General public, development and future

This can be considered a testing time for Sri Lankans. Every day you have news and it keeps on getting updated. Nowadays people are discussing the bond scam, fuel problem, Constitution, Budget, SAITM and the tense situation in Gintota. And also we watch and listen to political debates on prime time TV and radio with many commercial sponsors. 

On the other hand, you can read about suicides, accidents and many other protests in newspapers and on social media. Anyway, a section of the public is always willing to reduce their stress by not following the news on social media but by looking at some of the comments made by different fake profiles like Kakirehene Lal!

Sri Lanka is a country with over 35,000 years of civilisation. The water-cooling system of Sigiriya, built by King Kashyapa, still continues to amaze engineers and intellectuals. There were many success stories during the reign of the ancient kings. But at the moment you cannot see any such successes. The amount of money allocated for research and development indicates our future. 

At present Sri Lanka has invested only around 0.2% of GDP for Research and Development (India is spending 0.63%, Pakistan 0.25% and Japan 3.28%). Not a single university in Sri Lanka comes in the bracket of the first 800 universities of The Times Higher Education World University Rankings - 2018. Unfortunately many in this country still evaluate universities by using “webometrics” which only measure both the volume of the web contents (number of webpages and files) and the visibility and impact of these web publications according to the number of external links (site citations) received. 

I have only mentioned two indicators for the successful operationalised future of Sri Lanka. 

There was a strategic window (temporary period of ‘alignment’ or ‘fit’ between the competitive capabilities of an organisation and the key requirements of the existing or new markets it intends to compete in) which opened for Sri Lanka during the time terrorism was defeated in 2009. But now we can witness a lack of vision which has led this country to a really bad situation.

Anyway, we still have time to reflect on our mistakes and endeavour to regain our lost glory. We can see the parallel between Sri Lanka’s cricket and the current status of the country. Cricket fans in Sri Lanka have witnessed many defeats in Test and ODIs. Nevertheless, a friend of mine has voiced optimism that with the arrival of strategist Chandika Hathurusingha into the equation there will be hope for Sri Lankan cricket. Similarly, Sri Lanka needs a strategic management plan without politics!