LAST WEEK, we looked at Nepal, which was rocked by enraged youth, and how the Himalayan country was on the path to recovery. This week’s cover, by Chief of Bureau (Chennai) Lakshmi Subramanian, features our island neighbour Sri Lanka. She writes that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake—who completed a year in office on September 23—has more or less put the Lion back on its feet.
From tea to garments to tourism and energy, Dissanayake has been trying to revive every sector, knowing full well that “a rising tide lifts all boats”. US president John F. Kennedy said that. Lakshmi interviewed Sri Lankan Labour Minister Anil Jayantha Fernando, who stressed the need for investment. She also examines the symbolism behind the arrest of former president Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Closer to home, Senior Special Correspondent Kanu Sarda writes on the fingers being pointed at the Election Commission of India and why the institution should instil trust. Chief of Bureau (Mumbai) Dnyanesh Jathar takes the coverage forward by visiting Maharashtra’s Rajura constituency, where the Election Commission has struck off 6,853 names from the voter list after complaints surfaced. Senior Special Correspondent Prathima Nandakumar looks at Karnataka’s Aland assembly constituency, where there were allegedly fraudulent online requests (applications) to delete as many as 6,018 voters from the electoral rolls ahead of the 2023 assembly polls.
Last week I had made a passing reference to THE WEEK Maritime Conclave 2025; the full coverage appears in this issue. It includes Special Correspondent Anjuly Mathai’s article on circumnavigators Lt Commanders Dilna K. and Roopa Alagirisamy.
Special Correspondent Prema Rajaram mourns Assamese singer Zubeen Garg. Everyone in Assam thought that Garg sang for them, personally. Despite his 38,000 songs in 44 languages, it fell to death to introduce Garg to most of India.
I think the digital world of algorithms has only amplified our ignorance in a way. We live in echo chambers, surrounded by known voices and familiar thoughts. Echo chambers that amplify our voice and convince us that we are right, always right. The Zubeen Gargs of this world thumb their nose at us and our make-believe worlds.
Returning to the cover and the Lion reference, it is interesting to look up the number of national flags featuring an animal motif, both real and imagined. For example, the Bhutanese flag has the mythical Druk, the thunder dragon; Wales has the red dragon. Then there are the real ones such as the yellow bird of paradise on the Papua New Guinea flag, Kazakhstan’s golden eagle, the ram of the Falkland Islands, and so on.
As flags go, the Sri Lankan flag has a rare characteristic. It has an animal and a weapon. In fact, it has an animal carrying a weapon. The lion is holding a sword in its right paw. Now, how many countries have weapons on their flags? That is a story for another time.