Today, September 8th 2026, India’s defense minister arrives in Sri Lanka and it appears the number one item on the agenda is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on defense. But almost no one outside a small circle—the president and the 5 politburo members of the JVP—seems to know what it contains. GoSL has previously stated that India has restricted unilateral disclosure of the agreement—including, apparently, to Parliament. ...
We recently turned to a book we had long set aside—Alexander Stubb’s The Triangle of Power. The current Finnish President has written an engaging work, yet our reflection here is less about the book itself than about a particular perspective it raises, one that has given us pause. Stubb presents a view common in Western discourse: that the post-Cold War liberal international order, founded on rules and multilateralism, was a force for global peace and prosperity, and that its restoration—or preservation, depending on one’s vantage point—is a worthy aspiration. ...
Most of the successful small nations in the world, may it be Singapore, Finland, Estonia, Taiwan or even Ukraine has one thing is common. They have thought about their security, national security before anything else. They have put national defense front and center even before economic policy because they understand the one thing we seem to not: A nations ability to protect it sovereignty in both physical, digital and most importantly cognitive domains is the key to its progress in all other domains. ...
We live in the age of interdependence. No nation — big, small, powerful or weak , nukes or no nukes — can truly sustain itself in isolation. A lesson that was recently reminded to the world’s most powerful nation, The United States. Interconnectedness is not a new phenomenon, in fact since human beings first organized themselves into families, tribes, and communities, survival has depended on cooperation and mutual reliance. But what has changed is the depth and complexity of global integration. ...
Human beings are, for better or worse, tribal creatures at their core. Identity serves as the foundation for community, and community, in turn, serves one overriding purpose: survival. This was what the political leader on both sides tap into then, and taps into now. It does help that for both Sinhalese and Tamils this identity runs back thousands of years and is solidified in the genes of those who identify as such. Therefore we are mostly at the mercy of the few who have the ability to mobilize these deep ingrained sentiments — we call them our Leaders. ...
https://www.ft.lk/opinion/Methodist-Church-Sri-Lanka-Retired-President-Bishop-issues-open-letter-to-Manohari-Sallay/14-793753 The Warrior, the Priest and the Wife In his open letter to Madam Manori Sally published in the Daily FT, His Reverence Bishop Asiri P. Perera presents a very articulate reply, yet at the same time reveals the ignorance that not just the educated, but society as a whole, demonstrates in these matters of law and order. In his statement, the Rt. Rev. Bishop writes “As the wife of Suresh Sallay, your feelings and thoughts are real, and I do not interfere with your right to express them. A spouse’s loyalty is natural. Yet, I appeal to your conscience to reflect carefully on your public declaration that “Suresh is an innocent man suffering for no reason.” **And it is with this statement of innocence that he takes issue, ** ...
When an editorial – generally the work of a seasoned journalist or an editorial board – goes on an emotional rant one realizes there is something wrong with both the journalist writing it and the newspaper publishing it. This is a time of social media and algorithms creating division and polarization by carefully curating what a user sees and is exposed to. Therefore, traditional media, and true journalists need to do their craft justice, report the facts and truths do not contribute to the mass hysteria. ...
