Features

The Value of Goodness – employing business profits to help the needy

Published

3 years ago

2024/01/28

Training in the culinary arts Information Technology – a new gateway for marginalised children Women’s Development Programme at Moratuwa

(Excerpted from the autobiography of Merrill J. Fernando)

A generous man will prosper;
he who refreshes will himself be refreshed Bible book of proverbs

My mother was the first genuine practitioner of community responsibility that I knew. She had never heard of Corporate Social Responsibility but her faith, upbringing, and innate goodness commanded that she bear some accountability for her neighbours’ wellbeing. Her instinctive and visible generosity was of direct benefit, in many small ways, to the less advantaged in our village community of Pallansena. Ours was a family of moderate means and by no means affluent, but it is my view that sharing comes easily, and more naturally, to those of a modest background.

As a principled human being, one cannot ignore one’s less fortunate neighbour. Similarly, as an entrepreneur, you cannot operate in isolation, indifferent to the plight of the deprived and the marginalized of the community, who may also, in some way, be contributing to your affluence. As a child I learnt that lesson from my mother and carried it into my later life as an entrepreneur.

My decision to share part of my gains with the less fortunate was a natural outcome of that early lesson and had nothing to do with an impersonal Board decision to add value to a company bottom line.

In 1962, when I set up MJF Company, I had 18 employees, and, at the end of the year, I gave each a small sum of money to buy school uniforms, books, shoes, and other simple necessities for their children. Business was good and I had more money than I had ever handled before. Unwittingly, I had come to a cross-roads in my life, when I made a very conscious decision to share part of the surplus value that my business created with the less fortunate, who actually helped me to create that value. That was the first practical expression of the lesson I learnt from my mother and, unknowingly, the first step on the long road which, four decades later, led to the Merrill J. Fernando Charitable Foundation.

The MJF Charitable Foundation: Birth and growth With the growth of the company, the expansion of the workforce, and increases in personal gain, the Human Service aspect of my business compelled a more formalized and structured approach. Therefore, in 2002, the MJF Charitable Foundation (MJFCF) was incorporated. From that small beginning, today, the Foundation sponsors over 100 projects annually, touching the lives of over 60,000 people in the plantations and the wider community.

Lest the use of the word ‘Charitable’ be misunderstood, the core philosophy of the initiative is ‘Empowerment with Dignity,’ enabling disadvantaged individuals and communities to become self-sufficient. I have no patience with, nor sympathy for, the idle who seek handouts. The MJFCF focuses on Empowerment, specifically avoiding the possibility of creating dependence, as often happens in conventional aid models. Beneficiaries are motivated to nurture their inherent abilities and translate those to life-enriching initiatives, in order to make the humanitarian projects of the MJFCF sustainable.

The Foundation initiatives, which have reached out to all districts of the island, especially areas with relatively-underdeveloped infrastructure, radiate from two centres, one in Moratuwa, about 20 kilometres south of Colombo, and the other in Kalkudah, 280 kilometres from Colombo, in the Eastern Province.

MJFCF Center Moratuwa

Some years previously, I had purchased a 10-acre premises in Moratuwa, a silent garment factory complex, which eventually formed the nucleus of the Foundation’s activities. That was another one of the strategic investments I used to make from time to time, as mentioned earlier. By 2011, it had been converted to a multi-purpose transformational centre with facilities for therapy, learning, and vocational training for the differently-abled, pre-school, women’s development, ICT and graphics, carpentry, culinary and cookery, sports and physical fitness training and much more. The Moratuwa Centre is the flagship of the Foundation.

In 2011, in a simple ceremony, I set down 20 mango plants at various points in the Moratuwa premises. In subsequent visits, over the next decade, I have watched these trees gradually blossoming and fruiting. Along with those mango trees, the purpose of the center has also grown and sent out branches all over the country; the fruits of those endeavours are reflected in the lives of children, individuals, and communities, enriched and empowered despite inherent inadequacies.

Moratuwa is where it all began and the rehabilitation and enabling programs started to take shape. Over 300 children with Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, and other developmental disorders have benefited from the daily programs designed to meet wide-ranging individual needs. Our dedicated teams have engaged disabled children in various vocational training initiatives, ranging from music, cookery, and electronics to agriculture.

This program has produced a drumming troupe consisting entirely of Down syndrome children, who have performed with maestro Ravi Bandu. There are others who have learnt skills in baking, sewing, and rug-weaving, competencies which will enable them to actually earn a living. The ‘Rainbow Centre,’ as the rehabilitation unit is known, has truly brought colour, light, and variety to the lives of many children, who would otherwise be condemned to an existence of dreary darkness.

The center provides specialized and individual attention, which are not available in mainstream schools, for children with developmental disorders. Many such children are from low income families, for whom private therapy is not even a distant dream. The physiotherapy unit at the center provides weekly, free-of-cost services, as opposed to national hospitals, where the concerned parents would be fortunate to obtain an appointment once in three months. The regular therapeutic and training engagements ensure the continuity of developmental attention to affected children, whilst enabling mapping and evaluation of progress.

One of its most important and rewarding programs has been the Women’s Development Initiative. Over the past decade, over 1,000 women have benefited, acquiring skills in cookery and sewing. A women’s group has been provided a sales outlet in Moratuwa, to distribute their products through Uber Eats, enabling them to market their food as far away as Peliyagoda!

MJF Center East

After the Moratuwa Centre had become fully functional, I instructed Anura Gunasekera, a Senior Manager in our company, to find suitable land for similar centers in the north and the east. That led to the purchase of a 20-acre abandoned cashew plantation in Kalkudah which, in 2018, opened for operation as a fully-equipped duplicate of the Moratuwa Center, catering to a similar spectrum of activities.

These two main centers are supported by sub-facilities in Peliyagoda, Pallansena, Pitipane, Siyambalanduwa, Point Pedro, Ampara, Udawalawe, Ambagahawatte, and Weligama. The Ambagahawatte facility is dedicated to the rehabilitation and therapy for children with cerebral palsy and other developmental disorders.

The Eastern Province has no other such facility that provides a multiplicity of interventions, addressing a wide spectrum of issues related to both children and adults. On a broad front, there are similarities between the individual and community needs in the societies that the two centers address. However, the requirements of the eastern society are compounded by the regional impact of our long ethnic war, the 2004 tsunami, and the impact of the normal misfortunes common to scattered, but numerous farming and fishing communities, which are always at the mercy of disruptions to the climate, the weather, and the marketability of their produce.

The other factor is that in a region, in which the civilian administrative infrastructure is hard-pressed to meet the normal, basic needs of the larger community, the provision of specialized, transformational initiatives targeting special individuals and groups, naturally become a secondary consideration. Hence, in terms of impact and consequence, Kalkudah possibly supersedes Moratuwa, as it fills a huge community service gap in the region.

Its first programme commenced in the latter part of 2018, targeting children of several age groups with a wide range of learning and developmental activities. In July we launched several rehabilitation and teaching programmes for children with special needs, especially sensory and cognitive impairment, replicating the ‘Rainbow Centre’ activities of the Moratuwa complex.

The Eastern Province, as in the north, is a region with a high proportion of families led by single women. In view of the shortage of casual. low-middle level employment opportunities in the region, unlike in an urban environment, providing avenues of steady income for such women was a special focus of the center. Therefore, we designed several agri-based interventions, involving these women in the cultivation of short-term crops, on land in close proximity to their homes, ensuring both empowerment and income generation through occupations they were comfortable with.

All these centers are run by dedicated groups of people, many of the individuals being specialists in the care-giving and rehabilitation facilities that we offer. Rehana Wettasinghe has, for many years, been the driving force at the Moratuwa Centre, whilst Mark Patterson is the Head of the Eastern Centre. I am truly appreciative of the care and attention that these individuals and their teams bring to an immensely-challenging assignment, which requires devotion and a consuming passion for what they do, far surpassing the normal obligation to duty.

Post tsunami expansion

The 2004, Boxing Day tsunami, the greatest natural disaster in modern times, devastated our communities along the island’s entire coastline. The estimated death toll was around 40,000, whilst the long-term damage to livelihoods and normal life was inestimable. The scale of the disaster and the consequent rehabilitation requirements compelled an unplanned, exponential expansion of the scope of the Foundation. Overnight, our mission was forced to grow wings.

Dilhan and a colleague, who visited the south as soon as the waters receded, first selected 55 families for immediate rehabilitation. In a parallel move in Colombo we set up a Tsunami Relief Logistics Centre. Our teams visited Hambantota, Ambalantota, Rekawa, and Kilinochchi and established refugee centres where affected people were provided with meals. We also visited and assisted, with the help of the Government forces, in areas in the north which were under LTTE control. This was an exercise which required a high degree of diplomacy and a transparent display of sensitivity, to the custodians of a society which had been engaged in a war of attrition with the State for over two decades.

Fishing communities were rehabilitated with funding for the purchase of boats, nets, and other equipment, working with CEYNOR a Sri Lankan Government and NORAD Joint Venture. According to one assessment, in the tsunami-hit areas, only 10% of the boats and fishing gear had survived. Over 200 bicycles were also provided, to enable fishermen to transport their daily catch at the end of the day. Provision of basic housing for those who lost their dwellings was another issue that we addressed. The focus was entirely on enabling the beneficiaries to become self-sufficient, in the shortest possible time.

Small Entrepreneur Program (SEP)

Assistance on a different scale was provided to small-time single entrepreneurs, people who were identified as having the capacity to develop and run a small industry on their own and expand it gradually, whilst providing employment to others in the community. One of the first of such beneficiaries was a mushroom grower, a single mother, who had lost everything in the tsunami. That was the beginning of the Small Entrepreneur Program (SEP), which eventually grew in to a separate project of its own, empowering over 2,000 individuals and benefiting their families and communities. In our closely-connected rural farming societies, where the SEP has been most active, caring and sharing are still very lively community virtues.

This scheme included Ayurveda practitioners, watchmakers, tailors, builders, papadam producers, carpenters, potters, fruit cultivators, beauty therapists, and textile manufacturers; practitioners of diverse trades and skills, bound by a common misfortune and driven by a single desire – the determination to re-establish themselves as independent entrepreneurs and to regain personal responsibility for their respective destinies. Some of the products of such enterprises, such as the specialised `Mankada’ pottery from a small community in Uda Walawe, have been marketed in Poland, New Zealand, and Australia, riding on the back of the Dilmah tea marketing network.

The SEP soon generated its own dynamic and close upon 1,000 different projects have now been launched in various parts of the country. This program includes an apprenticeship course, in which are trained anew in various skills and assisted to set themselves up in independent enterprise thereafter. The project also addresses the rehabilitation of ex-prisoners, who demonstrate a genuine desire to reform themselves and be accepted as responsible members of society. To date nearly 300 former prisoners have been assisted and not one has reverted to crime.

: Arts and crafts – opportunities for the disempowered and the differently abled

In fact, one ex-prisoner, who was released to society on conditional parole, set up an orange orchard in Ampara with assistance from the SEP and made such a success of the project that the outgrower system he generated eventually spread across a couple of hundred acres, benefiting several communities. He also launched a yoghurt production business, purchasing the milk from village cattle owners, creating a new enterprise with multiple benefits. I am very glad that Dilhan, with his insistence, dispelled my initial reluctance to get involved with this individual with a decidedly violent past.

SEP and its role in the North and East

The collateral damage of armed conflict is most visible in the resultant disruption to family life. Men go to war, whilst wives, mothers, and sisters stay back to look after the home and the children. In our war, as in such conflicts elsewhere in the world, many of the men did not return, leaving families to be led by single women. This problem seemed to be more acute in the north and the east than elsewhere in our country.

The Foundation was able to connect with a dedicated and civic-minded Christian priest, Father Damian Soosapillai of Point Pedro, and through him, give livelihood assistance to about 500 war widows. These single women were provided with the necessary equipment and facilitation, to practice trades and skills interrupted by the war or given training in new vocations so that they could quickly take charge of their own lives.

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Related Topics:Bible book of proverbs MJFCF MJFCF sustainable Small Entrepreneur Program

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Features

Beyond traditional jobs: Why Sri Lanka needs to facilitate the gig economy

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy Oxford University

by Kapila Chinthaka Premarathne
Head of the Department of Agricultural Systems and a Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the Faculty of Agriculture,
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Beyond the Graduate Unemployment Number

Sri Lanka’s economic recovery has improved macroeconomic stability, but youth unemployment remains a significant labour-market concern. Around 43% of Sri Lankan youth aged 15–24 with postsecondary education are unemployed, the highest among the Asian economies compared in the IMF analysis, compared with about 36% in Bangladesh and 13.2% in Thailand. This reflects a problem of skills mismatches and the difficulty of connecting higher education with changing labour-market demand. The concern goes beyond unemployment itself. Sri Lanka has invested heavily in educating its younger population, yet the conventional labour market is not creating enough opportunities to convert these qualifications into income. Many young people possess degrees, technical knowledge and growing digital familiarity, but remain outside formal employment because suitable jobs may not exist in the right place, at the right time or under conditions compatible with their circumstances. This makes it necessary to think beyond traditional employment models and explore new ways of connecting Sri Lanka’s educated youth with economic opportunities.

This is where Sri Lanka needs to reconsider how it understands employment

Employment has traditionally been viewed through the employer–employee relationship, with qualifications leading to a formal job and regular salary. While this model remains important, digital platforms are creating new ways to generate income, allowing individuals to work for multiple clients across geographical boundaries without permanent employment. Sri Lanka therefore needs to look beyond simply creating conventional jobs and consider whether it is building the conditions for its educated population to participate in the growing global market for digital services.

The Opportunity of the Gig Economy

The gig economy extends far beyond ride-hailing and delivery services. Digital platforms increasingly connect skilled individuals with opportunities in software development, design, accounting, data analysis, digital marketing, translation, online education, research and consultancy. This is particularly relevant to Sri Lanka, where a highly educated population faces a relatively limited domestic market for specialised skills. Digital platforms can overcome geographical constraints by connecting Sri Lankan workers directly with international clients.

As highlighted in my previous LSE South Asia article on women and the gig economy, such work should not replace formal employment but can create additional income opportunities when supported by appropriate skills, digital infrastructure, training and institutional support. A skilled person in Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Batticaloa or Monaragala could potentially serve clients in London, Melbourne or Dubai without first relocating to Colombo. This makes the gig economy relevant not only to employment but also to Sri Lanka’s emerging digital services-export strategy.

A Digitally Familiar Generation

Sri Lanka’s younger generation is growing up with smartphones, social media, online learning, digital applications and digital financial services, giving them a level of digital familiarity that previous generations did not have. However, digital familiarity does not automatically translate into digital employability. The challenge is to transform everyday digital use into productive skills such as data analysis, artificial intelligence, software development, digital marketing, financial analysis and online professional services.

Sri Lanka therefore needs to move young people from being consumers of digital services to producers of digital value. Universities, vocational institutions and training providers can play an important role in converting existing digital familiarity into marketable skills that connect young people with both domestic and international opportunities. This is increasingly important as technological change and AI reshape labour markets and intensify the need for skills that match emerging forms of work.

The Gender Dimension

The gig economy may be particularly relevant to women, who often face barriers to conventional employment arising from childcare, eldercare, mobility, social expectations and rigid working arrangements. For mothers and women living outside major urban centres, fixed working hours and daily commuting can make formal employment difficult even when suitable jobs exist.

Digital gig work can provide greater flexibility, allowing women to undertake professional assignments from home or their communities and potentially serve international clients without relocating. As discussed in my earlier LSE South Asia article, this opportunity is most meaningful when supported by digital infrastructure, skills training, virtual work hubs, mentorship and appropriate institutional support. However, flexibility should expand women’s economic choices rather than simply add paid work to existing unpaid household responsibilities.

Pressure on Labour-Market Opportunity

The value of a job cannot be judged by salary alone, as commuting, working hours and household responsibilities can significantly affect its real economic value. Flexible digital work can potentially reduce some of these costs by allowing people to work from home or nearby digital hubs and participate in employment on a part-time or project basis. While gig work cannot solve all household pressures, a more flexible organisation of work can create additional employment opportunities while helping households manage their limited time and resources more effectively.

A Possible Third Option Between Unemployment and Migration

Sri Lanka’s migration and brain-drain concerns highlight the need to explore employment opportunities beyond the domestic labour market. While overseas migration will remain an important individual and economic choice, digital work can provide another pathway by allowing skilled Sri Lankans to serve international clients without physically leaving the country. Software developers, designers, analysts, researchers, translators and consultants can potentially earn from global markets while remaining in Sri Lanka. Digital gig work cannot eliminate migration or reverse brain drain, but it can create an additional option between domestic unemployment and physical migration—working for the world while remaining in Sri Lanka.

Recognising and Making Digital Work Reputable

A major institutional gap is that conventional systems are designed around salaried employment, while a freelancer may earn from multiple clients without a single employer or salary certificate. This can make legitimate digital workers difficult to recognise when they seek loans, leasing, insurance or business finance. Sri Lanka could address this through a voluntary digital-worker or independent-professional registration mechanism, providing a recognised economic identity based on qualifications, verified skills, platform activity and documented income, without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such recognition should also make digital income bankable. Banks could assess verified platform earnings, bank transactions, contracts, invoices, tax records, savings and repayment history alongside conventional employment documents. A standardised digital income statement could further help workers demonstrate their financial capacity. The key shift is from asking “Who is your employer?” to asking “Can your income be verified and is it sufficiently stable?”. This would allow successful digital workers to build financial credibility and use their earnings to access credit, acquire assets and develop their own businesses.

Digital Payments Are Part of the Labour Market

Access to reliable international payment systems is essential if Sri Lankans are to participate effectively in the global digital economy. Recent developments in PayPal’s local banking arrangements, including its partnerships with Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank, indicate progress in this direction. However, the broader priority should be a regulated and efficient digital-payment ecosystem that allows workers to receive international earnings, transfer them to Sri Lankan bank accounts, document their income and meet relevant financial and tax requirements with minimal friction. International payment infrastructure is therefore not simply a technology issue; it is an essential component of Sri Lanka’s emerging services-export economy.

Building Infrastructure Outside Colombo

Digital familiarity alone is insufficient without reliable internet, electricity, computers, software and suitable working environments, particularly in rural and underserved areas. To ensure that the gig economy supports regional development rather than becoming another Colombo-centred opportunity, Sri Lanka could establish regional digital-work hubs through universities, vocational institutions, libraries and public-private partnerships. These hubs could provide connectivity, equipment, training, mentoring and assistance with platform registration and international payments. If graduates must migrate to Colombo simply to access such infrastructure, the geographical advantage of digital work is significantly reduced.

From Freelancer to Entrepreneur

Gig work should not be viewed as an end in itself. A person may begin with small online assignments, develop regular clients and professional credibility, and eventually establish a small digital enterprise. This creates a potential pathway from graduate to freelancer, professional service provider and entrepreneur, allowing individuals to create markets around their own skills rather than waiting for conventional vacancies. Universities can support this transition by teaching students not only subject knowledge but also portfolio development, market identification, client communication, digital platforms and contract management. A degree demonstrates educational attainment, while a professional portfolio demonstrates what a graduate can offer to the market.

Facilitation Must Be Matched by Protection

Promoting the gig economy without appropriate safeguards could simply transfer employment risks from institutions to individuals. Digital workers may face uncertain incomes, weak bargaining power and limited social protection. Sri Lanka should therefore facilitate digital work while also ensuring opportunities for independent workers to build savings, access insurance and participate in portable social-protection mechanisms. Flexibility should create greater economic choice without compromising long-term financial security, particularly for women.

A regional Example from India: Think Globally and act Locally

India provides a useful regional example of how the gig economy can be approached as a policy issue rather than simply as informal or temporary work. NITI Aayog has estimated the size and future employment potential of India’s gig and platform economy and has developed recommendations covering employment generation, skills, financial inclusion and social protection. More importantly, India has begun creating institutional mechanisms around these workers. Its e-Shram portal provides a national database of unorganised workers, including gig and platform workers, creating a recognised identity through which workers can potentially access employment, skills development and social-security services. India has also explored platform-led skills development through skill certificates, skill passports and on-the-job training, while NITI Aayog has proposed cash-flow-based lending models that could allow platform workers to demonstrate creditworthiness through their earnings rather than conventional employment or collateral.

Social protection has also entered the policy framework. India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 formally recognises gig and platform workers and provides a basis for schemes covering areas such as accident insurance, health, maternity, disability and old-age protection. India is still developing and refining these arrangements, and Sri Lanka need not replicate the Indian model.

However, the experience demonstrates an important policy lesson: the gig economy can be supported through a system that identifies workers, develops their skills, makes their income more visible to financial institutions and extends appropriate social protection. Sri Lanka could develop its own simpler framework suited to its smaller economy, beginning with recognising digital workers and building the institutional conditions that allow their skills and earnings to become part of the formal economy.

Rethinking Employment and the Next Opportunity

The 43 percent figure for educated young Sri Lankans should encourage a wider discussion about the changing nature of work. Sri Lanka will continue to need conventional employment through firms, industries, farms, professional organisations and public institutions, but the changing labour market also requires new opportunities to connect educated Sri Lankans with global digital markets. The gig economy can provide an additional pathway to increase female labour-force participation, reduce the pressure for migration and brain drain, and connect Sri Lankan skills with markets beyond geographical boundaries.

This does not require a complicated bureaucracy. It requires recognising legitimate digital workers, facilitating access to international platforms and payment systems, allowing verified digital income to support credit assessment, developing portable social protection, and strengthening digital infrastructure and skills beyond major urban centres. Better data on digital workers would also help policymakers develop evidence-based interventions.

The future of work is therefore not only about creating more jobs, but about creating more ways for Sri Lankans to work, earn and build livelihoods while continuing to live and contribute in Sri Lanka. The gig economy should be recognised as part of an emerging digital labour market and services-export economy, where workers can build professional identities, earn internationally, access finance and eventually develop their own enterprises.

Features

Are religions getting redundant in the modern world?

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

We are living in an era of astonishingly rapid scientific advancement. From the time Apple launched the ‘iPhone’ in January 2007, the first targeting the mass market, smartphones have taken over the world, making them indispensable. According to the latest statistics, there are around 8.1 billion mobile phones with 7.4 billion active smartphones, for the world population of 8.25 billion. Except for a tiny minority of the very poor, most people have at least one smartphone.

We are now entering the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and smart robots. Recently, a ‘Chinese’ robot ran 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt! Though Alan Turing proposed the idea of ‘Thinking Machines’ way back in 1950, the real AI boom commenced with the release of the generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by OpenAI in November 2020. Number of technology firms in the US as well as in China have joined the race, China catching up very fast, quite unexpectedly. There is a frenzy at the moment, raising expectations, as the imminent floating of these companies is likely to value the two leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic, trillion dollars each!

However, trouble is brewing in the AI field. On top of the concerns raised by environmentalists regarding the huge power drain by AI centres, there are recent reports of some AI models hacking independently into other systems, without human input. Worse still, a senior researcher at Anthropic, who has previously worked for OpenAI as well, resigned in early September on ethical grounds stating that the way the two companies are fast-tracking AI poses an existential threat to humanity. Surprisingly, instead of a rebuttal the head of Anthropic supported his view, soon joined by three more heads of leading AI developers. Whilst they agreed on slowing progress, President Trump has claimed that slowing is totally unnecessary as long as a super intelligent President like himself is at the helm! There does not seem to be an end to Trump’s grandiosity! He was joined by Tony Blair. In contrast, King Charles held a summit with representatives of all AI developers to find a way AI could be developed without a threat to humanity. That is how wise leaders act!

Less sophisticated AI tools are already in widespread use and installed in computers, laptops and smartphones. Some of us are using these automatically. However, the more advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can change even reality. For instance, AI can generate videos hardly distinguishable from real ones. What you enjoy watching on YouTube may be just the creations of AI! Some people use AI to write articles; only a few of them admit that they do so. Very soon we may be reading stories AI creates and listening to music, courtesy of AI. Technology seems to be fast becoming the new religion? Or, will the existential threat move us more towards religion?

Religion, perhaps, is as old as humanity itself; various belief systems evolving and disappearing coupled with the fortunes of the associated civilizations. Just like AI, religion is also a creation of the human mind which our ancestors did to explain many phenomena which appeared, at that time, to be supernatural. Starting with Animism, perceiving the divine in the natural world around, humans went on to Polytheism, believing in many gods like in Hinduism, culminating in the concept of Monotheism.

World’s oldest religion, Hinduism, still in wide practice, is devoid of a founder or a single text. The earliest scriptures, Rigveda, is considered to be around 3,500 years old but archaeologists have discovered symbols of importance to Hinduism as far back as 7,000 BCE. Though it is considered to be Polytheistic, it can be argued that it was the precursor of Monotheism, the concept of a creator God, as Brahma was the creator in the triad, Trimurti, Vishnu being the preserver and Shiva being the destroyer. It seems to be a sensible balancing act; create, destroy and repair with improvements.

It is pretty obvious that as science expands, the importance of religion contracts but it is hardly likely religions would be totally redundant. We have no choice as to which family we are born to and that invariably determines what your religion would be, if any. Religion is the first brainwashing a child encounters and most remain in the same faith, often trying to defend even the indefensible, but some change through conviction or conversion due to one of many reasons. Further, religious rituals have social values and religious practices often come to one’s solace at times of distress. Therefore, many will continue with the religion they were born to but with declining enthusiasm, at times. However, some religions seem to be facing problems like falling attendances in places of worship. With education and tech savviness expanding, one would expect the youth to be less enthusiastic about religion but the converse is true in some religions, some youth becoming very militant unfortunately.

While most religions make you subservient to a supernatural power, the Buddha was wise and bold enough to remove those shackles. He proclaimed that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands. However, many Buddhists appear to attach greater significance to rituals than to practising the Dhamma.

Buddhism as a religion may become less relevant as the frontiers of science expands but the Buddha Dhamma, especially Abhidhamma and Vipassana, would receive increasing recognition, the Buddha remaining an authority on consciousness and the mind.

Scientific progress should be for the betterment of society but AI developers are taking huge risks, taking massive loans threatening the world economy, for one aim: profit! Some do not seem to care even if their actions pose an existential threat to humanity.

Perhaps, if the Four Sublime Attitudes (Sathara Brahma Vihara) expounded by the Buddha; loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), empathetic joy (Muditha) and equanimity (Upekkha) are adopted as universal values, the world would become a safer place to live in, with or without AI.

Features

‘The Bullet that Missed’

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 21

by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

Another book that is part of a series, today—one that is fun without the brooding concentration on criminality in different forms that marks the Rebus novels. This one about the Thursday Murder Club, is a romp as its two predecessors were interspersed with deaths and what might be deaths.

The Bullet that Missed

begins with a meeting with the presenter of ‘South East Tonight’, a programme about the area, in which Coopers Chase is situated. The meeting is held because the club has decided to look into the murder of the producer’s assistant, Bethany Waites, whose car was found at the bottom of a cliff ten years ago. There was blood in it, but the body was never found.

Or, rather, the book begins with an account of Bethany Waites deciding, on the night she vanished, to meet someone in connection with a case of massive fraud that she had been investigating, after sending the producer, Mike Waghorn, a message that she had found new evidence though he had no idea what it was. The night she died, she sent him another message: “I don’t say this often enough, but thank you.”

CCTV cameras showed her leaving her place, but then the vehicle vanished, before being sighted near the cliff, with two people in it. Investigation of the fraud had led to the imprisonment of a woman, Heather Garbutt, though it proved impossible to pin anything on Jack Mason, the mastermind for whom she had worked.

The Club conducts investigations on several fronts, including through Connie Johnson, the drug dealer they had helped imprison in the earlier book. The psychiatrist Ibrahim, the most respectable member of the Club, interviews her in an attempt to get her to find out more from Heather, who is in the same prison as she. They also investigate the CCTV record of the night Bethany vanished, and deduce that she went to an apartment block and exited from its other side, and that is why she was not seen leaving the town. But some time had elapsed between her being seen in the town and then on the cliff.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been kidnapped, along with her husband, and taken to a house in Staffordshire, where she is told by a man called the Viking that she must kill a former KGB agent now in London, who has a profitable career in money laundering. The Viking tells her he will inform Viktor that she was responsible for stealing the diamonds, the story of which is told in the previous Murder Club Mystery, and Viktor will then kill her.

Elizabeth, who has an affair with Viktor, knows he will not kill her, but when the Viking says he will also send Viktor a picture of Joyce, she decides she must act, and goes to see Viktor, and fires when she gets him in the bathroom. But, of course, she fired into the ceiling, and Viktor is then taken to Coopers Chase, to stay with Joyce until they have dealt with the Viking. And Viktor then enjoys the camaraderie of the retirement home so much that he wonders whether he too should settle there.

Elizabeth does trace the Viking, or rather her husband does, for he has noticed rare books on the shelves in his library, and an antiquarian book dealer friend managed to find out who bought them. But before they could confront him, he comes to Coopers Chase, for he has seen the bullet hole in the bathroom of Viktor’s flat and realized he was fooled.

But he cannot bring himself to kill Joyce straight away, and she knocks him out with a drug in a cup of tea. When he meets Viktor, they both decide to fall in with the plans of the Club.

Before this, Heather has been found dead in her cell, with a note saying that ‘they’ were going to kill her, and only Connie could help. Before that she had admitted that she was frightened to name the man behind the fraud. Jack Mason said the same, after Ron had won his confidence. The Club had deduced by then that the body was buried in the garden of Heather’s house which Jack had bought, after she had been jailed, and digging reveals a gun and money, but no body. Jack tells them that the mastermind had said that Bethany was buried with a bullet with his DNA on it.

The Club is now working with the Chief Constable of Kent, Andrew Everton, who writes thrillers himself, but in the form of e-books. He is in search of a publisher, and delighted when Mike Waghorn puts him on his programme, as is Donna, who is substituted at the last minute for Chris.

The Club finds out whom Bethany visited in the apartment block—Mike’s assistant Pauline, who tells them later what she and Bethany had been doing. But this is after the man behind the fraud has been unmasked up in the house in Staffordshire, where he was trying to hire the Viking and Viktor to find the money that he had stashed away, using accounts that he could no longer trace. He has also confessed to murdering Bethany, hoping this will persuade the two money launderers to help him, but it turns out that he did not do this. Nor did he kill Heather, the incriminating note having been placed in her room by Connie, who decided that Heather’s suicide should be treated as murder so that the person who had been blackmailing her should be found out.

It was Jack Mason’s murder that was brought home to the crook. It turns out that Bethany, her appearance altered by Pauline, has vanished, to a new life in Dubai, where she has taken control of the missing millions. She has gone there because the threat, she received through the bullet she was looking at in the preamble, was to Mike and she wanted him out of danger.

Yet another whimsical conclusion to a whimsical book with enough loose ends left hanging for another sequel.