Features

Framework for a new Sri Lanka: A Union of Regions

Published

5 years ago

2021/08/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein

By Raj Gonsalkorale

Sri Lanka is in dire economic strife, its politicians are a discredited lot, and are produced by a system that perpetuates corruption, inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Inter community harmony is as facile as the cloak of ritualism that passes as Buddhism. A new governance model is needed that meets the inherent psyche of its people, and which lessens the power of politicians and enhances the real power of people.

It is strongly suggested that the concept of a Union of Regions authored by late Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam is given serious consideration. Dr Tiruchelvam was murdered by the LTTE for bringing forth this proposal, but mercifully the murderous LTTE is no more. The climate is right to revisit this proposal and build on it to introduce a governance model that can take the country towards the future and not to its dark past. People are sick and tired of the current system and what it produces as politicians. The system has to change if it is to produce the undoubted talent that the country has, and which remains and will remain silent on account of the flaws in the current system.

Tamil ethnic conflict

At the outset, readers could perhaps consider the possibility, some might say the reality, that the ethnic issue involving the Tamil and Sinhala communities in Sri Lanka was created by the leaders of these two communities, and not by the Sinhala & Tamil communities in the country. True, they had grievances but at the time of the creation of the contemporary issue, which one could identify with the British colonial period, they were not unmanageable and compared to what it became over time, miniscule in extent and intensity. It could be argued that a molehill became a mountain over time, and a volcanic mountain at that. It erupted in 1983 in the hands of the then government. The rest, as they say, is history.

To the best of the writer’s knowledge, Sinhala and Tamil people have not engaged in any major conflict between them even during the times of Kings and Queens of the country. The island is replete with a history of invasions from India from time to time to gain control of local Kingdoms, conquer territory and battles fought by the country’s Kings to defeat invaders.

The population of the country comprises of migrants mainly from India who arrived at different times throughout history with the indigenous people of the country being the “Aadi Vasi people or the Veddah’s. In this context, the rest are all occupiers who have made the island their home.

But, has it been the home for Tamils in recent times? Their ethnicity has rendered them targets for violence. State sponsored goons demonstrated in 1983 in no uncertain terms that Tamils were not safe in the country, except in areas where they were the majority. It also sent rightful signals to the Tamil community that the State could repeat such inhuman acts whenever and wherever they chose.

In looking for a solution to the conflict, what perhaps is paramount is how Tamils could be safe in their homes and workplaces wherever they live in the country. This has to be the aspiration of all Sri Lankans.

Tamils of Sri Lanka

In contemporary Sri Lanka, it needs to be mentioned that in any discussion concerning the Tamil ethnic issue in Sri Lanka, there are different aspirational dimensions amongst the Tamils that needs to be considered depending on the Tamil group concerned, that is, whether it is the group referred to as Sri Lankan Tamils who are the Tamils from India with a very long history in the island, in particular the Northern part of the island, or the more recent arrivals from India who are domiciled mostly in the central part of the country, who are also referred to as plantation Tamils.

All are Sri Lankan Tamils now but the ethnic issue that has drained the country for decades concerns the former category, although the latter category too has their grievances and aspirations.

The Tamil community in Sri Lanka is not a homogenous community, although both groups have faced issues in common, primarily with regard to their safety and security in the country.

The writer wishes to suggest a discussion on a way forward for all Tamils, and the country as a whole, having regarded some of the reasons that were responsible for creating the problem, and as Einstein said, to explore a way forward with a mindset that the problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that were used to create the problem.

No doubt many people and groups contributed, wittingly or unwittingly, to creating the problem beginning with the British Colonialists. Tamil politicians as well Sinhala politicians too contributed to creating the problem, and some, still continue to do so. One can add sections of the Maha Sangha too for adding fuel to the fire and from a contemporary perspective, that they still influence the perpetuation of the problem. Then, there is the powerful Tamil diaspora, or at least a section of it, which continues to perpetuate the problem. The first point for discussion could be that the factors that contributed, and, used to create the problem, are still being used to as the basis to find a solution to the contemporary situation, and whether this is what the country should be doing.

Governance models that have failed

One can argue that the context to the problem creation had some differences during the colonial and post-colonial period, when, during the colonial period, the Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese politicians were more concerned about a common enemy, the British colonialists, rather than each other, although seeds were being sown towards the creation of the problem.

Much has been written, still being written, discussed and debated about a solution that the Sri Lankan Tamils in the North and East are seeking, based primarily on self-determination for Tamils living in the North and the East, within a merged province.

The goal of self-determination for the North and East within the framework of the political governance model introduced by the British colonialists, the Westminster model, is a phenomenon that had little relevance prior to that as the governance models that preceded the Westminster model were decentralised, lose structures. On the whole, for a variety of reasons, there were varying degrees of ipso facto self-determination for Kingdoms and other forms of governance bodies that existed within the island.

In the context of this historical perspective, the British colonial masters, and the country’s Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim political elite who worked with them to introduce the Donoughmore constitution followed by the Soulbury constitution removed the inherent, historical nature of governance in the country. Sri Lankans continued on this trajectory when introducing the 1972 and 1978 constitutions.

Fissures began to appear in this model after independence, and Sinhala, and primarily Buddhist domination of governance led to widening of these fissures. Attempts were made by some political leaders to address these fissures with proposals like regional councils (Bandaranaike/Chelvanayakam Pact), District Councils (Senanayake/Chelvanayakam Pact) and the Regional Council bill (Kumaratunga/Tiruchelvam proposals) and finally the introduction of Provincial Councils at the behest of India.

Enter the LTTE

In the absence of an acceptable solution to the conflict, the problem escalated to violent means of achieving a separate State within the island as the solution. While there cannot be any justification for this violence perpetrated by the LTTE, which became the sole armed as well as the unarmed political group campaigning for “Tamil” demands, the fundamental aspirational mindset amongst Tamils in the North and East was never understood or addressed.

During the period of LTTE dominance, efforts were made by various parties to find a negotiated solution. The most noteworthy of all was the effort by Norway to mediate between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government to find such a solution. It failed, and the full scale war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government Armed forces saw the military demise of the LTTE in 2009.

In a very interesting and revealing article titled Let Us Be Clear On What We Buried In Nandikadal Lagoon by Sanjeewa Ranaweera published in the Colombo Telegraph on the 26th of July 2021 (https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/let-us-be-clear-that-what-we-buried-in-nandikadal-lagoon/), the Norwegian led peace process is comprehensively summarised. The role played by Eric Solheim is also examined and an interview with him also included as part of the article.

The article as well as the Solheim interview portrays the dynamics and thinking of the LTTE leader Prabakaran, and the political ideologue and Prabakaran’s adviser and confidante Anton Balasingham, and the highlights strategies adopted by Ranil Wickremesinghe, then Prime Minister, to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

One is not sure whether these strategies were aimed at finding a solution to the conflict with the LTTE, or whether they were directed towards finding a solution to the conflict with the Tamils and their aspirations. The reason for saying this is because if the objective of the strategy was the latter, then, there would have been an acceptance that the LTTE was the sole representative of the Tamils as no other Tamil political entity from Sri Lanka was associated with the effort made by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. Such an acceptance would have meant an acceptance of the LTTE political philosophy as well as their violent tactics. This is mentioned not as a critique of the effort, but to highlight it as one of the many problems that were created in the perpetuation of the ethnic conflict. It is also revealing that Anton Balasingham had been consistently taking the position that a solution had to be found through negotiation and not through violent means.

The future direction?

Given this backdrop, and moving forward to the future rather than looking backwards to the past to look for a solution, and with the benefit of hindsight, a solution has to be found which stands the test of time in a future that will be so different to the past when the problem was created in the first place.

The future will be one of currently unimaginable technology, innovation and lifestyles. Governance models will change and those governing will have to change. Most of the types currently in political governance will become Dinosaurs when looking at the future. Some may say they already are!

Religious traditions, cultural traditions of course will continue as they have for centuries, albeit perhaps with less conviction as it is already happening.

In respect of political governance models in Sri Lanka so far, they have fundamentally failed to chart a peaceful, contented path towards the future. There is mistrust and degrees of animosity amongst communities and a decline in values.

The primary community conflict is with the Tamil community and this can only be addressed through a governance mechanism that provides a degree of self-determination, not just for its sake, but because the models that does not provide it, but which have been tried and tested, have failed to ensure the safety and security of the Tamil community and even the Muslim community, and affected the country as a whole.

In this context, it is strongly suggested that the conceptual framework of the Union of Regions model authored by late Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam is considered as the framework to move onto the future.

It will assist in negating the negatives of the provincial council system including ineffective, costly duplication and lessen the politicisation of administrative activity.

Regional governments within the framework of a national governance model, provided its primary function would be to engage in policy settings to maximise resources in the region both material and human, and to ensure the safety and security of people in the region, by people from the region, would address the issue of self-determination substantially, and assist in decentralising governance power far more effectively than the current model.

Personality centric, highly centralised models will not work and Sri Lanka will be saddled with all associated drawbacks in its attempt to move onto the future. Hopefully, it will dawn on the current set of politicians that the model in operation has been diminished because of them, and by them, and the model has precluded efficient, honest and credible persons from participating in the model.

A new model based on the framework of a Union of Regions should not replicate the negatives of the current system. The thinking should be directed to the future and not the baggage of the past or even the present.

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Features

Ranking public services with AI — A roadmap to reviving institutions like SriLankan Airlines

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/13

Thilina Walpola

Efficacy measures an organisation’s capacity to achieve its mission and intended outcomes under planned or optimal conditions. It differs from efficiency, which focuses on achieving objectives with minimal resources, and effectiveness, which evaluates results in real-world conditions. Today, modern AI tools, using publicly available data, enable objective assessment of the efficacy of Sri Lanka’s government institutions.

Among key public bodies, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka emerges as the most efficacious, outperforming the Department of Inland Revenue, Sri Lanka Customs, the Election Commission, and Parliament. In the financial and regulatory sector, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) ranks highest, ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

Among state-owned enterprises, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) leads in efficacy, followed by Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank. Other institutions assessed included the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, and the Sri Lanka Transport Board. At the lower end of the spectrum were Lanka Sathosa and Sri Lankan Airlines, highlighting a critical challenge for the national economy.

Sri Lankan Airlines, consistently ranked at the bottom, has long been a financial drain. Despite successive governments’ reform attempts, sustainable solutions remain elusive.

Globally, the most profitable airlines operate as highly integrated, technology-enabled ecosystems rather than as fragmented departments. Operations, finance, fleet management, route planning, engineering, marketing, and customer service are closely coordinated, sharing real-time data to maximise efficiency, safety, and profitability.

The challenge for Sri Lankan Airlines is structural. Its operations are fragmented, overly hierarchical, and poorly aligned. Simply replacing the CEO or senior leadership will not address these deep-seated weaknesses. What the airline needs is a cohesive, integrated organisational ecosystem that leverages technology for cross-functional planning and real-time decision-making.

The government must urgently consider restructuring Sri Lankan Airlines to encourage:

=Joint planning across operational divisions

=Data-driven, evidence-based decision-making

=Continuous cross-functional consultation

=Collaborative strategic decisions on route rationalisation, fleet renewal, partnerships, and cost management, rather than exclusive top-down mandates

Sustainable reform requires systemic change. Without modernised organisational structures, stronger accountability, and aligned incentives across divisions, financial recovery will remain out of reach. An integrated, performance-oriented model offers the most realistic path to operational efficiency and long-term viability.

Reforming loss-making institutions like Sri Lankan Airlines is not merely a matter of leadership change — it is a structural overhaul essential to ensuring these entities contribute productively to the national economy rather than remain perpetual burdens.

By Chula Goonasekera – Citizen Analyst

Features

Why Pi Day?

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/13

Thilina Walpola

International Day of Mathematics falls tomorrow

The approximate value of Pi (π) is 3.14 in mathematics. Therefore, the day 14 March is celebrated as the Pi Day. In 2019, UNESCO proclaimed 14 March as the International Day of Mathematics.

Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians figured out that the circumference of a circle is slightly more than three times its diameter. But they could not come up with an exact value for this ratio although they knew that it is a constant. This constant was later named as π which is a letter in the Greek alphabet.

Archimedes

It was the Greek mathematician Archimedes (250 BC) who was able to find an upper bound and a lower bound for this constant. He drew a circle of diameter one unit and drew hexagons inside and outside the circle such that the sides of each hexagon touch the sides of the circle. In mathematics the circle passing through all vertices of a polygon is called a ‘circumcircle’ and the largest circle that fits inside a polygon tangent to all its sides is called an ‘incircle’. The total length of the smaller hexagon then becomes the lower bound of π and the length of the hexagon outside the circle is the upper bound. He realised that by increasing the number of sides of the polygon can make the bounds get closer to the value of Pi and increased the number of sides to 12,24,48 and 60. He argued that by increasing the number of sides will ultimately result in obtaining the original circle, thereby laying the foundation for the theory of limits. He ended up with the lower bound as 22/7 and the upper bound 223/71. He could not continue his research as his hometown Syracuse was invaded by Romans and was killed by one of the soldiers. His last words were ‘do not disturb my circles’, perhaps a reference to his continuing efforts to find the value of π to a greater accuracy.

Archimedes can be considered as the father of geometry. His contributions revolutionised geometry and his methods anticipated integral calculus. He invented the pulley and the hydraulic screw for drawing water from a well. He also discovered the law of hydrostatics. He formulated the law of levers which states that a smaller weight placed farther from a pivot can balance a much heavier weight closer to it. He famously said “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the earth”.

Mathematicians have found many expressions for π as a sum of infinite series that converge to its value. One such famous series is the Leibniz Series found in 1674 by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, which is given below.

π = 4 ( 1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + 1/9 – ………….)

The Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan came up with a magnificent formula in 1910. The short form of the formula is as follows.

π = 9801/(1103 √8)

For practical applications an approximation is sufficient. Even NASA uses only the approximation 3.141592653589793 for its interplanetary navigation calculations.

It is not just an interesting and curious number. It is used for calculations in navigation, encryption, space exploration, video game development and even in medicine. As π is fundamental to spherical geometry, it is at the heart of positioning systems in GPS navigations. It also contributes significantly to cybersecurity. As it is an irrational number it is an excellent foundation for generating randomness required in encryption and securing communications. In the medical field, it helps to calculate blood flow rates and pressure differentials. In diagnostic tools such as CT scans and MRI, pi is an important component in mathematical algorithms and signal processing techniques.

This elegant, never-ending number demonstrates how mathematics transforms into practical applications that shape our world. The possibilities of what it can do are infinite as the number itself. It has become a symbol of beauty and complexity in mathematics. “It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.” said Sophie Germain.

Mathematics fans are intrigued by this irrational number and attempt to calculate it as far as they can. In March 2022, Emma Haruka Iwao of Japan calculated it to 100 trillion decimal places in Google Cloud. It had taken 157 days. The Guinness World Record for reciting the number from memory is held by Rajveer Meena of India for 70000 decimal places over 10 hours.

Happy Pi Day!

The author is a senior examiner of the International Baccalaureate in the UK and an educational consultant at the Overseas School of Colombo.

by R N A de Silva

Features

Sheer rise of Realpolitik making the world see the brink

Published

3 days ago

2026/03/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

A combined US-Israel attack on Iran.(BBC)

The recent humanly costly torpedoing of an Iranian naval vessel in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone by a US submarine has raised a number of issues of great importance to international political discourse and law that call for elucidation. It is best that enlightened commentary is brought to bear in such discussions because at present misleading and uninformed speculation on questions arising from the incident are being aired by particularly jingoistic politicians of Sri Lanka’s South which could prove deleterious.

As matters stand, there seems to be no credible evidence that the Indian state was aware of the impending torpedoing of the Iranian vessel but these acerbic-tongued politicians of Sri Lanka’s South would have the local public believe that the tragedy was triggered with India’s connivance. Likewise, India is accused of ‘embroiling’ Sri Lanka in the incident on account of seemingly having prior knowledge of it and not warning Sri Lanka about the impending disaster.

It is plain that a process is once again afoot to raise anti-India hysteria in Sri Lanka. An obligation is cast on the Sri Lankan government to ensure that incendiary speculation of the above kind is defeated and India-Sri Lanka relations are prevented from being in any way harmed. Proactive measures are needed by the Sri Lankan government and well meaning quarters to ensure that public discourse in such matters have a factual and rational basis. ‘Knowledge gaps’ could prove hazardous.

Meanwhile, there could be no doubt that Sri Lanka’s sovereignty was violated by the US because the sinking of the Iranian vessel took place in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. While there is no international decrying of the incident, and this is to be regretted, Sri Lanka’s helplessness and small player status would enable the US to ‘get away with it’.

Could anything be done by the international community to hold the US to account over the act of lawlessness in question? None is the answer at present. This is because in the current ‘Global Disorder’ major powers could commit the gravest international irregularities with impunity. As the threadbare cliché declares, ‘Might is Right’….. or so it seems.

Unfortunately, the UN could only merely verbally denounce any violations of International Law by the world’s foremost powers. It cannot use countervailing force against violators of the law, for example, on account of the divided nature of the UN Security Council, whose permanent members have shown incapability of seeing eye-to-eye on grave matters relating to International Law and order over the decades.

The foregoing considerations could force the conclusion on uncritical sections that Political Realism or Realpolitik has won out in the end. A basic premise of the school of thought known as Political Realism is that power or force wielded by states and international actors determine the shape, direction and substance of international relations. This school stands in marked contrast to political idealists who essentially proclaim that moral norms and values determine the nature of local and international politics.

While, British political scientist Thomas Hobbes, for instance, was a proponent of Political Realism, political idealism has its roots in the teachings of Socrates, Plato and latterly Friedrich Hegel of Germany, to name just few such notables.

On the face of it, therefore, there is no getting way from the conclusion that coercive force is the deciding factor in international politics. If this were not so, US President Donald Trump in collaboration with Israeli Rightist Premier Benjamin Natanyahu could not have wielded the ‘big stick’, so to speak, on Iran, killed its Supreme Head of State, terrorized the Iranian public and gone ‘scot-free’. That is, currently, the US’ impunity seems to be limitless.

Moreover, the evidence is that the Western bloc is reuniting in the face of Iran’s threats to stymie the flow of oil from West Asia to the rest of the world. The recent G7 summit witnessed a coming together of the foremost powers of the global North to ensure that the West does not suffer grave negative consequences from any future blocking of western oil supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel is having a ‘free run’ of the Middle East, so to speak, picking out perceived adversarial powers, such as Lebanon, and militarily neutralizing them; once again with impunity. On the other hand, Iran has been bringing under assault, with no questions asked, Gulf states that are seen as allying with the US and Israel. West Asia is facing a compounded crisis and International Law seems to be helplessly silent.

Wittingly or unwittingly, matters at the heart of International Law and peace are being obfuscated by some pro-Trump administration commentators meanwhile. For example, retired US Navy Captain Brent Sadler has cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for the right to self or collective self-defence of UN member states in the face of armed attacks, as justifying the US sinking of the Iranian vessel (See page 2 of The Island of March 10, 2026). But the Article makes it clear that such measures could be resorted to by UN members only ‘ if an armed attack occurs’ against them and under no other circumstances. But no such thing happened in the incident in question and the US acted under a sheer threat perception.

Clearly, the US has violated the Article through its action and has once again demonstrated its tendency to arbitrarily use military might. The general drift of Sadler’s thinking is that in the face of pressing national priorities, obligations of a state under International Law could be side-stepped. This is a sure recipe for international anarchy because in such a policy environment states could pursue their national interests, irrespective of their merits, disregarding in the process their obligations towards the international community.

Moreover, Article 51 repeatedly reiterates the authority of the UN Security Council and the obligation of those states that act in self-defence to report to the Council and be guided by it. Sadler, therefore, could be said to have cited the Article very selectively, whereas, right along member states’ commitments to the UNSC are stressed.

However, it is beyond doubt that international anarchy has strengthened its grip over the world. While the US set destabilizing precedents after the crumbling of the Cold War that paved the way for the current anarchic situation, Russia further aggravated these degenerative trends through its invasion of Ukraine. Stepping back from anarchy has thus emerged as the prime challenge for the world community.