Features
Overcoming economic crisis and rebuilding economy: A clarion call
By the National Science Foundation
Sri Lanka is facing perhaps the most difficult and challenging economic, political and socially decisive times in its peacetime history, marked by depletion of foreign exchange reserves and government revenue, and a sovereign debt crisis. The crisis has had a devastating impact on the lives of the people, and its magnitude and potential demand immediate remedial action to ease the painful burden on the general public. The current crisis is principally due to the lack of a rational, consistent and coherent national policy, besides several decades of mismanagement of the economy. Recent events, such as the Easter Sunday bombings and the Covid-19 pandemic, have exacerbated the situation, with escalation of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and accompanying rises in food and fuel and shortages in world market, posing further threats.
Thus, there is an urgent need to get on with medium to long-term steps to resurrect the economy while providing essential immediate relief to the victims of the unprecedented crisis. We should recognize that the current monetary problems of the Government and the sufferings of the people are symptoms of a deeper malaise in the real economy. It is of paramount importance to correctly determine the causes of the malaise in order to overcome the prevailing lackadaisical attitudes and attend to the real economy and its determinant factors.
Science and technology (S&T) is the prime driver of and key to development in the three main sectors of the economy, namely Agriculture, Manufacturing and Services. Hence, the National Science Foundation, the premier national institution mandated to promote S&T for the socio-economic development of the country and wellbeing of its people, has assembled a team of senior scientists, technologists, professionals, entrepreneurs and community leaders in the country with expertise and experience in the relevant fields to deliberate on the state of the economy and ways to overcome the crisis and rebuild the economy through immediate, short- and medium-term interventions. They are indicative of direction. Details have to be worked on in the process of implementation.
Overarching and sector-specific recommendations that emanated from the deliberations are presented below for due attention of and action by the relevant authorities.
(A) Overarching recommendations
1. Immediate adoption of an evidence-based policy-making approach
Political expediency rather than economic imperatives has driven national policies since independence, making them ad hoc and aimed to address short-term issues, superficially, in order to secure and consolidate political power at the cost of long-term damage to the economy. Where foreign aid was involved, policies tended to be donor-driven and top-down with minimal local stakeholder consultation, lack of transparency and inadequacy of safety nets. Lack of coherence and cohesion of policy, policy uncertainty and policy instability are factors that inhibited FDI for economic development as investors look to consistency in policy regardless of change of government. Hence the following are of prime importance:
Evidence-based policy formulation drawing upon scientific and professional knowledge and experience available in the country.
Appointment of a high-powered multi-disciplinary advisory body comprising competent members from relevant institutions, such as the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), National Science Foundation (NSF), Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Research Council (NRC) and National Innovation Agency (NIA) as well as from relevant professional bodies, academia and industry.
2. Introduction of STEAM education in schools
Introduction of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) education in schools is important to provide students with crucial future-ready skills and an array of new career possibilities. Integrating enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes into the concepts of STEAM education will enable students to critically analyze problems and create real-world applications leading to business start-ups and wealth creation. Thus, STEAM education constitutes the bedrock of industrial growth and sustainable economic development, and it should be incorporated into the national school curriculum without delay.
3. Infusion of science and technology to development
Sri Lanka spends only about 0.1% of the GDP on R&D and its high-tech exports account for only about 1% of total exports, which are abysmally low compared with those in most of the countries even in Asia. Hence, the following are crucially important to set the country on an upward trajectory of development:
i. Increase expenditure on R&D up to 1% of GDP over the next five years.
ii. Bring all R&D and allied institutions which are currently compartmentalized and scattered across several ministries on to one platform or coordinated network, thereby facilitating transformation of inventions into innovations and developing multidisciplinary value chains for commercial and social benefit.
iii. Bring all R&D institutions under the Sri Lanka Scientific Service in order to advance the cause of science for national development. Personnel from any other service or profession can be coopted as and when necessary and relevant.
iv. Build capacity and capabilities in product design engineering (PDE)
Most high-income economies have a strong PDE and manufacturing company base. Well known high revenue PDE companies such as Toyota, Volkswagen, Apple and Boeing drive national economies through high-tech exports. They are not R&D companies, but relentlessly customer-focused PDE companies which use commercially available technologies (e.g. carbon fiber cloth, high-strength aluminium, computer chips, sensors etc.) “to design and certify a product once, and build and sell millions” to customers worldwide. Sri Lanka has only a few successful PDE companies such as Lanka Transformers, Neil Marine, and Orange Electric. This narrow manufacturing base should be expanded as a matter of high priority through introduction of PDE-based economic growth policies and production of mechatronics product design engineers. This will pay rich dividends in the medium term.
v. Establish dedicated recycling industrial facilities to transform Sri Lanka from a linear to circular economy thereby ensuring zero waste and eco-friendly development.
vi. Establish a conducive and enabling environment for research by eliminating impediments to international cooperation, granting tax incentives for R&D including advanced laboratory equipment and introducing a green channel to expedite the funding and procurement processes related to R&D.
vii. Establish a mechanism to productively utilize all national R&D facilities and resources to address national R&D needs and channel solutions and innovations emanating from such efforts for national development through a smooth and cohesive value chain.
3. Export facilitation and prudent utilization of foreign exchange
i. Negotiations with bi-lateral and multi-lateral organizations and appropriate global funding organizations to attract investment with high ROI.
ii. Use of foreign exchange especially targeted to meet the essential needs of high priority areas such as agriculture, food, energy, pharmaceuticals and raw materials for industry during the crisis phase.
iii. Facilitation and promotion of import substitution industrialization and export-oriented industrialization (i.e. rubber products, coconut related products, electronics and electrical components, boat and ship building, food and beverages, including engagement in specific segment/s of the global manufacturing value chain etc. paying attention to core competencies and competitive advantages.
iv. Introduction of a new export development plan under the aegis of the Export Development Board incorporating incentives and mechanisms to fast track export processes, paying special attention to value addition and market potential.
v. Setting floor prices for commodity exports to avoid under-invoicing and over-invoicing of imports
vi. Introduction of a mechanism to buy pawned gold when auctioned by local banks to prevent it from being lost to the country through various channels, thereby enhancing the national gold reserve
4. Governance, procurement, productivity and efficiency
The following are proposed to deal with the key issues and maladies due to poor governance
.i. Introduction of e-governance in a way that ensures transparency, which will enable cost effectiveness and improved performance of SOEs
ii. Mandatory publishing of financial accounts of all SOEs, along with the audit queries of the Auditor General and the responses thereto with provision for people to raise questions and suggestions about their performance on the respective websites or a dedicated website for government accounts
iii. Strict and regular monitoring and evaluation of progress of major and medium-sized public projects using governance scorecards. Public sector institutions should publish data on physical and financial progress and the impact of projects in electronic and print media at appropriate times in order to enable public scrutiny. Names of all key officials including the minister and secretary in charge should also be given. The Ministry in charge of the subject of Planning and Project Implementation should be adequately staffed with competent persons to carry out the above task assessment effectively and meaningfully.
iv. Introduce a whistleblower policy so that any corruption or fraud can be promptly investigated and appropriate action taken irrespective of the position and rank held.
v. A Central Agency should be immediately set up for review of all public expenditure. Efficiency and productivity processes should be set in motion in public institutions with the immediate introduction of performance management systems.
vi. All ministers should have an expert advisory body including specialists and policy analysts to advise them on crucial decision making. The NSF along with relevant institutions can propose the composition of such an advisory body for the ministries relevant to S&T.
vii. Appointment and recruitment to key positions in public sector institutions and statutory bodies should be strictly based on merit without exception. Moreover, there should be no more MP’s or Minister’s list when filling public vacancies which are tantamount to a violation of fundamental rights.
5. Value chain approach to development
A value chain deals with the full range of activities that are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the intermediary phases of production, to delivery to final consumers, and final disposal after use. This is a holistic and integrated approach needed to achieve success of any enterprise. However, most of the interventions in Sri Lanka have been made in an ad hoc and piecemeal manner resulting in lackluster performance in practically all sectors of the economy which comprises almost 50 main clustered areas of production. Analysis of the already available data will show areas with high growth potential. Therefore, it is proposed to establish a “Value Chain Task Force” for formulation of a comprehensive development strategy and mechanism along with an action plan for the high-priority, high-impact interventions needed at this critical juncture with the participation of the key stakeholders.
6. Inclusiveness and competent youth representation
Inclusive political participation is not only a fundamental political and democratic right but also is crucial to building stable and peaceful societies and developing policies that respond to the specific needs of younger generations. It is essential that young people are engaged in formal political processes and have a say in formulating today’s and tomorrow’s policies in order to make a difference in the longer term. For young people to be adequately represented in political institutions, processes, and decision-making, and in particular in elections, they must know their rights and be given the necessary knowledge and capacity to participate in a meaningful way at all levels. Therefore, inclusion of adequate youth representation in an appropriate manner in all institutions in the political, social, economic and technological fabric of the country should be ensured. (To be continued)
Prof. Ranjith Senaratne, Chairman, National Science Foundation and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Ruhuna Dr. Sepalika Sudasinghe, Director General, National Science Foundation and Visiting Professor in Management, Management and Science University of Malaysia Desamanya M.D.D. Pieris, former Secretary to the Prime Minister and several ministries and currently serving on some professional bodies and committees
C. Maliyadde, Vice President, Sri Lanka Economic Association and former Secretary to several ministries
H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, former Foreign Secretary, Ambassador and former Governor, Northern Province.
Dr. Chandra Embuldeniya, Chairman, Technology Development and Innovations Arm of the NSF, Founder, Vice-Chancellor, Uva Wellassa University, and Past President, The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka
Prof. A.K.W. Jayawardane, Senior Professor in Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Chairman, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Moratuwa
D.K RAJAPAKSA BSc (Hons) Ceylon, Emeritus Managing Director DSI Samson Group (Pvt.) Ltd
Dr. P.A. Kiriwandeniya, Founder of SANASA Movement
Rizvi Zaheed, BA Hons. MBA, Chairman, Sri Lanka Agripreneurs’ Forum
Professor Saroj Jayasinghe, Professor Emeritus of Medicine, University of Colombo
Prof. Ajith de Alwis, Senior Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Moratuwa and Chief Innovation Officer (Actg.), National Innovation Agency
=================
In one of India’s coldest and most remote regions, a group of women have taken on an unlikely role: protecting one of Asia’s most elusive predators, the snow leopard.
Snow leopards are found in just 12 countries across Central and South Asia. India is home to one of the world’s largest populations, with a nationwide survey in 2023 – the first comprehensive count ever carried out in the country – estimating more than 700 animals, .
One of the places they roam is around Kibber village in Himachal Pradesh state’s Spiti Valley, a stark, high-altitude cold desert along the Himalayan belt. Here, snow leopards are often called the “ghosts of the mountains”, slipping silently across rocky slopes and rarely revealing themselves.
For generations, the animals were seen largely as a threat, for attacking livestock. But attitudes in Kibber and neighbouring villages are beginning to shift, as people increasingly recognise the snow leopard’s role as a top predator in the food chain and its importance in maintaining the region’s fragile mountain ecosystem.
Nearly a dozen local women are now working alongside the Himachal Pradesh forest department and conservationists to track and protect the species, playing a growing role in conservation efforts.
Locally, the snow leopard is known as Shen and the women call their group “Shenmo”. Trained to install and monitor camera traps, they handle devices fitted with unique IDs and memory cards that automatically photograph snow leopards as they pass.
“Earlier, men used to go and install the cameras and we kept wondering why couldn’t we do it too,” says Lobzang Yangchen, a local coordinator working with a small group supported by the non-profit Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in collaboration with the forest department.
Yangchen was among the women who helped collect data for Himachal Pradesh’s snow leopard survey in 2024, which found that the state was home to 83 snow leopards – up from 51 in 2021.
The survey documented snow leopards and 43 other species using camera traps spread across an area of nearly 26,000sq km (10,000sq miles). Individual leopards were identified by the unique rosette patterns on their fur, a standard technique used for spotted big cats. The findings are now feeding into wider conservation and habitat-management plans.
“Their contribution was critical to identifying individual animals,” says Goldy Chhabra, deputy conservator of forests with the Spiti Wildlife Division.
Collecting the data is demanding work. Most of it takes place in winter, when heavy snowfall pushes snow leopards and their prey to lower altitudes, making their routes easier to track.
On survey days, the women wake up early, finish household chores and gather at a base camp before travelling by vehicle as far as the terrain allows. From there, they trek several kilometres to reach camera sites, often at altitudes above 14,000ft (4,300m), where the thin air makes even simple movement exhausting.
The BBC accompanied the group on one such trek in December. After hours of walking in biting cold, the women suddenly stopped on a narrow trail.
Yangchen points to pugmarks in the dust: “This shows the snow leopard has been here recently. These pugmarks are fresh.”
Along with pugmarks, the team looks for other signs, including scrapes and scent‑marking spots, before carefully fixing a camera to a rock along the trail.
One woman then carries out a “walk test”, crawling along the path to check whether the camera’s height and angle will capture a clear image.
The group then moves on to older sites, retrieving memory cards and replacing batteries installed weeks earlier.
By mid-afternoon, they return to camp to log and analyse the images using specialised software – tools many had never encountered before.
“I studied only until grade five,” says Chhering Lanzom. “At first, I was scared to use the computer. But slowly, we learned how to use the keyboard and mouse.”
The women joined the camera-trapping programme in 2023. Initially, conservation was not their motivation. But winters in the Spiti Valley are long and quiet, with little agricultural work to fall back on.
“At first, this work on snow leopards didn’t interest us,” Lobzang says. “We joined because we were curious and we could earn a small income.”
The women earn between 500 ($5.46; £4) and 700 rupees a day.
But beyond the money, the work has helped transform how the community views the animal.
“Earlier, we thought the snow leopard was our enemy,” says Dolma Zangmo, a local resident. “Now we think their conservation is important.”
Alongside survey work, the women help villagers access government insurance schemes for their livestock and promote the use of predator‑proof corrals – stone or mesh enclosures that protect animals at night.
Their efforts come at a time of growing recognition for the region. Spiti Valley has recently been included in the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve, a Unesco-recognised network aimed at conserving fragile ecosystems while supporting local livelihoods.
As climate change reshapes the fragile trans-Himalayan landscape, conservationists say such community participation will be crucial to safeguarding species like the snow leopard.
“Once communities are involved, conservation becomes more sustainable,” says Deepshikha Sharma, programme manager with NCF’s High Altitudes initiative.
“These women are not just assisting, they are becoming practitioners of wildlife conservation and monitoring,” she adds.
As for the women, their work makes them feel closer to their home, the village and the mountains that raised them, they say.
“We were born here, this is all we know,” Lobzang says. “Sometimes we feel afraid because these snow leopards are after all predatory animals, but this is where we belong.”
[BBC]
If elephants are truly to be given “freedom” in Udawalawe, the solution is not simply to open gates or redraw park boundaries. The map itself tells the real story — a story of shrinking habitats, broken corridors, and more than a decade of silent but relentless ecological destruction.
“Look at Udawalawe today and compare it with satellite maps from ten years ago,” says Sameera Weerathunga, one of Sri Lanka’s most consistent and vocal elephant conservation activists. “You don’t need complicated science. You can literally see what we have done to them.”
What we commonly describe as the human–elephant conflict (HEC) is, in reality, a land-use conflict driven by development policies that ignore ecological realities. Elephants are not invading villages; villages, farms, highways and megaprojects have steadily invaded elephant landscapes.
Udawalawe: From Landscape to Island
Udawalawe National Park was once part of a vast ecological network connecting the southern dry zone to the central highlands and eastern forests. Elephants moved freely between Udawalawe, Lunugamvehera, Bundala, Gal Oya and even parts of the Walawe river basin, following seasonal water and food availability.
Today, Udawalawe appears on the map as a shrinking green island surrounded by human settlements, monoculture plantations, reservoirs, electric fences and asphalt.
“For elephants, Udawalawe is like a prison surrounded by invisible walls,” Sameera explains. “We expect animals that evolved to roam hundreds of square nationakilometres to survive inside a box created by humans.”
Elephants are ecosystem engineers. They shape forests by dispersing seeds, opening pathways, and regulating vegetation. Their survival depends on movement — not containment. But in Udawalawa, movement is precisely what has been taken away.
Over the past decade, ancient elephant corridors have been blocked or erased by:
Irrigation and agricultural expansion
Tourism resorts and safari infrastructure
New roads, highways and power lines
Human settlements inside former forest reserves
Sameera
“The destruction didn’t happen overnight,” Sameera says. “It happened project by project, fence by fence, without anyone looking at the cumulative impact.”
The Illusion of Protection
Sri Lanka prides itself on its protected area network. Yet most national parks function as ecological islands rather than connected systems.
“We think declaring land as a ‘national park’ is enough,” Sameera argues. “But protection without connectivity is just slow extinction.”
Udawalawe currently holds far more elephants than it can sustainably support. The result is habitat degradation inside the park, increased competition for resources, and escalating conflict along the boundaries.
“When elephants cannot move naturally, they turn to crops, tanks and villages,” Sameera says. “And then we blame the elephant for being a problem.”
The Other Side of the Map: Wanni and Hambantota
Sameera often points to the irony visible on the very same map. While elephants are squeezed into overcrowded parks in the south, large landscapes remain in the Wanni, parts of Hambantota and the eastern dry zone where elephant density is naturally lower and ecological space still exists.
“We keep talking about Udawalawe as if it’s the only place elephants exist,” he says. “But the real question is why we are not restoring and reconnecting landscapes elsewhere.”
The Hambantota MER (Managed Elephant Reserve), for instance, was originally designed as a landscape-level solution. The idea was not to trap elephants inside fences, but to manage land use so that people and elephants could coexist through zoning, seasonal access, and corridor protection.
“But what happened?” Sameera asks. “Instead of managing land, we managed elephants. We translocated them, fenced them, chased them, tranquilised them. And the conflict only got worse.”
The Failure of Translocation
For decades, Sri Lanka relied heavily on elephant translocation as a conflict management tool. Hundreds of elephants were captured from conflict zones and released into national parks like Udawalawa, Yala and Wilpattu.
Elephant deaths
The logic was simple: remove the elephant, remove the problem.
The reality was tragic.
“Most translocated elephants try to return home,” Sameera explains. “They walk hundreds of kilometres, crossing highways, railway lines and villages. Many die from exhaustion, accidents or gunshots. Others become even more aggressive.”
Scientific studies now confirm what conservationists warned from the beginning: translocation increases stress, mortality, and conflict. Displaced elephants often lose social structures, familiar landscapes, and access to traditional water sources.
“You cannot solve a spatial problem with a transport solution,” Sameera says bluntly.
In many cases, the same elephant is captured and moved multiple times — a process that only deepens trauma and behavioural change.
Freedom Is Not About Removing Fences
The popular slogan “give elephants freedom” has become emotionally powerful but scientifically misleading. Elephants do not need symbolic freedom; they need functional landscapes.
Real solutions lie in:
Restoring elephant corridors
Preventing development in key migratory routes
Creating buffer zones with elephant-friendly crops
Community-based land-use planning
Landscape-level conservation instead of park-based thinking
“We must stop treating national parks like wildlife prisons and villages like war zones,” Sameera insists. “The real battlefield is land policy.”
Electric fences, for instance, are often promoted as a solution. But fences merely shift conflict from one village to another.
“A fence does not create peace,” Sameera says. “It just moves the problem down the line.”
A Crisis Created by Humans
Sri Lanka loses more than 400 elephants and nearly 100 humans every year due to HEC — one of the highest rates globally.
Yet Sameera refuses to call it a wildlife problem.
“This is a human-created crisis,” he says. “Elephants are only responding to what we’ve done to their world.”
From expressways cutting through forests to solar farms replacing scrublands, development continues without ecological memory or long-term planning.
“We plan five-year political cycles,” Sameera notes. “Elephants plan in centuries.”
The tragedy is not just ecological. It is moral.
“We are destroying a species that is central to our culture, religion, tourism and identity,” Sameera says. “And then we act surprised when they fight back.”
The Question We Avoid Asking
If Udawalawe is overcrowded, if Yala is saturated, if Wilpattu is bursting — then the real question is not where to put elephants.
The real question is: Where have we left space for wildness in Sri Lanka?
Sameera believes the future lies not in more fences or more parks, but in reimagining land itself.
“Conservation cannot survive as an island inside a development ocean,” he says. “Either we redesign Sri Lanka to include elephants, or one day we’ll only see them in logos, statues and children’s books.”
And the map will show nothing but empty green patches — places where giants once walked, and humans chose. roads instead.
By Ifham Nizam
SAARC or the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has been declared ‘dead’ by some sections in South Asia and the idea seems to be catching on. Over the years the evidence seems to have been building that this is so, but a matter that requires thorough probing is whether the media in South Asia, given the vital part it could play in fostering regional amity, has had a role too in bringing about SAARC’s apparent demise.
That South Asian governments have had a hand in the ‘SAARC debacle’ is plain to see. For example, it is beyond doubt that the India-Pakistan rivalry has invariably got in the way, particularly over the past 15 years or thereabouts, of the Indian and Pakistani governments sitting at the negotiating table and in a spirit of reconciliation resolving the vexatious issues growing out of the SAARC exercise. The inaction had a paralyzing effect on the organization.
Unfortunately the rest of South Asian governments too have not seen it to be in the collective interest of the region to explore ways of jump-starting the SAARC process and sustaining it. That is, a lack of statesmanship on the part of the SAARC Eight is clearly in evidence. Narrow national interests have been allowed to hijack and derail the cooperative process that ought to be at the heart of the SAARC initiative.
However, a dimension that has hitherto gone comparatively unaddressed is the largely negative role sections of the media in the SAARC region could play in debilitating regional cooperation and amity. We had some thought-provoking ‘takes’ on this question recently from Roman Gautam, the editor of ‘Himal Southasian’.
Gautam was delivering the third of talks on February 2nd in the RCSS Strategic Dialogue Series under the aegis of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, at the latter’s conference hall. The forum was ably presided over by RCSS Executive Director and Ambassador (Retd.) Ravinatha Aryasinha who, among other things, ensured lively participation on the part of the attendees at the Q&A which followed the main presentation. The talk was titled, ‘Where does the media stand in connecting (or dividing) Southasia?’.
Gautam singled out those sections of the Indian media that are tamely subservient to Indian governments, including those that are professedly independent, for the glaring lack of, among other things, regionalism or collective amity within South Asia. These sections of the media, it was pointed out, pander easily to the narratives framed by the Indian centre on developments in the region and fall easy prey, as it were, to the nationalist forces that are supportive of the latter. Consequently, divisive forces within the region receive a boost which is hugely detrimental to regional cooperation.
Two cases in point, Gautam pointed out, were the recent political upheavals in Nepal and Bangladesh. In each of these cases stray opinions favorable to India voiced by a few participants in the relevant protests were clung on to by sections of the Indian media covering these trouble spots. In the case of Nepal, to consider one example, a young protester’s single comment to the effect that Nepal too needed a firm leader like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seized upon by the Indian media and fed to audiences at home in a sensational, exaggerated fashion. No effort was made by the Indian media to canvass more opinions on this matter or to extensively research the issue.
In the case of Bangladesh, widely held rumours that the Hindus in the country were being hunted and killed, pogrom fashion, and that the crisis was all about this was propagated by the relevant sections of the Indian media. This was a clear pandering to religious extremist sentiment in India. Once again, essentially hearsay stories were given prominence with hardly any effort at understanding what the crisis was really all about. There is no doubt that anti-Muslim sentiment in India would have been further fueled.
Gautam was of the view that, in the main, it is fear of victimization of the relevant sections of the media by the Indian centre and anxiety over financial reprisals and like punitive measures by the latter that prompted the media to frame their narratives in these terms. It is important to keep in mind these ‘structures’ within which the Indian media works, we were told. The issue in other words, is a question of the media completely subjugating themselves to the ruling powers.
Basically, the need for financial survival on the part of the Indian media, it was pointed out, prompted it to subscribe to the prejudices and partialities of the Indian centre. A failure to abide by the official line could spell financial ruin for the media.
A principal question that occurred to this columnist was whether the ‘Indian media’ referred to by Gautam referred to the totality of the Indian media or whether he had in mind some divisive, chauvinistic and narrow-based elements within it. If the latter is the case it would not be fair to generalize one’s comments to cover the entirety of the Indian media. Nevertheless, it is a matter for further research.
However, an overall point made by the speaker that as a result of the above referred to negative media practices South Asian regionalism has suffered badly needs to be taken. Certainly, as matters stand currently, there is a very real information gap about South Asian realities among South Asian publics and harmful media practices account considerably for such ignorance which gets in the way of South Asian cooperation and amity.
Moreover, divisive, chauvinistic media are widespread and active in South Asia. Sri Lanka has a fair share of this species of media and the latter are not doing the country any good, leave alone the region. All in all, the democratic spirit has gone well into decline all over the region.
The above is a huge problem that needs to be managed reflectively by democratic rulers and their allied publics in South Asia and the region’s more enlightened media could play a constructive role in taking up this challenge. The latter need to take the initiative to come together and deliberate on the questions at hand. To succeed in such efforts they do not need the backing of governments. What is of paramount importance is the vision and grit to go the extra mile.
US wants Russia and Ukraine to end war by June, says Zelensky
Hetmyer heroics, Shepherd hat-trick headline West Indies’ opening day win over Scotland
USA bowl, India pick Siraj with Bumrah out unwell
Colorado funeral home director sentenced to 40 years for corpse abuse
Scotland opt to field against West Indies
Faheem Ashraf drags unconvincing Pakistan over the line after big scare
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
Business5 days agoSLIM-Kantar People’s Awards 2026 to recognise Sri Lanka’s most trusted brands and personalities
-
Business23 hours agoZone24x7 enters 2026 with strong momentum, reinforcing its role as an enterprise AI and automation partner
-
Business7 days agoAltair issues over 100+ title deeds post ownership change
-
Business7 days agoSri Lanka opens first country pavilion at London exhibition
-
Business6 days agoAll set for Global Synergy Awards 2026 at Waters Edge
-
Business5 days agoAPI-first card issuing and processing platform for Pan Asia Bank
-
Business23 hours agoHNB recognized among Top 10 Best Employers of 2025 at the EFC National Best Employer Awards
-
Business7 days agoESOFT UNI Kandy leads the charge in promoting rugby among private universities