The US almost succeeded in signing SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) during the Yahapalana administration, as well as finalising the MCC (Millennium Challenge Corporation) meant to promote economic growth, open markets, and increased living standards in selected countries. SOFA was to allow deployment of US personnel in Sri Lanka. The then President Maithripala Sirisena thwarted SOFA while Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe’s representative Tilak Marapana was having discussions on the matter at the highest level in Washington.

Close on the heels of the first-ever joint tactical counter-terrorist exercise ‘Wolverine Path 2025,’ involving Russian and Sri Lankan troops, at the Army Training School, in Maduru Oya (25 Oct to 4 Nov 2025), Sri Lanka further expanded its partnership with the US.

The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), formalising the defence partnership between the Montana National Guard, the US Coast Guard District 13, and the Sri Lanka Armed Forces, in terms of the Department of War’s State Partnership Programme (SPP), took place at the Defence Ministry here, on 14th Nov.

Julie Chung, who is serving as the US Ambassador in SL, since 25 February, 2022, Adjutant General of the Montana National Guard, Brigadier General Trenton Gibson, and the Secretary of Defence, Air Vice Marshal (retd.) Sampath Thuyacontha, signed the MoU.

The US, in a statement issued through the Public Diplomacy section of their Embassy, in Colombo, declared that the MoU marked a historic milestone in US-Sri Lanka defence relations, underscoring both nations’ shared commitment to regional stability, maritime security, and professional military collaboration in the Indo-Pacific to advance their common goal of peace through partnership.

Before we discuss the US-Sri Lanka relations, under the Trump-AKD administrations, let me focus on the Russia-Sri Lanka initiative. This should be deliberated, taking into consideration the US-led EU, UK reaction to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the inevitable consequences. Direct accusations had been made against the US over the removal of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022 through the passage of a no-confidence motion, overthrowing of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in July 2022, and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August 2024. Allegations have also been made regarding the toppling of Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in September this year. In the cases of Pakistan and Nepal, direct references have been made apropos them earning the wrath of the US for not condemning the launch of thevRussian offensive in Feb 2022. But hardly any Westerner talks about the Maidan coup, staged by the US that toppled the then elected sitting Ukrainian President, which brought about the ensuing events.

The contingent of troops from the Russian Federation arrived in an Ilyushin Il-76, a multi-purpose, fixed-wing, four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter that landed at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA), on the night of 24 Oct, and was welcomed by the Director General of Infantry, K.J.N.M.P.K. Nawarathna, GoC of 12 Division Maj. Gen. W.M.N.K.D. Bandara, and the Exercise Director, Maj. Gen. S.A.U.A. Solangaarachchi. There hadn’t been previous Russian military flights to Mattala in the Southern Province.

The Russian Embasy, in Colombo, said that the exercise was finalized in August this year.

Two days before the conclusion of ‘Wolverine Path 2025,’ the Russian Ambassador in Colombo, Levan Dzhagaryan, visited the Army Training School at Maduru Oya, his first to such a Lankan military facility. The Ambassador’s visit underscored Russia’s interest in further developing bilateral relations. Against the backdrop of the US seeking to isolate Russia, Moscow is determined to ensure such US efforts are countered at every possible level. Time-tested Russia-India relations seems to be the target of stepped-up US actions, meant to weaken New Delhi’s resolve to maintain the same. Russian President Putin’s visit to New Delhi emphasises the Moscow strategy as the US upped the ante.

Russian news agency TASS reported the exercise in a 5 Nov, 2025, online report, headlined ‘Russia, Sri Lanka hold first joint military exercise.’

Post-ACSA developments

The signing of the latest US-Sri Lanka defence agreement prompted a person, very much familiar with the developments taking place, to query whether the new MoU between the NPP government, which is led by the JVP that had been once a pretender of anti-Americanism and outwardly opposed Sri Lanka having anything to do with US imperialism, but would now allow the US to have access to Sri Lanka ports and airports?

It would be pertinent to mention that the JVP gave up the anti-American project, around 2009/2010, when it joined forces with the UNP to back retired war- winning General Sarath Fonseka’s candidature at the 2010 presidential election. That happened during Somawansa Amarasinghe’s leadership.

Had the JVP retained its much-hyped Marxist ideology, it couldn’t, under any circumstances, join that post-war political project that also involved the US. WikiLeaks shed light on the US involvement in the abortive bid to help Fonseka win the presidency.

The Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)-led Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that had to declare the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people, in 2001, wouldn’t have thrown its weight behind the UNP-JVP project if not for the US pressure on their late leader R. Sampanthan. Although the JVP quit the UNP-led coalition, in 2019, to pave the way for JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake to contest the presidential election under the NPP symbol, the US obviously remained a key factor in their overall thinking.

The latest US-Sri Lanka MoU on defence cannot be discussed in isolation. It wouldn’t be fair to find fault with the NPP without examining the gradual transformation of US-Sri Lanka relations in the defence field, beginning with the much-talked-about Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), signed in March 2007. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government didn’t even bother to consult its coalition partners before the then Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, signed the ACSA, on Sri Lanka’s behalf. The then US Ambassador, Robert O. Blake, signed on behalf of the US.

Those who had been critical of Sri Lanka entering into the ACSA never bothered to examine how Ambassador Blake intervened on behalf of Sri Lanka to pave the way for specific intelligence transfer during 2007 and 2008 to enable the Navy to destroy four LTTE floating warehouses, carrying weapons for the Tigers, on the high seas. Although ACSA was not meant to facilitate such assistance, the US decision may have been significantly influenced by Colombo entering into the ACSA for a period of 10 years.

In 2017, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Yahapalana government extended the agreement. The JVP, that backed Sirisena’s candidature at the 2015 presidential election and backed the Wickremesinghe-led government, though it refrained from taking any portfolios, but, interestingly, didn’t oppose the ACSA renewal. The ACSA is in operation today. The US has unrestricted access to all Sri Lankan ports, including the China-operated Hambantota port and airports.

It would be pertinent to mention that the 2007 ACSA consisted of just eight pages. But the 2017 ACSA comprised 83 pages. In spite of the controversy, the Yahapalana government never released it.

Thanks to the growing US-India political-military-economic-social relations, since 2014, US military activity here is no longer an issue. During the period the Soviet Union challenged the US supremacy, India, as a close ally of that grouping, strongly opposed the US role here. That attitude didn’t change even after the collapse of the Soviet Union as India remained suspicious of US strategies. In fact, the ACSA could have been finalised during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s premiership, in 2002, if not for New Delhi’s objections.

But Wickremesinghe, when he had the opportunity, gave the go ahead for the renewal of the ACSA, while President Sirisena tried to distance himself from that agreement.

NPP goes a step further

The JVP-led NPP government appears to have no qualms in going along with strategies – initiated years, if not decades ago, by interested parties. These strategies should be discussed taking into account the US-India partnership, India’s own approach to Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka’s relations with Quad countries, namely the US, Australia, Japan and India. The developing hostilities between the combined West, with the backing of India and China, are evident, though the ridiculous US stand pertained to India’s relations with Russia. The resumption of direct flights between India and China, after five years, couldn’t have happened at a better time as the West makes a determined bid to weaken major economies. Last year they reached a landmark agreement on border patrols.

Japan recently accommodated Sri Lanka in its Official Security Assistance (OSA) programme that can be described as an expansion of the Comprehensive Partnership, entered into in 2015. The two countries finalised an OSA agreement during President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s visit to Tokyo, in late September this year, to pave the way for Japanese assistance to the Navy. Japan had never provided any armaments or equipment to Sri Lankan armed forces during the war, though Colombo Dockyard Limited (CDL), managed by Japan’s Onomichi Dockyard, sold Fast Attack Craft (FACs) to the Navy.

Now the Japanese had exited the CDL to enable India’s premier state-owned shipyard, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL), to pay USD 52.96 mn for 51% stake of the company. Mazagon is an enterprise affiliated with the Indian Defence Ministry.

The JVP simply ignored their erstwhile comrades Wimal Weerawansa and Frontline Socialist Party (Peratugami Pakshaya) protests over the Indian take-over of the CDL and the defence MoU signed in April this year, along with six other secret MoUs during Indian leader Narendra Modi’s visit here.

The signing of the latest US-Sri Lanka agreement indicates that the US strategy is on track. The NPP has proved, in no uncertain terms, its readiness to face challenges and proceed under extreme criticism, in and outside Parliament. The way the NPP government proceeded with US and Indian initiatives indicated that the government is sure of its approach. The NPP’s continued commitment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-led post-Aragalaya recovery programme somewhat wrong-footed the thoroughly disorganised Opposition.

The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) has ended up endorsing the NPP’s approach, vis-a-vis India, by declaring its commitment and support for special relations with India. But the SJB remained silent on the NPP’s delaying a formal decision on President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s moratorium on Chinese research vessels visiting Sri Lanka during 2024. In spite of the NPP promise to make its position known on the issue, the government remains silent even at the end of 2025.

Ambassador Chung, who arrived here several weeks before the launch of Aragalaya on 31 March, 2022, throughout the violent protest campaign, unwaveringly threw her weight behind it. That campaign was brought to a successful conclusion on 09 July, 2022, when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to flee from the President’s House, by violent mobs, and clandestinely boarded SLNS Gajabahu, formerly USCGC Sherman, Hamilton-class high endurance cutter, to reach Trincomalee safely. The US interventions in Sri Lanka have to be examined against the backdrop of their strong-minded efforts to dislodge the Rajapaksas, against the backdrop of growing China-Sri Lanka relations.

On behalf of the US, Ambassador Chung worked behind the scenes, in mid-2022, to convince the then Speaker, Mahnda Yapa Abeywardena, to fill Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s vacancy. Had she succeeded, Ranil Wickremesinghe couldn’t have received the Parliament’s blessings to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s five-year term. Chung vigorously opposed Wickremesinghe’s decision to evict Aragalaya activists from the Old Parliament, and the Galle Face protest site.

The military thwarted the JVP bid to capture Parliament as Wickremesinghe stood his ground. Wickremesinghe should receive public appreciation for taking a stand against the bid to cause anarchy and Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena for declining the despicable US push for filling Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s vacancy, contrary to constitutional provisions.

The JVP, however, regardless of consequences, proceeded with what had been envisaged by Wickremesinghe. The UNP leader lacked the courage to enter into a MoU on defence with India. President Dissanayake did. No one would have thought any government would consider selling the controlling stake of CDL to India. President Dissanayake did.

Ironically this is the same party that led violent protests against India in the past, especially after the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987, even burning hundreds of Indian made state owned buses, already paid for by Sri Lankan tax payers, among other acts of brutal violence that killed so many innocent people.

Remember how the JVP led, and inspired protests, compelled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to cancel the tripartite agreement involving India, Japan and Sri Lanka to develop the Eastern Container Terminal (ETC) during the 2020-2021 period. India and Japan teamed up with Sri Lanka’s leading conglomerate John Keells to develop the adjacent West Container Terminal (WCT) that commenced commercial operations in April 2025.

The FSP, over the last weekend, flayed the JVP over entering into another defence-related agreement with the US. Wasantha Mudalige, on behalf of the FSP, lambasted the government over entering into defence-related agreements with the US, India and Japan. Alleging that the government cooperated with those countries in line with their overall geo-political strategies.

An unprecedented Chinese reaction to Japanese comment on possible military intervention in support of Taiwan has underscored an extremely dangerous developing situation.

The finalisation of the US-India Defence Framework Agreement on 31 Oct, 2025, at a time the US has imposed, indisputably, one of the highest tariffs on any country, and new the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Israel, signed four days later, to enhance defence, industrial, and technological cooperation, prove New Delhi’s firm commitment to overall US strategy. The US has gradually transformed its relations with India, since 1995, and recent developments indicate that there is no turning back. Sri Lanka, too, faces a similar situation.

SAFN taps Daya, Boggs

The South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN), a leading South Asian think tank, operating under the Millennium Project, recently appointed ex-US Department of State employee, Daya Gamage, who served at the American diplomatic mission, in Colombo, from 1970 to 1994, and Dr. Robert Boggs, with nearly four decades of field experience, as a political analyst across South Asia – from Kathmandu, Islamabad, and Delhi to Colombo – as Senior Fellows (Honorary).

Would the two ex-State Department employees make a difference by helping to improve fair coverage, thereby influencing the decision makers?

Gamage authored the widely discussed book Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America: US Foreign Policy Adventurism and Sri Lanka’s Dilemma, a critical study of the intersections between US foreign policy and Sri Lanka’s internal conflict dynamics. The 2016 book is a must read for those interested in knowing the truth.

SAFN has acknowledged that it felt the need to bring in Sri Lankan experts in the absence of sufficient knowledge and expertise to handle Sri Lanka issues, especially related to the West.

South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN) at the Millennium Project, in Washington DC, in which Asanga Abeygunasekera, son of the late controversial politician Ossie Abeygunasekera, killed in a Tiger suicide attack on a UNP election rally, along with its late leader, Gamini Dissanayake, and scores of others, is the Executive Director, is on record as having said Gamage and Boggs could be most useful to bridge this vast lacuna as they have the expertise and understanding to provide some enlightenment to issues not adequately addressed at present by the SAFN and Millennium Project.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Sri Lanka, with its long historical traditions, is home to the practice of many medical systems. Western allopathic medicine is the most widespread and is a legacy of our colonial past. The exemplary quality of life in terms of health indices Sri Lanka can rightly be proud of is a result of the successes of the practice of western allopathic medicine in Sri Lanka.

The practice of Ayurveda has been in existence from historical times which reached the shores of Sri Lanka from India, and it remains the main alternative system of medicine. But closest to the cultural practices of the Sinhalese ethnic group is what is termed indigenous medicine – ‘generational’ (paramparika) medical practitioners who carry on an individualised practice with the ‘knowledge base’ differing to each other and kept secret within families and passed on from generation to generation – hence its herbal medicines and practices too differ and are guarded by each family.

The practice of Siddha (from South India), culturally linked to the Tamil ethnic group, is based on the belief that the body is composed of five elements  – earth, fire, water, air and sky – and Unani (from a Greco-Arabic tradition) culturally linked to the Muslim ethnic group is based on the body being composed of four elements – earth, water, air and fire – which is similar to the origins of the Hippocratic tradition.

In addition, in very much more recent times, Homeopathy (established by the German Heinemann) and acupuncture (of Chinese origin) have become less well-established medical systems practiced in Sri Lanka.

The main philosophical dichotomy between the western and eastern systems of medicine in Sri Lanka can be exemplified by the differences between western allopathic medicine and Ayurveda/indigenous medicine.

Western medicine derives its conceptual basis from the western philosophical tradition which is the source of the empirical ‘scientific method’. This is basically a reductionist model where the scientific process seeks to ultimately identify the ‘active ingredient’ in medicines. This finally leads to an organic molecule with certain specific properties giving rise to the required effect. On the other hand, Ayurveda approaches medication from a holistic model and the concept that a multiplicity of factors acts in concert to exert the required effect.

Errors of subjectivity over objectivity

This leads to a situation where both systems become prone to errors of subjectivity over objectivity. For example, Ayurveda ignores the possible deleterious side effects of the multiplicity of chemicals (particularly alkaloids) found in their herbal preparations. The errors in this aspect are so much greater when it comes to chronic long-term effects and not acute short-term or immediate effects. This is a result of the fact that the theoretical basis of Ayurveda not establishing a tradition of continuing intellectual and academic investigation of a systematic nature into long-term deleterious side effects of ayurvedic preparations. No systematic clinical studies have been carried out to ascertain the ‘real’ effects of ayurvedic preparations over their placebo effects – i.e., randomised clinical trials. The concept of a placebo effect has not been considered within the paradigms of Ayurveda. The fallback position of the ayurvedic/indigenous schools have been that the herbal preparations and their pharmacopeia has been “tested” and found to be valid by the extensive duration it has been in use. It is argued that the herbal medicines currently in use have been in use for centuries, if not millennia. If there were any such deleterious effects, they would have been definitively identified. Therein, to my mind, lay another serious conceptual error. There is little or no renewal of knowledge in Ayurveda, where the texts used in the teaching and practice of Ayurveda are ‘ancient’ – more ancient, the better according to many adherents of the system. Knowledge derived from hoary traditions, from the vedas and the sacred texts are sacrosanct. It is my view that unless ayurvedic medicines undergo the rigorous continuous monitoring and systematic study – i.e. establishing a regular monitoring procedure for their medicines – which will also include double-blind clinical trials that ensure their efficacy in the first place, there will always be large question marks in the minds of the discerning consumer about the long-term safety of ayurvedic medicines.

While it is also known to Ayurveda that herbs used in its medicinal preparations differ in the composition and concentration of active alkaloids present, from environment to environment, climate to climate, area to area, subspecies to subspecies and variety to variety, no attempt has been made to test the possible differences in their pharmacological effects or efficacies. It has been known to modern plant taxonomists that plants of very similar appearance from gross external appearance have been misclassified by ayurvedic physicians as being the same plant. Some have been of different species or even different genus.

The pitfalls of Ayurveda can be summarised as inconsistencies in dose standardization, possible contamination with harmful alkaloids and heavy metals, lack of uniform quality control systems and an absence of continuing regular clinical trials with standardised prescriptions to ensure patient safety.

In recent times, biochemists, molecular biologists and biotechnologists have ventured to ‘test’ herbal preparations under far stricter standardised laboratory conditions. These have, sometimes, given good promising results. I believe this is a positive trend towards developing a science-based, clinical trials-based indigenous pharmacopeia. Moreover, it could be an internationally marketable proposition – considering the increasing disillusionment in the US and Europe with Western allopathic medicine and the serious concern about the diabolical machinations of the singularly profit-oriented pharmaceutical industry.

Investiment in Ayurvedic hospitals

Already, we have several Sri Lankan corporates that have invested billions in Ayurveda-based hospitals, hotels, spas and the export of herb-based medicines. Certain simplified, freeze-dried and packeted indigenous medicine products have caught the attention of international markets. The Indians and the Chinese have been doing this international marketing of their indigenous medicines very effectively in recent decades. Many of these ‘medicines’ have slipped through the US Foods and Drugs Administration (FDA) approvals by labeling them as ‘dietary supplements’ or ‘traditional remedies’ and are marketed in the USA. Unless the researchers in herbal/ayurvedic/indigenous medicines ‘clean up’ their methodologies to ensure that the preparations have absolutely no alkaloids harmful to health and contain no heavy-metal impurities, a lucrative international market will be lost to them. In the final analysis, all alternate medical/health systems and medicines must conform to the bases of the ‘scientific method’ – whatever methodological deficits remain therein. It still remains the best system through which we try to understand the nature of the universe.

Fallibility

Having said all of the above, in my evening years, I have come to realise the stark fallibility of completely depending on and defending the so-called ‘evidence-based’ knowledge. Evidence derived by the application of the scientific method. I have said elsewhere that ‘evidence-based’ on many occasions has been found to be strictly not evidence-based – at least in the realm of medicine. It has often been found that “evidence” is also ‘created’ by vested interests – mainly the ‘Big Pharma’ who pay medical researchers, through ‘ghost-writers’ to ‘manufacture’ ‘evidence’ that are published in reputed medical journals.

The mindset of over-dependence on so-called modern western science has been so deeply inculcated in us that it is very difficult to find a state from which we can completely or wholly be rid of. Dr. Gundasa Amarasekera (I attended his 96th birthday prathyawalokanaya a few days ago) and Prof. Nalin de Silva tried to popularise an alternative indigenous philosophy in their Jathika Chinthanaya. Dr. Amarasekera has been, in my view, balanced in the approach and exposition he adopted in the enunciation of his hypothesis. But Prof. Nalin de Silva went into extremes that I could neither accept nor fathom.

But where does it leave traditional indigenous and ayurvedic medicine? Can they derive sustenance and philosophical rigour from Jathika Chinthanaya? Have they attempted to do so in any meaningful way? Should it not be the vision and philosophy of indigenous medicine? If not, why not?

At present, the leading institutions of indigenous medicine are the Faculty of Indigenous Medicine – FIM (former Institute of Indigenous Medicine – IIM) of the University of Colombo and the Gampaha Wickramarachchi University of Indigenous Medicine (GWUIM). I do not wish to delve too deep into their respective course contents except to note here that there was a time about two decades ago, when Prof. Nandadasa Kodagoda, Prof. Carlo Fonseka and Prof. Colvin Goonaratna of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo were delivering lectures on anatomy (structure), physiology (function) and pharmacology (Medicines) based on Western medical principles. I did challenge both Profs. Carlo Fonseka and Colvin Goonaratna (my teachers in medical school), as to why they are teaching students of indigenous medicine the principles of anatomy and physiology based on modern, western scientific medicine which is contrary to the basic principles of Ayurveda and indigenous medicine. I believe it corrupted the purity and philosophy of Ayurveda. All I will say here is that the debate was long and arduous. We agreed to disagree. I believe that the reason behind many graduates of the then IIM, prescribing antibiotics in their private clinics was a result of that short-sighted act of misplaced ‘goodwill’. I sincerely hope that the FIM, UoC, no longer continues that false path to ‘scientific’ indigenous medicine.

Hybrid path

I find that to try and legitimise the ‘modernisation’ of indigenous medicine, the two institutions are following, in today’s jargon, a “hybrid” path of including modern science and management-based courses in their postgraduate programmes running in almost parallel lines. I agree that this is both unavoidable and understandable. Even in India, this ‘scientific modernisation’ is taking place. They are integrating scientific methodology into their pharmacology research – using the reductionist principle of isolating ‘active plant chemical compounds’. This, in fact, is what western medicine commenced over two to three centuries ago when they discovered cardioactive digitalis from foxglove and anaesthetic curare and quinine from cinchona bark for treatment of malaria from South American plants.

Chemical compound isolates in the western pharmacopeia were claimed by indigenous medical practitioners as the main cause of undesirable adverse effects and that a more holistic approach in indigenous medicine with its multiplicity of chemicals and alkaloids in their herbal preparations counter-balance the negative adverse effects. Hence, in my view, attempts at isolating active ingredients of herbal preparations in indigenous pharmacological research is a blind mimicry of western pharmacological research. Instead, what they should be doing is researching herbal preparations in its holistic form and clinical trials run on that basis. Whereas this gives rise to many methodological difficulties, they need to be overcome to ensure a more authentic basis for indigenous medicines. But then, who am I to preach to the high priests of indigenous medicine?

Reductionist approach only path?

Is the reductionist approach the only path to definitive knowledge? Are specifics always more important than the general? Are we losing some important aspects of research conclusions by this approach? Have we not grasped the importance of the concept that the “whole is often greater than the sum of its parts”?

Are there alternative methodologies for indigenous medical researchers to follow in parallel lines that do not compromise on basic principles of scientific research – formulate a hypothesis, test it by experiments, collect and analyse the data and draw logical conclusion without falling into the common pitfall of researchers of misreading ‘cause and effect’.

The philosophical bases of modern western scientific medicine and indigenous medical systems dependent on ancient wisdom are principally in contradistinction to each other. In Sri Lanka, like in many societies with civilizational millennia behind them, such as in India and China, where both these medical systems coexist today, we have a great opportunity to evolve a cohesive medical philosophy. Can this ‘great divide’ be bridged? Shouldn’t those within these seemingly contrary medical systems have some intellectual/academic meeting point? Should there not be a ‘movement’ in this direction? AS much as the physicists are seeking a unified field theory to explain the four fundamental forces of nature, is it not opportune for the medical philosophers to begin seeking such unity in the world of medicine? Can we in Sri Lanka, with the cooperation of India and China, set the ball rolling?

What I have attempted to do in this short essay is to bring up some contending, even conflicting, issues in our overarching medical culture. Is it an unrelenting truth that the ‘East is east and the West is west, and never the twain shall meet’? Can we not fall back on the Eastern philosophical tradition that we Sri Lankans are atavistically immersed in, to strengthen our resolve, in all sincerity, to synthesise an alternative medico-philosophical model that will bring out the best of both worlds?

The planet continues to whimper in pain,

It’s down with a fever that’s running high,

And blood’s clogging its tender veins,

Laying waste its balanced existence,

Beckoning close total paralysis,

Thanks to the love for fossil fuels,

Of civilized men behind the wheel,

But it’s time to cut down on marathon talks,

Realize that this is the eleventh hour,

And come out quick with a workable plan,

That would meet the needs of all living beings.

By Lynn Ockersz