Features

Why the world is counting on a Biden victory

Published

4 years ago

2020/11/1

by Krishantha Prasad Cooray

Next week’s presidential election in the United States of America has become a remarkable event on the world stage. It has exposed the dark underbelly of the American political system and left us all wondering whether America, the world’s oldest modern democracy, is indeed still a democracy at all?

Four years ago, America fell to a strongman. Donald Trump took the national stage with masterful control of the media, hijacking a democratic system, bypassing the traditional scrutiny of presidential candidates by hiding his tax returns, silencing people with non-disclosure agreements and controlling the narrative about his political opponent.

By the measure of an election in any normal democracy, he failed, garnering 2,868,686 fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, a margin of 2.23%. To put that margin in a context that Sri Lankans would understand, Ranil Wickremasinghe lost the 2005 presidential election in Sri Lanka by a narrower margin of only 1.86%. However, under the American system, it is the combination of states you win in the Electoral College that counts, not the number of votes, and Donald Trump became president as a result.

For decades, the battle for the right to vote has been a feature of American politics. Politicians and judges they have appointed frequently succeed in preventing minority groups, young voters or others from voting, and have found ways to have their ballots excluded from the final tally. On more than one occasion, the politicized American Supreme Court has sided with these efforts, further divorcing the American political system from what we in Sri Lanka understand as democracy.

Indeed, we can take pride in our own system. For all the political turmoil that our country has suffered in 72 years as an independent democracy, no one barring the LTTE has ever tried to deny the franchise to any Sri Lankan constituency or to prevent them from voting. More importantly, it would be unthinkable for Sri Lankan courts to even entertain a case seeking to deny the vote to any group of Sri Lankans.

But what is still unthinkable in little Sri Lanka is now the stated path to victory for Donald Trump’s re-election in America. A president who came to power on a technicality is now seeking to unleash a torrent of technicalities to cling on to power. His acolytes are sabotaging the postal service to scuttle the postal vote, rushing to courts across the country to seek rulings preventing votes from being counted, shutting down polling places in urban areas to make it more difficult for poor people to vote, and adopting a flurry of similar strategies not to increase their own vote count, but to reduce the number of votes counted for their opponent.

To those of us who treasure democracy and the institutions that defend it, there is solace to be found in the fact that Donald Trump is the first incumbent American President running for reelection who has not been endorsed by living former Presidents in his own party. Lifelong institutionalists in his Republican party, from former Speaker Paul Ryan to the late Senator John McCain, disavowed him. McCain went so far as to request that Trump not be allowed to attend his funeral.

Hundreds of retired senior military, intelligence and law enforcement officials in America have spoken out not just to oppose Donald Trump but to warn that his re-election would pose a grave threat to the national security and integrity of the United States of America.

What America has seen in the last four years is that when strongmen bluster their way into high office on a façade of glitzy propaganda and magical promises, the reality is that they will spend their time in office making excuses as to why they could not get anything done, and insisting that the only way they can deliver what they promised is if they are allowed more time in office. Meanwhile, they chafe at the democratic and institutional safeguards designed to ensure that our rulers are accountable to their people and serve at their mercy.

With Trump’s failure to deliver on his promises, and his catastrophic handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is reason to hope that his defeat will make way for healing America and making its institutions stronger than they were before Trump began his assault. There is a lot of healing to be done.

Ever since World War II, America has marketed itself as the poster-child for democracy on the world stage, even though the fairness of its electoral system has lagged objectively behind those of several other established democracies like Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and the Scandinavian states.

Despite America’s wide inequalities, it is the country’s evolution that is most romantic. Before being elected President, as an opponent of slavery, Abraham Lincoln explained that America’s Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that all men are equal, was not a statement of fact but an aspiration to strive for. The concept of equality, Lincoln said, is one that must be “constantly looked to, constantly laboured for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colours, everywhere.”

Indeed, the American tradition has been to own up to its country’s dark history and aspire to do better. Whether slavery, the treatment of native Americans or other ethnic and religious minorities, the country has openly and gradually strived to evolve into a less racist and xenophobic, and more inclusive and equal nation, all under the glaring eye of one of the most searing and merciless news media environments in the world.

America’s claim to moral authority around the world has come from reconciling its roots in inequality, slavery and other heinous crimes, owning up to them, accepting its present shortcomings, and actively striving to grow with its founding values, while espousing those same values abroad. Democracies that have shared those values or even overtaken America in their implementation have found in the USA a strong and staunch ally who will stand up to autocratic bullying.

This is why Trump’s rejection, deriding and snubbing of democratically elected leaders, and his embracing and enabling of dictators and autocrats, and his encouragement of human rights abuses in his own country and overseas have struck such a serious blow to fragile democracies everywhere. The ideologies of countries like Russia and China depend on people losing faith in the idea of democracy and a free press. They could have no greater champion than an American president who insists American elections are rigged and boasts that he helped a foreign prince get away with murdering and disemboweling a journalist.

So when Mike Pompeo came to Sri Lanka, winked that democracies should stick together, and warned that the Chinese Communist Party is preying on Sri Lanka, his words would ring less hollow if his own party were not so feverishly dismantling and delegitimizing the concept of franchise in his own country. Indeed, he would sound more sincere if President Trump had not just months ago been impeached for “preying” on the democratically elected leaders of Ukraine.

Sri Lanka cannot be credibly lectured on human rights and democracy by a country whose government has for the last four years institutionalized the oppression of minorities, forcibly separated refugees from their children, and laboured to engineer the arrest of journalists and jailing of political opponents. When Trump speaks of autocrats like Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un, he betrays a frustrated envy of these strongmen and how simply they can silence and dispatch their political opponents.

These weaknesses in Trump and his lack of character are the primary reason he is on track to garner far fewer votes than his opponent, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Unlike Trump, whose manicured public image propelled him to fame on a campaign of fear, hate and race-baiting, Joe Biden is someone who has long been known to Americans and the world.

As a leader on the world stage, Biden has championed support for independent institutions in emerging democracies, especially in making judiciaries independent and distancing law enforcement activities from political pressures. All the while, he has made no secret of the fact that he believes his own country has a long way to go in making its own established institutions more inclusive, fair and just.

There is little doubt that Biden will garner more votes this Tuesday, but his opponent has made no secret of his plan to win through an assault on the franchise more akin to those adopted by leaders of failed states than the President of the world’s largest democracy. He has even tarred the independence of the courts, making no secret of his motives when stacking the Supreme Court with judges he believes will deliver him the presidency a second time.

Dictators, strongmen and autocrats around the world are also watching. In a world where such people cling to power not through overt fascism but by putting on the thinnest guise of democracy, it is mana from heaven for them to see an American President boast of rigging the US Supreme Court to stay in power. If Trump succeeds, they will only be inspired and emboldened to employ similar strategies to stifle the democratic will of their own people. If they see one candidate win millions more votes in America, only to have their victory overturned by a politically stacked court, they will see a blueprint for how they too can cling to power until the end of their days.

When George W. Bush was declared president in 2000 by the Supreme Court stopping the counting of votes in Florida, three key lawyers on his legal team were John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. All three are now Justices on the US Supreme Court, who may soon be asked to choose whether the next President of their country will be their “party man” or the man who won the most votes.

Those Republicans in America who seek to use a politicized Supreme Court to prioritize keeping Trump in power over the founding principles of their nation would do well to examine the events that led to the founding and rise of their own political party. The Republican party in America came together after 1854 by bringing together a growing number of American politicians whose opposition to slavery left them without a party that reflected their political ideology.

As the party and its philosophy garnered traction and it became clearer that a clear majority of Americans were opposed to slavery, it was the opportunistic president James Buchanan and politically motivated Chief Justice Roger Taney who colluded to deliver a 7-2 judgment of the Supreme Court that declared that those of African descent were sub-human and thus must be treated as property all across the United States.

The barbarism of this move and its aftermath played no small role in the election of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, in 1860. The question of freedom and who deserved to be free so charged American politics that his opponents tried to kill him before he took office, and soon drove the United States into a civil war. That war was won by those who stood on the principle that freedom and equality were the inalienable rights of all human beings. The world in the 1860s was not remotely as interconnected as it is today. The telephone had not yet been invented, and news traveled across the world no faster than a ship could sail the sea.

Today, the eyes of the world are on the American voters and American institutions. Dictators, strongmen and autocrats around the world have had an easy time of the last four years, finding their actions more legitimized by the United States than chastised, while journalists, rights advocates and those who stand for the rule of law have often found themselves isolated in every corner of the world.

If a Biden electoral victory is suppressed by discounting votes and overruling the will of the American people, the path will be cleared for every ruler who seeks to govern without the consent of those they govern to follow America’s example, and craft policies and institutions that cement their power. Such counties will then join America as politically apartheid states, democracies only in name.

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Features

Tariffs as business deals?

Published

9 hours ago

2025/04/23

Sahan Weerasooriya

From White House to Wall Street:

I am going to examine the financial market repercussions of President Donald Trump’s 2025 tariff policies, focusing on equities, bonds, derivatives, and interest rates. It explores how asymmetric information and alleged insider trading influenced market dynamics, highlighting the challenges posed to market integrity and investor confidence.

In 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration implemented a series of tariffs targeting major trading partners, including China, Canada, and Mexico. These policies aimed to protect domestic industries but resulted in significant volatility across global financial markets. The sudden shifts in trade policy introduced uncertainty, affecting various asset classes and raising concerns about the exploitation of insider information.

In response to escalating market turmoil and international pressure, President Trump announced a 90-day deferral on certain tariffs, via social media on April 9, 2025. However, the announcement’s ambiguity led to continued market instability.

Pre-Tariff Market Conditions

(February 2025)

In February 2025, US financial markets were experiencing relative stability. The S&P 500 was trading near record highs, buoyed by strong corporate earnings and positive economic indicators. Interest rates remained steady, with the 10-year Treasury yield hovering around 3.9%, reflecting moderate inflation expectations and a balanced economic outlook. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), a measure of market volatility, was subdued, indicating investor confidence.

Impact on Financial Markets

Equities and Traditional Investment Strategies

The announcement of tariffs led to a sharp decline in US stock markets. Major indices, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite, experienced significant losses, with the Nasdaq entering bear market territory after a 5.82% drop. The traditional 60/40 investment strategy, allocating 60% to equities and 40% to bonds, proved ineffective during this period, as both asset classes suffered losses due to rising bond yields and falling stock prices (Figure 1).

Market Indices (S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow Jones): Major crashes occurred on April 3–4, 2025, following the tariff imposition. Slight recovery or stabilisation followed Trump’s deferral tweet on April 9, but markets dipped sharply again on April 10 (Table 1).

Market Reaction to Tariff Imposition

(April 2–5, 2025)

* April 3, 2025: The S&P 500 plummeted by 4.88%, the Nasdaq Composite fell by 5.97%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by 3.98%. The Russell 2000 entered bear market territory, dropping over 20% from its recent peak.

* April 4, 2025: Markets continued their downward trajectory. The S&P 500 fell an additional 5.97%, the Nasdaq Composite decreased by 5.82%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 5.50%.

* April 5, 2025: The newly imposed tariffs officially took effect, further exacerbating market volatility and investor uncertainty.

* Over this period, US stock markets lost approximately $6.6 trillion in value, marking the largest two-day loss in history.

Market Response to Tariff Deferral

(April 9–11, 2025)

* April 10, 2025: Despite the deferral, the S&P 500 declined by approximately 15%, and long-term Treasury bonds faced significant selling pressure. The US dollar weakened, and gold prices surged as investors sought safe-haven assets.

* April 11, 2025: Consumer sentiment plummeted, with the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropping to 50.8, the second-lowest level since records began in 1952. This decline reflected widespread economic pessimism amid the ongoing trade tensions.

Bond Market and Interest Rates

The bond market reacted to the tariffs with increased yields, reflecting investor concerns about inflation and economic growth. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.358%, indicating expectations of higher interest rates. This rise in yields contributed to the decline in bond prices, further challenging traditional investment strategies.

10-Year Treasury Yield: Climbed steadily from 3.9% to 4.358% (April 2–21), suggesting increased inflation expectations and risk premium. The bond market experienced significant fluctuations during this period. Therefore, investors demanded higher returns for perceived increased risk. This rise in yields indicated expectations of higher inflation and potential economic slowdown due to the tariffs. (Table 2).

Derivatives and Market Volatility

The derivatives market, including options and futures, experienced heightened volatility in response to tariff announcements. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), often referred to as “Wall Street’s fear index,” spiked to its highest level since 2020, closing at 45.31 points. This surge in volatility presented both risks and opportunities for investors, particularly those with access to timely information.

VIX Volatility Index: Rose from 19 on April 2 to a peak of 45.31 on April 4, indicating extreme market fear. The VIX spiked to 45.31, its highest level since 2020, indicating heightened market anxiety (Table 3).

Asymmetric Information and Insider Trading Allegations

Allegations of insider trading emerged during the tariff saga, highlighting concerns about asymmetric information. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene faced scrutiny for stock transactions made shortly before tariff announcements, including purchases in companies like Amazon and Tesla, and the sale of Treasury bills. While Greene denied insider knowledge, the timing of these trades raised questions about the potential exploitation of non-public information (The Times, 2025).

Additionally, unusual trading patterns in S&P 500 futures preceding major policy shifts suggested possible insider activity. Although direct evidence linking these trades to White House insiders remains inconclusive, the patterns underscore the challenges in detecting and preventing insider trading in policy-driven markets (Los Angeles Times, 2025).

Tariff Decisions as Business Deals

While tariffs are typically seen as instruments of trade policy aimed at protecting domestic industries or rebalancing trade deficits, the Trump administration’s 2025 tariff imposition and abrupt deferral appear less rooted in strategic policy and more akin to short-term market manipulations. These decisions unfolded not through institutional processes or legislative debates, but rather through presidential tweets and sudden reversals, strongly suggesting a deal-making mindset characteristic of business negotiations rather than public governance.

The Role of Asymmetric Information and Market Elites

Insider trading is traditionally associated with illegal access to non-public corporate information. However, in this case, asymmetric political information—known only to a select few close to power—may have created an opportunity to profit.

Market actors with proximity to decision-makers, or even sophisticated algorithms tied to social media monitoring, could have anticipated the tariff deferral.

Billionaire investors and influencers like Elon Musk, who maintain both financial influence and political access, are often speculated to benefit from such opaque decision-making environments. The quick reversal of tariffs led to a surge in tech stocks, many of which form the core holdings of large institutional investors, hedge funds, and elite entrepreneurs.

For example: The Nasdaq rebounded by 1.5% following the deferral tweet. Options trading volumes spiked on tech-heavy indices, indicating pre-positioning by well-informed actors. Reports from Bloomberg and Reuters noted unusual activity in Tesla call options shortly before the deferral (Reuters, 2025; Bloomberg Markets, 2025).

A Business Deal Mindset

Trump’s own language underscores the deal-making philosophy. The President tweeted that the tariffs were a “strong hand in negotiations” and “paused for talks with China”, using terms more common in corporate boardrooms than diplomatic channels. This rhetoric, combined with the lack of institutional transparency, raises serious concerns about the manipulation of public policy for private gains.

In this light, the administration’s behaviour is not reflective of classical economic policy objectives like comparative advantage or strategic protectionism. Instead, it aligns with the wealth-maximising tactics of a private enterprise, where the aim is to control narrative, timing, and volatility to benefit select stakeholders.

Conclusions

More critically, the Trump tariff saga of 2025 blurs the lines between public policy and private profit. The opacity, erratic timing, and informal communication channels—particularly via presidential tweets—suggest that these were less about coherent trade strategies and more akin to orchestrated business maneuvers. The reactive movements of major indices, coupled with unusual options trading patterns and speculative capital flows, indicate that market elites likely capitalised on volatility, benefiting from privileged access or predictive positioning based on asymmetric information.

This raises serious concerns about market integrity and the ethical boundaries between governance and profiteering. When financial markets are left vulnerable to abrupt and opaque political actions, especially ones lacking institutional oversight, the door opens to manipulation, insider trading, and erosion of public trust.

In sum, the 2025 Trump tariff episode serves as a cautionary tale—one that highlights the dangers of politicising economic policy, the vulnerabilities of global markets to personalised decision-making, and the importance of upholding the foundational principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability in modern financial systems.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT University, Malabe. He is also the author of the “Doing Social Research and Publishing Results”, a Springer publication (Singapore), and “Samaja Gaveshakaya (in Sinhala). The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the institution he works for. He can be contacted at saliya.a@slit.lk and www.researcher.com)

Features

The sea-change after Modi’s visit

Published

10 hours ago

2025/04/23

Sahan Weerasooriya

The cosy relationship between President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is causing concerns, perhaps, for good reasons. The inheritor of the leadership of the party, the JVP, which launched the first insurgency in the modern history of Sri Lanka, way back in 1971 citing ‘Indian expansionism’ as one of the reasons, seems to have undergone a miraculous transformation; it is now cosying up to India. The process started well before the last presidential election, with the astute Indian intelligence sensing which way political winds were blowing in Sri Lanka; AKD was invited as an honoured guest to India, though he did not hold any important position in Sri Lanka. This, no doubt, increased his chances of victory but the bigger beneficiary was India as during that trip AKD showed that he was prepared to reverse the attitude of the JVP towards India. The camaraderie between AKD and Modi has increased, culminating in the latter’s Sri Lanka visit, which Indian media have hailed as a foreign policy success.

Some political commentators have expressed concern that Sri Lanka is heading towards being the 29th state of India. Those in government may attempt to dispel this as a baseless fear but, unfortunately, they fail to realise that it is the very actions of their president that has given rise to such concerns, the way Indo-Lanka Defence MoU/agreement was signed during the recent visit of the Prime Minister Modi. One may wonder why there are no protests but there is a very reasonable explanation for this; those who mounted repeated protests against closer ties with India, from as far back as 1971, are now in government and seem to have metamorphosed to be the most pro-Indian!

During the recent ‘flying’ state-visit of the Indian PM Modi, a large number of MOUs have been signed, including the one on defence corporation, the contents of which are unknown, apparently even to the members of the Cabinet! How come this happens with a government that came to power on the promise of eradicating corruption, establishing transparency, and system change? Neville Ladduwahetty, in an excellent analysis, points out that this agreement would result in Sri Lanka becoming, at least, a vassal state of India (Sri Lanka-India MoUs and their implications, The Island 18 April).

Some of the excuses being doled out are nothing short of hilarious. When questions were raised in parliament about the contents of these MOUs and pacts, the response from a government spokesman was that if anyone is interested, they can obtain details by making a request under the Rights to Information act! Isn’t this the actions of a government which has lost all semblance of transparency in such a short period of time? An even more important question is whether India is exploiting the lack of experience of the politicians in power to its advantage.

One may wonder whether it was a coincidence that this extremely important and closely guarded defence pact was signed on 5 April, 54 years to the very day the JVP launched its first insurrection in Sri Lanka with the rallying-cry, “Motherland or death”! Considering the sinister ways of India’s operations, at times, it is more likely to be a deliberate and subtle reminder to the NPP/JVP government than a coincidence. What an irony it was for the Sri Lankan President, the heir to the JVP throne, to award the highest honour possible to the Prime Minister of India, a country they detested so much! After his very successful trip, PM Modi flew by helicopter, no doubt, gazing at the remnants of the Ram Sethu bridge, probably dreaming of rebuilding it to connect the 29th state to the mainland!

It is high time the government reassured the public by informing at least the context of the defence pact signed, even if details are withheld for security reasons. If it is not done the credibility of the government would be further eroded. It has already lost its credibility on the promise of honesty and integrity. The former speaker, who had to give up the third highest ranking position in the country as he had misplaced the certificates of his doctorate from a private university in Japan, promised to produce the certificates to clear his name. Enough time has passed for him to get even duplicates but despite the obvious dishonesty, unashamedly, he remains an MP! Is this the cleansing of Diyawannawa they promised?

What is happening regarding the Easter terrorist attack is raising concerns too, as it is being reinvestigated to find a mastermind under the supervision of two retired police officers, who were rewarded with top posts for openly supporting the NPP, despite being found fault for neglect of duty by a committee of Inquiry tasked to investigate the failures leading to that attack. Even if they were wrongly implicated by that committee, they should not be a party to any relevant investigation till their names were cleared. The government has demonstrated the lack of good governance by allowing these two officers to be involved in the investigation and the two officers have demonstrated their total lack of integrity by not removing themselves voluntarily. The current investigation reminds one of the Sinhala saying Horage ammagen pena ahanawa wagei (seek help from a female clairvoyant to catch a thief who happens to be her own son.)

This search for a mastermind, which started with the pronouncements of a previous Attorney-General who has refused, so far, to substantiate his claims took a new turn with the notorious Channel 4 programme based on the testimony of an asylum seeker who has produced fraudulent documents. President Sirisena, long after he left the presidency, claimed to know the mastermind! Anyone with an interest in facts ought to watch the excellent “Hyde Park” interview on Ada Derana with Professor Rohan Gunaratna, an internationally acclaimed authority on counterterrorism. He has interviewed key personnel in ISIS and has studied 337 intelligence reports, both local and international including those from FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol etc. He is of the strong opinion that it was an attack masterminded by ISIS and there is no basis, whatsoever, to consider it to be politically motivated. However, he did not address the issue of whether a foreign nation was masterminded for other reasons.

Attributing a political motivation may suit the government as it has a vested interest. It should not be forgotten that the father of two of the bombers, one of them the leader, was a prominent financial backer of the JVP whose name was on its national list.

The other theory advanced by some is that India’s RAW may be behind the attack, the reasons given being that RAW gave exactingly detailed intelligence regarding the attacks and that the attack on Taj Samudra was aborted, at the last moment, due to a mysterious telephone call the bomber received.

Adding fuel to the fire of speculation is the latest action of AKD. His much-promised exposure of the mastermind on 21 April turned out to be a pus wedilla! The country waited eagerly, but all he did was to hand over the Presidential Inquiry report to the CID, contrary to the recommendation of the commission that it be handed over to the Attorney General for action!

Hasn’t there been a sea-change after PM Modi’s visit?

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Features

RuGoesWild: Taking science into the wild — and into the hearts of Sri Lankans

Published

1 day ago

2025/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

Visiting Komodo

At a time when misinformation spreads so easily—especially online—there’s a need for scientists to step in and bring accurate, evidence-based knowledge to the public. This is exactly what Dr. Ruchira Somaweera is doing with RuGoesWild, a YouTube channel that brings the world of field biology to Sri Lankan audiences in Sinhala.

“One of my biggest motivations is to inspire the next generation,” says Dr. Somaweera. “I want young Sri Lankans to not only appreciate the amazing biodiversity we have here, but also to learn about how species are studied, protected, and understood in other parts of the world. By showing what’s happening elsewhere—from research in remote caves to marine conservation projects—I hope to broaden horizons and spark curiosity.”

Unlike many travel and wildlife channels that prioritise entertainment, RuGoesWild focuses on real science. “What sets RuGoesWild apart is its focus on wildlife field research, not tourism or sensationalised adventures,” he explains. “While many travel channels showcase nature in other parts of the world, few dig into the science behind it—and almost none do so in Sinhala. That’s the niche I aim to fill.”

Excerpts of the Interview

Q: Was there a specific moment or discovery in the field that deeply impacted you?

“There have been countless unforgettable moments in my 20-year career—catching my first King cobra, discovering deep-diving sea snakes, and many more,” Dr. Somaweera reflects. “But the most special moment was publishing a scientific paper with my 10-year-old son Rehan, making him one of the youngest authors of an international peer-reviewed paper. We discovered a unique interaction between octopi and some fish called ‘nuclear-forager following’. As both a dad and a scientist, that was an incredibly meaningful achievement.”

Saltwater crocodiles in Sundarbans in Bangladesh, the world’s largest mangrove

Q: Field biology often means long hours in challenging environments. What motivates you to keep going?

“Absolutely—field biology can be physically exhausting, mentally draining, and often dangerous,” he admits. “I’ve spent weeks working in some of the most remote parts of Australia where you can only access through a helicopter, and in the humid jungles of Borneo where insects are insane. But despite all that, what keeps me going is a deep sense of wonder and purpose. Some of the most rewarding moments come when you least expect them—a rare animal sighting, a new behavioural observation, or even just watching the sun rise over a pristine habitat.”

Q: How do you balance scientific rigour with making your work engaging and understandable?

“That balance is something I’m constantly navigating,” he says. “As a scientist, I’m trained to be precise and data-driven. But if we want the public to care about science, we have to make it accessible and relatable. I focus on the ‘why’ and ‘wow’—why something matters, and what makes it fascinating. Whether it’s a snake that glides between trees, a turtle that breathes through its backside, or a sea snake that hunts with a grouper, I try to bring out the quirky, mind-blowing parts that spark curiosity.”

Q: What are the biggest misconceptions about reptiles or field biology in Sri Lanka?

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that most reptiles—especially snakes—are dangerous and aggressive,” Dr. Somaweera explains. “In reality, the vast majority of snakes are non-venomous, and even the venomous ones won’t bite unless they feel threatened. Sadly, fear and myth often lead to unnecessary killing. With RuGoesWild, one of my goals is to change these perceptions—to show that reptiles are not monsters, but marvels of evolution.”

Q: What are the most pressing conservation issues in Sri Lanka today?

“Habitat loss is huge,” he emphasizes. “Natural areas are being cleared for housing, farming, and industry, which displaces wildlife. As people and animals get pushed into the same spaces, clashes happen—especially with elephants and monkeys. Pollution, overfishing, and invasive species also contribute to biodiversity loss.”

Manta Rays

Q: What role do local communities play in conservation, and how can scientists better collaborate with them?

“Local communities are absolutely vital,” he stresses. “They’re often the first to notice changes, and they carry traditional knowledge. Conservation only works when people feel involved and benefit from it. We need to move beyond lectures and surveys to real partnerships—sharing findings, involving locals in fieldwork, and even ensuring conservation makes economic sense to them through things like eco-tourism.”

Q: What’s missing in the way biology is taught in Sri Lanka?

“It’s still very exam-focused,” Dr. Somaweera says. “Students are taught to memorize facts rather than explore how the natural world works. We need to shift to real-world engagement. Imagine a student in Anuradhapura learning about ecosystems by observing a tank or a garden lizard, not just reading a diagram.”

Q: How important is it to communicate science in local languages?

“Hugely important,” he says. “Science in Sri Lanka often happens in English, which leaves many people out. But when I speak in Sinhala—whether in schools, villages, or online—the response is amazing. People connect, ask questions, and share their own observations. That’s why RuGoesWild is in Sinhala—it’s about making science belong to everyone.”

‘Crocodile work’ in northern Australia.

Q: What advice would you give to young Sri Lankans interested in field biology?

“Start now!” he urges. “You don’t need a degree to start observing nature. Volunteer, write, connect with mentors. And once you do pursue science professionally, remember that communication matters—get your work out there, build networks, and stay curious. Passion is what will carry you through the challenges.”

Q: Do you think YouTube and social media can shape public perception—or even influence policy?

“Absolutely,” he says. “These platforms give scientists a direct line to the public. When enough people care—about elephants, snakes, forests—that awareness builds momentum. Policymakers listen when the public demands change. Social media isn’t just outreach—it’s advocacy.”

by Ifham Nizam