Features

More on Wilpattu, natural systems and exotic flora

Published

3 years ago

2023/05/21

Excerpted from the authorized biography of Thilo Hoffmann
by Douglas B. Ranasinghe

During the years that followed 1985, the Park was closed and abandoned. Animals in it were slaughtered, especially buffaloes, wild pig, sambhur and deer. All the visitors’ and staff bungalows were ransacked and largely destroyed by roaming poachers, criminals and timber thieves.

In 2005 the Park was reopened, with a hardworking Park Warden, Wasantha Pushpananda. At his request and the urging of Geepal Fernando, Thilo spent nearly two million rupees on the reconstruction of the Talawila bungalow, in memory of his wife.

Only two years later the Park was again abandoned with the re-emergence of incursions from surrounding areas. Warden Pushpananda was killed. Again wildlife was depleted, and the re-built bungalows ransacked. After the fall of the LTTE, the Park was opened for visitors again in 2010. Once more, Thilo restored the bungalow.But pressure to open the coastal tract for through-traffic to Mannar persists. An easy alternative from Nochchiyagama via Nikawewa and Tantirimalai to Cheddikulam is ignored.

While this was being written, certain authorities have illegally and arbitrarily cut a new road along the coast within Wilpattu, and developed and opened for public use the Army road, damaging the ecology of the National Park on an unprecedented scale. The matter is being contested in court. Several conservation bodies, including the WNPS and Ceylon Bird Club – Thilo’s roles in these are described later – have been battling to uphold the law and save the Park. At their initial meeting and first press conference Thilo, now retired and in Sri Lanka for an annual stay of several months, was an invited speaker.

Natural systems and exotic flora

A `patana’ (sometimes anglicized as ‘patna’) is a grassland of Sri Lanka in the hills or mountains without trees or shrubs but typically intersected by sholas, described below. A `talawa’ is a savanna-type grassland with trees or groups of trees spaced some distance apart; these are mostly fire-resistant species. (Both are traditional Sri Lankan terms).

The afforestation of patanas and talawas with the exotic Pinus caribaea trees was a major point of contention between Thilo, representing the WNPS, and the Forest Department (the ‘FD’).

The FD claims that both patanas and talawas are man made systems whose lands had originally been under forest. Thus they misname the establishment of sterile pinus or eucalyptus plantations as “re-afforestation”. One Conservator of Forests had even proposed the “re-afforestation” of the open plains in the National Parks of the Yala complex, on the same reasoning. Thilo observes:

“When the advocates of pinus claim that under it indigenous species can freely develop, they think of infillings and plantings in degraded wet zone forests, e.g. around Sinharaja. Consider the biological (floral and faunal) composition of ‘dry patanas’ and talawas, and the indisputable fact that in both systems plants and other living organisms have evolved which are confined to these systems as their exclusive habitat.

“One example is the daffodil orchid (Ipsea speciosa) which is endemic to the patanas. It takes a very long time for a species to evolve and establish itself, wherefore the presence of endemics in a system is a strong indication that it is natural and not man-made. The existence of sholas also tends to support this view. It can further be assumed that prehistoric man at the relevant time had neither the means nor the need to clear such large areas permanently.

“By establishing the alien monocultures the FD has practically destroyed climax-type natural systems which only 50 years ago and for at least one hundred thousand years before have characterized the hill country, especially the Uva Plateau and the adjoining foothills.”

Against strong majority opinion, Thilo thus maintains that patanas, typically with sholas (see below), are a natural system, considering other factors, too, such as climate, soil conditions, exposure and topography – not man-made, although during the last three centuries selected patanas were seasonally burnt by the few thinly-spread inhabitants of the area.

Today there are few remnants of typical patanas and none of any sizeable extent. During the last half century patanas have been degraded and destroyed not only by the Forest Department but also through systematic State-sponsored settlement and the subsequent opening for cultivation of even the steepest slopes. The State has failed to recognize and appreciate patanas as a national system of value and to protect at least one typical and sufficiently large extent of these original grasslands. Patanas covered about 160,000 acres or 250 square miles (650 square km) of land, mainly in Uva.

Thilo condemns the establishment of pinus plantations not only because these destroy such natural systems and diversity but also for aesthetic reasons. He explains:

“There are no conifers native to Sri Lanka. Any plant belonging to the family with needles instead of leaves is a ‘double alien’ also because of its utterly out-of-place appearance in our scenery and environment. Pinus plantations alter the landscape massively – dark, nearly black, brooding patches in an otherwise bright and pleasant world.

“These are alien monocultures which exterminate the rich fauna and flora of the patanas and talawas. They might well be characterized as ‘man-propagated invasive foreign flora’, a term which has recently been much talked and written about. [See below.]”

Another important fact was overlooked, and seems to be largely unknown. Thilo points out that healthy, natural Sri Lankan forests do not catch fire even under extreme conditions. In order to clear the land the vegetation consisting of trees and undergrowth has to be felled and at least partly dried before a fire can be started.

Decades ago when he was traveling at night in the dry zone during the annual drought, dozens of chena plots would be ablaze, the fire having being fanned by the strong kachan wind. But when it was over, and only white ash remained, the surrounding forest at the very edge of the clearing was hardly singed, the fire being unable to spread.

On the other hand, pinus plantations, which are supposed to “re-afforest” the patanas, burn out easily and completely due to their resinous nature. All too often this happens. Thilo remembers this unique region as it was in his early years:

“In the late forties and the fifties of the last century the Uva Basin was very thinly populated. Traditional ways of life prevailed in much of the Uva Province; pack bulls were yet a common sight in its remoter parts.

“In the Uva Basin, large tracts of open patana covered most of the undulating area, with villages and paddy lands confined to and hidden in the river valleys. These patanas were then the main habitat of the painted partridge which is now restricted to a small area near Bibile. The endemic daffodil orchid was present in most of the Uva patanas, including those at Chelsea Estate and along the road from Bandarawela to Welimada.

“There were no forests except the so-called sholas, which are narrow strips of forest along the small water courses that have cut their way into the hillsides. These sholas are rich systems with many plant species and animals. Muntjac, mouse deer, pangolin, porcupine, hare and a great variety of birds found suitable habitats in them. Where patana and forest meet the dividing line is sharp, clearly defined and permanent; there is no “creeping” of the forest or shola in to the patana grasslands.”

(‘Shola’ is a word of Indian origin. With regard to the Uva plateau see also Thilo’s description in W.W.A. Phillips’s Handbook of the Mammals of Ceylon, Second edition, 1980.)

Early in the last century Bella Sidney Woolf, sister of Leonard, in her book How to See Ceylon aptly describes the Uva Plateau as “one of the great open spaces of the world that gives one a sense of freedom”. G. M. Henry, the ornithologist, who was active in Ceylon up to the middle of the last century refers to “the great Uva patna basin” in his publications. Today it is as cluttered up as most parts of Sri Lanka. Thilo says:

“At that time sholas were also present in many tea estates and were protected by law as stream reservations. Plantation managements strictly maintained these reservations, not only ensuring a high biodiversity in the hillsides, but also a regular supply of clean water for the villages in the valleys below and for their paddy fields.

“Later, as the political situation in Colombo changed and the population increased, these very useful and progressive reservations were gradually encroached upon and cleared by villagers and eventually disappeared, many being finally ‘regularized’ i.e. officially given to the illegal occupants.

“The result in many cases was scarcity of water in the villages, and often landslides. In the mid 20th century there were practically no landslides in Uva; today they occur regularly. The state then did nothing at all to enforce the law on these stream reservations, which still exists as a ‘dead letter’.

“Soon the Government also decided to settle people in the large extents of patana State land in Uva, and the Forest Department began to establish on the grassy slopes monoculture plantations of eucalyptus and pinus species. First as a trial at Palugama (now Keppetipola), and then on a large scale on every hillside in the area, they planted these exotic trees on the basis that the grasslands had originally been forest. These activities radically changed the character of the Uva Plateau, and today it bears no comparison to what it was in the 1930s to 1950s and historically.”

As an agronomist Thilo had soon noted that the soils of patana lands are shallow, gravelly, excessively drained, and very erodable if cleared of the original vegetation, especially the steep hillsides. The continuing clearing of such land is the opposite of development, and it has caused untold harm to the areas concerned.

Similarly, Thilo and the WNPS were not happy about the establishment of extensive teak and eucalyptus plantations in the dry zone where large extents of indigenous forest were cleared for the purpose.

In the intermediate and wet zone Thilo advocated afforestation with mixed mahogany and jak trees. This had been done during the Second World War when State forest was given out to private enterprise for the growing of papaya. He explains:

“This was for the production of papain, then a valuable export commodity in worldwide short supply during the war. The planting of the other trees together with the commercial crop was a condition. These mixed plantations allow the development of indigenous species amongst the jak and mahogany. They have formed marvellous and majestic forests, and now yield valuable timber. They can be seen where the Kurunegala-Dambulla road passes through two of them, and also in many other locations.

The growing of teak in the right places is undoubtedly justified, but generally suitable indigenous trees should be preferred even for the commercial production of timber. The Forest Department seems to have a predilection for exotics, as in the Knuckles, which often are as easy to grow as weeds, like pinus, and thus preferred. Thilo observes:

“On the other hand, repeated efforts are being made to eradicate so-called invasive exotic species. Most such campaigns are not only futile but extremely costly, as in the case of the Lantana (gandapana or katu hinguru) plant. This was introduced to Ceylon nearly 200 years ago as an ornamental plant and is a weed only in neglected and waste lands, e.g. chenas. Lantana takes over where man has destroyed the natural vegetation, and under its protective cover and shade native trees can re-emerge over long periods.

“The most harmful invasive plants in Sri Lanka are aquatic species such as the water hyacinth and salvinia. Others become harmful only where the natural system and order have been disturbed. Some of the plants listed as invasive are indeed a threat to the existing ecosystems, such as the untidy Eurium odoratum (podisingho maram) and Prosopispato is julfliora, which is spreading like wildfire in the Bundala area and elsewhere.

“Others are long established and have found niches without causing harm, such as Opuntia stricta, Clusia rosea or even the pretty gorse which has existed in the Nuwara Eliya area for one-and a-quarter centuries. It found its way to the Horton Plains only in the wake of massive visitation. With minimal attention it could have been kept in check, which is also the case with black wattle (Acacia mollissima) that has spread in from neighbouring tea fields.”

Cloud forests

Cloud forest is tropical mountain forest shrouded in cloud for much of the year, with short trees, rich in epiphytes. In the last quarter of the last century Thilo Hoffmann and a few other observers noted and commented on a strange and disturbing phenomenon in the hill country. The cloud forests of Sri Lanka, it appeared, were dying.

It was Hoffmann who did most to draw attention to the matter, and to analyze it carefully. This he did mostly in reports and papers appearing in Loris’ and the Ceylon Bird Club Notes’. Diligent observations across half a century of the Horton Plains placed him in a unique position to discern the changes.

An article by him submitted in 2005 to Loris is reproduced as Appendix II. There, as before, he attributes the damage to air pollution, and also proposes a remedy in the form of a plan to control it. In the text, as published by Loris, certain critical remarks are omitted and there are some distortions, hence the original script is given here.

In November 2006 Hoffmann observed possible signs of recovery of the cloud forest, apparently the first time this was recorded. He confirmed the recovery during subsequent visits and reported on it in more detail in 2009′.

Shortly before the publication of the present book, according to a newspaper report, a research team of the University of Sabaragamuwa had also come to the conclusion that the decline of cloud forests was due to air pollution.

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Features

Eastern University and the making of a culture of peace

Published

21 mins ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

There is an important change in the way peace is being understood in Sri Lanka. The notion that peacebuilding is not simply the responsibility of governments, politicians and peace organisations, but is also a responsibility of educational institutions, appears to be permeating the consciousness of at least a section of the academic community. This was visible on International Peace Day at an event held at Eastern University by the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences. The event was unusual not least because the medical and nursing faculty of the university had decided that peacebuilding was relevant to its academic and professional responsibilities.

Peacebuilding has too often been treated as something undertaken after conflict, when the fighting has stopped and the immediate task is to rebuild relationships between communities. But peace cannot be sustained by governments and peace organisations alone. If it is to become long lasting, the values and practices of peace have to become part of the institutions through which a society educates its younger generations. Universities and other educational institutions are therefore important to peacebuilding. They are among the places where the foundations of a culture of peace can either be built or neglected.

The experience of the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences at Eastern University provides a practical example of what this can mean. Led by its Dean, Prof Thillainathan Sathaananthan, the faculty organised an event which went beyond the ordinary academic scope of a medical faculty. University academics are experts in writing project proposals and applying for research grants. On this occasion, the members of the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences used those skills to apply for a UNESCO grant that they won to conduct an International Peace Day event. The significance lies less in the Rs 200,000 grant than in the decision to use the university’s institutional capacity and resources to invest in peacebuilding. The event at Eastern University needs to be understood as more than a successful university programme. It represents a possible paradigm shift in peace thinking.

Institutional Commitment

The Peace Day event obtained the support of the university administration, including Vice Chancellor Prof P Peratheepan, and reached out to secondary schools in the vicinity to mobilise their attendance. The event itself was meticulously organised. There were cultural items including traditional and modern dance and song in the three languages, performed by combinations of solo, duet and multiple singers, dancers and actors drawn in part from nearby secondary schools. There was a panel discussion by senior academics on the general theme of peacebuilding and how to prepare for it. A discussion among the students followed, where each student spoke on behalf of a religion that was not theirs. This is significant because peacebuilding cannot remain an idea discussed by specialists at conferences. It has to become part of the way institutions educate and prepare people for life in a plural society.

The Faculty of Health-Care Sciences at Eastern University has provided a model through its Peace Medicine course modules that were introduced to the curricular as a compulsory core course over 10 years ago. Two senior academics, Dr Kuveriel Eliyas Karunakaran and Dr Thillainathan Sathaananthan, have written a book on “Peace Medicine- A Health Care Concern” that was published five years ago. Its Peace Medicine Module integrates principles of medical ethics, compassion, equity, social justice and community engagement into health education and practice. In his introduction, former Vice Chancellor of Eastern University, Prof T Jayasingam noted “This book is an introduction to a theme which had already been operating in the Faculty of Health Care Sciences as a course.”

Doctors, nurses and health workers know better than anyone the harm that war and violence does. They are the people who treat the wounds and trauma that violence leaves behind. In a hospital, a patient is not asked what their religion or ethnicity is before they are treated. Health care is one of the places where peace is practised every day. The Faculty has therefore found a way of connecting its professional responsibilities with the wider social responsibility of peacebuilding. The question is whether this experience can be replicated throughout the country, at universities and at other educational institutions, so that peacebuilding becomes part of the consciousness of education itself. If that happens on a sufficient scale, it can begin to generate a culture of peace that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.

Local Action

The Eastern University event corresponded closely to the United Nations theme for this year’s International Day of Peace, “Invest in Peace – For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day”, which honours the “everyday architects of peace”, people driving local action, laying the groundwork for stability and building lasting peace from the ground up. The emphasis on investment is important. An investment means that something is put in: time, courage and resources. There is no more violent conflict in Sri Lanka today. But the absence of war does not automatically produce a culture of peace. The factors that fed the country’s conflict have not disappeared from the world. Racism, corruption and the violation of laws and human rights are the raw materials of conflict. So too are unresolved grievances, discrimination and the failure to recognise the suffering of others.

A country that does not deal with its past does not escape it. The past can return in the next generation. This is why the experience of Eastern University needs to be replicated countrywide, both at universities and at other educational institutions. The objective should not be to turn every academic discipline into peace studies. Rather, peacebuilding needs to become part of the consciousness of education itself. Eastern University shows that a medical faculty can develop Peace Medicine. A law faculty can examine the relationship between justice, rights and peace. Faculties of education can prepare teachers to work in diverse communities, while the humanities and social sciences can examine the different narratives through which communities understand their histories. Every institution can find its own way of making peacebuilding relevant to what it teaches.

Sri Lanka has had many declarations, pledges and programmes in the past. What matters is whether these produce changes in behaviour and institutional practice. Peacebuilding requires confronting difficult issues rather than avoiding them. It requires respect for different identities, but also engagement across those identities. It requires dealing with grievances in the present while also addressing unresolved issues from the past. It requires truth, accountability, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence. It requires people to learn that the rights of another community do not diminish their own rights. The International Peace Day event at Eastern University was evidence of a change in the way at least some academics in a part of the country deeply affected by war are thinking about their responsibilities. Peace needs to be invested in and the most important investment will be in the minds of those who will inherit the future.

Features

Quality assured education commodities

Published

23 mins ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Ahilan Kadirgamar

I have always noticed the little paper tags that are inside the packaging of some products that say quality assured or quality control. I often wonder who might have checked the product and stamped that tag, but I also forget the tag soon enough. Decades later, when I entered academia, I was taken aback by the emphasis placed on quality assurance in our universities. It is not something that could be forgotten and done away with; the entire university system is obsessed with quality assurance.

Beginning with the staff induction programme, quality assurance is drilled into the newly recruited lecturers. It is the norm, not seen as doing any harm and only trying to improve quality. It is accepted as given, and not questioned. Quality Assurance Cells and Committees are omnipresent and hover above the Departments and, at times, even the Faculty Boards. Quality Assurance reviews are feared by the Deans and Vice Chancellors. University life itself seems secondary to the rule of quality assurance. What do we make of this system of quality assurance and what are its implications for our university system?

Corporate speak

Universities globally have been going through major changes with neoliberal education policies. In many countries, universities increasingly became corporatised to be run like businesses in the 1980s. As state support for universities declined, cost cutting became the norm. They started hiring adjunct or part-time staff. Many public non-fee levying universities around the world began to charge fees. Decade by decade, tuition fees became more and more exorbitant, forcing students to take student loans. The total student debt in the United States now stands at close to US$ 2 trillion; which is about 20 times the GDP of Sri Lanka. As the higher education landscape transformed in the West, university administrations began to recruit Presidents, Vice Chancellors and administrative officials with corporate backgrounds and experience.

Such corporatisation of universities in the West has since been imported into countries like Sri Lanka, introducing a new corporate vocabulary, including quality assurance, graduate competencies, programme outcomes, intended learning outcomes, etc. University teaching has become secondary to documenting so-called outcomes. The teacher-student relationship, the environment of the lecture hall and even administering the university have been over-determined by the processes of ensuring quality. How did such major changes come about in such a short time? Indeed, academics of just two generation ago, would never have heard of these terms and processes in the Sri Lankan university system.

World Bank Trojan horse

Since the early 2000s there have been a number of World Bank projects that have drastically changed the character of Sri Lankan universities. Quality assurance as a central agenda within universities, and many other changes to the working of our universities, came through these World Bank initiatives. The Improving Relevance and Quality of Undergraduate Education (IRQUE) project and Higher Education for the 21st Century (HETC) project were two such earlier projects that set up the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Unit (QAAU) under the University Grants Commission (UGC) and established systematic quality assurance reviews for state universities. The public often thinks these are grants from the World Bank to modernise our universities. However, they are not grants but loans.

The most recent such project, Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) is a US$ 100 million loan from the World Bank implemented from 2018 to 2023, which consolidated the quality assurance structures from the earlier projects. Furthermore, these projects are implemented with tremendous arrogance, prioritising their implementation over all other concerns in the universities, when the project over six years for example accounts for just one fourth of our budget allocation for universities this year.

The AHEAD project drastically changed course curricula, sought to increase student enrolment in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) disciplines, commercialise the university research agenda and create university-business linkages. All of this was pushed to supposedly help us face development challenges. We have heard the ideological attack on our universities and even students claiming they are “unemployable graduates”. These changes to our higher education system were supposedly going to create jobs and increase employment.

The irony of the AHEAD project is that just as it was ending in 2023, apparently after having reached its targets, the Sri Lankan economy was collapsing. The World Bank often gets the direction of causality wrong. It is the economy that creates jobs for graduates, and not the training or kind of graduates that create jobs. It is decades of World Bank policies, and those of its ideological twin the IMF, that have led to such high youth unemployment, not only in Sri Lanka but also in many other countries in the global South.

Sri Lanka entered an IMF agreement in March 2023 and started a new Country Partnership Framework with the World Bank in June 2023. These programmes have little to say about, and actively discourage, government initiatives that aim to create an industrial policy or an employment creation policy. Instead, they push for austerity measures, which not only restrict the allocation for education among other sectors, but also end up contracting the economy to the detriment of increasing employment. Their goal is the commercialisation of higher education, to make universities into businesses and run them like factories.

In this context, the ideology of quality assurance is powerful. The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), whose different standards are necessary for marketing, is the institution that came up with the concept of “quality assurance”. It promoted quality assurance as a process of identifying defected products. Therefore, when the World Bank promotes this conceptual framing, our students are, in fact, seen as products on the assembly line, with quality assurance processes aiming to prevent the release of defected products from the university system. For the US$ 100 million we borrowed for the AHEAD project and the many more million dollars in similar World Bank projects, there is no evidence of increased employment of graduates.

Commodity fetishism

Over a century and a half ago, Karl Marx critiqued the economic analysis prevalent at that time that associated some inherent or monetary value for commodities without considering the social relations that underlie the production of those commodities. Marx called this commodity fetishism. Furthermore, he theorised that such commodity fetishism was also a reason for the alienation of human beings from the world. If our labour and what we produce is seen devoid of the social relations that underlie them, we lose our connection with the people and the world. In this process we become alienated from what we produce and the world.

We are now in a world where our students themselves are fetishised as commodities for the market. Universities are no longer communities concerned about knowledge and human growth, but mere factories producing commodities, which have to be produced without defects to be marketed. In this way, quality assurance has become the cause for the alienation of students, academics and our universities themselves, from the larger relationship with our economy and society.

Our university system does need reform. It is grossly underfunded and not providing the financial support and facilities for our students. Universities have become hierarchical spaces without the academic freedom and democratic ethos necessary for producing knowledge. Academics and students need to engage more with their communities to make their learning and research meaningful, not to mention their contribution to and integration with society. However, when it comes to even questions of governance and regulation of the universities, such concerns are merely reduced to improving quality. In our contemporary times, this singular focus on quality assurance, as opposed to addressing the larger structural issues, is crippling our universities. There may be no way out, but to put back quality assurance where it started, those little tags on goods, to perhaps be noticed but quickly forgotten.

Ahilan Kadirgamar is a political economist and Senior Lecturer, University of Jaffna.

(Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies)

Features

Thailand’s biggest new global star …

Published

23 mins ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

The entertainment scene, globally, is agog with excitement, and, why not!

Yes, a new global star has emerged … from Thailand, and she hit the headlines by winning America’s Got Talent.

Rattikarn Amloy, known to millions by her stage name Nene Royal, was crowned the winner of America’s Got Talent (AGT) Season 21 at the live finale at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, California, taking home the USD 1 million grand prize.

The 16-year-old rocker, from the holiday island of Phuket (I’ve been to Phuket, courtesy Tourism Authority of Thailand), has struck a power chord around the world, and is the first Thai national ever to win the hit NBC show.

She beat nine other finalists, including runner-up magician Geno Ploeger, after a blistering final performance.

Nene’s story is pure rock and roll fairy-tale. She says she picked up a guitar at age seven, fell in love at the first chord, and taught herself mostly by watching videos online. That dedication earned her a music scholarship to Kajonkiet International School Phuket.

Her audition at America’s Got Talent — a swaggering, shredding rendition of The Cranberries’ classic ‘Zombie’ — exploded online, amassing over 200 million views across AGT’s platforms, more than any act this season.

She kept wowing: ‘Hysteria’ by Muse, then ‘Black Hole Sun’ by Soundgarden which earned her Spice Girl Mel B’s Golden Buzzer, sending her straight to the live shows.

For the final, she unleashed ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes. Judge Howie Mandel shouted: “You should win. Give her the million, America.” Mel B praised her “mysterious, mystical stage presence”.

And for the grand finale, she lived every teen rocker’s dream — performing on stage, alongside US rock giants Linkin Park.

When host Terry Crews announced her as winner, the teenager collapsed to the stage floor in tears. “I’m very happy and you know I’m emotional right now,” she said.

And Thailand erupted. Her school held watch parties, posting: “You did it, congratulations, champion. We are so proud of you.”

Even Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul sent a personal congratulation. He had earlier hosted Nene at Government House in July, where she played guitar while he sang a Thai rock song. His office said her talent “brought pride to Thai people.”

Corporate Thailand also rallied behind her — Charoen Pokphand Foods, owned by billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont, even rented a giant billboard in Times Square, New York, to cheer her on.

With her blistering guitar solos, rock-ballad shrieks and fearless spirit, little Nene Royal has just become Thailand’s biggest new global star.

What’s more, this amazing teenager will be bringing her powerful vocals, guitar skills and signature rock-metal style to the stage, as opening act, before one of the world’s biggest rock bands, America’s Avenged Sevenfold, in Singapore, on 13 October.

Unfortunately, we are still to see a local artiste, grab the spotlight, on a global scale … like Thailand’s Nene.

Yes, they do shine, but mostly on social media, and that, too, with the aid of AI (Artificial Intellegence).