Daniel Alphonsus

A crisis manifesto: exorcising debt, hunger and unemployment. Summary 🧵 drive.google.com/file/d/1xJHG9j… 1/14

What do we want from SriLankan Airlines? SriLankan Airlines has accrued billions of rupees in losses. Many believe the government should sell it, restructure it, or simply run it better. But Stefan Furkhan argues the biggest problem isn’t ownership,... examiner.media/what-do-we-wan…

Sri Lanka’s economy — just beginning to recover from the economic crisis — is heavily reliant on migrant remittances. Remittances were $8.1 billion last year, growing by 23 percent compared to 2024. Koshala Wickremasinghe, the foreign employment bureau chair, believes there will be a “slight” decrease in remittances this month due to the war. examiner.media/sri-lankans-in…

A story about Lankan migrants in the Gulf: A housemaid in Kuwait, Nilu Athukorala, hasn’t remitted her March salary to Sri Lanka. She isn’t even depositing it in the bank — keeping it in hand “just in case of an emergency”. examiner.media/sri-lankans-in…

“Unless the Sri Lanka government and the Kuwaiti government intervene to send us housemaids back, we won’t have an option if things get worse. No employer would give us money to meet the higher costs of going back home now.” examiner.media/sri-lankans-in…

Hard hitting reporting from the @ExaminerLK as always. It's about time we had a media organization with the courage to cover "sensitive" stories. This is one subscription which will forever be renewed! examiner.media/after-a-little…

Issue #27: Lankans in the Gulf face layoffs and salary cuts

This slogan sums up twenty years of British stagnation.

Turns out Sri Lanka (afka Ceylon) was involved in a sovereign debt restructuring in 1953, as a creditor (!) Likely restructuring export credit (tea or rubber) to germany pre-war, which also included a SCDI linked to german economic growth and exports. researchgate.net/publication/30…

Why do new buildings seem, on average, uglier than old buildings? We discuss some options: - Survivorship bias: only the beautiful old buildings have survived (we reject this option); - Cycles of taste: everyone always finds new buildings uglier (we mostly reject this too); - Ornament became too expensive because of rising labour costs (we reject this); - Ornament became too cheap because of mechanisation and then became low status (we reject this); - Some sort of Protestant or Puritan anti-beauty inheritance (we are doubtful); - Some kind of elite status game, perhaps a response to democratisation or elite overproduction (we think there is promise here, but serious work is needed on the details). I discuss this and more with @Aria_Babu and @bswud. Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/did… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/2pIka6… Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=qvueKt…

In the decades prior to Independence, the average Thomian was better versed in Greek or Latin than Sinhalese or Tamil. As the full effects of universal franchise began to be felt, their inability to comprehend and communicate meant that they were not fit for the democratic age. examiner.media/why-an-anandia…

While S. Thomas College was an accidental refugee camp for the anti-Sanskritist Hela havula, Jaffna College men were the vanguard of Tamil’s revival and the call for Independence. The first call for swaraj arose from the Handy Perinpanaygam and the Jaffna Youth Congress. examiner.media/why-an-anandia…

Feels like I’ve only been writing about Sri Lanka in crisis the last few weeks. So, revisiting this story - which I loved putting together - from two months ago.

Kannangara spearheaded abolishing English medium education. Thomia charges this kept the vast majority of the country in ignorance. examiner.media/why-an-anandia…

Despite some evils, Simon commends the Thomian D.S. Senanayake’s vision of Lanka: multicultural, secular, open to the world, and closely connected to Europe. examiner.media/why-an-anandia…

Ceylon’s elite, which consisted substantially of Thomians, was the best prepared in the British Empire for self-rule. But they became the midwives of today’s hopeless Lanka. examiner.media/why-an-anandia…

“In the church, there’s no division. Christianity doesn’t look at caste or class. But don’t get offended by this statement: in Sinhala society there are divisions.” About 75 percent of the community now practices Christianity. More in our examination. examiner.media/why-the-telugu…

Tourist arrivals in the first fourteen days of March were 42 percent less than the first two weeks of February, and 19 percent less than March 2025. examiner.media/25-days-of-fue…

QR code bugs related to 2.5 million records, not the majority, said Waruna Sri Dhanapala, digital economy ministry secretary. Sri Lanka had 8.8 million vehicles as of end-2025, including motorcycles. examiner.media/25-days-of-fue…

Petrol stations resorted to selling nominal amounts of fuel, around a thousand rupees worth, to those with technical issues on humanitarian grounds, said Kapila Naotunna, joint-secretary at the main shed owners’ association. examiner.media/25-days-of-fue…

“Sri Lanka progressively lost its regional advantage in educational outcomes as the first products of his system began issuing from Lankan schools in the 1960s and 1970s. It is entirely probable that better results could have been achieved through gradual improvement and development of the existing system, without incurring the social and economic costs — and the national trauma — that arose from Kannangara reforms.” A review of Richard Simon’s Thomia, subtitled ‘the entangled history of Lanka and her greatest public school’. A history of failed promise and a requiem to Anglophone Lanka, Thomia traces the mighty currents,... examiner.media/why-an-anandia…