles but gave proof of its willingness to complement the main undertakings of NAM. Accordingly, causes such as South-South cooperation, international economic and social equity, multilateralism, international peace and the need to uphold the current UN-centred world order received resounding and fresh emphasis.

Particularly encouraging for those espousing Southern development concerns was the stressing of the historic ‘Bandung Principles’ in the New Delhi Declaration which crowned the summit deliberations. As is known, it was the ‘Bandung Spirit’ of 1955 that paved the way for the establishment of NAM and South-South cooperation in a major way. As such the ‘Spirit’ was primary in helping to reshape international development discourse and in giving it a pro-people bent. That is, development correctly conceived was birthed.

The New Delhi Declaration said in this regard: ‘We recall the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia that proclaimed general principles, including equality, independence, non-intervention and mutual benefit. We stress that the Bandung Spirit serves as a reference in the pursuit of a fairer, more inclusive, and representative multilateral system.’

‘Geopolitics’ was not glossed over or ignored in New Delhi, but it is quite forgotten by some sections of opinion in particularly Sri Lanka that BRICS, while being an important Southern counter-balance in terms of power to the global North is also essentially about international economic growth with equity. The New Delhi summit helped to put right this conceptual imbalance in what groupings such as BRICS ought to be thinking and doing.

Even more precisely, people should be at the heart of development and in the exertions and preoccupations of international organizations claiming to represent the South. Southern governments equipped with economic and military might in particular remain important but it is people’s empowerment that ought to be the overriding consideration.

The latter concerns help stress the cruciality of democratic development since it is the latter that facilitates best the well being of people. Unfortunately, BRICS happens to be top-heavy with authoritarian governments that could deliver economic growth but not equity. It is fully representative, participatory governance that could best deliver to the people their essential needs and not totalitarian governments.

This is a complex dilemma for BRICS. It could be resolved somewhat by admitting more and more pro-people, democratic states into the BRICS fold to counter-balance the power and influence of authoritarian states. At present among the principal BRICS countries it’s only India that meets most of the criteria for democratic development.

Hopefully, more and more Southern democracies would see it fit to join BRICS in consideration of the latter’s potential to be a prime ‘economic powerhouse’ of the world. Equally hopefully, people’s empowerment in the true sense would come to be valued as a crucial merit for BRICS membership. It is relevant to stress that the fulfillment of the fundamental rights of a people is integral to their complete empowerment.

A grave negative fallout from the Trump administration’s current militarism is that more and more states world wide would come to value military heft over people’s empowerment. Consequently, the preference for military power could lead to countries wanting BRICS membership for the wrong reasons. That is, security through collective armed might would come to matter over all else and the world would be rendered an increasingly ‘dangerous place’.

But thinking people would expect from BRICS a more responsible role in world affairs and prefer to have from it inspirational guidance in democratic development, correctly understood.

A commitment by BRICS at the summit of considerable importance to world peace that should not be underplayed is its commitment to the UN system and the strengthening of International Law. The relevant quote from the Declaration spoke of BRICS’ ‘Commitment to strengthening multilateralism and multi-polarity and upholding International Law, including the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations.’

Coming at a time when the UN is seen by some as a spent force, lacking effectiveness, the above endorsement of the UN Charter and International Law is of crucial significance. This amounts to solidly upholding the post World War Two order despite current largely rhetorical assertions that it is fast unraveling.

While UN reform remains a compelling necessity, the endorsement of the UN-centred order holds out the possibility of some of the BRICS heavyweights, who are currently acting in violation of International Law, eventually getting back to conduct that would be more in keeping with the requirements of International Law.

The UN could put these developments to constructive use by redoubling its efforts to work out diplomatic solutions to the current conflicts and wars that are showing no signs of being receptive to fresh peace efforts.

Two of these theatres of conflict are the Middle East and the Ukraine. While the US, Israel, Russia and Iran would need to be engaged by the UN with exceptional persuasive power to sort out the conflicts where they have come to feature directly and indirectly, the relevant BRICS members’ commitments to world peace and multilateralism could be used as instruments of moral pressure perhaps to induce them to get onto the path of peaceful conflict resolution.

The wide consensus among the BRICS powers amounts to their scoring a significant political victory over the US and its allies. Their espousal of international peace and the UN Charter exposes the US as being at cross purposes with peace-oriented and democratic sections world wide. Specifically, the moral and intellectual poverty of the Trump administration is being revealed glaringly.

This does not amount to a condemnation of the people of the US perse. It is just that some of them have voted quite unwisely. As a first step towards correcting this situation they could make good use of the upcoming mid term elections to register their strong disapproval of the Trump administration and the political extremists among the US Right. Course correction is not impossible.

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Not I — We: A new uniform will mean nothing if the person inside it is left behind

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12 hours ago

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2026/09/17

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by Mahil Dole

Senior Superintendent of Police (Retd.)

Sri Lanka Police has just marked 160 years. The parades were in order. The sentence that should have followed them has not been written with enough force. A police service that is pulled by politics, rewarded for individual glory and tried every night on social media cannot protect a country that is now a maritime hinge for international narcotics and financial crime. The political authority must decide, not in a speech, but in conduct, whether this force belongs to the law or to the loudest faction of the week.

That is not a plea. It is a warning.

The political hierarchy and the police hierarchy now agree that the service needs a new outlook, beginning with the uniform. The cut and the kit are not yet settled. That conversation is overdue. Criminals have moved into containers, encrypted apps and international logistics. An officer equipped for a quieter decade is less able to detect, and less able to come home.

Sophistication of kit is essential. Body-worn cameras, communications and protective equipment that match the threat are not luxuries. They keep a policeman alive.

If the first decision of this compact is only what the officer will wear, the wrapping will be modern and the person untouched. The priority is not a new silhouette. It is a different person inside the uniform.

The officer is a human being

He and she is a product of this complicated society. The fractures that run through the village, the school and the social-media feed run through the recruit. Communal suspicion, religious identity and ethnic memory are not checked at the armoury gate. The question treated as delicate is operational: is this officer mentally geared for ordinary crime and for communal, religious and ethnic conflict?

What is his stand if he belongs to one community and is sent into a dispute involving another? How will the parties look at him? How will the media frame the first photograph? That decides whether a crowd sees the law or “the other side.” We are all Sri Lankans. The sentence is easy on a Police Day banner. It is hard at a junction when rumour is already ahead of the patrol.

Every officer, from constable to gazetted rank, must be trained for these issues as deliberately as for a baton. Not one lecture at Katukurunda: recurring, scenario-based work on mixed neighbourhoods, mixed complainants, and keeping personal faith out of the method of work. The media will hunt the communal angle; parties to a conflict will hunt the ethnic one. The only answer that holds is an officer whose first identity on duty is Sri Lankan and whose first loyalty is the law.

That is “We.” Assuming the uniform dissolves identity is how a single incident becomes a national story.

What they have been is not what they can remain

From the 1866 ordinance this service has been the state’s civilian arm, colonial order-keeping, post-independence law and order, then a wartime partner that buried its dead beside the armed forces. Specialised units were built for terrorism, organised crime and financial intelligence. The same institution was used as a residual army, a political instrument and a promotion marketplace. Loyalty too often attached to a person, not to the law. Easter Sunday made the price visible. So did every file that moved, or stalled, according to who was in office.

A history of sacrifice does not excuse a present of capture. It makes the capture more shameful.

What they are today

On paper the force is large, some 79,000 authorised, 609 stations. On the ground it is thin. More than 4,300 officers have left since 2020. Vacancies exceed 30,000. Shifts of twelve to eighteen hours are still treated as normal. Distress is still logged as discipline rather than welfare. That is waste, not toughness.

Crime has two faces, and both strike national security. Gang violence over narcotics still produces shootings. Sri Lanka also sits on feeder routes moving Afghan and Pakistani product toward other markets. Harbour and high-sea detections in the hundreds of kilograms are no longer rare. Ice hidden in towels at Colombo Port; heroin pulled from multi-day trawlers; scam compounds and frozen assets in the billions of rupees, these are not “ordinary crime.” They buy influence and fund the next consignment.

The third battlefield is information. Reels and anonymous accounts impersonate officers, launder rumour as fact, and reward the man who seeks a following. Inside the service the culture still teaches “I”: my file, my photograph, my briefing. Rank is being treated as a prize. It is a trust.

The container that became a campaign

Late August 2026, officers opened containers at the Colombo International Container Terminal and recovered some 463 to 472 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, concealed in towels, originating from Pakistan and valued in the billions of rupees. Suspects including foreign nationals were arrested. The United States DEA publicly associated itself with the intelligence. The criminal case sits with the Central Crime Investigation Bureau.

That is a success. It should have been protected as a success.

Instead, an internal process review, ordered by the Inspector General into how information moved between bureaux, was translated on social media into another story: that the IGP and Senior DIG Ranmal Kodituwakku were being “chambered” over the detection. An Opposition MP warned, correctly, that putting the officers who delivered the raid under a public microscope will teach the service the wrong lesson.

State the distinction without apology. A criminal file is about the network and the money. A process file is about timelines and chain of custody. A blog is neither. Collapsing a Senior DIG’s recorded statement into “the hierarchy is in the dock” is not accountability. It is a gift to those who packed the towels. After a half-tonne interdiction, a process review is normal; leaking it as a morality play is not. Complete the inquiry on the record. If negligence is found, deal with it. If not, say so. Half-spoken files let rumour colonise the institution.

Training, technology and a mind that can bear the load

The IGP and the hierarchy must stop treating training as a calendar ornament. Immediate programmes are required, not next year’s paper.

First

, the evolving issues: communal and religious tension, narrative operations, child and women protection, financial and cyber crime, harbour interdiction, the law of arrest.

Second

, the technologies: digital evidence, data protection under the Personal Data Protection Act, disciplined open-source work, body-worn cameras that protect the public and officers alike.

Third

, mental health as operational infrastructure, counselling an Inspector can use without becoming a Legal Division case, and early recognition of burnout before it becomes a headline.

Incentives must follow: allowances for certified competencies, promotion credit for courses applied, not for attendance photographs. Asking for sophistication at the port with no path to acquire it is theatre.

A new uniform that can carry a camera, worn by an officer unprepared for the society he polices, is a costume. The station, the cell, the unseen hour Look next at where this officer lives and works. Many stations are old, congested and unhygienic. Living standards on duty are low. You cannot demand a different person in the uniform and house him as if he were expendable.

Cells are a particular failure of command. Too many sit out of sight of the men on duty. They are dilapidated. What happens inside goes unnoticed until a death, an assault or an escape. That is a design of our own buildings, not a secret of the underworld. A cell that cannot be seen cannot be defended in court or in conscience. Refurbish, fix sightlines, monitor what the Constitution requires, and treat an escape as a failure of supervision before it becomes a press note.

These are not welfare extras. They are the conditions under which evidence is kept, suspects are held, and officers decide whether the job is still worth the family cost.

The health of the officer is the health of the public

One of the first duties of the hierarchy is the health of the policeman and his family. A sick officer with a sick child is not “uncommitted.” He is a risk to himself, to the next raid, and to the citizen at the counter. Police hospitals are few. Officers in rural stations cannot reach them in time. The IGP should not wait for a building programme. Speak to the health authorities now. Arrange priority access for officers and their families at government hospitals. Dedicated wards or reserved beds are not a privilege class. They are the minimum owed to people sent into harm, and into other people’s crises, at every hour.

Good health is a good mind. A good mind is good care for the people. No uniform compensates for an officer who has not slept, has not been treated, and cannot reach a Police hospital.

What they must be tomorrow

The country does not need more decoration. It needs a service the public can approach without fear and that no politician can casually redirect: intelligence-led against networks that threaten the state; digitally capable and legally bounded; trained for communal heat as well as narcotics; housed and treated as human beings; collectively minded. We hold the ground, not I cleared the file.

The constable at the junction and the analyst tracing a hawala chain are the same institution. National security is not a specialist’s private property.

To the policymakers and the political authority

You have agreed with the Police hierarchy on a new outlook. Use it for more than cloth.

Independence is not the IGP’s personal autonomy. It is the institution’s ability to apply the law without fear or favour, and still answer to the law. You cannot have that and also have a Police summoned, transferred or publicly undermined according to the needs of the week.

Appointment and removal of the Inspector General must remain a process, not patronage. The National Police Commission must exercise its powers over promotions, transfers and discipline without being hectored from the gallery. Cabinet sets policy and budget. It does not choose Tuesday’s suspect. Comment from the House on the guilt of named officers while a file is open is not oversight. It is interference under another name.

If you want an apolitical Police, stop using internal inquiry as a factional weapon and social media as a substitute bench. Different treatment of files is the old disease. Naming it only when the officer is someone you dislike is the same disease.

Then fund what a new uniform implies: immediate training, habitable stations, cells that can be seen, and a health arrangement with the Ministry of Health that does not leave a rural sergeant’s family outside the gate. Announcing kit and withholding living conditions is not reform. It is dressing the service for a photograph.

The public has a part. Distinguish error from crime. Cooperate with the officer who is fair; demand consequences where he is not. In conflict, look at the uniform as the law, not as a census of name, faith or village. Do not outsource judgement to an anonymous account.

The stand It is not I. It should be We.

A new uniform will not make an officer Sri Lankan. Training, health, housing, an apolitical file, and a command that treats him as a human being might. A service that thinks in individual glory will be outrun by networks that think in systems. A political class that thinks in capture will keep receiving detections and wondering why the pipeline never closes. A country that argues about the cloth while the person inside it is exhausted, untrained for communal fire, and unseen in a dilapidated cell block is not preparing for tomorrow. It is rearranging the wardrobe.

The law cannot serve two masters. Neither can the uniform, old or new.

(This analysis is offered in the interest of national security, institutional reform, and public safety)

Mahil Dole, SSP (Retd.), served as Deputy Director in charge of the Counter-Terrorism Desk of the State Intelligence Service and later as Intelligence Coordinator to the Inspector General of Police. He is a former Member of the Sri Lanka Wakfs Board and author of Security Beyond Enforcement: Practical Approaches for a Safer Nation. Email – mahildole54@gmail.com

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Features

The Miss World 2026 scene …

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2026/09/17

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History was made under the lights on 05th September, as Joheirry Mola Dominguez, of the Dominican Republic, was crowned Miss World 2026 by outgoing queen Suchata Chuangsri of Thailand at April 2nd Square in Nha Trang, Vietnam.

It is only the second Miss World title for the Dominican Republic; 44 years after Mariasela Álvarez’s win in 1982. Reports described it as an “emotional and historic moment” for the nation.

Joheirry, 24, beat 110 other delegates to take the crown.

A dedicated educator and community advocate, she holds a degree in Business Management and Administration from Universidad Iberoamericana. She is Founder and President of “Voices of Tomorrow”, an initiative expanding access to English education for children in vulnerable communities. She also teaches Literature and Social Studies in English, and works as a correspondent for Univision New York’s Ventana a Quisqueya.

Her advocacy won hearts

It was her advocacy that won hearts.

“My Beauty With a Purpose is to take English programmes to kids in vulnerable communities,”

she said at the Grand Final. “Because I believe that when they know this language, the opportunities, the doors that can open to their life, it’s huge. English is a tool that will stay with them and benefit them for the rest of their lives.”

Spain’s Elisabeth Reynés finished 1st Runner-Up, while Malaysia’s Taanusiya Chetty, also winner of Beauty With a Purpose, took 2nd Runner-Up.

The Top 6 included Vietnam’s Le Nguyen Bao Ngoc, Eritrea’s Snit Habteab, and South Africa’s Romanda Hombir.

The 75th Anniversary edition, hosted for the first time in Vietnam, was a spectacle before 20,000 spectators. Staged on a 110+ meter outdoor platform by Nha Trang beach, the square was lit up with huge LED screens and high-power sound.

Even heavy rain during the Americas & Caribbean segment couldn’t dampen spirits. Umbrellas and raincoats popped up and the show resumed 15 minutes later. Nobody left. That’s dedication.

With 111 ambassadors, cultural dances, ao dai performances, and the seaside backdrop, officials called it a celebration of beauty, talent, confidence, and social responsibility.

With 20,000 people, rain or shine, screaming, cheering, live-streaming, waving flags… it was, indeed, pure Miss World magic.

For Sri Lanka, Prathibha Liyanaarachchi did not make the Top 40 at the 73rd Miss World Festival, but she reached the finalist stages of four fast-track events — Top Model, Talent, Sports, and Beauty With a Purpose.

Miss World magic: The square was lit up with huge LED screens and high-power sound

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