Features

Dire Predictions, Karmic Quirks, Solheim’s Return and Ranilnomics

Published

3 years ago

2022/10/16

by Rajan Philips

The Sri Lankan political class has a ‘measurement problem’ with the economic crisis in the country. Political leaders and organizations, specifically the current parliament, seem to be lacking in competence to come to terms with the magnitude of the current economic problem. This failure manifests itself in the same-old-same-old ways in which parliament is conducting itself, and in the President’s facile optimism that although the crisis is grave, the country has in him the man who is capable of overcoming it. The assumption, or even the fact, that Ranil Wickremesinghe is the only one in parliament who has a measure of the problem does not by itself reduce the magnitude of the problem or renders its solution any easier.

The inability to grasp the magnitude of the problem invariably leads to superficial responses, both internally and externally. The optimism on the external front involves the assumption that all the external support mechanisms to overcome the economic crisis will eventually and somehow fall into place. It is only a matter of time. So, give some time and slack to the President. If only the realities were so simple! Cabinet ministers and a good majority of MPs seem to be taking it for granted that the IMF agreement, China’s concessions, the overall restructuring of debt payments, and the reopening of channels for new FDI inflows – all these will somehow start happening.

Dire Predictions

This level of optimism is contrary to the global reality which in every sense involves a highly divided, dog-eat-dog world in which it is already a struggle for Sri Lanka to get the attention and priority it desperately needs. That desperation is not sinking into the heads of cabinet ministers and MPs who are waiting to become ministers. Again, the assumption, or even the fact, that in President Wickremesinghe Sri Lanka has a leader who can reach out and get help from any country in the world does not necessarily mean that help is on the way, in double quick time, and in amounts that help is needed at any given time.

Add to this the dire predictions about a global economic downturn for 2023, and the specific warning in the IMF’s biannual World Economic Outlook released last Tuesday. that “the worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession.” Sri Lanka’s situation, by any measurement, is worse than a recession. And releasing the Outlook report, the IMF’s director of research, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas offered this admonition about low-income countries: “Too many low-income countries are in or close to debt distress. Progress towards orderly debt restructurings through the Group of Twenty’s Common Framework for the most affected is urgently needed to avert a wave of sovereign debt crisis. Time may be soon running out.”

Sri Lanka is well past the point of aversion. Its debt restructuring talks are virtually stalled over the impasse involving the debt owed to China. This week Washington is hosting the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank attended by finance officials and central bankers from around the world. How is Sri Lanka going to be prioritized in this climate? State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe is providing ministerial representation for Sri Lanka at the Washington meetings. This is the pathetic level at which Sri Lanka’s economic literacy is being exhibited at world gatherings of finance ministers and experts. Not to be outdone at home, the full Cabinet of Ministers reportedly decided to have Sri Lanka formally downgraded from middle-income status to low-income status. It was left to the much learned Minister Bandula Gunawardana to make the announcement on behalf of the cabinet, only to have it shot down almost immediately by the President’s Media Division. Perhaps one might feel sorry for the President in all this, but then again all of this including the cabinet is his own making.

Karmic Quirks

For his part, the President addressed parliament again on October. When I read the Sunday Island’s editorial last week on the President’s statement to parliament and its banner-coverage by the Daily News, I could not help chuckling how the wheels of political karma have turned over the last fifty years. That is a long time in politics by any measure, but here we have the Lake House papers that were nationalized by an SLFP-led government in 1973 to rebuke the Wijewardenas and the Wickremesinghes, now feting the grandson of DR Wijewardena and the son of Esmond Wickremesinghe, who is also Sri Lanka’s most fortuitous, but not quite fortunate, Head of State and Head of Government.

There was another karmic quirk that occurred recently, figuring Tiran Alles, who was the alleged mastermind behind the equally alleged arrangement between the LTTE and Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2005 presidential election that led to the infamous fatwa that stopped Tamils in the North and East from voting and precipitated the defeat of Ranil Wickremesinghe by the narrowest of margins. That was then, and now Tiran Alles as Minister of Public Security is said to have misled President Wickremesinghe into signing the abominably extraordinary gazette on High Security Zones. The gazette has been withdrawn and the President’s supporters have blamed the Minister and the over-zealous Defense Secretary for the gazette misadventure. But that does not wholly absolve the President, for he should have known better without asking for the Attorney General’s opinion and he should be held responsible for appointing and/or retaining the current crop of Ministers and Ministry Secretaries.

All these nuggets would have been great for polemic grinding in ordinary times. But we are not in ordinary times, but extraordinary times. Politics itself is extraordinarily different, and the underlying living experiences of the people are extraordinarily difficult. But the government and the SLPP Ministers and MPs in parliament are not at sensitized to the people’s difficulties and the country’s challenges. They have abdicated their responsibilities to the President in return for the President protecting their interests.

In his statement to parliament, the President confessed to being repetitive and said, “I would like to draw your attention to some of the challenges we face today in reviving the collapsed economy” … and insisted that “we have got to consider it over and over again since it would enable us to comprehend the real picture of the situation we are in today.” However, the President did not present in any great detail – what he called “the real picture” of the country’s economy. And to the point of this article, the President’s address was full of words but there were no numbers – either about the severity of Sri Lanka’s debt problems, or about the timelines for their restructuring and repayments. Instead, he papered over the economic crimes of the Rajapaksas, and berated unnamed “groups” for apparently wanting to destroy the economy in order to capture political power.

The return of Solheim

Obviously, the President was having in mind the JVP whom he could not publicly scold after being with the JVP in the yahapalanaya government. His target group of course is the Frontline Socialist Party, which too the President chose not to name, perhaps out of deference to the JVP. Once again, the President reminded the country that he “embarked on this journey taking a huge risk … at a time when no other political party or leader of the opposition would accept this risk” … and requested all parliamentarians “to join a common program to build the country through the National Assembly of Parliament, “Jana Sabhava” which is to be established soon, and Parliamentary Sectoral Committees.”

The President has got himself into a habit of calling, at one moment, all MPs to join him, and then flying off the handle quite immediately and threatening to call a referendum unless parliament acts soon enough according to his timetable, which nobody knows. His latest referendum threat involves the Local Government elections. Few weeks earlier it was all about parliament coming to a consensus about enacting new election laws after sitting on them for nearly ten years. Now out of the blues comes the extraordinary announcement that the President has appointed former Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim as his “International Climate Adviser.”

It is not quite out of the blues when you hear from Mr. Solheim himself, how this appointment came about. According to his email exchange with the Daily Mirror, “My old friend Ranil Wickremesinghe invited me to visit Sri Lanka and asked me to be his International Climate Adviser. I am looking forward to working closely with the President and his great team on how to assist Sri Lanka to find a green pathway out of the economic crisis. Renewable energy, electric mobility, tree planting, green agriculture and ecotourism all offer huge opportunities for jobs and prosperity while taking good care of Mother Earth at the same time.” Is this another turn of the wheel of karma?

Not surprisingly, Mr. Solheim has called “the proposal for a university on climate science in Sri Lanka a brilliant idea,” and noted that “Sri Lanka has a very rich intellectual tradition and can establish a hub for climate science – working closely with other Indian Ocean nations and the rest of the world.” What can you say, except ask, what are friends for? Even when your country is struggling to feed its children. Why did not the President think of appointing Mr. Solheim as his international adviser to prevent malnutrition among Sri Lanka’s children? That would have been a little less indefensible.

Ranilnomics

Through all these distractions, Mr. Wickremesinghe’s ultimate reason for being President is his assumed ability to lead Sri Lanka’s economic recovery. In his many statements since “embarking on this journey taking a huge risk,” first as crisis Prime Minister and now as redeemer President, Ranil Wickremesinghe has been outlining his approach to overcoming Sri Lanka’s economic problems. Dr. W.A Wijewardena, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank and a frequent writer of expert articles on practical economics, has described Mr. Wickremesinghe’s approach in summary as “Ranilnomics.”

Ranilnomics is the Wickremesinghe version of “social market economy policy” that was first tried in postwar Germany. As described by Dr. Wijewardena, it was “an attempt at finding a middle path between pure capitalism and extreme socialism.” Mr. Wickremesinghe has been elaborating on this for some time – first as half-powerful Prime Minister in the yahapalana government and now as all-powerful president in a post-Rajapaksa government. Given Mr. Wickremesinghe’s somewhat long association with ‘social market economy’ (SME) and predating the current economic crisis, the SME approach is not an automatic toolbox with all or most of the tools that might be appropriate for use in the current situation.

In fact, there is no such ready made toolbox, but there are enough economists in Sri Lanka who would be able to provide consistent advice to the government. The President has occasionally referred to experts offering voluntary advice and support to him and to the government. If so, why is it that their involvement is not made public or channeled through formal institutional arrangements? Ever since public protests broke out against the Rajapaksa regime, expectations arose that outside experts would be brought into parliament and cabinet through the National List avenue. The JVP and some of the opposition parties were prepared to sacrifice their MPs to create openings for outside experts to enter parliament and then the cabinet. Of course, that would be anathema to SLPP MPs.

But why has not the President done anything to bring in outside experts as MPs and make them ministers? Instead, there is Shehan Semasinghe, State of Minister of Finance, doing the honours for Sri Lanka at the IMF and the World Bank in Washington. There is Bandula Gunawardene always talking out of turn in Colombo, and the whole cabinet seriously deciding to formally downgrade Sri Lanka from middle-income status to low income status. In all the reporting of interventions by other countries and international agencies, there seems to be an emerging focus on helping vulnerable sections meeting their basic needs and helping children avoid malnutrition.

There might be financial and material support to prevent severe food shortages and malnutrition, but no easy way out for the government to get an IMF agreement on track and to reach agreement on a debt restructuring package. That would be just rewards for a government that in spite of having a new President has learnt nothing and forgotten everything from the exit passage of the Rajapaksa family. Unfortunately, the people will have to suffer collateral damages but they will have their turn, hopefully sooner than later, to vote the present rascals out and elect a new parliament that will have credibility both within and outside the country.

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Features

Easter truth can be the beginning

Published

30 mins ago

2025/07/15

Sahan Weerasooriya

Bimal Rathnayake

There has long been speculation that the Easter bombing of April 2019 had a relationship to Sri Lankan politics. The near simultaneous bombings of three Christian churches and three luxury hotels, with a death toll of 270 and over 500 injured, by Muslim suicide bombers made no sense in Sri Lanka where there has been no history of conflict between the two religions. But a political motivation was suspected on the basis of who would be the beneficiary of an otherwise senseless crime. The bombing immediately discredited the government in power at that time, saw the nomination of the opposition presidential candidate soon after, and paved the way for the crushing defeat of the government at the national elections that followed in a few months.

In Parliament last week, Leader of the House Bimal Ratnayake revealed a political strategy to create the conditions for the change of government that took place. His remarks corresponded to suspicions that the attack was not just a failure of intelligence, but the result of deliberate manipulation by those in the political sphere. What is new is that these suspicions are now being stated clearly and officially at the highest level of government. Minister Ratnayake said, “They started this in 2013 by creating and maintaining Sinhala and Muslim extremist groups through intelligence agencies. The culmination of this was similar to the Cambridge Analytica incident.”

The Cambridge Analytica scandal involved the unauthorised harvesting of personal data from millions of Facebook users to build psychological profiles and micro-target voters for political purposes. The data harvested by Cambridge Analytica was used primarily to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favour of Donald Trump and the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK. The company also allegedly worked on elections in Kenya, Nigeria, India, Trinidad and Tobago, and several other countries, using psychographic profiling and targeted digital ads to manipulate voter behaviour.

Cardinal’s Consistency

If the allegations about the Easter attacks prove true, they would constitute one of the most unprincipled examples of violence being used for political purposes in Sri Lanka’s post-war period. To use fear, death, and destruction to pave the way for a political return is totally unacceptable and without conscience. What makes the current moment different from earlier efforts to deal with such unacceptable actions is that there now appears to be political will. There is a sense that the present government is committed to follow through with investigations, even if the implications reach to the highest levels of power.

It is significant that the government has taken the controversial step of reappointing retired officers Shani Abeysekera and Ravi Seneviratne, both of whom were known to be top class police investigators who were removed from the investigation process by previous governments, to once again lead the investigations. They are both controversial in that they briefly joined the government side’s political stage during the last presidential election campaign. Minister Ratnayake justified their reappointment on the grounds that Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith made the request. It is in this context that the current government’s willingness to act gains it credibility with the Catholic community, which bore the brunt of the attacks.

The role of the Catholic Church and Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith in consistently pushing for accountability in the Easter Sunday case is commendable. From the outset, the Cardinal was a vocal advocate for justice for the victims of the bombing. His calls for transparency, a credible investigation, and the identification of those truly responsible have been persistent and unwavering. Over the years, previous government leaders made promises to find the culprits and masterminds in response to this pressure which the Cardinal publicly welcomed. But those assurances, like many others before them, did not materialise in the form of tangible outcomes.

Ending Impunity

Progress in the investigation of the Easter bombings comes at a time when the government has already made forward movement in pursuing economic accountability. High-profile arrests and legal actions against formerly powerful politicians for corruption are being carried out in a way never witnessed before. For many decades, impunity has been the practice in government at the highest levels. Economic crimes and political violence in which the protagonists were suspected to be of government-origin were pursued only half-heartedly in the past. Charges were often framed, suspects were taken into custody, but invariably the process broke down mid-way and the suspects were released. This time around those who have been charged have had their cases taken to court where they have been given exemplary sentences.

In the case of the Easter bombing, the testimony of survivors and the documentation of intelligence failures are now being brought back into the spotlight. Investigations into key actors, including the alleged role of former paramilitaries turned politicians like Pillayan show that this is no longer a nominal exercise. The challenge for the government is to ensure that this momentum does not wane. The legal and institutional frameworks need to be allowed to function without interference. No matter how politically sensitive, the Sri Lankan people need answers, and more importantly, justice.

Sri Lanka has suffered for decades from a culture of impunity that has bred cynicism and mistrust. The present government has taken early steps to reverse that trend. It is too early to say whether this will lead to full justice. There are indications that the government is sequencing its priorities: first, economic crimes and now political crimes like the Easter attacks; later, possibly, war crimes. The wounds of the war years are deep and divisive. Pursuing accountability for wartime abuses may demand more political capital than the government currently possesses or wishes to expend, and it is likely that such steps will be undertaken more cautiously—and later.

In the case of the Chemmani mass graves the government seems to be allowing the judicial investigations to proceed independently, unlike in the case of the Mannar and Matale mass graves by previous governments. Permitting the Chemmani probe to proceed signals that the era of blanket impunity might finally be drawing to a close and the integrity of Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions is being secured. If a crime like the Easter bombing, which has defied a satisfactory conclusion for over six years is successfully investigated and prosecuted, it may open the space for deeper scrutiny of the past, including the war years. It is up to the independent institutions, judiciary and civil society to push this process forward.

by Jehan Perera

Features

Reflections on Cuba, BRICS and geopolitics

Published

32 mins ago

2025/07/15

Sahan Weerasooriya

Cubans marching in Havana against the blockade and the State Sponsors of Terrorism designation in December 2024. (Handout picture)

I returned to the US, from Cuba, just a few hours before Donald Trump signed a memorandum on 30 June, 2025, tightening the long-standing US economic blockade against Cuba. The memorandum includes a statutory ban on US tourism to the neighbouring island.

Despite a long fascination for the island nation, I did not volunteer for the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba during my college years. Finally, my wish to see the legendary island of anti-imperialist revolution—the so-called ‘last bastion of socialism in the western hemisphere’—came true.

I enjoyed Cuba’s resplendent land and waters, the vibrancy of its music and dance, and the warm hospitality of its racially integrated people. I visited the impressive places and monuments of its colonial and modern history, receiving a wealth of interesting and intriguing information from my wonderful Cuban guides and other sources.

The history of Cuba is one of struggle and transformation. The original Taino people were extinct due to the Spanish conquest. The Revolution of 1898 brought liberation under scholar-poet Jose Marti, only to be followed by US neocolonial rule from 1902 to 1959. During the latter part of this period, the Batista dictatorship and his American business and Mafia connections dominated the island.

The armed struggle, culminating in the 1959 Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara and others, transformed the nation. The Cuban Communist Party, under Fidel Castro’s rule (1959-2008), implemented widespread confiscation and wealth redistribution. Throughout this period and up to date, the US has maintained occupation of Guantanamo Bay (the first US overseas military base) under a 1903 perpetual lease agreement, following the Spanish-American War.

Cuba’s Present Crisis

Unfortunately, what I encountered in my homestays and travel around the island was far from the thriving socialist society I had hoped to see. The once magnificent buildings in Havana and other cities are dilapidated and the streets strewn with litter. Lacking reliable public transportation, people stand on streets around the island patiently waiting to catch rides from any vehicle that will stop—among them, the still widely used pre-Revolution American cars and horse-drawn carriages.

The island is currently facing its worst economic crisis, since the 1959 revolution. Long and daily power cuts, scarce internet connection, food and medicine shortages, and high prices, are the realities of present-day Cuba. Some staple items like beans are nowhere to be found; rice production has declined and much is now imported. Sugar, too, has become an import in Cuba, which, until recently, was the leading sugar exporter in the world.

People cannot make ends meet with their meager incomes—a doctor’s monthly salary is approximately US$50. Even by conservative World Bank estimates, 72% of all Cubans live below the poverty line. Beggars seem to be everywhere, with the African community descendant from slavery being the most economically victimised.

Young professionals, products of the island’s renowned free education and healthcare systems, are emigrating to the US, Europe, and elsewhere, leaving mostly the elderly behind. Cuba reportedly lost some 13% of its 11 million population between 2020 and 2024, due largely to emigration. Financial remittances from emigrants are essential for their families’ survival at home.

In private, people complain bitterly about government mismanagement and corruption, expressing concern about the island’s future and people’s survival. Given state authoritarianism and repression, there is no independent media, visible organised resistance, or public demonstrations.

The Cuban government blames US sanctions and blockade, operative since the early 1960s, for the island’s economic strangulation. In contrast, the US and its Cuban-American supporters blame socialism for Cuba’s failures.

Notwithstanding claims to be a leader of the international Non-Aligned Movement, Cuba withstood the 1961 CIA-backed Cuban-American Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis by aligning itself with the Soviet Union, eventually becoming its client state. The dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the recent Covid crisis have dealt severe blows to the Cuban economy and society. The decline in tourism, one of the most important sectors of the Cuban economy, will be further impacted by Donald Trump’s recent statutory ban on US tourism.

Is the opening of Cuba to neo-liberal capitalism—including global finance capital, the IMF, international intervention by the US (and its Cuban-American supporters awaiting return of land and business confiscated by the Cuban Revolution)—the solution to Cuba’s current economic crisis?

The Path Forward

Government mismanagement, corruption, repression and authoritarianism, economic collapse, agricultural decline, lack of employment, shortages of fuel and food, rising prices, powerlessness, despair and labour emigration characterise much of the world following neoliberal policies today. These countries also face the threats of international intervention, regime change, sanctions and blockades if they attempt to strike out on independent paths of economic and political development outside western-dominated neoliberalism.

Is BRICS the alternative to both authoritarian socialism and neoliberal capitalism, the path to resolving the crisis in Cuba and much of the world?

The Global South-led BRICS constitutes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as 10 partner countries, including Cuba, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Today, the BRICS countries together are estimated to account for 56% of world population, 44% of global GDP.

The BRICS alliance provides a much-needed platform to explore alternative mechanisms, like the New Development Bank and bilateral trade agreements, to reduce reliance on Western financial institutions, such as the IMF and currencies, specifically the US dollar. While BRICS rejects certain aspects of Western dominated geopolitics and hierarchical North-South relations, it upholds neoliberal economic principles: competition, free trade, open markets, export-led growth and globalisation, unfettered technological expansion.

BRICS aims to advance its members within the existing global capitalist order, rather than create a fundamental alternative to the capitalist paradigm which prioritizes profit-led growth before environmental sustainability and human well-being. As such, corporate hegemony, concentration of wealth by a global elite spanning the North and the South, as well technological and military domination, are not challenged. Neither does BRICS challenge political authoritarianism within its member countries or the possibility of the emergence of forms of authoritarian capitalism. Composed of countries unequal in size, economic and military power, BRICS may also easily reproduce unequal exchange and new forms of colonialism in south-south relations.

False Alternative

Although barely noticeable to a visitor, China is quietly replacing the former Soviet Union as Cuba’s benefactor, expanding its economic activities on the island. Since 2018, Cuba has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the massive infrastructural project connecting some 150 countries around the world. While the US is tightening its trade blockade, China has become Cuba’s largest trading partner and the primary provider of technology for infrastructure, telecommunications, renewable energy sources, the tourism industry, and other important areas of Cuba’s development.

Some critics of US imperialism tend to see China as a benevolent alternative to US and western domination. There are claims that certain media outlets, promoting such perspectives, may be linked to a funding source, associated with China. Even if it is true, the political and military intentions of Chinese economic expansion can only be known in the future.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China has increased its nuclear arsenal by 20% from an estimated 500 to over 600 warheads in 2025. According to US government sources, China has also established satellite intelligence infrastructure or ‘spy bases’ in Cuba that can target the United States commercial and military operations. Cuba, located only some 90 miles from the Florida coastline, could well be drawn into the geopolitical confrontation between the United States and China as it was during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, the Cuban Missile Crisis being a case in point.

Even though the world is moving towards an inexorable market and technologically controlled reality, the rationality of this trajectory must be questioned. The need for balanced ecological and social frameworks upholding bioregionalism, local control of resources, food self-sufficiency need to be considered. Freedom of expression, right to dissent, and collective organising undermined by both neoliberal capitalism and socialist authoritarianism must be upheld. This requires the awakening of consciousness to create a human society founded on wisdom and generosity over competition and exploitation.

The words of the great nineteenth century Cuban patriot, Jose Marti (1853-1895) are still applicable to the transformation needed in both Cuba and the world:

“Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.”(Courtesy IDN in-depth News)

(Dr. Bandarage has served on the faculties of Brandeis, Mount Holyoke and Georgetown and is the author of books, including Colonialism in Sri Lanka; The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka, Sustainability and Well-Being: The Middle Path to Environment, Society and the Economy, Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World and numerous other publications on global political economy and related subjects. www.bandarage.com)

Features

Multi-faceted Sri Lankan celebrity … checking out land of birth

Published

33 mins ago

2025/07/15

Sahan Weerasooriya

With Mirage in Dubai as a guest artiste

I was sent a video of Noeline Honter doing the song ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with Maxi Rosairo, live on stage.

The clip, I was told, was from The Island Music Awards, held in the late ‘90s … probably 1994.

Believe me, their performance was simply awesome … the vocals, the voices, the passion, the expression, the enthusiasm. Yes, that is what singing is all about. And no lyric-stands, planted in front, for guidance.

Well, the good news I have for you is that Noeline Honter will be in our midst next month (August) and she will be seen in action at three events, in Colombo.

Noeline will be featured at Gatz, Cinnamon Life, on Sunday, 24th August, and again on 20th of September.

Her first date at Gatz will be with the group Terry & The Big Spenders, while her 20th September performance will be with Mirage.

Noeline will also be performing at the BMICH, on the 30th of August, at a concert, ‘Vibes of Yesterday.’

The show, which is in aid of the Apeksha Hospital, Maharagama, will also feature several other artistes. The band in attendance will be the ‘Expressions.’

Noeline indicated to us that she is very much looking forward to her date with Mirage.

Noeline’s first band … her very own Galaxy

“It will be really exciting as I’ve performed with this wonderful outfit several times, as a guest artiste, touring the Middle East and other parts of the world, and also joining them on stage at their regular gigs in Dubai.”

In Sri Lanka, Noeline was not only known for her singing, she was also immensely popular as a TV presenter … winning several awards in both categories – singing and TV presenter.

In addition, she had her own Academy of Training, and she continues with her English training, Down Under, conducting several training programmes online to students, in many countries.

Noeline’s contribution to the field of television news, in Australia, commenced in 2008, in the role of Executive Producer and Presenter of ‘Sri Lanka News weekly,’ a news programme telecast on Channel 31, in Melbourne.

This multi-faceted Sri Lankan celebrity now presents interview programmes on Channel 31, where she features a gamut of mainly Sri Lankan musicians, resident in Sri Lanka and around the world. This is a chat show with musical clips by the featured artistes.

Noeline had her own band in the scene here … Galaxy, comprising Mohan Sabaratnam (drums), Kamal Perera (guitar), Joe Thambimuttu (bass/keyboards/vocals), Kumar Pieris (keyboards), and Ricky Senn (sax/trumpet /brass).

Noeline Honter: Three events in Colombo

Her trip to Sri Lanka, in August, she says, is mainly to be with her family, and to visit some of her favourite places, like Yala, Trincomalee, etc

“When I come over in August, it will be nearly three and a half years since I left the beloved land of my birth.”

Noeline is now based in Australia and says she is absolutely delighted to have the opportunity of sharing time with her son, Ryan, in Adelaide, and her daughter, Jaimee, in Melbourne.

Yes, a name that will never ever be forgotten, especially in the local Western music scene – Noeline Honter.

Go check her out at Gatz, Cinnamon Life, on 24th August and 20th September, 2025.