I write this with a sense of profound disappointment, rather than as a critic of the government or any individual public official. For several months, I have been drawing public attention to what I consider one of the most serious long-term challenges facing Sri Lanka—the country’s rapidly changing demographic structure, declining fertility, population ageing and the consequent contraction of the working-age population.

I have written several articles on this subject, believing that informed public discussion could encourage policymakers, academics and relevant institutions to examine the issue before its consequences become irreversible. I went a further step by addressing a detailed letter to the President on 28 August 2026, seeking consideration of a National Demographic Action Plan.

That letter was not merely an expression of concern. It contained practical proposals: long-term demographic projections, assessment of the consequences for labour supply and productivity, examination of declining fertility and delayed family formation, reassessment of education and employment policies, consideration of migration, and the establishment of continuous demographic monitoring.

I deliberately addressed the matter to the highest level because demographic change is not the responsibility of one ministry. It cuts across Finance and Planning, Education, Labour, Health, Higher Education, migration, social protection and national human-resource planning.

Yet, after sending that registered letter, I have not even received an acknowledgement.

This is what troubles me most. I fully appreciate that government has numerous urgent problems to address. Economic recovery, disaster management, employment, education and many other immediate concerns understandably demand attention. But demographic change is different. It operates slowly, almost silently, while steadily narrowing the choices available to future governments.

By the time the shortage of workers, accelerated ageing, increased dependency and the economic consequences of very low fertility become impossible to ignore, remedial action may be enormously more difficult and expensive. What is equally disappointing is the apparent silence of the institutions that should be at the centre of this discussion.

The latest Census has provided the country with an invaluable body of demographic evidence. My own published work has attempted to connect those findings with national development, productivity, education, employment and human-resource planning. On the top of these endeavours, I have seen voluminous articles written by Professor Manori Weerathunga, of the Population Department of the Colombo University, President Population Association of Sri Lanka, and Director Centre for Ageing Studies of University of Colombo. Yet I have seen little evidence of a visible national policy response from the relevant planning and statistical authorities.

Given the multiplicity of the roles and the credentials she possesses, I would strongly urge her to take the bull by the horns and formulate a draft national demographic policy with the expertise of the demographic scientists. This task cannot be delegated to the SLAS or Planning panjandrums. The government should seriously think why the thinktanks are abdicating their mandatory responsibilities and playing a passive role when the country is confronted with burning issues. Are there any sinister plans by disgruntled senior officers to derail the development plans is the question that begs an answer? Alternatively, the government should seriously enlist the support of the IMF or the World Bank, before the demographic bomb explodes!

Are we treating the Census merely as a statistical exercise, rather than as an early-warning the system for national planning? This question deserves a public answer.

I went even further by writing on “Educational Delays, Biological Clock and Sri Lanka’s Fertility Crisis.” My purpose was not to blame the education authorities. I sought to draw attention to the possibility that prolonged delays in university education, examinations, admissions and graduation may interact with delayed family formation and the biological realities of childbearing. I had hoped that this would stimulate examination by the Education sector and other relevant stakeholders.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see any meaningful response. My concern is therefore not whether my own articles have been acknowledged. That is completely irrelevant. The issue is whether the substantive national questions raised in those articles are being examined by anyone in authority.

A citizen who spends considerable time studying a national problem, writing about it publicly and then submitting a constructive proposal to Government should not necessarily expect agreement. But surely an acknowledgement—or better still, a response indicating that the matter is being examined—is not too much to expect.

There is also another dimension which I recently highlighted in discussing Sri Lanka’s transition from an “Age of Longevity” towards an “Age of Experience”. Sri Lanka is simultaneously facing a shrinking younger workforce and an expanding reservoir of older citizens possessing decades of professional and institutional experience.

The demographic challenge, therefore, should not be viewed only through the lenses of pensions, healthcare and elderly care. The country must also ask how the accumulated knowledge, expertise and institutional memory of its experienced citizens can be mobilised for national development.

This is precisely why I find the present silence so difficult to understand. I have no personal or political agenda. I have spent decades working in human resources, productivity and management specialist, and I have chosen in the later stage of my professional life to devote my writing to contemporary national issues which I believe deserve national attention.

Perhaps my concerns are misplaced. Perhaps the government already has a comprehensive demographic strategy under preparation. The relevant institutions have already initiated studies that are not yet public.

If that is the case, I would be delighted to be proved wrong. But if no such comprehensive process exists, then I respectfully ask: how much longer can Sri Lanka afford to remain silent?

The demographic clock does not stop while governments deliberate.

My appeal is therefore not for recognition of my efforts. It is for recognition of the problem. I hope the relevant authorities will prove that the silence I have encountered is not indifference, but merely the silence before meaningful action.

Sri Lanka cannot afford to discover, ten or twenty years from now, that the warnings were visible, the evidence was available, the proposals were made—and nobody acted.

The time to respond to the demographic crisis is now, while choices still remain.

Over to you, the President, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Vice Chancellor of Colombo, Director General of Census and Statistics.

Athula Ranasinghe

Productivity Specialist and Management Consultant

Beyond hype and headlines:

Media Sensationalism,Hyperbolic Language, and the Fragile Psychology of High-Performance Athletes – From the Cricket Pitch to the Javelin Runway

By a Sporty Enthusiast

When a nation’s heroes and heroines in sport step onto the intensely competitive national and international stage, they carry far more than their sporting attire, athletic gear, and personal ambitions. On their shoulders rests the weight of millions of hopes, hyper-fixated media coverage, and unprecedented national expectations. Yet in modern sport, the boundary between healthy national pride and destructive psychological pressure has become alarmingly thin.

High-performance athletes often operate on extremely fragile mental ground, are exposed to continuous public scrutiny, subject to unyielding media hype, and even volatile public commentary. In Sri Lanka, where sport, particularly cricket and track events, is practically elevated to the status of a national religion, this phenomenon has reached a critical juncture that demands urgent re-examination.

The rise and fall of national icons across various disciplines reveals a troubling cycle. When an athlete or a team achieves a sensational performance, the media creates a frenzy of adulation and then the public demands continuous perfection. Then, at the first sign of human vulnerability, accolades turn into brutal criticism.

To build a sustainable, world-class athletic culture in Sri Lanka, we must dismantle this toxic cycle. We must temper sensationalist reporting, eliminate violent and hyperbolic terminology from sports discourse, integrate professional Sports Medicine and Sports Psychology into athlete care, and recognise that failures are not national disgraces, but the indispensable stepping stones toward true athletic greatness.

The Double-Edged Sword of Media Hype: Lessons from Sri Lankan Cricket

There is perhaps no clearer illustration of the volatile relationship between media hype and performance pressure than the experiences of the Sri Lankan Men’s and Women’s National Cricket Teams. For decades, cricket has been the epicentre of Sri Lankan sporting identity. However, the relentless media spotlight on these teams has created a high-pressure crucible-type environment where players are subjected to extreme emotional swings. A victory is met with extravagant headlines, parades, and declarations of undisputed dominance; conversely, a defeat triggers public inquests, powerful vitriolic criticism, and extremely harsh media condemnations. Add to this challenge the ubiquitous social media, which can be totally heartless, and the picture becomes even more gloomy and even more powerfully destructive.

This culture of extreme publicity and hype places an unbearable burden on both veteran players and young talents entering the national sports system. When a young batter or bowler scores a brilliant century or takes a match-winning haul, he or she is instantly anointed as the next national saviour. Yet, cricket is inherently a game of fine margins and unpredictable conditions. When form inevitably fluctuates, as it does for even the greatest legends of the game, the very media outlets that elevated these athletes to deity status often lead the charge in pulling them down.

Our Women’s Cricket Team, which has made remarkable strides on the global stage in recent years through sheer grit and resilience, now faces a similar peril. As their profile rises and international victories mount, the general public’s attention on them has intensified. While recognition and equitable coverage are vital and long overdue, the accompanying hyper-fixation risks creating the same pressure-cooker environment that has long plagued the men’s game.

A case in point is the banner headline on the Sports Page of a national daily (Not The Island Newspaper) published on the morning of 22^nd September 2026, when the Sri Lanka-India Final of the Asia Cup T20 was to be played in Japan. The two teams had met less than 10 days ago in the Asia Cup Final in Dubai, and India won it easily. For the T20 Final on the 22^nd of September, too, we were meeting a very strong Indian team performing superbly well. To make matters worse, two of our really good players were sidelined with injuries. The banner headline of the newspaper alluded to above, screamed on the 2^nd of September 2026, “History to repeat or rewrite today in Japan.” The mental pressure that would have been inflicted by that headline on our team is indescribable. A much more encouraging line would have been “Go for it, Girls: We believe in you.” India became the champions with a stellar performance by midday in Sri Lankan time. The very same newspaper, in its sports page on the very next day, reported in banner headlines that Sri Lanka was “thrashed” by India. I do hope the readers would understand what I am pointing to. Our girls would have been heartbroken at the loss to India, and the newspaper goes and rubs salt into the wound.

When media narrative shifts from constructiveness to hysteria, athletes begin playing and trying to perform out of fear: the fear of failure, fear of public humiliation, and fear of media backlash. Playing out of fear is the absolute antithesis of elite athletic performance. When a narrative shifts from constructive analysis to sensational hysteria, athletes stop playing to win and start competing out of fear. Fear is the ultimate enemy of elite performance.

Sensationalism and the Language of Excess: Unpacking Sports Terminology

A central contributor to this unhealthy atmosphere is the vocabulary employed by sports journalists, commentators, and headline writers. In the competitive race for clicks, clichés, television ratings, and newspaper sales, sports reporting has increasingly adopted violent, destructive, and aggressive language. Headlines routinely declare that one team has “thrashed,” “annihilated,” “demolished,” or “overwhelmed” another. Such terminology is not only inappropriate for describing sporting contests, but it is also fundamentally intellectually dishonest and psychologically damaging. It must be pointed out that the very same team or the player who was at the receiving end of such vitriolic comments may turn around and produce a scintillating and victorious performance in the very near future. The fundamental truth of athletic competition is that those who “thrash” an opponent today may well find themselves on the receiving end of a bitter defeat tomorrow. High-performance sport is fluid; conditions change, opponents adapt, and physical capacity fluctuates, a set of variables that ultimately determine the outcome.

When headlines use words like “annihilated,” they inflict deep psychological wounds on losing teams and losing players, only to instil an unwarranted sense of invincibility in winners. For the defeated athlete, reading that they were “demolished” deepens feelings of shame and embarrassment, making psychological recovery infinitely more difficult. For the victor, hyperbolic praise creates an unsustainable baseline of expectation that makes subsequent performance drop-offs feel catastrophic. Responsible sports journalism requires precision, respect, and restraint. Describing a match through technical accuracy, focusing on tactical execution, physical endurance, and strategic decisions, elevates the reader’s understanding without degrading the dignity of the competitors.

Sports are meant to celebrate human physical excellence, discipline, tactical skill, and camaraderie. Describing a match with terms borrowed from warfare reduces a nuanced athletic competition to a spectacle of subjugation. Furthermore, this language fails to account for the cyclical nature of elite sport.

Protecting Our Gems: The Case of Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage

This tendency toward excessive hype is currently playing out in real time with Sri Lanka’s latest athletic sensation, Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage. As a champion javelin thrower, Pathirage has demonstrated world-class technique, phenomenal physical power, and an extraordinary capacity for international competition. He represents a really magnificent gem in the future of Sri Lankan athletics, possessing the talent and discipline required to compete at the absolute highest levels of track and field.

Predictably, the media machine has begun to spin rather spectacularly around him. Rumesh has quickly become the new darling of national sports pages and television sports segments. While celebrating his achievements is entirely and utterly justified, there is an urgent need to caution against making an overwhelming “song and dance” around his every movement. Converting an intensely promising young athlete into an overnight national messiah places an unnecessary psychological burden on his shoulders just as he enters the most delicate phase of his elite career development.

Javelin throwing, like all technical field events, requires precise biomechanics, intense nervous system focus, and long-term physical conditioning. It is a discipline where fractions of a second in release timing can mean the difference between a podium finish and a modest throw. What Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage needs right now is not relentless media circuses, commercial distractions, and lofty public demands for instant Olympic medals. Instead, he requires a quiet, structured, and fully funded support ecosystem that allows him to train without distraction, refine his technique under intense specialised guidance, and build physical and mental resilience over time.

The Imperative of Science: Sports Physicians and Sports Psychologists

If we are to be serious about sustaining elite athletic performance and protecting the well-being of our athletes, Sri Lanka must modernise its sporting infrastructure by prioritising two essential fields: Sports Medicine and Sports Psychology. Historically, sports administration in developing nations has treated these disciplines as secondary luxuries rather than non-negotiable fundamentals. This outdated perspective must change.

A qualified Sports Physician is far more than a medical doctor who treats injuries after they occur. They are medically trained experts in exercise physiology, injury prevention, biomechanics, recovery science, and clinical nutrition. They are most definitely not Glorified Physiotherapists, although physiotherapy is an essential component of an athletic training programme. Elite modern sports demand that the human body to perform at its absolute physical limit. Without dedicated and extensively trained Medical Sports Physicians managing physical workloads, monitoring overtraining syndromes, and designing individual recovery protocols, athletes are exposed even to career-ending injuries and physical burnout. Treating an international athlete’s body without specialised medical oversight is akin to driving a Formula 1 car without a team of extremely competent mechanical engineers.

Equally critical, and often even more neglected, is the role of the qualified Sports Psychologist. The mental strain under which international athletes operate is absolutely immense. They have to cope with performance anxiety, fear of failure, recovery from traumatic injury, public criticism, media pressure, and the personal sacrifices required by elite training schedules. A qualified Sports Psychologist works proactively with athletes to build cognitive resilience, develop emotional regulation techniques, enhance focus under pressure, and construct healthy self-identities independent of competitive outcomes.

Mental toughness is not an innate trait that an athlete either possesses or lacks; it is a psychological skill set that must be systematically as well as studiously developed, trained, maintained, and nurtured. Expecting athletes to endure immense public pressure through sheer willpower alone is naive and negligent. Integrating specially trained mental health professionals into every national squad is an essential duty of care that national sporting bodies owe to their performers. Mental toughness is a trainable science, not an innate miracle.

Redefining Failure: The True Path to Greatness

To foster a healthier sporting culture, society as a whole must undergo a fundamental shift in how it views athletic failure. In Sri Lankan sports culture, failure is too frequently treated as an unforgivable defect or a national disgrace. In reality, failure is an indispensable structural element of true athletic excellence. The much-bandied adage that “failures are the pillars of success” is not merely a cliché; it is a proven historical reality observed in every legendary sporting career.

Consider the career of Usain Bolt, universally acknowledged as the greatest sprinter in human history. To the casual observer, Bolt’s career appears to be an uninterrupted chain of golden glory. However, the path to his transcendent dominance was paved with repeated setbacks, physical injuries, and international defeats. Before he ever won his first Olympic Gold medal in Beijing in 2008, Bolt suffered around 13 high-profile losses in international events. Early in his career, at the 2004 Athens Olympics, a young Bolt was eliminated in the very first round of the 200-metre sprint event due to a hamstring injury. He faced severe criticism from domestic fans and media who questioned his big-stage composure.

Had Usain Bolt broken under the weight of those early failures and the accompanying media criticism, world sport would have been deprived of one of its greatest icons. Instead, supported by a structured coaching system, medical care, and psychological fortitude, Bolt used those 13 international defeats as diagnostic tools. He analysed his technique, improved his physical strength, refined his mental preparation, and eventually emerged to secure 8 Olympic Gold medals and establish 3 World Records that still stand untouched today. Failure was not the opposite of Bolt’s success; it was the raw material from which his success was forged and the golden thread that was used to weave an amazing tapestry of an unmatched sporting career.

Rewards, Support, and the Way Forward

None of this suggests that athletic success should go unrecognised. That is as far away as one could get from it. When our sportspersons achieve spectacular victories on the continental or global stage, rewarding them with financial security, national honours, and public recognition is entirely fitting and absolutely necessary. Rewards provide tangible validation for years of unseen sacrifice and inspire the next generation of youth to pursue athletic excellence.

However, rewards must be accompanied by sustainable structural support. Financial compensation after a medal win cannot compensate for a lack of professional coaching, inadequate medical infrastructure, or absent psychological support during the years leading up to that victory. We must invest in the process, not merely celebrate the result. As that great actor Tom Cruise once said, “Success is rarely achieved overnight. Behind every achievement are years of dedication, persistence, setbacks, and continuous learning. People celebrate the final result, but they may not always see the effort, sacrifices and determination that made it all possible.”

For national heroes like Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage, our cricket teams, and emerging athletes across all sporting disciplines, the message must be crystal clear: the nation stands behind you not because you are invincible, but because you represent the best of our national effort. The media must commit towards balanced, constructive, and dignified reporting, abandoning violent headlines and hyperbolic worship. Sporting administrators, in addition to everything else they are supposed to do, must invest in qualified Sports Physicians and Sports Psychologists as mandatory pillars of athlete development. As fans, we must learn to celebrate victories with humility, accept defeats with empathy, and understand that every great champion must first master the art of standing up after a fall before he or she can soar to even greater heights.

Appreciation

R. S. (Siri) Palihawadana received his early education at the school now known as Malimbada North Maha Vidyalaya. The school was founded by Siri’s father, D. C. Palihawadana, on a plot of land donated by him, and Siri was the first student entered in its student register.

Siri entered Kotte Ananda Shasthralaya in 1940 and continued his education there until 1949. In 1950, he entered Ananda College, Colombo, to sit the Advanced Level examination. He later obtained an Honours Degree in Economics from the University of London.

During his distinguished career, he served as Chief Accountant and Business Manager of the Ceylon Plywood Corporation, Director of Investments at the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (now the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka), Deputy Executive Director of the Sri Lanka Centre for Business Development, Consultant to the World Institute for Development Economics Research in Finland, and Director of a professional services and consultancy firm.

On days when Siri had to work until very late at the Greater Colombo Economic Commission, his driver would drop him home in his official car. Siri would then get into his own car and drive the driver all the way back to his home in Homagama, even in the dead of night. Such was his sense of responsibility and integrity. On these occasions, Dr. Adikaram would ask me to accompany Siri, in case of an emergency such as a flat tyre.

It is said that to be universally interesting, one has to be universally interested. Siri was just such a person. He was an award-winning orchid grower and a key member of the well-known cooperative orchid nursery and florist, Lakmalsala. He had a deep interest in organic farming and freely shared his knowledge and advice with many budding organic farmers.

Siri was also an enthusiastic photographer during the era of black-and-white film photography and had his own darkroom where he developed his photographs. He took a keen interest in the socio-economic developments taking place in Sri Lanka and served as the Honorary Treasurer of the Dr. E. W. Adikaram Foundation. I also had many illuminating discussions with Siri on the teachings of J. Krishnamurti.

From 1945 to 1975, Siri Palihawadana lived in the house on Pagoda Road, where Dr. E. W. Adikaram also resided. In 1975, a large jak tree fell onto the house, rendering it unfit for further occupation.

Siri subsequently built a new house on Mirihana Road in the remarkably short period of about four months and moved there with Dr. Adikaram. Until the new house was completed, Dr. Adikaram and the Palihawadana family stayed at the residence of Professor Mahinda Palihawadana on Pamunuwa Road, Maharagama.

Dr. Adikaram lived in Siri Palihawadana’s Mirihana Road home from 1975 until his death in 1985. Siri and his wife, Lakshmi, cared for Dr. Adikaram with great love, affection and devotion, treating him with the same respect and care they would have given to their own father.

Siri Palihawadana will be remembered not only for his distinguished professional career, but also for his integrity, generosity, wide-ranging interests and deep concern for the welfare of others.

Ravi Palihawadana