The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $100 million results-based loan to help Sri Lanka transform its technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system, equip more young people with industry-relevant skills, and strengthen the country’s competitiveness and inclusive growth.

The Skills Development System Transformation Program will support the Government of Sri Lanka’s efforts in improving the quality and relevance of skills training, strengthening links between training providers and industries, and expanding employment opportunities for youth. The program will increase women’s employment opportunities in nontraditional jobs in fields including automotive technology, engineering, information and communications technology, construction, and renewable energy.

“A skilled workforce is essential to Sri Lanka’s long-term economic transformation and competitiveness,” said ADB Country Director for Sri Lanka Shannon Cowlin. “This program will help create stronger pathways from education to employment by making training more responsive to industry needs, expanding opportunities for young people and women, and ensuring that graduates have the skills required by a modern and evolving economy.”

Though Sri Lanka’s economy is recovering, it faces skills shortages in priority sectors, high youth unemployment, and low female labor force participation. Many employers report difficulty finding workers with the skills needed in a changing economy.

Aligned with the Government of Sri Lanka’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training Sector Strategic Framework 2026–2035, the nationwide program will be implemented from 2027 to 2031 and is expected to directly benefit more than 100,000 young people through improved access to quality, employment-oriented training.

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 22

by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

I return now to J K Rowling of Harry Potter fame, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith about Cormoran Strike. There are several books in this series of off-beat detective stories, featuring a private investigator who lost a leg while serving in the army, and his assistant Robin Ellacott, who had been raped when a student, with lasting psychological effects. Strike himself was the child of a rock band groupie, who had lived a sordid life, her last attachment being to a failed rock star of relatively aristocratic provenance and brutal habits.

Career of Evil is the third in the Strike series, and markedly different from the two books I read previously, the first and the fifth. Those were relatively speaking classic whodunnits, with a range of possible murderers, the solution in the end being quite unexpected but also convincing. The murderers in both cases are unhinged, but this does not become obvious until Strike has put two and two together and revealed a history of aberrant behaviour.

This novel has just a few suspects, all of them bizarre, as is made clear from the moment they are introduced. The case begins with Robin being sent a severed leg from a dead body, or rather it begins with the thoughts of the murderer who seeks revenge from Strike, which it seems he intends to achieve by first terrifying and then killing the woman he calls Strike’s Secretary. He also evinces a horrid desire to mutilate women after abusing them.

The first person Strike thinks of as a possible suspect is a member of a crime syndicate known to have sent body parts through the post, but Strike soon decides that he cannot be the perpetrator, in part because he is not likely to have known that Strike was responsible for his conviction earlier. Rather Strike is convinced it is one of three people who hate him, two of them individuals he helped to prosecute when he was in the investigating unit of the army, the third his step-father whom he suspected had killed his mother.

Unfortunately, Wardle, the policeman assigned to the case, who gets on well with Strike, is convinced it is the first person Strike had suggested, and does not seem interested in the rest, so Strike sets about trying to find out what they are up to.

They are not easy to trace, but Strike eventually tracks them down. He finds Laing’s mother in Scotland, although she is no longer able to provide any useful information. He then tracks down the mother of Laing’s first wife, Rona, whom Strike had found tied up and tortured. It was this incident that led to Laing’s conviction and imprisonment, and ultimately fuelled his hatred of Strike.

He finds the sister of the second suspect, Noel Brockbank, and learns that she and her brother were both abused as children by their stepfather. Brockbank later went on to abuse young girls himself. When Strike went to arrest him over the abuse of his stepdaughter, Brockbank attacked him with a broken bottle, and Strike knocked him out. Brockbank subsequently suffered seizures and was found to have a serious brain injury. Although Strike was initially blamed for the injury, it was later established that Brockbank had fractured his skull in a rugby match before the confrontation. Brockbank was therefore never convicted of the abuse allegations, while Strike was cleared of responsibility for his brain injury.

Strike’s third suspect is his former stepfather, Jeff Whittaker, whom he describes as unutterably filthy and abusive, yet strangely attractive to women. When Strike tracks him down, he finds Whittaker living with Stephanie, a woman who supports him with what she earns as a sex worker. Despite being abused by Whittaker, she remains devoted to him.

In his musings, the killer refers to the woman he lives with as “It”, suggesting that he could be Whittaker, who lives off Stephanie’s earnings. But when Robin is attacked by a man dressed differently from Whittaker, whom she had seen shortly before, it becomes clear that Whittaker is not the killer. Laing, the first of Strike’s three suspects, is also apparently ruled out when Robin sees him on crutches and learns that he is claiming disability benefits. Strike and Robin therefore concentrate on the third suspect, Noel Brockbank, whom they eventually trace to a home he shares with his girlfriend, Alyssa, and her two young daughters. Robin has seen the younger girl and becomes increasingly worried about what Brockbank might do to her. Although Strike has ordered her to leave Brockbank alone, Robin continues investigating because of her concern for the child. She eventually discovers that Brockbank has been sexually abusing the older of the two girls.

Meanwhile, Strike and Robin manage to identify the girl whose leg was sent to the agency. Among the bizarre letters Strike had received in the past was one from a young woman who fantasizes about having her healthy leg amputated and believed that Strike had deliberately had his own leg removed. Robin realises that the girl was suffering from a condition known as body integrity identity disorder, or BIID, in which a person has a persistent desire to have a healthy limb or other body part removed. Strike simply ignored the letter, unaware that the girl was suffering from a recognised condition and that her request was serious. The girl, Kelsey Platt, is subsequently found to have been murdered, and the police discover forged letters apparently written by Strike in response to her.

Wardle has his suspicions of the man married to the girl’s sister, with whom she had lived. Strike thinks this absurd, and it turns out that the man has an alibi for the time of the murder, but Strike does go along when the sister asks to see him and is overwhelmed by the sense of grief she and her husband evince.

The girl is evidently a godsend to the murderer, whose desire to remove body parts could not be controlled. He chops fingers off a girl he almost kills, and then removes the nose and ears of a girl he kills soon afterwards. And previously he had sent Robin the toe of the girl whose leg had been sent earlier.

All this horror can seem over the top, and one may wonder how Rowling could bring herself to wallow in such grim material. But perhaps she felt very strongly about the abuse women were subject to, and though her depiction of the way women played into the hands of abusive men seems excessive, she feels that awareness of that increases the need for support groups and other mechanisms to provide safety nets.

But there is also another side to the novel, namely the relationship between Strike and his partner Robin, which verges on the romantic though neither wishes to move on the matter. Strike feels diffident about taking advantage of his position as her employer, while Robin is engaged to a young man she has known for years, and whom she was virtually engaged to while at university. He has stood by her after the rape, when she could barely face society, and she finally decides to accept him and they are planning their wedding at the beginning of this book. But she finds that he is jealous of Strike, and hence his resentment of her commitment to her work, she breaks off the relationship when they are staying with her parents to finalize arrangements for the wedding.

But they still share a flat, and given the threat looming over her she cannot really move to live by herself. And gradually his misery wears her determination down, and she agrees again to marry him. The novel ends with their wedding, which Strike just manages to get to, causing her to beam, though she ‘had not once smiled in the entire service’.

But they still share a flat, and with the threat hanging over her, Robin cannot really move out and live by herself. Gradually, Matthew’s misery wears down her determination, and she agrees to marry him after all. The novel ends with their wedding. Strike arrives just in time, battered and bloodied after his confrontation with the killer. Robin has not smiled once during the ceremony, but when she sees Strike, she suddenly beams.

Before that, in the kerfuffle caused by Robin’s attempt to rescue the children of the woman Brockbank was living with, Strike sacks her. This turns out to be useful to him, because he subsequently enlists the children’s mother, Alyssa, to help trap the killer, whom he has by then identified as Donald Laing. With Shanker’s help, Strike arranges for Alyssa to pose as his new secretary and lure Laing into the open while he gains access to the flat Laing has been using as a hideout. There he discovers the evidence of the murders, including the severed body parts kept in a refrigerator.

This leads to a dramatic climax in which the murderer turns up. Strike has difficulty subduing him, partly because of his missing leg, but he is helped by Shanker, a man whom his mother, Leda, had taken in as a neglected and badly beaten boy and who has remained deeply grateful to the family. With the murderer captured and the case effectively wrapped up, Strike asks Shanker to drive him to Yorkshire, where Robin’s wedding is taking place. They arrive while the ceremony is still in progress, and Strike manages to get into the church just as Robin is making her vows. When she sees him, she beams and says “I do” while looking at him rather than at Matthew.

Clearly, this suggests that the relationship between Strike and Robin is far from settled. Indeed, as I discovered when I read the fifth book in the series, the story certainly does run and run.

An archetypal journey of life towards self-discovery

By Dr Siri Galhenage,
Psychiatrist [Retd]

The Odyssey is a narrative poem by Homer, the revered Greek poet of antiquity. Along with its forerunner, The Iliad, it is regarded as one of the foundational works of Western Literature. Both epics were transmitted for generations through the oral tradition by travelling bards before being committed to writing several centuries later. In 2026, it has received a major cinematic adaptation, and is currently being screened in theatres around the world. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the movie has a renowned ensemble cast including Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway, and is expected to top the charts this year.

The enduring interest in the Odyssey is reflected in its continuing reinterpretation across the arts and psychology. My interest in the epic is in the deeper meaning to the narrative – ‘the subterranean flow’ – which I have endeavoured to explore in light of the theoretical concepts developed by pioneer psychiatrists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, mainly the latter, while also appreciating the aesthetic dimensions of its cinematic presentation. My attempt, admittedly, is no road less travelled; yet each journey along it may reveal something new beneath the surface of the narrative!

Applicable Psychoanalytical Concepts

The psychoanalytical concepts developed by Freud and Jung concerning the structure and workings of the human mind are complex, but I shall restrict myself to outlining those aspects that are relevant to exploring the deeper meaning of the narrative in The Odyssey.

In psychoanalytical terms the human mind is divided into two domains – the conscious and the unconscious. Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche was primarily applied to the individual. It consists of the ‘personal unconscious’, which harbours experiences that have been repressed or kept beneath the ‘conscious’ level.

In contrast, Carl Jung, Freud’s junior colleague, conceived the idea of a ‘collective unconscious’ as a deeper and a universal layer of the psyche shared by humanity as a whole. It contains innate patterns of psychological experience, which Jung called archetypes. An archetype may therefore be understood as an underlying psychic pattern or predisposition. In a narrative, such a pattern may appear in the form of a character, theme, image or symbol that becomes recognisable to consciousness. It is capable of presenting in different cultures and historical periods. What we encounter in a narrative, therefore, are archetypal manifestations rather than the archetype itself.

The Narrative

The Odyssey is a mythical tale; its setting and characters probably would have been familiar to the original Greek audience. A modern day audience, however, may find it ludicrous!

It is the story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and his struggle to return home after the victory at Troy, longing to be united with his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, Penelope is besieged by a group of conceited suitors who pressure her to remarry, assuming that Odysseus is dead. Telemachus, now grown up, sets out in search of news of his father.

Odysseus embarks on a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea with his fellow soldiers, but his homeward voyage becomes a ten year ordeal as he encounters not only the forces of nature but also an array of hostile gods and mythical creatures.

The journey had a calamitous start with a raid on the Cicones at Ismarus where Odysseus loses many of his men. Soon afterwards, storms drive them to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, where some of his crew consume the intoxicating lotus and lose all desire to return home.

Odysseus rouses his men from their lethargy and moves on to confront the Cyclops, particularly the gigantic Polyphemus, son of the sea god Poseidon. Odysseus blinds Polyphemus who is blocking the cave they were trapped in, and escapes by clinging beneath a flock of sheep. It provokes the enduring wrath of Poseidon, god of the sea.

As the fleet sailed on, lost across the vast seas, Aeolus, keeper of the winds, gives Odysseus a bag of winds that might carry them home. While Odysseus sleeps, however, his suspicious crew opens the bag, believing it contains treasure. The released winds drive the ship away from their planned direction.

They next encounter the Laestrygonians, a race of gigantic cannibals who destroy most of the fleet. Odysseus escapes, but grimly continues his voyage.

He then reaches the island of Circe, where the powerful enchantress transforms some of his men into swine, who indulge in gluttony. Odysseus overcomes her spell, and Circe becomes his ally. At her direction, he consults the prophet Tiresias in the Underworld, who warns him about the continued hostility of Poseidon and advises him to refrain from harming the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios.

Returning to the sea, Odysseus encounters the Sirens, who use alluring sounds to lure sailors to their deaths. Forewarned by Circe, he orders his men to plug their ears with wax and bind him tightly to the mast so that he can hear their songs without steering the ship towards them.

He then navigates between Scylla, a six-headed sea monster, and Charybdis, a terrifying whirlpool. Choosing the lesser danger, he loses six of his men to Scylla. The incident becomes one of the most painful episodes of his journey.

With the surviving crew, Odysseus reaches the island of Thrinacia, where his starving men slaughter the sacred cattle of Helios, against the wishes of the prophet Tiresias, while he is asleep. In response to Helios’s demand, Zeus destroys their ship with a thunderbolt, killing all the men except Odysseus.

Odysseus is subsequently washed ashore on the island of Ogygia, where the nymph Calypso keeps him captive because she loves him. She commands the waves to wash him back to shore, each time he tries to make a raft and sail to sea. Odysseus turns down her offer to make him immortal if he remains with her. He longs to return home. At the command of Zeus, the God of the Heavens, Calypso eventually releases him, and Odysseus sets sail once more.

Angered by the release, Poseidon, the god of the seas, summons the winds and smashes Odysseus’s raft. Thrown overboard, an exhausted Odysseus manages to swim ashore in the land of the Phaeacians, a peaceful people living in relative isolation. With the help of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, he is brought before their king and queen. Moved by his story, they offer him hospitality and provide him with a ship, which finally carries him safely to Ithaca.

In Ithaca, Penelope has been besieged by numerous suitors, who have consumed his wealth and assumed that he was dead. With the help of Athena, he disguises himself as a beggar and secretly returns to his palace. Penelope meanwhile remains faithful to Odysseus, and has devised strategies to postpone remarriage. She announces that she will marry the man who can string Odysseus’s great bow and shoot an arrow through a series of axe-heads. None of the suitors succeeds. The disguised Odysseus effortlessly strings the bow and reveals his identity. With Telemachus and a few loyal servants, he kills the suitors and restores order to his household and reunites with Penelope.

Exploration of the ‘Subterranean Flow’ of the Narrative

Derived from the Greek root odussia, the word odyssey has entered the English language, meaning ‘long adventurous journey’ while, interestingly, some linguists argue that it is also linked to the word odyne meaning ‘pain and suffering, distress or consuming grief’.

The Odyssey can be understood as more than an adventure story. It is an archetype of the journey through life itself: departure, ordeal, wandering, self-discovery and return.

The narrative embodies three archetypal elements – a character [a hero], a theme [his journey] and a symbolic destination [home]

The character of Odysseus represents a pattern of struggle, confrontation with danger and transformation. He emerges as the archetypal ‘hero’, fighting the Trojan War to secure the release of Helen, who has been taken from her husband, Menelaus, the king of the allied nation of Sparta. Helen came to be known as ‘Helen of Troy’, an enduring archetypal image of feminine beauty. The war was brought to a dramatic conclusion by Odysseus’s ingenious stratagem: he and his men concealed themselves inside a giant wooden horse which was brought into Troy enabling them to launch a surprise attack. The ‘Trojan Horse’ has since become a lasting allegory for deception and cunning.

Odysseus is characterised as a ‘hero’, not only due to his military prowess, but also to the courage, resourcefulness and perseverance he displays throughout his archetypal journey home. Tested by forces both external and within, he endures suffering, confronts his limitations and undergoes a process of transformation before finding his way home.

He encounters storms, monsters, seductive enchantresses, intoxicating flora [lotuses: the ‘lotus eaters’ becoming an allegory for Indulgence in idle pleasure], enthralling music and the supernatural world – a realm divided between forces that protect, obstruct, tempt and test him. Yet his journey is not without errors of judgement or disagreement with his fellow crew members, and he must face the consequences of his actions, and most poignantly, the loss of his companions. His greatest challenge, however, is not merely survival, but the preservation of his identity and sense of purpose. He must resist the temptations that threaten to keep him from home, recognise the limits of his own pride and ingenuity, and ultimately learn the value of humility. The theme represents, in varying degree, a recurring pattern or journey of human experience, transformation and self-discovery, beyond its literary presentation.

Ithaca becomes not merely a geographical destination but an archetypal ‘home’, a symbol of selfhood, continuity and the restoration of order after chaos and suffering. One must not overlook the crucial role played by Penelope in preserving the home, enduring her own trials, sustaining the household and preserving its continuity against overwhelming odds.

In essence, the archetypal pattern beneath the narrative in Homer’s Odyssey is the human journey home – through danger, temptation, loss and transformation – towards identity, belonging and restoration.

Conclusion

A good piece of Art – literary or cinematic – much like Psychology, seeks to illuminate the complexities of human experience. In this regard, The Odyssey can be seen as a timeless metaphor for the human journey – the difficulties, hardships, setbacks and emotional challenges that people inevitably encounter throughout their lives: the trials and tribulations that may alter the course of a life. Such trials are not merely tests of character in the face of suffering but, more importantly, they may serve as opportunities for self-discovery, growth and transformation.

As Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist, postulated, much of this experience is rooted in the ‘collective unconscious’, a deeper layer of the psyche beneath conscious thought and individual experience. It is perhaps this deeper, often unspoken dimension of our shared humanity that enables The Odyssey to transcend its ancient origins and continue to resonate universally, across cultures and generations.

[sirigalhenage@gmail.com]