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Sri Lanka fall for the green top trap
The infrastructure crisis at state universities
Had former Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa lived to celebrate his 102nd birthday, it would have fallen on June 23, 2026. Premadasa, a politically self-made leader from humble beginnings, served as the second Executive President of Sri Lanka from 1989 until his assassination in 1993. He was the first non-aristocratic “commoner” to rise to the nation’s highest office, breaking the long-standing dominance of the landed elite, high-caste aristocracy, and wealthy political families. Emerging from modest social origins, Premadasa represented a rare example of social mobility in Sri Lankan politics. He often marked his birthdays in remote villages through the “Gam Udawa” (Village Reawakening) programme.
It is fitting to begin this column with an anecdote connected to Gam Udawa. Following the Gam Udawa ceremony in Buttala, Premadasa took a helicopter ride with several officials and identified a site in Mahiyangana for the next programme. He instructed the Director of Town and Country Planning to prepare a sketch plan for the location.
When the Director later returned to Colombo and met the President, Premadasa asked, “Where is the sketch plan?” Instead of producing a plan, the Director handed over a small piece of paper and said, “Sir, when I stepped out of the vehicle, a youth handed me this note.”
Premadasa brought the note to a meeting at Sethsiripaya attended by nearly one hundred officials and read it aloud. The message stated: “If you visit again, you will not leave alive.”
Holding up the note before the gathering, Premadasa asked sharply: “If a mere threat is enough to stop an officer from carrying out his duty, what use are such officers to the country?”
Premadasa assumed office during one of the most turbulent periods in the country’s post-independence history. Sri Lanka was engulfed in twin civil conflicts while still grappling with the consequences of the sweeping economic and constitutional changes introduced through the open economy reforms and the 1978 Constitution. Poverty had deepened, export growth had slowed, balance-of-payments pressures persisted, and external debt continued to mount. The nation stood politically divided, economically strained, and socially unsettled.
At a public meeting, Premadasa once remarked that the Presidency was not “a crown placed upon my head, but a melting pot.” He believed governance should not remain the preserve of a privileged few. Ordinary people, in his view, had to participate in every aspect of governance — from policymaking to implementation. Citizens should share both the responsibility and the benefits of development.
Premadasa often argued that the root cause of unrest was the reduction of people into “mere voting machines operating once in five years.” It was within this philosophy that he introduced the concept of poverty alleviation into Sri Lanka’s national development agenda. He frequently observed that while institutions existed for every crop, few truly existed for the people themselves.
Janasaviya (People’s Strength) Programme
Out of this thinking emerged the people-centred programme Janasaviya , which combined welfare with production-oriented development. Its objective was not merely to help the poor survive, but to enable them to rebuild their lives with dignity and self-reliance. Purpose was alleviating poverty and empowering low-income households. Initially, Janasaviya beneficiaries received baskets of essential goods, many of which consisted of inexpensive imported utensils and crockery purchased through cooperative channels. Premadasa quickly recognised the contradiction and directed that the baskets instead contain locally produced items such as brooms, pottery, serviettes, and other village products. In this way, he envisioned the village not only as a marketplace, but also as a centre of production and economic self-sufficiency. Approach was to combine welfare assistance with credit, livelihood support, and production-oriented activities aimed at self-reliance.
Landmark 200 Garment Factory Programme
Thereafter, he launched the 200 Garment Factory Programme with the purpose of decentralising industrialisation and create rural employment. Approach was to Utilize U.S. garment quotas while offering incentives and infrastructure support for investors willing to establish factories outside major urban centres. Transformed apparel into a major foreign exchange earner while creating employment opportunities, particularly for rural women. At the time, many mocked the idea, questioning whether the country could survive by “selling underwear to Western markets.” Premadasa, however, remained undeterred. Within a few years, garment factories emerged across rural Sri Lanka, bringing investment, employment, and economic activity to regions long neglected. For the first time, investors moved decisively beyond Colombo into the country’s remote periphery.
Those who attended his weekly review meetings at the BMICH would remember the relentless follow-up that characterized his leadership. Secretaries and heads of institutions responsible for urban development, housing, electricity, telecommunications, water supply, and roads rushed from office to office to ensure they could report back to the President with a simple answer: “Yes, Sir, it is done.”
One incident became emblematic of his problem-solving style. A Ceylon Electricity Board official informed an investor that electricity could not be supplied because there were no poles available in the area. Premadasa summoned the official and asked a single question: “Are there coconut trees in the area?” When the answer was yes, he immediately ordered that the lines be drawn using the coconut trees until proper poles could be installed. The issue was resolved within minutes.
Premadasa personally inspected garment factory construction sites and monitored even the smallest details. During one visit, he noticed that several roofs in the adjoining village remained uncovered. Turning to the factory manager, he instructed that by the time he returned to declare the factory open, every roof must be properly covered.
Gam Udawa (Village Reawakening) Movement
Purpose: To provide housing for the poor and improve rural living conditions.
Focus: Development of model villages with housing, roads, schools, water supply, and health facilities. The programme was Sri Lanka’s most ambitious rural housing initiative that drew international recognition leading to the United Nations’ declaration of International Year of Shelter for the Homeless.
Purpose: To reduce bureaucratic delays and bring government services directly to the people.
Method: Ministers, secretaries, and senior officials travelled to the provinces to resolve public grievances on the spot creating direct engagement between the state and rural communities.
Industrial, Educational, and Cultural Initiatives
Established the Koggala Free Trade Zone and transformed the Greater Colombo Economic Commission into the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI), helping attract export-oriented investment.
Introduced free school uniforms to ease the burden on low-income families.
Established the Tower Hall Foundation to support theatre and music and introduced pension schemes for elderly artists.
On a concept introduced by President Premadasa, the Government established a “Job Bank” with the objective of eliminating arbitrary recruitment practices and political patronage in public sector appointments. Unemployed youth were invited to register with the Job Bank, and President Premadasa directed that vacancies in the public sector be filled from among those registered candidates through competitive written examinations and interviews rather than through ministerial recommendations or political influence.
On the instructions of President Premadasa, a Resource Profile for every Divisional Secretary’s Division (DSD) was also prepared. These profiles contained detailed information on the resources, development potential, issues, and opportunities within each DS Division. The system became an important planning and development tool and continues to be updated and maintained in DSDs across the country.
Independent Verification of Information
He was also known for independently verifying information rather than relying on a single source. Soon after assuming office, a tragic accident occurred at an unprotected railway crossing in Ahangama, where a train collided with a school bus, killing and injuring students. Deeply disturbed, Premadasa ordered the General Manager of Railways (GMR) to ensure that within two weeks no unprotected railway crossing remained in the country.
When the GMR later submitted a report confirming completion, Premadasa sought independent verification from police stations around the country. One station confirmed that a crossing still remained unprotected. The GMR then faced his day of reckoning.
On another occasion, Premadasa invited opposition political parties for discussions on proposals relating to District Development and Coordination. Arriving early for the meeting, I quietly peeped into the room and saw a man rearranging furniture and shifting chairs. As he turned, smiling, he said, “Ah, you have come.” It was President Premadasa himself.
His impatience with bureaucratic negativity was legendary. During a discussion on land alienation and ownership, officials repeatedly explained why his proposals could not be implemented. Finally, in visible frustration, he remarked: “I have asked you to do 101 things. Is there not even one thing that all of you can do?” The officials understood the message immediately.
On another occasion, he promised every local authority a set of maintenance machinery before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. Procurement was entrusted to a senior minister, who failed to secure the equipment in time. Yet once the President fixed the date for the handing-over ceremony, “No” was not considered an acceptable answer.
At the time, I had imported several maintenance machines for distribution among Divisional Secretariats. The minister contacted me urgently and requested that I lend him the machinery for one week. Trusting his assurance, I agreed. The following day itself, the machines appeared at Galle Face Green, where an elaborate ceremony was held with local authority chairmen from across the country. President Premadasa commended the minister for the “prompt completion” of the task and ceremonially handed over the equipment. The following day, the relieved minister telephoned me and said gratefully: “Mr. Maliyadde, you saved my neck .”
Premadasa was a visionary driven by action. Under his leadership, garments emerged as Sri Lanka’s first major industrial export, transforming an export economy that for more than a century had depended overwhelmingly on tea, rubber, and coconut. Even decades later, apparel remains the country’s principal industrial export sector.
Though not formally trained as an economist, Premadasa instinctively understood concepts that economists often confined to seminars — growth nodes, export diversification, value addition and forward and backward linkages. He transformed these concepts into practice.
He believed the economy could not depend solely on garment assembly. Garment factories, in his view, had to become centres of wider economic activity that stimulated industrial and social development. He encouraged textile production for local supply to garment factories, while also seeking to integrate Janasaviya beneficiaries into these expanding economic networks. For Premadasa, the garment factory programme was not merely an export initiative; it was a bridge linking the village poor, local entrepreneurs, and international markets within a single chain of opportunity.
He also possessed a remarkable ability to identify the right man (not the right-hand man) for the right job. Political loyalty, caste, or creed mattered less to him than competence and commitment. That was why he appointed Susil Siriwardane, a prominent JVP activist who was involved in 1971 insurrection, for which he was detained and convicted by the courts, as the first Commissioner of Janasaviya. Many individuals chosen to lead his programmes came not from his own party, but from outside it.
President Premadasa held office for only four years. Yet within that brief period, he launched programmes with the scale and impact of decades of development.
Premadasa’s leadership style was defined by relentless follow-up, strict monitoring, and an uncompromising belief that obstacles existed to be overcome. Officials knew they had to be prepared for action at any hour of the day. He cultivated a reputation as a leader who refused to accept the words “cannot” or “impossible.”
His vision sought to combine social welfare with a regulated market economy, pursuing what many viewed as a distinctly Sri Lankan “third path” of development. He remains remembered as a determined and action-oriented leader whose policies left a lasting imprint on Sri Lanka’s social and economic landscape.
(Chandrasena Maliyadde is a former Secretary, Ministry of Plan Implementation. He can be reached at [email protected] )
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Wewage Don Helena Dep Weerasinghe was born in 1864 at Waragoda, Kelaniya, and married to Muhandiram Don Philip Tudugala Wijewardene of Tudugala, Kalutara on 1st September 1880, at the Christ Church Cathedral, Mutuwal. Don Philip was a well known timber merchant.
This marriage marked the beginning of a new era of the Wijewardene family, which had its roots in Sedawatte.
Don Philip and Helena had nine children: seven boys and two girls. They were DON PHILIP ALEXANDER, AGNES HELEN, DON LOUIS, DON RICHARD, DON EDMUND, LIZZIE HARRIET, DON CHARLES, DON WALTER AND DON ALBERT.
Helena’s son DON RICHARD popularly known as DR was the founder of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd (ANCL). He named his newspaper office in Fort after his mother’s name ‘Wewage’, presently known as ‘Lake House’. After the Government took over the newspapers, DR’s son Ranjith Wijewardene founded Wijeya Newspapers which now publishes ‘Sunday Times’, ‘Lankadeepa’ and ‘Daily Mirror’. DR Wijewardene’s grandsons are Ranil Wickramasinghe, former President of Sri Lanka, and Ruwan Wijewardene, former State Minister of Defence.
Helena’s eldest daughter, Agne Helen’s son, Junius Richard (JR) Jayewardene became the first Executive President of Sri Lanka in 1978.
After her marriage to Don Philip, Helena with the family visited the Kelaniya Raja Maha Viharaya on a full moon day in 1880 for worship. This visit marked a new chapter in the history of the temple. On this day, when she walked into the Viharaya to offer flowers at the Buddha statue, her feet sank into the mud on the then unpaved floor. This incident made her sad about the dilapidated state of the temple that existed at that time. She therefore decided then and there to restore the temple and make it worthy of being a place of worship.
As the first step of the restoration work, she got the floor of the Vihara paved with uniform rock slabs. One slab was inscribed with her initials and the year, ‘H.D.W 1888’. This slab was laid near the main entrance to mark this event. Later, in 1902, she replaced the wooden flower-altar that was in the Viharaya with a better one made of marble.
The restoration work of the temple thus began and continued over many years. In 1927, she laid the foundation stone for the complete restoration of the old Vihara. For this purpose, she brought artisans and sculptors from India and employed architects and artists from Sri Lanka. Her son Don Walter Wijewardene was a tower of strength to her and supported and encouraged her in all her renovation activities of the temple. A new wing was added to the old shrine room along with a central octagonal roof in the Kandyan style. Murals with a new style of delineation and colour were drawn on the walls of the new chambers. The pillars and the ceilings were executed in the traditional style of ancient sculpture. The doors and doorways were engraved with the Kandyan style of ornamental carvings.
Having undertaken the enormous restoration work of the temple over a lengthy period of time, the far-seeing lady turned her attention to the question of the future maintenance of the temple. A paddy field and a coconut plantation covering 250 acres in extent, were donated to the temple and with its annual income a fund called ‘The Kelaniya Kalawewa Trust Fund’ were created. In addition to this, another property, called Uyanwatte, situated at Kelanimulla on the other side of the river, was also gifted to be maintained as a flower garden to supply the daily requirement of flowers for the poojas at the temple.
All lovers of Sinhala art and sculpture, therefore, owe a great debt of honour and gratitude to this gracious lady, Mrs Helena Wijewardene of Sedawatte. Today, because of her magnanimous work the restored Kelani Vihara, the pride of the nation’s heritage, stands as a living monument to her pious zeal and munificence.
After the demise of her husband, Don Philip, in 1903, Helena Wijewardene moved out of Sedawatte and purchased ‘Rickmand House’ on Stuart Place, now known as 44 Galle Road, Colombo 3, where she built the family’s private residence, after demolishing ‘Rickmand House’. The new building was designed by architect Herbert Henry Reid, who later drew up plans for the restoration of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara,
The Wijewardene family – who were the patrons of the Viharaya – named their new villa ‘Sri Ramya’. Mrs Helena Wijewardene was the maternal grandmother of former President JR Jayewardene, who often visited this house during his childhood.
‘Sri Ramya’ was perhaps Sri Lanka’s first private residence, situated by the sea,
Few are aware that it was at ‘Sri Ramya’ the first trial performance of the Kelaniya Temple ‘Duruthu Perahera’ began. The Wijewardene children recall that this early version of the perahera began with them carrying the sacred relic in a small procession out through one gate and returning through the other. Today Helena’s great grandson Dhammika Attygalle is the Chief Basnayake Nilame of the temple.
As the temple’s patrons, the family was entrusted with keeping the holy relic while the Vihara was being restored. A small rear room (above the drive) of ‘Sri Ramya’ was fitted for the purpose with murals by the renowned artist Solis Mendis, who also painted the well-known Kelaniya Temple murals. One mural he painted there in 1930 shows Helena Wijewardene with her sons standing in front of ‘Sri Ramya’.
The first wedding at this villa took place on January 9, 1931, between Helena Wijewardene’s son Don Walter Wijewardene and Anula Kalyani Wijesinghe of Kamburupitiya. They were the parents of business magnate Upali Wijewardene, who was born in this same building. At ‘Sri Ramya,’ Helena saw the birth of four grandchildren: Rukmani Beligammana, daughter of Don Charles, and three children of Don Walter – Anoja Wijesundera, Kalyani Attygalle and Upali Wijewardene.
Helena’s eldest son DON ALEXANDER was the first Ceylonese to purchase and operate a modern Cargo Vessel, the SS ‘Pengely’, which travelled to Europe, Asia and the USA, Helena’s grandson Philip Upali – PUW was the first Sri Lankan to own a private Lear jet and a Bell Ranger Helicopter.
In May 1934, well-known Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and painter Nanda Lai Bose spent a fortnight at ‘Sri Ramya’ during a visit to Sri Lanka. In 1940 Sir Ivor Jennings called at the villa to meet noted ophthalmologist Dr A F Seneviratne, son-in-law of the elder Wijewardene. On November 10 of the same year, Helena Wijewardene passed away at ‘Sri Ramya’ at the height of World War II.
Helena’s ashes are kept at mausoleum at Madampitiya cemetery.
In 1951, U S Government purchased the ‘Sri Ramya’ for its Embassy and since 1993 it is the American Center and its Library.
The ancestral Sedawatte Walawwa situated at Wellampitiya Road, Kolonnawa now belongs to Helena’s great-grandson Shalitha Wijesundera.
A recent paper published by AI company Anthropic has argued that its chatbot, Claude, has developed basic elements of consciousness similar to those found in human beings. Claude, released in March 2023, handles text, images, advanced data analysis, coding and writing. It is designed to offer more advanced reasoning and greater detail than other chatbots. It is powered by large language models (LLMs).
The paper, published in July 2026 and titled “Global Workspace in Language Models”, claims that Claude has developed a computational network similar to the neural network referred to as the “global workspace” in neuroscience. The researchers have named it J-space, which processes intermediate steps that are not disclosed while generating an output for a prompt. They argue that this network is similar to the neural activity involved in the first stage of consciousness described in the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) of consciousness.
The preliminary mental activity involved in processing an object is called “access consciousness” in GNWT, while the network of neurons involved is called the “global workspace”. A thought about any physical or mental object, when it comes to the attention of the sensory organs or the mind, is supposed to be initially processed in this network, which remains active long enough to keep the object in memory and work on it. It is claimed that the next stage, called “phenomenal consciousness”, allows us to identify and experience the object with hedonic qualities. This stage is influenced by emotions, giving rise to a subjective experience that is also registered in long-term memory. At this stage, more centres in the brain are involved in constructing a series of thoughts about the object, and a response or reaction is determined and carried out.
The authors of the paper investigated the hidden or undisclosed computational steps taken by Claude to arrive at an answer to a prompt and named this process J-space. They claim that it is similar to access consciousness or the global workspace. They also claim that Claude occasionally displayed random words during computation, suggesting the presence of rudimentary hedonic qualities. However, they admit that Claude is not able to experience an object with hedonic qualities and emotions in a manner similar to human consciousness.
Interestingly, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory of neuroscience runs somewhat parallel to the process of consciousness described in Buddhist Abhidhamma, which was written in the first century B.C. It is complicated to explain this in a short letter. However, the first stage of the thought process, called “ignition” in GNWT, is similar to the first step in the Abhidhamma description, in which an object coming to the attention of the mind triggers consciousness. The mind uses a mental factor called phassa, translated as “contact”, for this “ignition”. The next stage, called access consciousness in GNWT, also runs parallel to the passive stage of cognition described in Abhidhamma. Phenomenal consciousness described in GNWT is explained in Abhidhamma as the active stage, called javana, followed by the reverberation of the initial consciousness process in the mind, known as consequent processes. These processes give rise to comprehensive cognition, including an emotional response and a decision necessary for action. The experience is committed to long-term memory during this phase.
However, contrary to GNWT, according to the Abhidhamma explanation, hedonic aspects are established immediately upon triggering, depending on the object, the circumstances and the species, before the passive phase of cognition, identified as access consciousness in GNWT. For example, a person known to a resident of a house visits for the first time. The pet dog perceives him as a threat and starts barking, while the resident greets him cordially. Consciousness becomes comprehensive and unique to the individual, with emotional influences depending on the subject, during the active phase, identified as phenomenal consciousness in GNWT. Once reassured, the dog starts wagging its tail to show its friendly nature.
In view of this difference, the Buddhist view cannot agree with the claim that what Claude has developed in J-space is similar to the early phase of human consciousness.
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
Ajith Samaranayake left us 20 years ago. He had by then spent over thirty years as a journalist, having carved a niche for himself as one of this Island’s most perceptive and talented writers. He had been news reporter, feature writer, literary critic and editor at two of the country’s premier houses of journalism: Lake House and the Upali Group.
On the day of his passing, the BBC reported his death saying: senior journalist and campaigner for press freedom, Ajith Samaranayake passed away on Wednesday. Ajith was a journalist who had inspired a generation of journalists in Sri Lanka.
Ajith will be remembered not only as an outstanding and respected journalist who was self-effacing, unpretentious and devoid both of ambition or rancour. He belonged to a long line of exemplary English language journalists, giants of the past like H.A.J. Hullugalle, Jayantha Padmanabha, Tarzie Vittachi, Denzil Peiris and Mervyn de Silva, who had made their mark in the world of English journalism before him.
Ajith grew up in Kandy where his father was a lawyer and where he had his education at the distinguished Public School, Trinity College. He was therefore exposed to a very bourgeois, Western social environment. But rather than being overwhelmed by it, rather than being intellectually circumscribed by it, he absorbed all that was good and wholesome in that tradition including its values, literature and philosophy, and became richer for it.
He ensured that he was equally familiar with and immersed in his own Sinhala culture, literature and traditions and conversant with both classical Sinhala writing and thought, as well as contemporary Sinhala works. It was this remarkable background that made his thinking and writing profound, profuse and precise.
While still a schoolboy, he cultivated both an inquiring and a critical mind resulting in a social conscience and a critical political awareness of the world around him that marked him as an outsider. One who was willing to think, and think critically for himself and thus critique and question the norms and values, the ethics and mores of the world around him. And at this young age, still a student, he began writing for publication and contributing to The Nation a radical Colombo English weekly.
His bilingual fluency and his social conscience enabled him to cross linguistic, racial and social barriers and thereby be a force and advocate for reflection, enlightenment and understanding. This was his mission, to use language to build bridges and be an advocate for understanding and inclusiveness.
He was more than a well-read literary critic or a well-informed journalist, he was a writer with a purpose. A commitment that sprang from a deep understanding of our traditional culture and way of life; while also drawing on all that was positive and constructive in the world beyond.
Thank you, Ajith. We are richer because of your presence in our lives.
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