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Budget 2026: The Emperor’s new clothes

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4 months ago

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There’s an old saying in politics: it’s easier to criticize from the opposition benches than to govern from the cabinet. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s 2025 & 2026 budget presentations have proven this adage with stunning, almost theatrical precision. What we witnessed was not merely disappointing policy documents, they were masterclass in political amateurism, economic illiteracy, and brazen historical revisionism that should alarm every serious observer of Sri Lankan governance.

Audacious attempt

Let’s begin with the most glaring intellectual fraud: AKD’s audacious attempt to claim credit for economic stabilization he actively sabotaged. As an opposition politician, he was the loudest voice denouncing the IMF program as a “sellout of national sovereignty” and a “neo-colonial agreement.” He mobilized protests, inflamed public anger, and positioned himself as he stood firmly against the very cost-cutting, revenue focused and foreign reserves building policies that later helped save Sri Lanka from complete economic collapse.

Now, as President, he speaks solemnly of guiding “complex negotiations” to completion, as if he were the architect rather than the arsonist. This isn’t political evolution; it’s political amnesia of the most cynical variety. The IMF Extended Fund Facility that stabilized our foreign reserves, the debt standstill that preserved our scant remaining dollars, the painful tax reforms that rebuilt government revenue, every single pillar of our current stability was constructed by the Wickremesinghe administration while AKD threw rhetorical Molotov cocktails from the sidelines.

To now claim stewardship of this recovery is like a man who spent years vandalizing a bridge suddenly demanding applause for finally allowing people to cross it. It reveals something far more troubling than ordinary political opportunism, it suggests a leader fundamentally disconnected from the consequences of his own words and actions.

The highway hypocrite’s

new road map

When the budget speech turned to infrastructure, it delivered one of its most puzzling moments, full of contradictions that left many scratching their heads. Here was a man whose political party built its reputation on obstructing every major development project in recent memory, filing fundamental rights cases against the Central Expressway, leading protests against Port City, framing highways as “corrupt, debt-trapping ventures that served only the elite to transport Embul Thiyal” (of course corruption not only on highways but also on Nelum kuluna, Mattala airport, Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium Weerawila, without matches, etc., in previous governments by SLPP and UNP as well, should be handled separately), now waxing poetic about connectivity and the economic potential of national infrastructure.

This is not merely hypocrisy; it’s historical theft. The JVP’s legacy on infrastructure is one of delay, increased costs, and mindless obstructionism dressed up as environmental concern or anti-corruption zeal. Engineers and project managers spent more time in courtrooms defending legitimate projects than they did on construction sites, thanks to the very party AKD led.

Now he stands before us as a modernizer? A builder? He’s neither. He’s a squatter who moved into a completed house and is pointing at the foundation claiming he mixed the cement. The sheer audacity would be impressive if it weren’t so insulting to the intelligence of anyone with a functional memory.

Amateur hour on fiscal policy

Beyond the historical revisionism, the actual policy content of the budget reveals a disturbing lack of economic sophistication. The government inherited a clear, IMF-mandated path: achieve a primary surplus of 2.3% of GDP, broaden the tax base, control expenditure, and reform loss-making state enterprises. These aren’t suggestions, their contractual obligations with international creditors.

The budget “appears to be betting on increased revenue from economic growth to fill the gap, a risky strategy that presumes growth will be robust and immediate. That’s not a plan, it’s magical thinking, as he claimed it by himself. These kinds of ideas don’t rescue countries from debt; they push them further in. The IMF demanded “better-targeted social safety nets to reduce fiscal drains,” and instead we got expanded, poorly targeted handouts that directly contradict the program’s core philosophy.

AKD wants the credit for stability without enduring the pain of maintaining it. He wants to be seen as generous to the people while locked into tight spending rules. The result is a budget that satisfies neither the IMF’s demands nor the public’s genuine needs, the worst of both worlds.

The ghost of SOE reform

The budget’s treatment of SOE reform? Vague references to “restructuring” and finding “strategic partners” with no concrete timelines, no financial targets, no clear frameworks, and critically, no mention of depoliticizing board appointments. This is the language of someone who knows what he should do but lacks the spine to do it.

The tax complexity trap

The budget’s approach to taxation reveals the same pattern of intellectual incoherence. While making minor adjustments to tax brackets, the government introduced a “complex array of tax holidays and concessions for specific sectors like technology, agriculture, and exports.” This is precisely backwards.

The IMF program, which AKD now claims to champion, requires simplification and broadening of the tax base. Instead, we ended up with a flood of special exemptions that “creates a complex and non-neutral tax system” that “distorts investment decisions, opens avenues for lobbying and corruption, and ultimately narrows the tax base, the exact opposite of what the IMF program requires.”

This isn’t sophisticated economic policy, it’s the work of someone confusing activity with achievement, someone who thinks complexity equals competence. Any first-year economics student understands that tax neutrality and simplicity are foundations of good policy. But AKD’s budget reads like it was designed by a committee trying to please every special interest that lobbied them.

The broken promise parade

And then there’s the immediate retreat from core campaign promises. AKD rode to power partly on the pledge to “remove the oppressive VAT on essential items” like medicines, educational materials, and food imports. This was his answer to the public’s pain, his differentiation from the “neoliberal” policies he condemned.

The reality? “Minor, symbolic VAT exemptions for a very narrow list of specific goods” while the budget speech emphasized the “critical need to preserve government revenue streams to maintain the primary surplus.” In other words, once in power, the constraints of the IMF program, that program he called neo-colonial, became gospel. The promise-maker became the promise-breaker within months.

This isn’t pragmatism; it’s a bait-and-switch. The public was sold one vision and delivered another, with barely an acknowledgment of the pivot. It demonstrates what happens when populist rhetoric meets fiscal reality: rhetoric dies, but the trust also dies with it.

The transparency deficit

For a nation that recently defaulted on its debt, transparency should be the watchword of every budget presentation. International creditors and domestic investors alike need granular detail on debt restructuring progress, contingent liabilities from SOEs, and the government’s medium-term fiscal strategy.

Instead, we got “a high-level overview of debt obligations” that “lacked granular detail on the progress of restructuring negotiations with commercial and bilateral creditors beyond China.” For someone claiming to be steering the ship, AKD seems remarkably uninterested in showing us the map. This opacity “leaves room for speculation and undermines the market confidence the budget seeks to foster.”

In a properly managed economy, budgets are opportunities to build confidence through disclosure. In AKD’s amateur production, the budget raises more questions than it answers, suggesting either incompetence in communication or deliberate obfuscation, neither of which inspires confidence

Double cab controversy

The NPP government’s procurement of 1,775 brand-new double cab pickup trucks isn’t merely fiscal recklessness; it’s a textbook example of Marxist-Leninist party machinery consolidation masquerading as administrative reform. What we’re witnessing is the JVP’s instinctive reversion to authoritarian patterns of control, patronage distribution, and ideological uniformity that defined every failed socialist experiment of the 20th century.

“Any Car You Want, as Long as It’s a Lada”

Remember the old Soviet joke? Citizens could have any car they wanted, as long as it was a Lada! The JVP government has imported this mentality wholesale. By mandating identical, government-issued vehicles for all representatives, they’re imposing uniformity that has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with control.

This isn’t about transportation logistics. It’s about establishing a visible, material symbol of party dominance, a fleet of identical vehicles, all bearing government plates, all procured through party-controlled processes, all distributed as rewards for political loyalty. In the socialist playbook, such standardization serves dual purposes: it demonstrates state power over individual choice while creating dependency chains that bind recipients to the regime.

The timing exposes the real motive. With local government bodies now dominated by NPP/JVP cadres following recent electoral victories, this massive procurement functions as the material foundation for party entrenchment. These 1,775 vehicles aren’t transportation solutions, they’re instruments of political consolidation, distributed to party cadres across the country, binding them through material dependence on the central apparatus.

This is classic Leninist democratic centralism adapted for 21st-century Sri Lanka: concentrate resources at party headquarters, distribute them as patronage, demand loyalty in return. The double cabs become party property in all but name, with recipients understanding that continued access depends on continued allegiance.

Tender that wasn’t: Rigging for comrades

The procurement process itself reads like a manual on how to fake competition while ensuring predetermined outcomes. The standard 42-day National Competitive Bidding window compressed to 12 days. Eligibility criteria so specific they could name the beneficiaries outright: 10 years of experience, 1,000 vehicles delivered, 10 service centers, Rs. 10 billion turnover, Rs. 50 million security deposit. This isn’t incompetence, it’s competent corruption. The JVP spent decades in opposition studying how power works. Now, they’re applying those lessons with the efficiency of apparatchiks who know exactly what they’re doing. The tender was designed not to find the best value for taxpayers but to channel public money to connected entities while maintaining plausible deniability.

When confronted, the government deploys classic bureaucratic deflection: the Ministry of Public Security claims ignorance, the Treasury points elsewhere, officials become unreachable. This shell game is straight from the authoritarian playbook, diffuse responsibility so thoroughly that accountability becomes impossible.

Fiscal suicide as ideological statement

The economy is deliberately destructive. Under the permit system, government bore only duty exemption costs, essentially foregone revenue. MPs purchased, maintained, insured, and fueled their vehicles. Personal ownership created natural incentives for care and cost-consciousness.

The new system socializes every cost: purchase, maintenance, insurance, fuel, depreciation, bureaucratic overhead, estimated at Rs. 2-3 billion annually beyond the initial Rs. 12.5 billion. This isn’t just wasteful; it’s ideologically driven waste. JVP’s Marxist DNA recoils from private ownership and individual autonomy. It is better to waste billions on centralized control than allow the “bourgeois” efficiency of personal responsibility.

The government’s claim that MPs “exploited” permits by selling them is intellectually fraudulent. If an MP monetized their permit and used alternative transport, they saved taxpayers maintenance and fuel costs. The permit represented the government’s contribution, what MPs did with it was their choice. That’s called individual autonomy, and to Marxists, it’s a bug, not a feature.

Now, taxpayers fund everything while MPs enjoy government transport. We’ve moved from potential individual benefit to guaranteed collective loss. This is socialism in practice: equal distribution of scarcity, inefficiency, and dependence.

The authoritarian creep

The most chilling aspect isn’t financial, it’s philosophical. Democratic pluralism respects that a representative from mountainous terrain might need different transport than one from Colombo. That an MP might prefer a fuel-efficient hybrid over a diesel guzzler. These choices reflect democratic diversity and individual judgment.

The JVP’s “one vehicle fits all” mandate reveals their authoritarian core. Uniformity. Conformity. Central control. When the state dictates even the vehicle you must drive, it signals a broader tendency toward control extending far beyond logistics into political culture itself. This is the Marxist impulse toward totality, the belief that rational planning from the center produces better outcomes than distributed individual choices. Every socialist regime has started here: standardizing the visible, the material, the daily interactions of life, conditioning citizens to accept state dictation as normal.

The 1,775 question: Building the party state

Why exactly 1,775 vehicles? The government’s vague references to “government institutions” don’t withstand scrutiny. Parliament has 225 members. Provincial councils and local bodies add more, but 1,775?

The number makes sense only as party machinery consolidation. With NPP/JVP now controlling local government, these vehicles flow to party cadres at every level, not just elected officials but party operatives, provincial organizers, local committee members.

This is building a party state where material resources flow through party channels, creating dependency networks that strengthen central control. This is textbook Leninist organization: a vanguard party maintaining discipline through material distribution, ensuring loyalty through access to state resources. The double cabs aren’t transportation; they’re the physical infrastructure of single-party dominance.

The road to ruin

Sri Lanka faces resumed debt repayments in 2028 requiring USD 13 billion in foreign reserves. The rupee crisis persists. Revenue surges from import duties are temporary bubbles. In this context, wasting Rs. 12,500+ million on unnecessary vehicles while committing billions more in recurring costs is fiscal suicide.

But for the JVP, ideology trumps economics. Building party infrastructure, demonstrating state power, imposing uniformity, these matter more than fiscal responsibility. This is the socialist calculation: political consolidation now, regardless of economic consequences later.

The people who voted for change deserve better than a fleet of pickup trucks purchased through rigged tenders, financed by their taxes, distributed as party favors. They deserve a government that respects democratic norms, fiscal responsibility, and the principle that public resources belong to the public, not to party machinery.

If this procurement proceeds, it confirms that Sri Lanka has exchanged one corrupt system for another, this time with Marxist characteristics. The double cabs will roll through our streets as mobile monuments to authoritarian creep, fiscal irresponsibility, and the JVP’s transformation from revolutionary opposition to just another party of power, patronage, and control.

That road leads only to ruin, fiscal, political, and moral. The question is whether Sri Lankans will recognize the danger before the consolidation becomes irreversible.

The Verdict: All Hat, No Cattle

The 2026 budget is not a document of reform, it’s a document of retreat disguised as pragmatism, of opportunism masquerading as statesmanship. It represents the collision between campaign fantasy and governing reality, and in that collision, what’s been destroyed is not just a set of promises but the credibility of a leader who appears to believe his own revisionist history.

Economic policy isn’t performance art. The budget reveals a leader out of his depth, surrounded by the very institutions and agreements he spent years undermining, now desperately trying to claim credit for their success while simultaneously diluting their effectiveness with populist gestures.

The greatest danger isn’t that this budget is bad, though it is. The greatest danger is that it reveals a governing philosophy built entirely on political expedience rather than economic principle. When a leader’s positions are infinitely flexible, when his rhetoric today contradicts his rhetoric yesterday without acknowledgment, when claiming credit matters more than creating value, the nation is left confused/lost.

Sri Lanka deserves better than a chameleon in the Finance Ministry. We deserve leaders who remember their own words, who acknowledge the foundations they inherited, and who have the courage to make unpopular decisions when necessary, rather than wrapping retreat in the language of reform.

The emperor’s new budget, like the Emperor’s new clothes, is a fiction sustained only by our collective willingness to pretend we don’t see the naked truth.

by Dr. Chandana Samarawickreme


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Features

We banned phone; we kept surveillance; teenagers noticed

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15 hours ago

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2026/04/1

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THE GREAT DIGITAL RETHINK : PART III OF V

The Teenage Battleground

Secondary school has always been a battlefield of sorts, competing loyalties, volatile friendships, the daily theatre of adolescent identity. But in the past decade it acquired a new and uniquely modern dimension: the smartphone in the pocket, the social media feed refreshing every few minutes, the group chat that never sleeps.

The numbers, when they arrived, were not subtle. PISA 2022 data, drawn from students in over 80 countries, found that around 65 percent of students reported being distracted by their own digital devices in mathematics lessons, and 59 percent said a classmate’s device had pulled their attention away. Students who reported being distracted by peers’ phones scored, on average, 15 points lower in mathematics than those who said it never happened. Fifteen points is not a rounding error. It is a meaningful, measurable, recurring gap that appears consistently across countries with very different education systems.

Governments took notice of the situation. In a pattern that will be familiar to readers of this series, a number of them reached for the most visible, most politically satisfying tool available – the ban in Finland, Sweden, Australia, and France. The UK, in a characteristically chaotic way, involving years of guidance, and pilots, eventually legalised. One by one, secondary schools across the wealthy world have begun confiscating phones at the gate, storing them in pouches, locking them up in boxes, and discovering, somewhat to their own surprise, that this works.

When the Ban Actually Works

A 2025 survey of nearly a thousand principals in New South Wales found that 87 percent reported students were less distracted after the ban was introduced, and 81 percent said learning had improved. South Australia recorded a 63 percent decline in critical incidents involving social media and a 54 percent reduction in behavioural issues. These are striking figures, and they align with what common sense would predict: if you remove the distraction, concentration improves.

What is also emerging from Australian, Finnish and Swedish schools is something less expected and more interesting: the character of break times has changed. Teachers and principals report that when phones disappear from pockets, something older reappears in their place. Students talk to each other. They play. They argue, resolve disputes, make and lose friendships in the ancient, messy, face-to-face way that adolescence has always demanded but that the smartphone had been quietly crowding out. The playground, it turns out, was not broken. It was just occupied.

Sweden’s nationwide policy, coming into effect in autumn 2026, will require schools to collect phones for the full day, not just during lessons. This is the more ambitious intervention, and the one that addresses what the Australian experience has already demonstrated: that the damage done by constant connectivity is not confined to the classroom. It happens at lunch. It happens between periods. It happens in the 10 minutes before the bell when a group of 14-year-olds are supposedly in the building but are actually, in every meaningful sense, somewhere else entirely.

87% of Australian principals said students were less distracted after the ban. The other 13% presumably hadn’t tried it yet.

But Here Is What Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here is the part that the ministers’ press releases do not mention. While the smartphone, the device the student owns, controls and carries, has been banned from the secondary classroom, the institution’s own digital apparatus has been expanding at an impressive pace throughout the same period. Learning management systems now mediate most of secondary school life in high-income countries. Assignments are distributed digitally. Work is submitted digitally. Attendance is recorded digitally. Grades are published on portals that students, parents and administrators can access in real time. The school that bans your personal phone may simultaneously be recording precisely how long you spent on each page of the online reading assignment last Tuesday.

Learning analytics, the practice of harvesting data from student interactions with digital platforms to inform teaching and school management, has moved from a niche research curiosity to a mainstream tool. PISA 2022 data show that virtually all 15-year-olds in OECD countries attend schools with some form of digital infrastructure. Behind that infrastructure sits a layer of data collection that most students and many parents are only dimly aware of: log-in times, click patterns, quiz scores, time-on-task measures, platform engagement metrics. These are assembled into dashboards, fed into algorithms, and used, with genuinely good intentions, in most cases, to identify struggling students early.

The genuinely good intentions do not resolve the underlying problem. Research on learning analytics raises serious concerns about privacy, about the opacity of algorithmic decision-making, and about what happens when a teenager is quietly flagged as ‘at risk’ by a system they never knew was watching. The irony of secondary de-digitalisation is not lost on those paying attention: we have removed the device the student controls, while expanding the systems that observe and score them.

The AI Proctor in the Room

During the pandemic, when exams moved online, a number of education authorities adopted software that monitored students through their webcams, flagging unusual eye movements, background sounds, or the presence of other people in the room as potential signs of cheating. The systems were sold as efficient, scalable and objective. They were, in practice, frequently absurd.

The software flagged students who looked away from the screen to think. It penalised students whose rooms were small, shared or noisy, disproportionately those from less privileged backgrounds. It struggled with students of colour, whose features were less well-represented in the training data. It was contested, appealed, gamed, and eventually abandoned by a significant number of institutions that had initially adopted it with enthusiasm. By 2024 and 2025, the rollback was visible. Universities and some school systems were returning, with minimal fanfare, to supervised in-person examinations, handwritten, on paper, in a room with a human invigilator, partly to solve the AI cheating problem, partly to solve the AI proctoring problem. The wheel had, somewhat dizzingly, turned full circle.

We banned the student’s phone. We kept the webcam that monitors their eye movements during exams. Progress.

The Equity Problem That Bans Cannot Solve

Beneath the headline politics of phone bans lies a more uncomfortable question about who, exactly, benefits from secondary school de-digitalisation, and who pays a cost that is rarely acknowledged. The argument for phone bans on equity grounds is real: unrestricted phone use in schools amplifies social hierarchies. The student with the latest device, the most followers, the most compelling social media presence occupies a different social universe from the student without. Removing phones during the school day levels that particular playing field.

But the equity argument runs the other way, too, once you look beyond school hours. Secondary schools in high-income systems have steadily increased their dependence on digital platforms for homework, assessment preparation and communication. If a school bans phones during the day and then sends students home to complete digitally-mediated assignments, the burden of that homework falls unequally.

There is also the growing phenomenon of what researchers are beginning to call ‘shadow digital education’: the private online tutoring platforms, AI-powered study tools and exam preparation services that affluent families use to supplement and extend what school provides. While secondary schools debate whether students should be allowed to use AI for essay drafts, some of those students’ wealthier peers are already using it, skillfully, privately and with considerable academic advantage. The phone ban, whatever its merits in the classroom, does not touch this market. It may even quietly accelerate it.

Two Worlds, Still Diverging

In Finland, Sweden and Australia, the policy conversation is about how to manage the excesses of a generation that grew up digitally saturated, how to restore concentration, how to protect wellbeing, how to ensure that institutional platforms serve learning rather than merely monitor it.

Elsewhere, across much of Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and parts of the Middle East, the secondary school conversation remains anchored to a different set of concerns: how to get enough devices into enough classrooms, how to train enough teachers to use them, how to ensure that the smartboard contract does not expire before the teachers learn to turn it on. Vendors are present, helpful and commercially motivated. Development banks are funding rollouts. Government ministers are visiting showrooms. The playbook being followed is the one that Finland and Sweden wrote in 2010 and are now revising.

SERIES ROADMAP:

Part I: From Ed-Tech Enthusiasm to De-Digitalisation | Part II: Phones, Pens & Early Literacy | Part III: Attention, Algorithms & Adolescents (this article) | Part IV: Universities, AI & the Handwritten Exam | Part V: A Critical Theory of Educational De-Digitalisation

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A Buddhist perspective on ageing and decay

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15 hours ago

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2026/04/1

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Buddhism is renowned for its profound insights into ageing and decay, known as jara in Pali. Through its teachings and practices, Buddhism cultivates the wisdom and mental clarity necessary to accept and prepare for the inevitability of ageing. The formula jati paccayaā jaraāmaranaṃ translates to “dependent on birth arise ageing and death,” clearly illustrating that birth inevitably leads to ageing and death, accompanied by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Without birth, there would be no ageing and death. Therefore, ageing is a fundamental aspect of suffering as outlined in the Four Noble Truths.

Buddhism encourages us to confront the realities of ageing, illness, and mortality head-on. Old age is recognised as an unavoidable aspect of dukkha (suffering). Old age is fundamentally and inextricably entwined with the concept of impermanence(annicca), serving as the most visible, undeniable evidence that all conditioned things are in a state of flux and decay. Ageing, illness and death create in us an awareness not only of dukkha but also impermanence. The Buddha taught, “I teach suffering and the way out of suffering.” Here, “suffering” encompasses not only physical pain but also the profound discomfort that arises when our attempts to escape or remedy pain stemming from old age are thwarted. Instead of fearing old age, Buddhists are encouraged to embrace it, release attachments to youth, and cultivate wisdom, gratitude, and inner peace.

Ageing is a complex process shaped by both genetic and environmental factors. From a Buddhist viewpoint, we should perceive the body realistically. Fundamentally, the human body can be seen as a vessel of impurities, subject to old age, disease, decay, and death. The natural process of ageing is gradual, irreversible, and inevitable. Every individual must ultimately come to terms with the reality of growing old, as change is an essential fact of life.

In Buddhism, impermanence (anicca) holds a central position. Everything that exists is unstable and transient; nothing endures forever—including our bodies and all conditioned phenomena. Thus, anicca, dukkha, and anattaā (non-self or selflessness) are the three characteristics common to all conditioned existence. The reality of impermanence can often evoke pain, yet a wise Buddhist fully understands and appreciates this simple yet profound truth.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus encapsulated this notion when he stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” Old age was one of the four sights that prompted Prince Siddhartha Gautama to seek enlightenment, alongside sickness, death, and the wandering ascetic. Coming to terms with these aspects of existence was pivotal in his transformation into the Buddha.

At Sāvatthi, King Pasenadi of Kosala once asked the Buddha, “Venerable sir, is there anyone who is born who is free from old age and death?” The Buddha replied, “Great King, no one who is born is free from ageing and death. Even those affluent khattiyas—rich in wealth and property, with abundant gold and silver—are not exempt from ageing and death simply because they have been born.” This interaction underscores the universal challenge of ageing, transcending societal divisions of wealth or status.

Ageing presents one of the greatest challenges in human experience. Physically, the body begins to deteriorate; socially, we may find ourselves marginalised or discounted, sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly. Some may encounter dismissal or condescension. Ageism remains one of the most persistent forms of discrimination. The physical and social difficulties associated with ageism can undermine our self-image and sense of self-worth. Common perceptions often portray old age as a stage where the best years are behind us, reducing the remaining years to a form of “bonus years” frequently presented in sentimental or patronising ways.

The suffering associated with ageing can serve as a powerful motivation to engage in practices that directly address this suffering, allowing us to gradually transform it or, at the very least, make it more bearable and manageable. We must recognise that this principle applies equally to our own bodies. The human body undergoes countless subtle changes every moment from the time you are born, never remaining the same even for two consecutive moments, as it is subject to the universal law of impermanence.

Whatever your age. However young-looking you try to remain through external means, the truth is that you are getting older every minute. Every minute, every second, our lives are getting shorter and closer to death. Since you were conceived in your mother’s womb, your life is getting shorter. We see external things going by rapidly, but never reflect on our own lives. No matter what we do, we cannot fully control what happens in our lives or to our bodies. With time, we all develop lines and wrinkles. We become frail, and our skin becomes thinner and drier. We lose teeth. Our physical strength and sometimes our mental faculties decline. In old age, we are subject to multiple diseases.

Many people live under the illusion that the body remains constant and is inherently attractive and desirable. Modern society, in particular, has become increasingly obsessed with the quest for eternal youth and the reversal of the ageing process. Many women feel inadequate about their physical appearance and constantly think about how to look younger and more attractive. Enormous sums of money are spent on cosmetic procedures, skincare, and grooming products to remain presentable and desirable. The global beauty and cosmetics industries thrive on this ideal, often promoting unrealistic standards of beauty and youthfulness. But no amount of products available in the world can truly restore lost youth, as time inevitably leaves its mark.

Therefore, in Buddhism, mindful reflection on ageing and the human body is considered essential for overall well-being. This contemplation provides insight into impermanence as we navigate life. Reflecting on the nature of the body—its true condition and its delicate, changing state—is a fundamental aspect of the Buddha’s teachings. By understanding the body accurately, we support both wisdom and peace of mind.

Buddhism recognises forty subjects of meditation which can differ according to the temperaments of persons. Contemplation of the human body is one of them. Of all the subjects of meditation, reflection on the human body as a subject is not popular among certain people particularly in the western world as they think such contemplation would lead to a melancholic morbid and pessimistic outlook on life. They regard it as a subject that may be somewhat unpleasant and not conducive to human wellbeing. Normally, people who are infatuated and intoxicated with sensual pleasures develop an aversion towards this subject of meditation. In Buddhism this mode of contemplation is called asuba bhavana or mindfulness of the impurities of the body. It is all about our physiology and individual body parts and organs internal as well as external. This subject of meditation is unique to the Buddhist teachings.

To appreciate the body as it truly is, we must set aside preconceived notions and engage in a calm and honest inquiry: Is this body genuinely attractive or not? What is it composed of? Is it lasting or subject to decay?

In embracing the teachings of Buddhism, we find the wisdom to navigate the journey of ageing with grace, transforming our understanding of this natural process into an opportunity for growth and acceptance.

When our fears centre on ageing, decay, and disease, we cannot overcome them by pretending they do not exist. True relief comes only from facing these realities directly.

Reflecting on the body’s unattractive and impermanent nature can help us gain a realistic perspective. In an age when the mass media constantly bombards people with sensual images, stimulating lust, greed, and attachment, contemplation of the body’s true nature can bring calm and clarity.

All beings that are born must eventually die. Every creature on earth, regardless of status, shares this common fate. After death, the body undergoes a series of biological changes and decomposes, returning to the earth as organic matter. It is part of the earth and ultimately dissolves back into it.

Understanding this, we can meet ageing, decay, and death with greater wisdom, less fear, and a deeper sense of peace.

by Dr. Justice Chandradasa Nanayakkara

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Partnering India without dependence

Published

2 days ago

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2026/03/31

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President Dissanayake with Indian PM Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again signaled the priority India places on Sri Lanka by swiftly dispatching a shipload of petrol following a telephone conversation with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The Indian Prime Minister’s gesture came at a cost to India, where there have been periodic supply constraints and regional imbalances in fuel distribution, even if not a countrywide shortage. Under Prime Minister Modi, India has demonstrated to Sri Lanka an abundance of goodwill, whether it be the USD 4 billion it extended in assistance to Sri Lanka when it faced international bankruptcy in 2022 or its support in the aftermath of the Ditwah cyclone disaster that affected large parts of the country four months ago. India’s assistance in 2022 was widely acknowledged as critical in stabilising Sri Lanka at a moment of acute crisis.

This record of assistance suggests that India sees Sri Lanka not merely as a neighbour but as a partner whose stability is in its own interest. In contrast to Sri Lanka’s roughly USD 90 billion economy, India’s USD 4,500 billion economy, growing at over 6 percent, underlines the vast asymmetry in economic scale and the importance of Sri Lanka engaging India. A study by the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy identifies Sri Lanka as the second most vulnerable country in the world to severe food price surges due to its heavy reliance on imported energy and fertilisers. Income per capita remains around the 2018 level after the economic collapse of 2022. The poverty level has risen sharply and includes a quarter of the population. These indicators underline the urgency of sustained economic recovery and the importance of external partnerships, including with India.

It is, however, important for Sri Lanka not to abdicate its own responsibilities for improving the lives of its people or become dependent and take this Indian assistance for granted. A long unresolved issue that Sri Lanka has been content to leave the burden to India concerns the approximately 90,000 Sri Lankan refugees who continue to live in India, many of them for over three decades. Only recently has a government leader, Minister Bimal Rathnayake, publicly acknowledged their existence and called on them to return. This is a reminder that even as Sri Lanka receives support, it must also take ownership of its own unfinished responsibilities.

Missing Investment

A missing factor in Sri Lanka’s economic development has long been the paucity of foreign investment. In the past this was due to political instability caused by internal conflict, weaknesses in the rule of law, and high levels of corruption. There are now significant improvements in this regard. There is now a window to attract investment from development partners, including India. In his discussions with President Dissanayake, Prime Minister Modi is reported to have referred to the British era oil storage tanks in Trincomalee. These were originally constructed to service the British naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. In 1987, under the Indo Lanka Peace Accord, Sri Lanka agreed to develop these tanks in partnership with India. A further agreement was signed in 2022 involving the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation to jointly develop the facility.

However, progress has been slow and the project remains only partially implemented. The value of these oil storage tanks has become clearer in the context of global energy uncertainty and tensions in the Middle East. Energy analysts have pointed out that strategic storage facilities can provide countries with greater resilience in times of supply disruption. The Trincomalee tanks could become a significant strategic asset not only for Sri Lanka but also for regional energy security. However, historical baggage continues to stand in the way of Sri Lanka’s deeper economic linkage with India. Both ancient and modern history shape perceptions on both sides.

The asymmetry in size and power between the two countries is a persistent concern within Sri Lanka. India is a regional power, while Sri Lanka is a small country. This imbalance creates both opportunities for partnership and anxieties about overdependence. The present government too has entered into economic and infrastructure agreements with India, but many of these have yet to move beyond initial stages. This has caused frustration to the Indian government, which sees its efforts to support Sri Lanka’s development as not being sufficiently appreciated or effectively utilised. From India’s perspective, delays and hesitation can appear as a lack of commitment. From Sri Lanka’s perspective, caution is often driven by domestic political sensitivities and concerns about sovereignty.

Power Imbalance

At the same time, global developments offer a cautionary lesson. The behaviour of major powers in the contemporary international system shows that states often act in their own interests, sometimes at the expense of smaller partners. What is being seen in the world today is that past friendships and commitments can be abandoned if a bigger and more powerful country can see an opportunity for itself. The plight of Denmark (Greenland) and Canada (51st state) give disturbing messages. Analysts in the field of International Relations frequently point out that power asymmetries shape outcomes in bilateral relations. As one widely cited observation by Lord Parlmeston, a 19th century prime minister of Great Britain is that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” While this may be an overly stark formulation, it captures an underlying reality that small states must navigate carefully.

For Sri Lanka, this means maintaining a balance. It needs to clearly acknowledge the partnership that India is offering in the area of economic development, as well as in education, connectivity, and technological advancement. India has extended scholarships, supported digital infrastructure, and promoted cross border links that can contribute to Sri Lanka’s long term growth. These are tangible benefits that should not be undervalued. At the same time, Sri Lanka needs to ensure that it does not become overly dependent on Indian largesse or drift into a position where it functions as an appendage of its much larger neighbour. Economic dependence can translate into political vulnerability if not carefully managed. The appropriate response is not to distance itself from India, but to broaden its partnerships. Engaging with a diverse range of countries and institutions can provide Sri Lanka with greater autonomy and resilience.

A hard headed assessment would recognise that India’s support is both genuine and interest driven. India has a clear stake in ensuring that Sri Lanka remains stable, prosperous, and aligned with its broader regional outlook. Sri Lanka needs to move forward with agreed projects such as the Trincomalee oil tanks, improve implementation capacity, and demonstrate reliability as a partner. This does not preclude it from actively seeking investment and cooperation from other partners in Asia and beyond. The path ahead is therefore one of balanced engagement. Sri Lanka can and should welcome India’s partnership while strengthening its own institutions, fulfilling its domestic responsibilities, and diversifying its external relations. This approach can transform a relationship shaped by asymmetry into one defined by mutual benefit and confidence.

by Jehan Perera

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