Features

Premadasa vs Lalith: A recipe for conflict

Published

3 weeks ago

2026/01/25

I will not dwell in any detail about the numerous other issues that engaged the Minister’s (Athulathemudali) attention. That would add up to a book in itself. What I would do would be to briefly touch upon some selected matters. A structure of a Ministry is important and relevant as a facilitator or otherwise of work. There is also, in many ways a correlation between structure and achievement. In this vital area however, there was a major deficiency. At the political level, besides the Cabinet Minister, there were two Project Ministers, Mrs. Sunethra Ranasinghe, MP for Education Services and Mr. A.C.S. Hameed, MP for Higher Education.

Mr. Hameed, a senior party man and Minister was also the Cabinet Minister for Justice. Then there was the State Minister for Education Mrs. Pulendiran, MP. Project Ministers were considered higher in status to State Ministers, but all came under the Cabinet Minister. The structural problem really arose in the area under Mr. Hameed’s purview. Mr. Hameed, a former long serving Foreign Minister, was in the

recent past the Cabinet Minister for Higher Education and Science. Now, although he was still the Cabinet Minister for Justice, he was at the same time only the Project Minister for Higher Education, responsible to a much younger Cabinet Minister.

He was now Project Minister in an area where he had been Cabinet Minister before. In practical terms, this was a recipe for conflict, and that is precisely what occurred. Higher Education encompassed both University and Technical Education. The rest of the Ministry handled the vast area of general education. Mr. Hameed could not get over the fact that he was no longer the Cabinet Minister for Higher Education. He sought to act as if he was. The geographical severance, that prevailed, with general education at “Isurupaya” in Battararmulla, and Higher Education located at Ward Place in Colombo, only helped to reinforce this trend towards separation.

Soon we found that Mr. Hameed did not attend any meetings to which he was invited by the Minister. He also kept away from the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Education, presumably because the Committee was chaired by the Cabinet Minister. The next thing that happened was that he lost his membership of that Committee, for absenting himself without leave on three consecutive occasions. He was probably unwilling to seek leave from Mr. Athulathmudali.

The Minister on his part was of the view that this whole arrangement was deliberately devised by the President to checkmate him, and so it appeared. No other Project Minister would have got away with this kind of action. The President for his part would definitely have known what was happening, because if there ever was a President or Prime Minister, who wanted to know everything that was occurring and had a network of people all over to keep him informed, it was Mr. Premadasa. In this, and in other actions lay the seed of greater conflicts to come.

The Minister was a strong personality. He was not prepared to meekly submit to any unilateral declaration of independence. He therefore set up an office for himself at Ward Place, and made it a point to go there and hold various meetings and discussions once or twice a week. To some of these meetings he summoned Vice Chancellors and the Chairman, University Grants Commission. They were obliged to come, even though the Project Minister was unhappy.

Mr. Athulathmudali, a trained lawyer, knew his legal rights. It must be said that those in the higher education sector welcomed opportunities to meet the Minister, although it was not a comfortable position for any of them, or for that matter for any of us. As Secretary to the overall Ministry, I too was placed in a most awkward and embarrassing position. I worked for the Cabinet Minister. The offices of the Project and State Ministers had senior public servants as Secretaries. But I had the responsibility of supervising their work. In the case of higher education, when I did that, there was a distinct possibility that I would tread om ministerial toes.

Mr. Abeygunawardena, the Secretary handling that area later to become Secretary to the Ministry of Health, was a disciplined public servant, who in spite of his own difficult position never attempted to by-pass me. He regularly consulted me and kept me briefed about all relevant matters. He regularly came to “Isurupaya” to meet me virtually in secret in order to discuss important matters. We both decided, that given the ground situation it was best that I avoided holding meetings at Ward Place.

Here again, I had every right to do so. But that was not the point. As Secretary to the Ministry, my responsibility as I saw it was not to take sides in an unfortunate tussle, but to devise practical ways and means to keep the work of the Ministry going.

Therefore, although the Minister wanted me to have a room at Ward Place and work from there too, I avoided this, even though a room was found for me. The Minister was quite correct in asserting his own rights. Asserting my own, would only have added to an unhappy situation. I therefore only went to Ward Place for meetings called by the Minister at which my presence was required by him.

The Chairman, University Grants Commission was Professor Arjuna Aluvihare. The UGC shared premises with the office of the Minister of Higher Education, or perhaps it was the other way round. Here, geographical and official proximity coincided The Chairman had to work closely with Minister Hameed, although he also had to attend meetings fixed by the Cabinet Minister. Everyone worked with an underlying degree of discomfort if not strain. Sometimes, affairs assumed almost comic proportions. There was a policy move to set up University Colleges, with a view to expanding opportunities for higher education. The concept however, had to be worked on.

A Senior Level Committee consisting of the UGC, academics, the Ministry and the private sector was envisaged to study all connected matters and to make recommendations. Naturally I had to be on that Committee as Secretary to the Ministry. One day Professor Aluvihare telephoned me in some distress and with evident embarrassment told me that Minister Hameed had not wanted me on the committee. He wanted to know what to do, although the whole thing was absurd.

I suggested that under these circumstances, it would be best to proceed in a practical way. I said that I didn’t have to be on the Committee in order to make myself available for any consultations that anyone may wish to have with me, and that it would make sense for him to proceed in the already established manner, which was discussion and consultation with me without formal meetings. The Chairman, UGC apologized and agreed. I said that the immediate challenge I faced was how to keep this away from the Cabinet Minister.

Had Mr. Athulathmudali heard of this he would have insisted that I served on the committee. In the end, this was how we functioned not only on this matter, but on all matters relating to higher education. We had to find ways and means to work effectively without generating conflict. The Vice Chancellors and others telephoned me from time to time, some times during the night, at home in order to discuss various issues. But I held no formal meetings at my level. The Minister of course did so, and these meetings we attended and follow up action taken.

These arrangements worked fairly satisfactorily in the area of University education, but not so well in the sphere of technical education. Here, with the merging of some Ministries and departments, technical education was being run from Additional Secretary Mr. Abeygunawardene’s office at Ward Place. This was an integral part of the Project Minister’s office and I did not therefore have a direct input. What I could see from a distance was that the whole structure was wrong and too bureaucratic to

deliver quality technical education. Information flows, decision making processes, supervising methods, the identification and fixing of accountability, all had to be attended to. I saw it as a major task. But in the prevailing climate, with a Project Minister who was also a Senior Cabinet Minister in the system, there was little that even the Cabinet Minister could do.

This important area therefore suffered from a considerable degree of neglect. It became a victim of the structure of the Ministry. Soon, donor agencies such as the ADB realized the problem. There were officials from these agencies who met me and expressed regret as to what was happening. However, they also had gone around and had a fairly clear notion of the real problem. They too were helpless. I did try a way out of this impasse. When I met the President on one occasion I mentioned to him the importance of technical education and suggested that he Chair a meeting on the subject at least quarterly.

The President did not disagree and in my recollection, much later a meeting was held. But he probably did not have the time to do this on a regular basis. My intention on making the suggestion to the President was to construct a forum where the Cabinet Minister, the Project Minister, the Secretaries and Senior Officials could have met in neutral territory and used the President’s clout to move technical education to a sustainable track. Unfortunately it did not work out.

Growing strains between Mr. Athulathmudali and the President

Meanwhile, the Minister was getting somewhat irritated and frustrated by all this. This was aggravated by deteriorating personal relations with the President. The reasons were several. Some were quite petty. For instance, Mr. Athulathmudali’s official car was relatively old and was breaking down from time to time. Some episodes reported related to times when Mrs. Athulathmudali was travelling in the car. This was naturally very upsetting to the Minister. On one celebrated occasion, the car broke down when the Minister was on his way to Parliament, and an MP passing by had to give him a lift.

The prevailing rule was that the President had to personally clear new cars for Ministers, and although I had spoken several times to a sympathetic Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Paskaralingam, even he could not obtain a decision. This therefore, consisted a serious irritation on a daily basis. The Minister also felt that his visits abroad were being curtailed. For instance he was not permitted to go and deliver a lecture on an invitation from a prestigious international forum dealing with Agriculture. The logic presumably would have been that he was no longer Minister of Agriculture. But this was a personal invitation in recognition of his stature in this field.

This was not all. Ministers had to declare their assets to the President. This was a time there was litigation between the SLFP Member of Parliament Mr. C.V. Gooneratne and the Minister, during the course of which certain irregularities in the purchase of ships by the Ceylon Shipping Corporation were alleged by Mr. Gooneratne, at the time when the Minister was in charge of the subject of shipping. The Minister mentioned to me that he knew that a copy of his assets declaration was given to Mr. Gooneratne by the President. The point is not whether he in fact did so or not. The point was that the Minister believed that he had done so. Probably he had some inside information.

There were more issues that surfaced as time went on. One day the Minister told me that the President was getting a special team under the direction of his personal security advisor to investigate matters in his former Ministry of Trade and Shipping. “He is trying desperately to find something on me,” he said, adding, “He thinks that he can do this without my knowing!” The fact was that the Minister was at one time also Minister of National Security, in which position he worked closely with the Armed Services and the Police. He therefore, personally knew a large number of officers from the Police and the Services, and many liked him and were personally loyal to him. Obtaining information therefore was not a problem for Mr. Athulathmudali.

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, the autobiography of MDD Pieris) ✍️

All News Advertisement

Features

More state support needed for marginalised communities

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/13

Thilina Walpola

A landslide in the Central Province

Message from Malaiyaha Tamil community to govt:

Insights from SSA Cyclone Ditwah Survey

When climate disasters strike, they don’t affect everyone equally. Marginalised communities typically face worse outcomes, and Cyclone Ditwah is no exception. Especially in a context where normalcy is far from “normal”, the idea of returning to normalcy or restoring a life of normalcy makes very little sense.

The island-wide survey (https://ssalanka.org/reports/) conducted by the Social Scientists’ Association (SSA), between early to mid-January on Cyclone Ditwah shows stark regional disparities in how satisfied or dissatisfied people were with the government’s response. While national satisfaction levels were relatively high in most provinces, the Central Province tells a different story.

Only 35.2% of Central Province residents reported that they were satisfied with early warning and evacuation measures, compared to 52.2% nationally. The gap continues across every measure: just 52.9% were satisfied with immediate rescue and emergency response, compared with the national figure of 74.6%. Satisfaction with relief distribution in the Central Province is 51.9% while the national figure stands at 73.1%. The figures for restoration of water, electricity, and roads are at a low 45.9% in the central province compared to the 70.9% in national figures. Similarly, the satisfaction level for recovery and rebuilding support is 48.7% in the Central Province, while the national figure is 67.0%.

A deeper analysis of the SSA data on public perceptions reveals something important: these lower satisfaction rates came primarily from the Malaiyaha Tamil population. Their experience differed not just from other provinces, but also from other ethnic groups living in the Central Province itself.

The Malaiyaha Tamil community’s vulnerability didn’t start with the cyclone. Their vulnerability is a historically and structurally pre-determined process of exclusion and marginalisation. Brought to Sri Lanka during British rule to work for the empire’s plantation economies, they have faced long-term economic exploitation and have repeatedly been denied access to state support and social welfare systems. Most estate residents still live in ‘line rooms’ and have no rights to the land they cultivate and live on. The community continues to be governed by an outdated estate management system that acts as a barrier to accessing public and municipal services such as road repair, water, electricity and other basic infrastructures available to other citizens.

As far as access to improved water sources is concerned, the Sri Lanka Demographic Health Survey (2016) shows that 57% of estate sector households don’t have access to improved water sources, while more than 90% of households in urban and rural areas do. With regard to the level of poverty, as the Department of Census and Statistics (2019) data reveals, the estate sector where most Malaiyaha Tamils live had a poverty headcount index of 33.8%; more than double the national rate of 14.3%. These statistics highlight key indicators of the systemic discrimination faced by the Malaiyaha Tamil community.

Some crucial observations from the SSA data collectors who enumerated responses from estate residents in the survey reveal the specific challenges faced by the Malaiyaha Tamils, particularly in their efforts to seek state support for compensation and reconstruction.

First, the Central Province experienced not just flooding but also the highest number of landslides in the island. As a result, some residents in the region lost entire homes, access roadways, and other basic infrastructures. The loss of lives, livelihoods and land was at a higher intensity compared to the provinces not located in the hills. Most importantly, the Malaiyaha Tamil community’s pre-existing grievances made them even more vulnerable and the government’s job of reparation and restitution more complex.

Early warnings hadn’t reached many areas. Some data collectors said they themselves never heard any warnings in estate areas, while others mentioned that early warnings were issued but didn’t reach some segments of the community. According to the resident data collectors, the police announcements reached only as far as the sections where they were able to drive their vehicles to, and there were many estate roads that were not motorable. When warnings did filter through to remote locations, they often came by word of mouth and information was distorted along the way. Once the disaster hit, things got worse: roads were blocked, electricity went out, mobile networks failed and people were cut off completely.

Emergency response was slow. Blocked roads meant people could not get to hospitals when they needed urgent care, including pregnant mothers. The difficult terrain and poor road conditions meant rescue teams took much longer to reach affected areas than in other regions.

Relief supplies didn’t reach everyone. The Grama Niladhari divisions in these areas are huge and hard to navigate, making it difficult for Grama Niladharis to reach all places as urgently as needed. Relief workers distributed supplies where vehicles could go, which meant accessible areas got help while remote communities were left out.

Some people didn’t even try to go to safety centres or evacuation shelters set up in local schools because the facilities there were already so poor. The perceptions of people who did go to safety centres, as shown in the provincial data, reveal that satisfaction was low compared to other affected regions of the country. Less than half were satisfied with space and facilities (42.1%) or security and protection (45.0%). Satisfaction was even lower for assistance with lost or damaged documentation (17.9%) and information and support for compensation applications (28.2%). Only 22.5% were satisfied with medical care and health services below most other affected regions.

Restoring services proved nearly impossible in some areas. Road access was the biggest problem. The condition of the roads was already poor even before the cyclone, and some still haven’t been cleared. Recovery is especially difficult because there’s no decent baseline infrastructure to restore, hence you can’t bring roads and other public facilities back to a “good” condition when they were never good, even before the disaster.

Water systems faced their own complications. Many households get water from natural sources or small community projects, and not the centralised state system. These sources are often in the middle of the disaster zone and therefore got contaminated during the floods and landslides.

Long-term recovery remains stalled. Without basic infrastructure, areas that are still hard to reach keep struggling to get the support they need for rebuilding.

Taken together, what do these testaments mean? Disaster response can’t be the same for everyone. The Malaiyaha Tamil community has been double marginalised because they were already living with structural inequalities such as poor infrastructure, geographic isolation, and inadequate services which have been exacerbated by Cyclone Ditwah. An effective and fair disaster response needs to account for these underlying vulnerabilities. It requires interventions tailored to the historical, economic, and infrastructural realities that marginalized communities face every day. On top of that, it highlights the importance of dealing with climate disasters, given the fact that vulnerable communities could face more devastating impacts compared to others.

(Shashik Silva is a researcher with the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka)

by Shashik Silva ✍️

Features

Crucial test for religious and ethnic harmony in Bangladesh

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

A political protest that led to governmental change in Bangladesh mid last year. (photograph: imago)

Will the Bangladesh parliamentary election bring into being a government that will ensure ethnic and religious harmony in the country? This is the poser on the lips of peace-loving sections in Bangladesh and a principal concern of those outside who mean the country well.

The apprehensions are mainly on the part of religious and ethnic minorities. The parliamentary poll of February 12th is expected to bring into existence a government headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamist oriented Jamaat-e-Islami party and this is where the rub is. If these parties win, will it be a case of Bangladesh sliding in the direction of a theocracy or a state where majoritarian chauvinism thrives?

Chief of the Jamaat, Shafiqur Rahman, who was interviewed by sections of the international media recently said that there is no need for minority groups in Bangladesh to have the above fears. He assured, essentially, that the state that will come into being will be equable and inclusive. May it be so, is likely to be the wish of those who cherish a tension-free Bangladesh.

The party that could have posed a challenge to the above parties, the Awami League Party of former Prime Minister Hasina Wased, is out of the running on account of a suspension that was imposed on it by the authorities and the mentioned majoritarian-oriented parties are expected to have it easy at the polls.

A positive that has emerged against the backdrop of the poll is that most ordinary people in Bangladesh, be they Muslim or Hindu, are for communal and religious harmony and it is hoped that this sentiment will strongly prevail, going ahead. Interestingly, most of them were of the view, when interviewed, that it was the politicians who sowed the seeds of discord in the country and this viewpoint is widely shared by publics all over the region in respect of the politicians of their countries.

Some sections of the Jamaat party were of the view that matters with regard to the orientation of governance are best left to the incoming parliament to decide on but such opinions will be cold comfort for minority groups. If the parliamentary majority comes to consist of hard line Islamists, for instance, there is nothing to prevent the country from going in for theocratic governance. Consequently, minority group fears over their safety and protection cannot be prevented from spreading.

Therefore, we come back to the question of just and fair governance and whether Bangladesh’s future rulers could ensure these essential conditions of democratic rule. The latter, it is hoped, will be sufficiently perceptive to ascertain that a Bangladesh rife with religious and ethnic tensions, and therefore unstable, would not be in the interests of Bangladesh and those of the region’s countries.

Unfortunately, politicians region-wide fall for the lure of ethnic, religious and linguistic chauvinism. This happens even in the case of politicians who claim to be democratic in orientation. This fate even befell Bangladesh’s Awami League Party, which claims to be democratic and socialist in general outlook.

We have it on the authority of Taslima Nasrin in her ground-breaking novel, ‘Lajja’, that the Awami Party was not of any substantial help to Bangladesh’s Hindus, for example, when violence was unleashed on them by sections of the majority community. In fact some elements in the Awami Party were found to be siding with the Hindus’ murderous persecutors. Such are the temptations of hard line majoritarianism.

In Sri Lanka’s past numerous have been the occasions when even self-professed Leftists and their parties have conveniently fallen in line with Southern nationalist groups with self-interest in mind. The present NPP government in Sri Lanka has been waxing lyrical about fostering national reconciliation and harmony but it is yet to prove its worthiness on this score in practice. The NPP government remains untested material.

As a first step towards national reconciliation it is hoped that Sri Lanka’s present rulers would learn the Tamil language and address the people of the North and East of the country in Tamil and not Sinhala, which most Tamil-speaking people do not understand. We earnestly await official language reforms which afford to Tamil the dignity it deserves.

An acid test awaits Bangladesh as well on the nation-building front. Not only must all forms of chauvinism be shunned by the incoming rulers but a secular, truly democratic Bangladesh awaits being licked into shape. All identity barriers among people need to be abolished and it is this process that is referred to as nation-building.

On the foreign policy frontier, a task of foremost importance for Bangladesh is the need to build bridges of amity with India. If pragmatism is to rule the roost in foreign policy formulation, Bangladesh would place priority to the overcoming of this challenge. The repatriation to Bangladesh of ex-Prime Minister Hasina could emerge as a steep hurdle to bilateral accord but sagacious diplomacy must be used by Bangladesh to get over the problem.

A reply to N.A. de S. Amaratunga

A response has been penned by N.A. de S. Amaratunga (please see p5 of ‘The Island’ of February 6th) to a previous column by me on ‘ India shaping-up as a Swing State’, published in this newspaper on January 29th , but I remain firmly convinced that India remains a foremost democracy and a Swing State in the making.

If the countries of South Asia are to effectively manage ‘murderous terrorism’, particularly of the separatist kind, then they would do well to adopt to the best of their ability a system of government that provides for power decentralization from the centre to the provinces or periphery, as the case may be. This system has stood India in good stead and ought to prove effective in all other states that have fears of disintegration.

Moreover, power decentralization ensures that all communities within a country enjoy some self-governing rights within an overall unitary governance framework. Such power-sharing is a hallmark of democratic governance.

Features

Celebrating Valentine’s Day …

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating love, romance, and affection, and this is how some of our well-known personalities plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day – 14th February:

Merlina Fernando (Singer)

Yes, it’s a special day for lovers all over the world and it’s even more special to me because 14th February is the birthday of my husband Suresh, who’s the lead guitarist of my band Mission.

We have planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day and his Birthday together and it will be a wonderful night as always.

We will be having our fans and close friends, on that night, with their loved ones at Highso – City Max hotel Dubai, from 9.00 pm onwards.

Lorensz Francke (Elvis Tribute Artiste)

On Valentine’s Day I will be performing a live concert at a Wealthy Senior Home for Men and Women, and their families will be attending, as well.

I will be performing live with romantic, iconic love songs and my song list would include ‘Can’t Help falling in Love’, ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Burning Love’, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, ‘The Wonder of You’ and ‘’It’s Now or Never’ to name a few.

To make Valentine’s Day extra special I will give the Home folks red satin scarfs.

Emma Shanaya (Singer)

I plan on spending the day of love with my girls, especially my best friend. I don’t have a romantic Valentine this year but I am thrilled to spend it with the girl that loves me through and through. I’ll be in Colombo and look forward to go to a cute cafe and spend some quality time with my childhood best friend Zulha.

JAYASRI

Emma-and-Maneeka

This Valentine’s Day the band JAYASRI we will be really busy; in the morning we will be landing in Sri Lanka, after our Oman Tour; then in the afternoon we are invited as Chief Guests at our Maris Stella College Sports Meet, Negombo, and late night we will be with LineOne band live in Karandeniya Open Air Down South. Everywhere we will be sharing LOVE with the mass crowds.

Kay Jay (Singer)

I will stay at home and cook a lovely meal for lunch, watch some movies, together with Sanjaya, and, maybe we go out for dinner and have a lovely time. Come to think of it, every day is Valentine’s Day for me with Sanjaya Alles.

Maneka Liyanage (Beauty Tips)

On this special day, I celebrate love by spending meaningful time with the people I cherish. I prepare food with love and share meals together, because food made with love brings hearts closer. I enjoy my leisure time with them — talking, laughing, sharing stories, understanding each other, and creating beautiful memories. My wish for this Valentine’s Day is a world without fighting — a world where we love one another like our own beloved, where we do not hurt others, even through a single word or action. Let us choose kindness, patience, and understanding in everything we do.

Janaka Palapathwala (Singer)

Janaka

Valentine’s Day should not be the only day we speak about love.

From the moment we are born into this world, we seek love, first through the very drop of our mother’s milk, then through the boundless care of our Mother and Father, and the embrace of family.

Love is everywhere. All living beings, even plants, respond in affection when they are loved.

As we grow, we learn to love, and to be loved. One day, that love inspires us to build a new family of our own.

Love has no beginning and no end. It flows through every stage of life, timeless, endless, and eternal.

Natasha Rathnayake (Singer)

We don’t have any special plans for Valentine’s Day. When you’ve been in love with the same person for over 25 years, you realise that love isn’t a performance reserved for one calendar date. My husband and I have never been big on public displays, or grand gestures, on 14th February. Our love is expressed quietly and consistently, in ordinary, uncelebrated moments.

With time, you learn that love isn’t about proving anything to the world or buying into a commercialised idea of romance—flowers that wilt, sweets that spike blood sugar, and gifts that impress briefly but add little real value. In today’s society, marketing often pushes the idea that love is proven by how much money you spend, and that buying things is treated as a sign of commitment.

Real love doesn’t need reminders or price tags. It lives in showing up every day, choosing each other on unromantic days, and nurturing the relationship intentionally and without an audience.

This isn’t a judgment on those who enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day. It’s simply a personal choice.

Melloney Dassanayake (Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2024)

I truly believe it’s beautiful to have a day specially dedicated to love. But, for me, Valentine’s Day goes far beyond romantic love alone. It celebrates every form of love we hold close to our hearts: the love for family, friends, and that one special person who makes life brighter. While 14th February gives us a moment to pause and celebrate, I always remind myself that love should never be limited to just one day. Every single day should feel like Valentine’s Day – constant reminder to the people we love that they are never alone, that they are valued, and that they matter.

I’m incredibly blessed because, for me, every day feels like Valentine’s Day. My special person makes sure of that through the smallest gestures, the quiet moments, and the simple reminders that love lives in the details. He shows me that it’s the little things that count, and that love doesn’t need grand stages to feel extraordinary. This Valentine’s Day, perfection would be something intimate and meaningful: a cozy picnic in our home garden, surrounded by nature, laughter, and warmth, followed by an abstract drawing session where we let our creativity flow freely. To me, that’s what love is – simple, soulful, expressive, and deeply personal. When love is real, every ordinary moment becomes magical.

Noshin De Silva (Actress)

Valentine’s Day is one of my favourite holidays! I love the décor, the hearts everywhere, the pinks and reds, heart-shaped chocolates, and roses all around. But honestly, I believe every day can be Valentine’s Day.

It doesn’t have to be just about romantic love. It’s a chance to celebrate love in all its forms with friends, family, or even by taking a little time for yourself.

Whether you’re spending the day with someone special or enjoying your own company, it’s a reminder to appreciate meaningful connections, show kindness, and lead with love every day.

And yes, I’m fully on theme this year with heart nail art and heart mehendi design!

Wishing everyone a very happy Valentine’s Day, but, remember, love yourself first, and don’t forget to treat yourself.

Sending my love to all of you.