Features

A trip to Italy and my father’s death in Australia

Published

3 years ago

2023/04/9

Thilina Walpola

Supreme Court Victoria

by Nimal Wikramanayake
(Excerpted from A Life in the Law)

Anna Maria’s father died on her birthday on 8 October 1970. Due to economic constraints and exchange control regulations in Ceylon, we were unable to attend the old man’s funeral. Anna Maria had not seen her mother, who was getting on, for nearly 12 years. Anna Maria was coming up for her first five-year long service leave at Cabrini Hospital. We decided to go to Italy on a holiday and spend some time with her mother.

It was July 1977 when we arrived in Rome on a hot, steamy morning. We wandered around in the Fiumicino Airport before we took a plane to Venice that afternoon. We were booked on an Alitalia flight and such flights in Italy were an exhilarating experience. Alitalia normally overbooked its flights so it was a simple question of first come first served – not who bought his or her ticket first, but who got onto the plane first.

At the terminal we got on to the bus, which was to take us to the plane. When we got off the bus a 100 feet from the plane, the Italians charged towards the plane with Anna Maria leading the way. She was an expert in dealing with this type of travel, and used her elbows with great ferocity. I sheepishly lagged at the back of the crowd. When I got onto the plane I found that Anna Maria had managed to reserve a seat for me.

It was then that the comedy unfolded. As usual, there were about 10 people standing in the aisle without any seats. There followed the typical Italian pandemonium, with the standing passengers screaming and yelling at the stewards and stewardesses. As usual, the Carabinieri were called and after the standing passengers were escorted off the plane, we took off for Venice.

We arrived there an hour later and drove up to Asolo. I will not bore you with details of our visit to Italy. (I hate it when I am invited by my friends for dinner and after dinner they produce photographs of their holidays, which should only be of interest to them.) But we spent one memorable day in Venice on July 16 – on the Feast of the Redeemer. We met Tony Lopes and Jack Keenan of the Victorian Bar, and his wife Elspeth Keenan under the bell-tower in St Mark’s Square. We watched an exhilarating fireworks display and then Tony suggested we have dinner.

We wandered around and found an expensive restaurant. This was before the days of credit cards and my heart sank. The holiday had severely depleted my finances and I shuddered when I saw the prices on the menu, even though it was 1,000 lira to the Australian dollar. Fortunately, Tony rose to the occasion and insisted on paying for the meal.

The holiday was uneventful save for two things. I read Voumard (second edition) from cover to cover on the plane going over to Italy and again on the way back. When we were nearing Melbourne, and the pilot announced that we would be landing at Tullamarine in half an hour, all the passengers got up and cheered. It was good to be back home. Sadly this does not happen when one is arriving at Melbourne today.

My father

By 1978 I had settled into my daily grind, with a rare foray into the Supreme Court. By this stage, I had ceased to do any criminal or family law work.In July I brought out the third edition of Voumard relating to the sale of land in Victoria, with the consulting editor, Sir Alistair Adam, being responsible for inserting the relevant authorities in the appropriate places.

Early on in my practice, I had ceased doing work in the personal injuries field as I was only receiving briefs from plaintiffs’ solicitors. In this area of the law, a barrister does not get paid until the successful completion of the plaintiff’s case. If the plaintiff is unsuccessful, then there is no possibility of being paid for one’s efforts.

As I was confined mainly to the commercial area of the law, I could see no future for myself other than being a County Court hack.I used to have lunch once a month with my friend Jacob Okno, a solicitor, and he reassured me regularly that I would make a name for myself one day as a result of my association with Voumard: The Sale of Land in Victoria.

Towards the end of the year, Anna Maria and I drove up to Sydney to spend time with my parents. An interesting feature of this visit was that a brief had been delivered to me to advise on a complicated trusts matter. I took it to Sydney and showed the brief to my father. He thought for a moment, and despite the fact that he had had a couple of heart attacks and was suffering from acute heart failure, he gave me the answer in five minutes. The drive to and from Sydney was very uncomfortable as the temperature was in the high 30s and our car did not have air-conditioning.

The following year 1979 was soon upon me and the months plodded on mechanically and monotonously. But in August of that year I received a telephone call from my brother who told me that Dad, having gone out to celebrate my mother’s birthday on August 7, had suffered a massive heart attack and was dying. I had looked up to him all my life, for unlike most boys who stop appreciating their fathers when they grow up, he was my hero and I could not contemplate life without him.

I was sobbing in my room when my friend Tony Lopes walked in and asked me what had happened. I told him that my father was dying and Tony left abruptly. Half an hour later, his wife Marilyn came in to console me. I thought this gesture of Tony’s was really heart-warming.

Dad survived this heart attack but then had a series of further heart attacks. I decided to go to Sydney with Anna Maria and celebrate his 77th birthday on December 7, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Life was extremely hard financially and we were always without money. I could not afford the plane fare for both of us to go to Sydney so my elder brother paid for our tickets.

I was then briefed to appear in a case in the Supreme Court of Victoria on December 6, 1979. The case, I thought, was a relatively simple one. If my recollection serves me right, it was an action brought by a partner, a woman, against her de facto. She had paid a deposit on a property but both parties were registered as proprietors of the property. They had both taken out a mortgage for 80 per cent of the value of the property.

I raised an argument that since the de facto was a party to the mortgage, he had an equity in the property commensurate with the mortgage and therefore a division of the proceeds had to be in accordance with that principle. The Supreme Court judge hearing the case, Justice Sam Gray, kept sniggering throughout my submissions, saying that there was no basis for such a submission. Ultimately I could not stand his sniggering anymore and I told him, “Your Honour, my submissions are not a matter for levity.”

I had been only seven years at the Bar in Victoria but I had had 13 years’ practice in Ceylon. The judge glared at me and said, “Would you mind repeating yourself?” I was aware of my father’s advice that I was entitled to be treated with respect by any judge I was appearing before. The judge obviously thought that I would withdraw my statement, but I said, “Your Honour, it is fairly obvious that you are not possessed of my arguments. I reiterate that my submissions are not a matter for levity.”

The case went on to the morning of December 7 and I told the judge that my father was dying in Sydney and I had to catch a flight at 2.30 pm. He delivered judgment that day, entering judgment for the wife. A short while later the High Court delivered judgment in the case of Calverley v. Green and restated the proposition I had put to the Supreme Court judge to the effect that a registered proprietor of property who was a party to a mortgage had an equity in the property commensurate with half the registered mortgage to which he was a party. My client, however, was disgusted with me and decided not have anything to do with me.

This story does not end here, for I appeared several times before that judge and lost every single case, including the unlosable case in December 1989. In that month I was appearing in a Supreme Court case and when the lists came out and I saw that this judge, Justice Sam Gray, was hearing the case, my heart sank. I went in to see my friend, Ross Howie, now retired Judge Howie of the County Court, and said to him, “Ross, I have an unlosable case tomorrow in the Supreme Court but I have drawn Judge Sam Gray and I am going to lose it”.

Sure enough, I lost the case.

Some years later, I was vindicated when two judges of the Supreme Court, Mr Justice Hayne and Mr Justice Smith – and later the Court of Appeal – held that Judge Gray’s decision was completely and utterly wrong. But by then everyone in the legal profession knew that I, the author of Voumard: The Sale of Land, had lost a significant case on land law.

I suffered a severe setback and it took me several years to recover. This, unfortunately, often happens to barristers who fall foul of judges. Judges often exact their vengeance on barristers in this most unprofessional way. We have no one to turn to for assistance.

My heart was in pieces when we got on the plane to go to Sydney that afternoon. Not only had I lost a good case, I had lost a solicitor who would never brief me again. I was also going to see my poor father who had a very short time left on this earth.

My brother picked us up at the airport and we drove to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Dad was seated on his bed, his head drooping. He looked completely lost and bewildered. My mother said, “Guy, here is your son Nimal. Why don’t you sing him that song you used to sing him when he was a little baby?”

Dad looked up at me with a puzzled expression on his face. My mother said, “You remember, Waltzing Matilda”

That was the first song my father ever sang to me when I was a baby. My father looked up and in a high-pitched squeaky voice said, “Walthing Tilamy, Walthing Tilamy …” and repeated this over and over again. It was heart-wrenching. Here was a man who had once been a lion of the Ceylon Bar, a brilliant advocate and a remarkable cross-examiner, now in this pitiful condition. Old Father Time certainly is ruthless and merciless. I thought to myself, Father Time will come to all of us, ultimately, and will be the only winner in the game of life. I took my emaciated, weak father in my arms and embraced him. There was nothing else I could do; I felt completely and utterly helpless.

That night, we went back to my mother’s little flat. We were woken at 2.30 am by ghastly loud shrieks. It was my mother screaming and yelling. My brother had telephoned to say that my father was going through another heart attack and was dying. He came over, picked us up and we rushed to the hospital. There was Dad, in bed with an oxygen mask over his face, throwing his arms about and shouting, “Porter, porter!”

We stood there helpless, wondering what we were to do. Mum, my brother and I were dumbfounded. Anna Maria rushed up to Daddy, cradled his head in her arms and started stroking his head saying, “Daddy, we will get the porter, we will get the porter, relax. He is having his dinner at the moment and will be here shortly.” Ultimately, she was able to calm him down.

Dad’s condition raised a number of questions in regard to euthanasia. His cardiologist wanted to turn the respirator off and let him die, as he was in a pitiful, hopeless condition. I would not have a bar of it. I did not want my father to die although he may have been suffering. Dad was suffering from severe heart failure and his end was very near. He died two and a half months later on February 23, 1980.

I remember one occasion in 1974 in Equity Chambers when Christopher Dane walked into my room one afternoon and said that his father had just died. He told the other barristers in chambers too. It was as if a bomb had fallen on Hiroshima. All the barristers packed up their things and left. They did not want to face the death of Christopher Dane’s father. I walked into his room later on that evening and asked him whether he was doing anything for dinner. He said no, so I invited him home. Grief is something that needs to be expressed and shared with others.

Death was approached in a completely different way in Australia in those days. The dead were left in cold, lifeless funeral parlours to await an equally morbid church service, and then they were either buried or cremated.

In Ceylon, the dead body used to lie at home for several days until all the family, friends and relatives had paid their respects. This process enabled those left behind to grieve adequately. I believe this pattern of behaviour is still carried on in Ireland. Today, however, the practice in Sri Lanka has reverted to the English practice where the dead are now left in funeral parlours.

During Dad’s funeral I tried to keep my emotions in check but when they played the hymn “Nearer My God To Thee” I broke down and started sobbing. I told Anna Maria, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She put her arms around me and said, “Look, there is nothing to be ashamed of – just let yourself go’

I continued to sob throughout the service while my two brothers and my sister sat stoically throughout the ceremony.Anyway, when I returned to Owen Dixon Chambers on the Tuesday following my father’s death, no one came up to me to offer their condolences, even though the barristers were aware that my father had died.

All News Advertisement

Features

Aragalaya betrayed?

Published

21 hours ago

2026/05/25

Thilina Walpola

Aragalaya

‘The treason of the intellectuals’ in the age of populism – Part I

Sri Lankans recently celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Aragalaya, which, some believe, ushered in an era of Left populism in Sri Lanka. Left politics in Sri Lanka has been ravaged by a crisis, since the late 1970s. It was basically one of an inability to regain the mass basis the Left lost in the 1977 elections. The Left was pushed out of the coalition government, led by Sirimavo, by the right-wing forces, within it, in the context of the global oil crisis that led to the adoption of austerity measures by the government.

This crisis of the Left exploded with the mass uprising ,known as the Aragalaya, which began with the hashtag campaign ‘Gota Go Home’. The nature of its development has come under scrutiny by critics who allege that hidden international hands orchestrated the movement. Nevertheless, the Aragalaya—which developed into an authentic citizen action—ultimately ended in a counter-revolution. The current JVP/NPP government came to power by riding the wave of public awakening that accompanied the Aragalaya.

Is the JVP/NPP government Leftist?

Even though the Western international media, as part of a strategy to manipulate the JVP/NPP administration from time to time, calls it a left government, it works very closely with the right-wing local capitalist class and international financial agencies.

Subaltern or elite?

While there was some initial attempt to identify the JVP/NPP government’s class basis as ‘subaltern,’ in the face of criticism, this formulation was changed to ‘non-elite’. It is correct that, generally, members of the new regime do not belong to the strata of the political elite of the traditional aristocracy and bourgeoisie. However, it can be argued that those who are holding the leadership of the NPP government are those with the aspiration of becoming the new elite. They are the emerging political elite, representing both the rural and urban petty-bourgeois strata.

The leadership consists of those who have risen to the top in professional fields and the bureaucracy, led by those in the fields of academia, medicine, engineering and technology, law, management, business, accountancy, and administration, alongside those who have traditionally been political activists and trade union leaders. Political power has been captured by these petty-bourgeois class elements that have embraced a technocratic ideology. Rallied around them is the capitalist leadership that directs chambers of commerce and is tied in with international capital.

In essence, the current regime represents an alliance formed between the petty-bourgeois and capitalist groups and international finance capital—an alliance that, by now, has replaced the popular bloc formed with ‘janathawa’ (the people) during the election campaign, leading to the formation of the government.

The new elite represents the heirs of the nationalist-Left tendency of the generation of the ‘56 daruwo,’ represented by the JVP, a social force that Bandaranaike released in 1956. The mainstream of the political change of ’56 came to be represented by Bandaranaike’s own party, the SLFP, whose promise of building a common man’s era fizzled out with the regime, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, coming to an end in 2015. At long last, true representatives of the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie have assumed political power after a long-drawn-out struggle, however, shedding their Left credentials in the process. This is the generation that Gunadasa Amarasekara, the doyen of jathika chintanaya, controversially hoped would take responsibility for the future of the country. While they have assumed political power, their formulation of, what they call, punarudaya (the Renaissance) seems to be at odds with Amarasekara’s wish to recover the ‘Sinhala Buddhist civilisational consciousness’—a point which requires a separate discussion, at another time.

Some of the leftists, who joined the NPP to form the government, seek to justify their choice by claiming that the new regime stands for the two-stage revolution ‘a la Lenin’—that is, first, the bourgeois-democratic stage and then the proletarian-socialist stage; Sri Lanka will achieve industrialisation in the first stage, under punarudaya, or the Renaissance. What is not made clear is how Sri Lanka could industrialise while being under the grip of international finance agencies whose actions, economists argue, from the very beginning of their involvement in the Sri Lankan economy, have preempted even the remotest possibility of the country becoming an industrialised one. With its claim to bringing about economic stability and growth, the government has moved away from serving the genuine interests of the people, and the country, in the fields of economy, polity, and culture, as its critics point out, as briefly outlined in the next section of this article.

It is claimed that the theory of left populism was formulated in opposition to right-wing populism, which furthered the neoliberal agenda. Going by what is outlined below, can the JVP/NPP government be identified as a left-populist one?

Not economic democracy, but autocracy?

Left political parties, groups, and individuals in Sri Lanka widely hold that the crisis of Left politics has been intensified with the current government assuming power. According to their criticisms, the JVP/NPP government is not a Left government.

The current government entered into an agreement on debt restructuring with the IMF based on the conditions imposed by them, despite the expectations of the masses that rallied around the JVP/NPP election campaign and the promises made in its own election manifesto to renegotiate it. Accordingly, placing the larger burden of the haircut of the debt restructuring on the EPF of the working people has been carried out by the JVP/NPP government without any changes to the original plan.

It is apparent that the current government’s economic programme, from its inception, has been directed by the leadership of the representatives of the capitalist class, led by the chambers of commerce. The government has been mainly formulating and implementing government policy, based on the debt provided and the conditions imposed by the IMF and its affiliated institutions, the World Bank and the ADB, rather than on the felt needs of the Sri Lankan people.

An unbearable tax burden is imposed on the people. The government boasts that it has filled the Treasury with trillions of rupees, including the wealth it has exploited, via those taxes. Not only the poor but also the middle classes are oppressed by the unbearable burden of an ever-rising cost of living.

Poverty and malnutrition, which are major determinants of living standards, remain at high levels under the current government. According to official reports, 25 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, while 80 percent of them live in rural areas. The poverty of the Tamil community, living in plantations, is even higher. Neoliberal economists themselves say that if calculated according to the real cost of living, the population living below the poverty line would be one-third of the total population. Women and children—and among them, girls—suffer the most from all this.

Sri Lanka’s micro-finance and credit crisis has trapped hundreds of thousands of people, mainly rural women, in a deep debt trap through predatory high-interest loans, leading to over 200 reported suicides. Activists have already expressed fears that the Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority Act, recently passed by the government, is designed to blame victims and will contribute to the erosion of consumer protections in such a regulatory framework by placing the onus of protection on borrowers. They stress that the Act does not include sufficient provisions to protect micro-finance and credit consumers.

Critics point out that not only our economic sovereignty but also our political sovereignty and security have been compromised by the secret agreements signed by the current government with the global American empire (US-Sri Lanka Security Memorandum of Understanding/Government Partnership Program (2025)) and the regional Indian power (India-Sri Lanka Security Partnership Agreement (2025)).

This government is strengthening relations with Israel—a nation that has embarked on a policy of genocide against Palestinians—and is maintaining cooperation with Israeli intelligence agencies and the military.

The current government has declared the private sector and the market mechanism, not the state sector, as the engine of economic growth at a level surpassing previous governments.

The government has accepted the neoliberal vision of subjugating large areas of social life to the logic of commodification. By allowing the market to behave as it sees fit, people have been subjected to the ruthless control of the market, except in the case of a few essential goods.

Critics have accused the current government of subtly but carefully implementing the privatisation of state-sector institutions, a move that the previous government had withheld in the face of public opposition. Services, essential to the survival of ordinary people and the middle class, such as public healthcare and education, are increasingly being brought under the influence of the market. There is no clear attempt to free passenger transport from the clutches of a rapacious private sector. The energy sector—oil and electricity supply—continues to be driven towards privatisation through fragmentation.

It is instructive here to note what Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin—the popular Left magazine published in New York that strongly backed Zohran Mamdani’s bid for Mayor—has to say on social infrastructures:

“Health care, education, transportation, energy, and telecommunication are not consumer goods but social infrastructures on which participation in modern life depends.

Organizing them through profit-seeking intermediaries that ration by price rather than need introduces predictable distortions. The result is a system that undermines both equality and efficiency. Decades of comparative experience suggest that public provision in these sectors can deliver better outcomes at lower social cost, precisely because it aligns provision with social need rather than purchasing power.” (‘We Need a Socialism After Capitalism,’ Jacobin, April 2026)

Serious damage to the natural environment and biodiversity continues under the current government. Deforestation, fragmentation of wildlife habitats, and human-wildlife conflicts have intensified. The release of protected lands to local and foreign private investors for so-called development, ignoring environmental impact assessments (for example, the Mannar wind farm projects), and the failure to stop illegal land acquisition and sand mining, which have undermined biodiversity, especially in the dry zone, are continuing.

The introduction of a biometric national identity card, funded by an Indian grant, in conjunction with the massive digitalisation programme, launched under the private sector operation, poses a serious risk of being used to unnecessarily restrict individual freedoms and to be used by the Sri Lankan government and foreign states to suppress citizens when necessary. Overall, it is clear from global experience that digitalisation, in the name of national security, is building a surveillance state. (To be continued)

by Kumudu Kusum Kumara

Features

The illusion of foolproof identity: Are even biometrics under threat by AI?

Published

21 hours ago

2026/05/25

Thilina Walpola

For quite a few decades,we have nonchalantly operated under a comforting and standard assumption that our bodies are our ultimate legal deeds. The features of every human body are quite unique. We have been taught that while passwords can be guessed, documents can be forged, and keys can be stolen, the biological architectures of our physical selves remain fundamentally unassailable and distinctly foolproof. Your face, your fingerprints, the unique landscape of your eye, are nature’s barcodes, forged from an intricate mix of genetics and intrauterine chance, utterly distinct to each of us among billions of people. This absolute distinctiveness made “biometrics”; automated methods used to recognise, authenticate, or identify individuals based on their unique biological and behavioural characteristics, the golden child of universally accepted global security. Amongst many other things, they are even trusted to unlock smartphones, provide access to sensitive portals, secure multi-billion-dollar wire transfers, cross international borders, and even safeguard top-secret military complexes.

Yet for all that, a profound and deeply unsettling shift is occurring, even beneath our own feet. The rapid acceleration of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital cloning technologies has begun to split open this relationship between biological reality and identity confirmation. Today, sophisticated software can replicate human voices with terrifying accuracy using mere seconds of feed-in audio, synthesise flawlessly lifelike videos of public figures saying things they never ever verbalised, and generate artificial fingerprints or facial configurations designed specifically to trick electronic gatekeepers. The comforting illusion that our bodily metrics are fool-proof is perhaps dissolving to quite a significant extent, casting a real-time shadow across the infrastructure of modern trust, even in everyday life.

Beyond the Fingerprint: The Expanding Universe of Identity

To understand the intricacies and depth of the current risks, one must look beyond the traditional hallmarks of identity verification. Perhaps the average person is clearly and deeply familiar with standard facial recognition, thumbprints, and the striking, complex rings of retinal imagery. Indeed, human biology offers an incredibly vast and nuanced spectrum of unique identifiers. Science and industry have quietly harnessed a long list of alternative indices to verify the identities and details of exactly who we are.

Consider iris recognition, which maps the intricate, visible coloured ring surrounding the pupil of the eye, or palmprint authentication, which tracks the expansive system of major lines, wrinkles, and minute ridges across the entire hand. Beyond these lie vascular biometrics, often referred to as vein pattern recognition, which uses near-infrared light to capture the unique layout of blood vessels seen beneath the skin of a finger or palm, a map completely invisible to the naked eye.

Furthermore, behavioural traits have proven just as distinct as anatomical ones. Voice biometrics analyses the physical anatomy of the vocal tract, nasal cavities, and vocal cords to isolate distinct sound frequencies. Gait analysis evaluates the precise, rhythmic mechanics of how an individual walks, tracking joint angles and weight distribution. Even keystroke dynamics, the precise cadence and rhythm with which you type on a keyboard, and ear acoustic geometry, which measures the unique way sound waves echo back out of your specific ear canal, have been successfully deployed to establish undeniable proof of identity.

The Pro Side: Unmatched Convenience and Safety

The historical arguments in favour of biometric systems remain incredibly compelling, which explains their near-ubiquitous adoption. First and foremost is the argument of unmatched convenience. Biometrics elegantly solve the “human error” factor inherent in traditional security appliances. You cannot lose your iris on a crowded train; you cannot accidentally leave your unique vein patterns at home; and you cannot forget the complex “password” of your facial geometry. It is an identity architecture that is permanently attached to the user, eliminating the friction of remembering combinations of symbols or carrying physical keys.

From a general, social and systemic perspective, biometrics have provided an unprecedented layer of objective truth. In criminal justice, fingerprint and DNA databases have exonerated the wrongfully accused, reunited missing children with families, and brought dangerous fugitives to justice based on definitive physical evidence rather than fickle, unreliable human memory. At international borders, automated biometric gates process millions of travellers daily with high efficiency, flagging authentic security threats while speeding up travel for the public. In the financial sector, a glance at a smartphone or a press of a thumb could prevent billions of dollars from being fraudulently stolen in identity theft and sham transactions every year by ensuring the actual account owner is physically present.

The Dark Side: When Your Body Becomes a Vulnerability

Despite these immense benefits, the reliance on biological markers has always harboured a fundamental flaw: the absolute permanence of the data. If a hacker steals your credit card number or a critical password, you can easily log online, cancel the account, and generate a completely new string of random characters. The breach is a nuisance, but it is entirely correctable and is fixable. However, if a malicious actor steals the high-resolution digital file containing your retinal map, your facial architecture, or your voice print, you cannot change your body. You cannot reset your eyes; you cannot easily forge a new set of fingers. Once a biometric signature is compromised, it is compromised for the rest of your life.

This permanence creates a highly centralised vulnerability. Biometric authentication systems do not store your actual finger or face; they store a mathematical digital template derived from them. These templates are housed inside vast corporate and government databases, and even universal digital portals. As cyberattacks grow increasingly sophisticated, these databases represent high-value targets for digital thieves. The terrifying consequence is that a single security breach at a major technology company or a government agency could permanently expose the personal physical keys of millions of citizens simultaneously.

The AI Shadow: Faking even the Unforgeable

This brings us to a profound paradigm shift driven by modern artificial intelligence. The traditional and abiding defence of biometrics was that physical traits could not be replicated in real-time. A photograph of a face could not trick a system looking for depth, and a recorded voice lacked the dynamic shifts of live speech. However…, surprise, SURPRISE…, AI has completely shattered these firmly held conventions and inferences.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a class of AI models in which two neural networks compete against each other, are now capable of analysing thousands of images or audio clips of an individual and creating a near-flawless synthetic clone. A clone refers to an exact copy, duplicate, or true genetic replica of another organism, cell, or object. The term applies across several fields and implies an absolutely identical real-life descriptor. Using these tools, fraudsters can create “deepfake” videos that mimic the precise micro-expressions, skin textures, and even the blink rates of a targeted executive, acclaimed scientist, an economist of global repute or even a political leader. In 2024, an employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong was tricked into paying out 25 million dollars after attending a video conference call where every other participant was an AI-generated digital clone of his real-world colleagues.

Similarly, voice cloning has become a weaponised tool for financial scams. With less than ten seconds of audio scraped from a social media post, AI can synthesise a voice that is indistinguishable from a loved one or a bank official, perfectly matching the acoustic biometrics used by telephone banking systems. Even more alarming is the concept of “Master Prints”: the AI-generated, synthetic fingerprints that combine the most common ridge patterns found across the human population. Much like a master key that can open many different locks, these synthetic prints can trick biometric sensors up to 20% to 30% of the time, completely undermining the premise of absolute individuality.

Implications for the Future: Rebuilding Trust

The realisation that biometrics can be systematically manipulated has immense implications for the future of global society, law, and security. We are stepping into an era where we can no longer trust our eyes or ears to verify the identity of the person on the other side of a digital connection. This breakdown of trust threatens to disrupt not only financial institutions but also the very foundations of democratic systems, where synthetic video and audio can be deployed to frame individuals or fabricate digital evidence.

To survive this environment, the security industry must completely abandon the concept of the commonly used single-factor biometric authentication. The future will require a multi-layered approach. Biometrics will likely be coupled with behavioural signals that change dynamically over time, or physical tokens like cryptographic hardware keys. Furthermore, security developers are engaged in an intense arms race to create “deepfake detectors”; AI systems designed specifically to analyse incoming files for the microscopic digital artefacts left behind by generative software, verifying that a human face or voice is biologically real and is happening in real-time.

Legally and ethically, this shift demands robust new frameworks. Governments worldwide are beginning to recognise that our biological signatures require the same, if not greater, legal protections, as our financial assets. Laws must be strictly enforced to punish the unauthorised creation of digital clones and to compel corporations to encrypt biometric data using advanced, non-hackable methods.

A Balanced Path Forward

Ultimately, and even surprisingly, biometrics are neither a flawless saviour nor an inherent curse. They are powerful tools caught in the crossfire of an abiding technological evolution. They continue to offer unparalleled efficiency and security when implemented correctly. However, the dangerous myth of their absolute infallibility must be permanently laid to rest.

As artificial intelligence continues to blur the line between the real and the synthetic, our approach to identity must become as dynamic as the technology threatening it. We must stop viewing our physical bodies as unshakable passwords. True security in the modern age will not come from blindly trusting our biological uniqueness. It can only come from our collective vigilance, technological adaptation, and the implementation of robust, multi-layered digital defences that protect the sacred boundaries of who we really are.

by Dr B. J. C. Perera
MBBS(Cey), DCH(Cey), DCH(Eng), MD(Paediatrics), MRCP(UK), FRCP(Edin), FRCP(Lond), FRCPCH(UK), FSLCPaed, FCCP, Hony. FRCPCH(UK), Hony. FCGP(SL)
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician and Honorary Senior Fellow, Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
An independent free-lance correspondent.

Features

Human-caused leopard deaths soar in Sri Lanka’s Central Highlands, new study warns

Published

21 hours ago

2026/05/25

Thilina Walpola

Wire snares leading cause of leopard deaths

A groundbreaking international study, spanning 17 years, has revealed an alarming rise in human-caused deaths of the endangered Sri Lankan leopard, with the majority of fatalities concentrated in the tea estate landscapes of the Central Highlands.

The peer-reviewed study, titled “Human-Caused Leopard Deaths in Sri Lanka Are Concentrated in Central Highlands’ Estate Mosaics: Evidence From 17 Years of Mortality Records,” was recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Wiley’s Wildlife Letters.

The research team was led by conservation scientist Sanjaya Weerakkody and comprised a distinguished group of local and international researchers, including Vimukthi Gunasekara, Sethil Muhandiram, Try Surya Harapan, Kithmi R. Gunasekara, Bandini Jayasena, John B. Wilson, Prathiba M. Amugoda, Tharika de Silva, Chathuranga D. Hathurusinghe, Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, and Enoka P. Kudavidanage.

The scientists represented a broad collaboration of institutions, including the Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan Provincial Tropical Rainforest and Asian Elephant Conservation Innovation Team in China, LeopardCon Sri Lanka, Oklahoma State University in the United States, the Department of Natural Resources of Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, and the Tropical Ecosystems Research Network.

Speaking on the significance of the findings, researcher Sethil Muhandiram said the study provides the clearest picture yet of how human pressures are driving leopard mortality in Sri Lanka’s hill country landscapes.

“We found that plantation landscapes, especially tea estate mosaics in the Central Highlands, have become major hotspots for leopard deaths. Most concerning is the widespread use of wire snares, which continue to silently kill leopards and other wildlife,” Muhandiram said.

According to the findings, researchers analysed leopard mortality records from 2008 to 2024 and documented 164 human-caused deaths across the island, averaging nearly 10 deaths annually. More worryingly, the study found that leopard deaths have steadily increased over time, underscoring intensifying human-wildlife conflict in Sri Lanka.

The study identified wire snares as the leading cause of death, accounting for over 62 percent of cases where the cause was known. Many of these snares are believed to have been set for wild boar and other animals but ended up trapping leopards.

“Snaring is now one of the greatest threats facing the Sri Lankan leopard outside protected areas. Unless immediate action is taken to remove snares and strengthen enforcement, these deaths will continue to rise,” Muhandiram warned.

Plantation landscapes, especially tea estates in the Central Province, emerged as the most dangerous habitats for the country’s apex predator.

Researchers found that nearly 47 percent of all recorded leopard deaths occurred in the Central Highlands, while the Nuwara Eliya District alone accounted for 38.4 percent of fatalities, despite covering only a small portion of the leopard’s estimated range.

Researchers warned that the patchwork of tea estates, fragmented forests, villages, and agricultural lands has become a deadly landscape for leopards attempting to move between habitats.

The study also found that adult male leopards were disproportionately affected, a trend scientists caution could have serious implications for breeding populations and the long-term survival of the species.

Sri Lanka’s leopard, scientifically known as Panthera pardus kotiya, is an endemic subspecies found nowhere else in the world and is already listed as endangered.

Muhandiram stressed that conservation efforts must move beyond national parks and include estate landscapes where leopard-human interactions are increasing rapidly.

“Conservation cannot focus only on protected areas anymore. Leopards are surviving in human-dominated landscapes, and protecting them will require cooperation from estate communities, plantation companies, Wildlife authorities, and policymakers,” he said.

The study has further emphasised that leopard conservation in Sri Lanka can no longer focus solely on protected areas such as the Yala National Park, as significant leopard populations are increasingly surviving in estate and rural landscapes vulnerable to human pressures.

Researchers concluded that without immediate and coordinated action, Sri Lanka risks losing one of its most iconic and ecologically significant species to escalating human-induced threats.

By Ifham Nizam