Features

Fishing expeditions at Yan Oya

Published

5 years ago

2021/06/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Junglewalla

(continued from last week)

My fishing experiences at Yan Oya (the village is called Kallarawa, but it is a collection of fishing wadiyas or huts) were in the company of William Nanayakkara, whom I have referred to earlier. My frequent angling companions at Yan Oya were Lionel Gooneratne, and two other close friends. We used to camp on a beautiful tract of land that belongs to me at the mouth of the Yan Oya.

On an earlier trip, William Nanayakkara while laying a net inside the Yan Oya caught and landed a huge female sawfish (Pristis microdon; dhathi mora S) about 10 feet in length. According to William, substantiated by subsequent information gathered by me, the sawfish come from the ocean’s deep into fresh water to breed.

This is also mentioned by Munro (1955); where he gives the length attained by the sawfish as being up to 15 feet. The specimen netted by William was a female, as proved by the baby sawfish that were visible when the fish was opened up. It would appear that the sawfish, like all sharks and rays, is viviparous. On a subsequent trip up the Kumbukkan Oya in Kumuna, about five miles upstream from the mouth, I observed in a deep and clear pool of absolutely fresh water, a couple of baby sawfish each about a foot long. They were miniature replicas in every way of the adult and complete with saw beak. This would appear to confirm that the sawfish also breed in fresh water, and the juveniles spend at least some part of their life there, somewhat like the salmon of western waters.

On my trips I have seen two large sawfish, eight to 10 feet in length, which had been hooked and landed by a hand- line (yotha) using a dead fish as bait. One was high up the Mahaweli river near the ferry (as it then was) on the Kantalai – Allai road approximately 20 miles from the estuary mouth. The other was about four miles up the Walawe Ganga at Ambalantota. Both anglers who had landed these fish stated that when the trace got entangled in the saw teeth of the fish’s beak, it became virtually paralysed and was drawn in without much of a fight.

My friend, Lionel Goonaratne on a trip with me caught an interesting fish at Yan Oya on an artificial bait (a red and white lipped Abu Hi Lo plug). It was a black-tipped reef shark (Eulamia spallanzani) abut 60 pounds in weight. It is generally thought that sharks are predators who hunt by scent and that their eye-sight is extremely poor. Here, however, was a case where the shark attacked an artificial bait that had no scent. I too have had a similar experience, elsewhere on the east coast, of hooking and landing a same sized black- tipped reef shark on an artificial plug bait.

I had one more interesting experience at Yan Oya worth recounting. On one of my trips a huge whale shark, (Rhincodon typus; mini muthu mora S) beached itself on the shore. The whale shark which is perhaps the largest known fish and a plankton feeder, had been encircled accidentally by the fishermen in one of their nets out at sea, but had subsequently been freed from the net (as I found out later); however the disoriented fish had swum straight to shore and beached itself.

I remember the fish was close to 20 feet in length (estimated according to the size of a mechanized fishing boat nearby), about five feet high and must have weighed an enormous amount.

Despite valiant efforts by the entire fishing village, the fish could not be pushed out to deep water, and the next day it died. The efforts of the villagers to try and save the fish did strike me then as strange, as the normal reaction of a professional fisherman is to treat any such fresh fish as bounty from heaven, and use it for food and for sale either in fresh or dried form. However, on the death of the fish I was told by William that the flesh could not be eaten or used even as dry fish as it would “dissolve like water”; and the entire village spent the whole day cutting it into sections and carting it off into the neighbouring scrub jungles for burial, so that the beach would not be polluted by the putrifying fish. This is the only occasion on which I found fisher folk not eating a fish that was non-toxic, and the reason given by William and the professional fisherfolk was unusual and perhaps merits further investigation. It certainly seemed an absolute waste of a stupendous quantity of protein to bury the fish!

Dealing with my camping days at Yan Oya, a bit of local history of interest would be worth relating. Upstream from the estuary mouth of the Yan Oya, about two miles up, near the village of Tiriyai, were the ruins of perhaps the most ancient Buddhist dagoba in the whole of Sri Lanka, and perhaps in the entire world. I came across it on one of my early camping trips to Yan Oya, in the early 1960s, when I chanced upon a Buddhist priest and his acolyte trudging on a jungle track, returning to the shrine. They were given a lift in the jeep to the temple, where in the midst of the wilderness the priest was trying to restore some semblance of a shrine at the ruined dagoba.

The priest related to me that this was an ancient shrine named Giri Handu Saya, where a hair relic of the Buddha obtained during his lifetime was enshrined. There was a massive stone tablet with some ancient inscriptions on it near the dagoba which had the remains of an almost completely preserved wata dage around it – almost as well preserved as the more famous one at Medirigiriya.

The story related by the priest, which he claimed was borne out by the inscriptions, was that immediately after the Buddha attained enlightenment he was going through a period of fasting, when there chanced upon him in the forests in India two merchant traders named Thapassu and Bhalluka. The Buddha preached to them and they were so impressed by his discourse that they had asked for a memento of their meeting with him. The Buddha is supposed to have cut off a lock of his hair and given it to these merchants who were on their way to Lanka for trade. The merchants had apparently landed at the harbour at Kallarawa, at the mouth of the Yan Oya (also called Gal Waraya). The local king had also been so impressed by the account related by them of their meeting with the Buddha that the hair relic (khesha dhatu) was enshrined in the dagoba that the king constructed.

The entire dagoba was restored and even electric power was drawn to it during the premiership of Mr. Dudley Senanayake, after which the author again paid a visit to the shrine with some friends. Today, however, since the Tiriyai area is riddled with terrorist activity, it is unlikely that any priest is living there and the shrine would probably be in a state of neglect and decay.

I am indebted to Dr. R Ratnapala for having drawn my attention to the fact that the ancient shrine of Thiriyai has been fully researched and the ancient inscription translated (Paranavitarna, 1936). This account substantially tallies with that given by the custodian priest of the shrine, except for minor details, particularly in relation to how the dagoba came to be constructed.

I was also informed by Dr. Ratnapala that there is reference to the inscription at Thiriyai by Rahula (1956), where reference is made to Thapassu and Bhalluka as being those who offered the first meal to the Buddha after his period of fasting immediately after attaining enlightenment.

Ilangathurai Mohathuvaram

At the mouth of the Ullakelle lagoon on the banks of which the ancient Buddhist temple of Seruwila is situated, is a place of considerable interest. It was accessible by a cart or jeep track over soft dune sand north of the Verugal estuary. The access was very difficult in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The villagers of the hamlet at the estuary mouth were fishermen, coast Veddhas by descent, speaking a peculiar patois of Tamil according to William of Yan Oya and Raju of Komari, friends of mine who accompanied me there. The fishing at the estuary was magnificent as it was a remote and unspoilt place.

Another interesting feature is that on the northern bank of the estuary there is a desolate stretch of scrub that leads to a cluster of fishermen’s huts at a place called Uppural. Close to this area and slightly inland from the seashore are the signs of ancient iron ore smelting, with piles of slag emerging from the sand dunes. The richness of this area in iron ore was confirmed by the Ministry of Industries under Mr. T B Subasinghe. He had a study done to assess the mineral resources in that area, according to reports in the newspapers of that time.

Verugal and crocodiles

The estuary just south of Ilangathurai is Verugal, which is one of the two main mouths of the Mahaweli Ganga, the other and so-called chief mouth being Genge. The Verugal mouth or rather mouths, as there are two openings, are both scenic and prolific in fish, but unfortunately are also densely populated by some of the biggest and most dangerous man-eating crocodiles in the whole of Sri Lanka.. These are the estuarine or salt water crocodiles , namely the hali kimbula (Crocodilus porosus). I have on occasions seen large specimens estimated at well over 15 feet in length, silhouetted in the rising waves out at sea near the estuary mouth. Length apart, the girth of these reptiles is massive. The Verugal villagers speak of numerous victims being taken by these crocodiles both at the mouth and up the river, at the ferry and elsewhere.

I was told by the fishermen camped in their wadiyes at the small mouth of the Verugal river (situated near Kathaveli on the East coast) of a particularly horrifying fatal attack by a crocodile that had taken place a short while before my first visit there in the early 1960’s. The Verugal estuary was a beautiful yet sinister place. On one bank there was beautiful green grass, while the other bank was overgrown with dense mangroves. At the mouth itself was a deep pool.

One evening after the day’s fishing the young son of the owner of a madal or large fishing net, with some fishermen who were friends, went for his customary bath at the river mouth, when a huge crocodile grabbed him, and according to the account, tossed the shrieking victim out of the water in order to secure a better grip, and dived into the river, never to be seen again. The fishermen of the wadiya combed the entire area for several days, but never came across the victim. When I went to the Verugal on that occasion, the fishermen had still not recovered from their shock. They only bathed with buckets of water drawn from the river, and they warned me to be careful about getting into the water to cast the artificial bait.

On one occasion when I visited Verugal on a fishing trip my boatman, a villager named Muthucumaru, flatly refused to put his canoe into the river as he had still not recovered from a frightening experience the previous evening. An outsize crocodile had taken the outrigger of his slightly built canoe (kalapu oruwa) in its jaws and tried to topple it and dislodge Muthucumaru into the water. Fortunately, the crocodile’s attempt at attacking his canoe had driven it to the shore. Muthucumaru had then leapt out and fled to the fishing wadiyas (huts) on the shore to escape the monster.

On a subsequent occasion when I went up to Verugal, there was consternation amongst the people at the ferry and the boutique on the river bank. It would appear that the previous day a bus, which had to cross the river, had been put on to the ferry. Until the ferryman came down, the bus conductor had sat on the ramp and placed his legs in the water to wash off some mud. He had, according to the eyewitnesses, been gripping the chain of the ferry ramp to keep his balance, when a huge crocodile had grabbed him by the legs and despite the man’s frenzied efforts to keep his grip on the chain, had carried him off, never to be seen again.

Most of the east coast crocodiles swim out to the open sea and travel from estuary mouth to estuary mouth, hugging the shoreline a few hundred yards beyond the waves.

One huge estuarine crocodile was reputed to travel from the mouth of the Heda Oya to the estuary at Kumana visiting intermediate estuaries on the way, a distance of about 25 miles. I spotted this crocodile once at the mouth of the Heda Oya, south of Arugam Bay when in the company of Peter Jayawardena, then Game Ranger at Lahugala. He told me that it was one of the largest crocodiles he had ever seen – and Peter having been in the Wildlife Department since its inception must have seen a good many. -,

This particular crocodile, which was known for its outstanding size, had been spotted by the Panama villagers on one of its periodic visits up the Wila Oya. It was credited by them with having then taken a fisherman who had been sleeping on a whaleback rock which was sloping into a deep pool some distance upstream from the estuary mouth. This fisherman who had been one of my angling companions, was in the habit of fishing for estuary perch (L calcarifer; modha S; koduwa T) at this particular pool throughout the night and sleeping on this sloping rock.

One morning the villagers had found his scanty belongings on the rock, but the man was missing. The villagers believed that this huge crocodile had clambered up the rock and taken its victim whilst he was asleep. According to accounts read by me about the Indonesian species of estuarine crocodile (the same Crocodilus porosus), they attain an enormous size and travel across the high seas from island to island in Indonesia and even attack fishing canoes they encounter.

It is of interest that in recent times attacks on humans by crocodiles have become more widespread with repeated newspaper accounts of fatalities being reported from Bundala, Walawe Ganga, Nilwala Ganga, Polathu Modera (all in the South) and even from rivulets that empty into the Bolgoda lake on the outskirts of Colombo. While all the southern rivers and lagoons had substantial populations of crocodiles in the 1960’s, inquiries from local villagers from the area did not reveal such frequent attacks taking place then as compared to more recent times. Different theories have been advanced to explain attacks. These range from scarcity of food for crocodiles as a result of over-fishing by man to expansion of human population bringing it into pressing contact with crocodile habitats. The truth is probably a combination of the two plus more aggressive newspaper reporting which is a feature of life today.

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Features

Building on Sand: The Indian market trap

Published

12 hours ago

2026/02/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

(Part III in a series on Sri Lanka’s tourism stagnation.)

Every SLTDA (Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority) press release now leads with the same headline: India is Sri Lanka’s “star market.” The numbers seem to prove it, 531,511 Indian arrivals in 2025, representing 22.5% of all tourists. Officials celebrate the “half-million milestone” and set targets for 600,000, 700,000, more.

But follow the money instead of the headcount, and a different picture emerges. We are building our tourism recovery on a low-spending, short-stay, operationally challenging segment, without any serious strategy to transform it into a high-value market. We have confused market size with market quality, and the confusion is costing us billions.

Per-day spending: While SLTDA does not publish market-specific daily expenditure data, industry operators and informal analyses consistently report Indian tourists in the $100-140 per day range, compared to $180-250 for Western European and North American markets.

The math is brutal and unavoidable: one Western European tourist generates the revenue of 3-4 Indian tourists. Building tourism recovery primarily on the low-yield segment is strategically incoherent, unless the goal is arrivals theater rather than economic contribution.

Comparative Analysis: How Competitors Handle Indian Outbound Tourism

India is not unique to Sri Lanka. Indian outbound tourism reached 30.23 million departures in 2024, an 8.4% year-on-year increase, driven by a growing middle class with disposable income. Every competitor destination is courting this market.

This is not diversification. It is concentration risk dressed up as growth.

How did we end up here? Through a combination of policy laziness, proximity bias, and refusal to confront yield trade-offs.

1. Proximity as Strategy Substitute

India is next door. Flights are short (1.5-3 hours), frequent, and cheap. This makes India the easiest market to attract, low promotional cost, high visibility, strong cultural and linguistic overlap. But easiest is not the same as best.

Tourism strategy should optimize for yield-adjusted effort. Yes, attracting Europeans requires longer promotional cycles, higher marketing spend, and sustained brand-building. But if each European generates 3x the revenue of an Indian tourist, the return on investment is self-evident.

We have chosen ease over effectiveness, proximity over profitability.

2. Visa Policy as Blunt Instrument

3. Failure to Develop High-Value Products for Indian Market

There are segments of Indian outbound tourism that spend heavily:

* Wedding tourism: Indian destination weddings can generate $50,000-200,000+ per event

* Wellness/Ayurveda tourism: High-net-worth Indians seek authentic wellness experiences and will pay premium rates

* MICE tourism: Corporate events, conferences, incentive travel

Sri Lanka has these assets—coastal venues for weddings, Ayurvedic heritage, colonial hotels suitable for corporate events. But we have not systematically developed and marketed these products to high-yield Indian segments.

For the first time in 2025, Sri Lanka conducted multi-city roadshows across India to promote wedding tourism. This is welcome—but it is 25 years late. The Maldives and Mauritius have been curating Indian wedding and MICE tourism for decades, building specialised infrastructure, training staff, and integrating these products into marketing.

We are entering a mature market with no track record, no specialised infrastructure, and no price positioning that signals premium quality.

4. Operational Challenges and Quality Perceptions

Indian tourists, particularly budget segments, present operational challenges:

* Shorter stays mean higher turnover, more check-ins, more logistical overhead per dollar of revenue

* Price sensitivity leads to aggressive bargaining, complaints over perceived overcharging

* Large groups (families, wedding parties) require specialised handling

None of these are insurmountable, but they require investment in training, systems, and service design. Sri Lanka has not made these investments systematically. The result: operators report higher operational costs per Indian guest while generating lower revenue, a toxic margin squeeze.

Additionally, Sri Lanka’s positioning as a “budget-friendly” destination reinforces price expectations. Indians comparing Sri Lanka to Thailand or Malaysia see Sri Lanka as cheaper, not better. We compete on price, not value, a race to the bottom.

The Strategic Error: Mistaking Market Size for Market Fit

India’s outbound tourism market is massive, 30 million+ and growing. But scale is not the same as fit.

Market size ≠ market value: The UAE attracts 7.5 million Indians, but as a high-yield segment (business, luxury shopping, upscale hospitality). Saudi Arabia attracts 3.3 million—but for religious pilgrimage with high per-capita spending and long stays.

Thailand attracts 1.8 million Indians as part of a diversified 35-million-tourist base. Indians represent 5% of Thailand’s mix. Sri Lanka has made Indians 22.5% of our mix, 4.5 times Thailand’s concentration, while generating a fraction of Thailand’s revenue.

This reveals the error. We have prioritised volume from a market segment without ensuring the segment aligns with our value proposition.

These needs are misaligned. Indians seek budget value; Sri Lanka needs yield. Indians want short trips; Sri Lanka needs extended stays. Indians are price-sensitive; Sri Lanka needs premium segments to fund infrastructure.

We have attracted a market that does not match our strategic needs—and then celebrated the mismatch as success.

The Way Forward: From Dependency to Diversification

Fixing the Indian market trap requires three shifts: curation, diversification, and premium positioning.

First

, segment the Indian market and target high-value niches explicitly:

* Wedding tourism: Develop specialised wedding venues, train planners, create integrated packages ($50k+ per event)

* Wellness tourism: Position Sri Lanka as authentic Ayurveda destination for high-net-worth health seekers

* MICE tourism: Target Indian corporate incentive travel and conferences

* Spiritual/religious tourism: Leverage Buddhist and Hindu heritage sites with premium positioning

Market these high-value niches aggressively. Let budget segments self-select out through pricing signals.

Second

, rebalance market mix toward high-yield segments:

* Increase marketing spend on Western Europe, North America, and East Asian premium segments

* Develop products (luxury eco-lodges, boutique heritage hotels, adventure tourism) that appeal to high-yield travelers

* Use visa policy strategically, maintain visa-free for premium markets, consider tiered visa fees or curated visa schemes for volume markets

Third

, stop benchmarking success by Indian arrival volumes. Track:

* Revenue per Indian visitor

* Indian market share of total revenue (not arrivals)

* Yield gap: Indian revenue vs. other major markets

If Indians are 22.5% of arrivals but only 15% of revenue, we have a problem. If the gap widens, we are deepening dependency on a low-yield segment.

Fourth

, invest in Indian market quality rather than quantity:

* Train staff on Indian high-end expectations (luxury service standards, dietary needs)

* Develop bilingual guides and materials (Hindi, Tamil)

* Build partnerships with premium Indian travel agents, not budget consolidators

We should aim to attract 300,000 Indians generating $1,500 per trip (through wedding, wellness, MICE targeting), not 700,000 generating $600 per trip. The former produces $450 million; the latter produces $420 million, while requiring more than twice the operational overhead and infrastructure load.

Fifth

, accept the hard truth: India cannot and should not be 30-40% of our market mix. The structural yield constraints make that model non-viable. Cap Indian arrivals at 15-20% of total mix and aggressively diversify into higher-yield markets.

This will require political courage, saying “no” to easy volume in favour of harder-won value. But that is what strategy means: choosing what not to do.

The Dependency Trap

Every market concentration creates path dependency. The more we optimize for Indian tourists, visa schemes, marketing, infrastructure, pricing, the harder it becomes to attract high-yield markets that expect different value propositions.

Hotels that compete on price for Indian segments cannot simultaneously position as luxury for European segments. Destinations known for “affordability” struggle to pivot to premium. Guides trained for high-turnover, short-stay groups do not develop the deep knowledge required for extended cultural tours.

We are locking in a low-yield equilibrium. Each incremental Indian arrival strengthens the positioning as a “budget-friendly” destination, which repels high-yield segments, which forces further volume-chasing in price-sensitive markets. The cycle reinforces itself.

Breaking the cycle requires accepting short-term pain—lower arrival numbers—for long-term gain—higher revenue, stronger positioning, sustainable margins.

The Hard Question

Is Sri Lanka willing to attract two million tourists generating $5 billion, or three million tourists generating $4 billion?

The current trajectory is toward the latter, more arrivals, less revenue, thinner margins, greater fragility. We are optimizing for metrics that impress press releases but erode economic contribution.

The Indian market is not the problem. The problem is building tourism recovery primarily on a low-yield segment without strategies to either transform that segment to high-yield or balance it with high-yield markets.

We are building on sand. The foundation will not hold.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT, Malabe. The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal.)

Features

Digital transformation in the Global South

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

AI Summit, India

Understanding Sri Lanka through the India AI Impact Summit 2026

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly moved from being a specialised technological field into a major social force that shapes economies, cultures, governance, and everyday human life. The India AI Impact Summit 2026, held in New Delhi, symbolised a significant moment for the Global South, especially South Asia, because it demonstrated that artificial intelligence is no longer limited to advanced Western economies but can also become a development tool for emerging societies. The summit gathered governments, researchers, technology companies, and international organisations to discuss how AI can support social welfare, public services, and economic growth. Its central message was that artificial intelligence should be human centred and socially useful. Instead of focusing only on powerful computing systems, the summit emphasised affordable technologies, open collaboration, and ethical responsibility so that ordinary citizens can benefit from digital transformation. For South Asia, where large populations live in rural areas and resources are unevenly distributed, this idea is particularly important.

People friendly AI

One of the most important concepts promoted at the summit was the idea of “people friendly AI.” This means that artificial intelligence should be accessible, understandable, and helpful in daily activities. In South Asia, language diversity and economic inequality often prevent people from using advanced technology. Therefore, systems designed for local languages, and smartphones, play a crucial role. When a farmer can speak to a digital assistant in Sinhala, Tamil, or Hindi and receive advice about weather patterns or crop diseases, technology becomes practical rather than distant. Similarly, voice based interfaces allow elderly people and individuals with limited literacy to use digital services. Affordable mobile based AI tools reduce the digital divide between urban and rural populations. As a result, artificial intelligence stops being an elite instrument and becomes a social assistant that supports ordinary life.

Transformation in education sector

The influence of this transformation is visible in education. AI based learning platforms can analyse student performance and provide personalised lessons. Instead of all students following the same pace, weaker learners receive additional practice while advanced learners explore deeper material. Teachers are able to focus on mentoring and explanation rather than repetitive instruction. In many South Asian societies, including Sri Lanka, education has long depended on memorisation and private tuition classes. AI tutoring systems could reduce educational inequality by giving rural students access to learning resources, similar to those available in cities. A student who struggles with mathematics, for example, can practice step by step exercises automatically generated according to individual mistakes. This reduces pressure, improves confidence, and gradually changes the educational culture from rote learning toward understanding and problem solving.

Healthcare is another area where AI is becoming people friendly. Many rural communities face shortages of doctors and medical facilities. AI-assisted diagnostic tools can analyse symptoms, or medical images, and provide early warnings about diseases. Patients can receive preliminary advice through mobile applications, which helps them decide whether hospital visits are necessary. This reduces overcrowding in hospitals and saves travel costs. Public health authorities can also analyse large datasets to monitor disease outbreaks and allocate resources efficiently. In this way, artificial intelligence supports not only individual patients but also the entire health system.

Agriculture, which remains a primary livelihood for millions in South Asia, is also undergoing transformation. Farmers traditionally rely on seasonal experience, but climate change has made weather patterns unpredictable. AI systems that analyse rainfall data, soil conditions, and satellite images can predict crop performance and recommend irrigation schedules. Early detection of plant diseases prevents large-scale crop losses. For a small farmer, accurate information can mean the difference between profit and debt. Thus, AI directly influences economic stability at the household level.

Employment and communication reshaped

Artificial intelligence is also reshaping employment and communication. Routine clerical and repetitive tasks are increasingly automated, while demand grows for digital skills, such as data management, programming, and online services. Many young people in South Asia are beginning to participate in remote work, freelancing, and digital entrepreneurship. AI translation tools allow communication across languages, enabling businesses to reach international customers. Knowledge becomes more accessible because information can be summarised, translated, and explained instantly. This leads to a broader sociological shift: authority moves from tradition and hierarchy toward information and analytical reasoning. Individuals rely more on data when making decisions about education, finance, and career planning.

Impact on Sri Lanka

The impact on Sri Lanka is especially significant because the country shares many social and economic conditions with India and often adopts regional technological innovations. Sri Lanka has already begun integrating artificial intelligence into education, agriculture, and public administration. In schools and universities, AI learning tools may reduce the heavy dependence on private tuition and help students in rural districts receive equal academic support. In agriculture, predictive analytics can help farmers manage climate variability, improving productivity and food security. In public administration, digital systems can speed up document processing, licensing, and public service delivery. Smart transportation systems may reduce congestion in urban areas, saving time and fuel.

Economic opportunities are also expanding. Sri Lanka’s service based economy and IT outsourcing sector can benefit from increased global demand for digital skills. AI-assisted software development, data annotation, and online service platforms can create new employment pathways, especially for educated youth. Small and medium entrepreneurs can use AI tools to design products, manage finances, and market services internationally at low cost. In tourism, personalised digital assistants and recommendation systems can improve visitor experiences and help small businesses connect with travellers directly.

Digital inequality

However, the integration of artificial intelligence also raises serious concerns. Digital inequality may widen if only educated urban populations gain access to technological skills. Some routine jobs may disappear, requiring workers to retrain. There are also risks of misinformation, surveillance, and misuse of personal data. Ethical regulation and transparency are, therefore, essential. Governments must develop policies that protect privacy, ensure accountability, and encourage responsible innovation. Public awareness and digital literacy programmes are necessary so that citizens understand both the benefits and limitations of AI systems.

Beyond economics and services, AI is gradually influencing social relationships and cultural patterns. South Asian societies have traditionally relied on hierarchy and personal authority, but data-driven decision making changes this structure. Agricultural planning may depend on predictive models rather than ancestral practice, and educational evaluation may rely on learning analytics instead of examination rankings alone. This does not eliminate human judgment, but it alters its basis. Societies increasingly value analytical thinking, creativity, and adaptability. Educational systems must, therefore, move beyond memorisation toward critical thinking and interdisciplinary learning.

AI contribution to national development

In Sri Lanka, these changes may contribute to national development if implemented carefully. AI-supported financial monitoring can improve transparency and reduce corruption. Smart infrastructure systems can help manage transportation and urban planning. Communication technologies can support interaction among Sinhala, Tamil, and English speakers, promoting social inclusion in a multilingual society. Assistive technologies can improve accessibility for persons with disabilities, enabling broader participation in education and employment. These developments show that artificial intelligence is not merely a technological innovation but a social instrument capable of strengthening equality when guided by ethical policy.

Symbolic shift

Ultimately, the India AI Impact Summit 2026 represents a symbolic shift in the global technological landscape. It indicates that developing nations are beginning to shape the future of artificial intelligence according to their own social needs rather than passively importing technology. For South Asia and Sri Lanka, the challenge is not whether AI will arrive but how it will be used. If education systems prepare citizens, if governments establish responsible regulations, and if access remains inclusive, AI can become a partner in development rather than a source of inequality. The future will likely involve close collaboration between humans and intelligent systems, where machines assist decision making while human values guide outcomes. In this sense, artificial intelligence does not replace human society, but transforms it, offering Sri Lanka an opportunity to build a more knowledge based, efficient, and equitable social order in the decades ahead.

by Milinda Mayadunna

Features

Governance cannot be a postscript to economics

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

Kristalina-Georgieva

The visit by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to Sri Lanka was widely described as a success for the government. She was fulsome in her praise of the country and its developmental potential. The grounds for this success and collaborative spirit go back to the inception of the agreement signed in March 2023 in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s declaration of international bankruptcy. The IMF came in to fulfil its role as lender of last resort. The government of the day bit the bullet. It imposed unpopular policies on the people, most notably significant tax increases. At a moment when the country had run out of foreign exchange, defaulted on its debt, and faced shortages of fuel, medicine and food, the IMF programme restored a measure of confidence both within the country and internationally.

Since 1965 Sri Lanka has entered into agreements with the IMF on 16 occasions none of which were taken to their full term. The present agreement is the 17^th agreement . IMF agreements have traditionally been focused on economic restructuring. Invariably the terms of agreement have been harsh on the people, with priority being given to ensure the debtor country pays its loans back to the IMF. Fiscal consolidation, tax increases, subsidy reductions and structural reforms have been the recurring features. The social and political costs have often been high. Governments have lost popularity and sometimes fallen before programmes were completed. The IMF has learned from experience across the world that macroeconomic reform without social protection can generate backlash, instability and policy reversals.

The experience of countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal in dealing with the IMF during the eurozone crisis demonstrated the political and social costs of austerity, even though those economies later stabilised and returned to growth. The evolution of IMF policies has ensured that there are two special features in the present agreement. The first is that the IMF has included a safety net of social welfare spending to mitigate the impact of the austerity measures on the poorest sections of the population. No country can hope to grow at 7 or 8 percent per annum when a third of its people are struggling to survive. Poverty alleviation measures in the Aswesuma programme, developed with the agreement of the IMF, are key to mitigating the worst impacts of the rising cost of living and limited opportunities for employment.

Governance Included

The second important feature of the IMF agreement is the inclusion of governance criteria to be implemented alongside the economic reforms. It goes to the heart of why Sri Lanka has had to return to the IMF repeatedly. Economic mismanagement did not take place in a vacuum. It was enabled by weak institutions, politicised decision making, non-transparent procurement, and the erosion of checks and balances. In its economic reform process, the IMF has included an assessment of governance related issues to accompany the economic restructuring process. At the top of this list is tackling the problem of corruption by means of publicising contracts, ensuring open solicitation of tenders, and strengthening financial accountability mechanisms.

The IMF also encouraged a civil society diagnostic study and engaged with civil society organisations regularly. The civil society analysis of governance issues which was promoted by Verite Research and facilitated by Transparency International was wider in scope than those identified in the IMF’s own diagnostic. It pointed to systemic weaknesses that go beyond narrow fiscal concerns. The civil society diagnostic study included issues of social justice such as the inequitable impact of targeting EPF and ETF funds of workers for restructuring and the need to repeal abuse prone laws such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Online Safety Act. When workers see their retirement savings restructured without adequate consultation, confidence in policy making erodes. When laws are perceived to be instruments of arbitrary power, social cohesion weakens.

During a meeting between the IMF Managing Director Georgeiva and civil society members last week, there was discussion on the implementation of those governance measures in which she spoke in a manner that was not alien to the civil society representatives. Significantly, the civil society diagnostic report also referred to the ethnic conflict and the breakdown of interethnic relations that led to three decades of deadly war, causing severe economic losses to the country. This was also discussed at the meeting. Governance is not only about accounting standards and procurement rules. It is about social justice, equality before the law, and political representation. On this issue the government has more to do. Ethnic and religious minorities find themselves inadequately represented in high level government committees. The provincial council system that ensured ethnic and minority representation at the provincial level continues to be in abeyance.

Beyond IMF

The significance of addressing governance issues is not only relevant to the IMF agreement. It is also important in accessing tariff concessions from the European Union. The GSP Plus tariff concession given by the EU enables Sri Lankan exports to be sold at lower prices and win markets in Europe. For an export dependent economy, this is critical. Loss of such concessions would directly affect employment in key sectors such as apparel. The government needs to address longstanding EU concerns about the protection of human rights and labour rights in the country. The EU has, for several years, linked the continuation of GSP Plus to compliance with international conventions. This includes the condition that the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) be brought into line with international standards. The government’s alternative in the form of the draft Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PTSA) is less abusive on paper but is wider in scope and retains the core features of the PTA.

Governance and social justice factors cannot be ignored or downplayed in the pursuit of economic development. If Sri Lanka is to break out of its cycle of crisis and bailout, it must internalise the fact that good governance which promotes social justice and more fairly distributes the costs and fruits of development is the foundation on which durable economic growth is built. Without it, stabilisation will remain fragile, poverty will remain high, and the promise of 7 to 8 percent growth will remain elusive. The implementation of governance reforms will also have a positive effect through the creative mechanism of governance linked bonds, an innovation of the present IMF agreement.

The Sri Lankan think tank Verité Research played an important role in the development of governance linked bonds. They reduce the rate of interest payable by the government on outstanding debt on the basis that better governance leads to a reduction in risk for those who have lent their money to Sri Lanka. This is a direct financial reward for governance reform. The present IMF programme offers an opportunity not only to stabilise the economy but to strengthen the institutions that underpin it. That opportunity needs to be taken. Without it, the country cannot attract investment, expand exports and move towards shared prosperity and to a 7-8 percent growth rate that can lift the country out of its debt trap.

by Jehan Perera