Keynote speech delivered by science writer and digital media analyst Nalaka Gunawardene at the Sri Lanka National IT Conference held in Colombo from 2 to 4 October 2018.
Nalaka Gunawardene speaking at National IT Conference 2018 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo by ReadMe.lk
Here is a summary of what I covered (PPT embedded below):
With around a third of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people using at least one type of social media, the phenomenon is no longer limited to cities or English speakers. But as social media users increase and diversify, so do various excesses and abuses on these platforms: hate speech, fake news, identity theft, cyber bullying/harassment, and privacy violations among them.
Public discourse in Sri Lanka has been focused heavily on social media abuses by a relatively small number of users. In a balanced stock taking of the overall phenomenon, the multitude of substantial benefits should also be counted. Social media has allowed ordinary Lankans to share information, collaborate around common goals, pursue entrepreneurship and mobilise communities in times of elections or disasters. In a country where the mainstream media has been captured by political and business interests, social media remains the ‘last frontier’ for citizens to discuss issues of public interest. The economic, educational, cultural benefits of social media for the Lankan society have not been scientifically quantified as yet but they are significant – and keep growing by the year.
Whether or not Sri Lanka needs to regulate social media, and if so in what manner, requires the widest possible public debate involving all stakeholders. The executive branch of government and the defence establishment should NOT be deciding unilaterally on this – as was done in March 2018, when Facebook and Instagram were blocked for 8 days and WhatsApp and Viber were restricted (to text only) owing to concerns that a few individuals had used these services to instigate violence against Muslims in the Eastern and Central Provinces.
In this talk, I caution that social media regulation in the name of curbing excesses could easily be extended to crack down on political criticism and minority views that do not conform to majority orthodoxy. An increasingly insular and unpopular government – now in its last 18 months of its 5-year term – probably fears citizen expressions on social media.
Yet the current Lankan government’s democratic claims and credentials will be tested in how they respond to social media challenges: will that be done in ways that are entirely consistent with the country’s obligations under international human rights laws that have safeguards for the right to Freedom of Expression (FOE)? This is the crucial question.
Already, calls for social media regulation (in unspecified ways) are being made by certain religious groups as well as the military. At a recent closed-door symposium convened by the Lankan defence ministry’s think tank, the military was reported to have said “Misinformation directed at the military is a national security concern” and urged: “Regulation is needed on misinformation in the public domain.”
How will the usually opaque and unpredictable public policy making process in Sri Lanka respond to such partisan and strident advocacy? Might the democratic, societal and economic benefits of social media be sacrificed for political expediency and claims of national security?
To keep overbearing state regulation at bay, social media users and global platforms can step up arrangements for self-regulation, i.e. where the community of users and the platform administrators work together to monitor, determine and remove content that violates pre-agreed norms or standards. However, the presentation acknowledges that this approach is fraught with practical difficulties given the hundreds of languages involved and the tens of millions of new content items being published every day.
What is to be done to balance the competing interests within a democratic framework?
I quote the views of David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression from his June 2018 report to the UN Human Rights Council about online content regulation. He cautioned against the criminalising of online criticism of governments, religion or other public institutions. He also expressed concerns about some recent national laws making global social media companies responsible, at the risk of steep financial penalties, to assess what is illegal online, without the kind of public accountability that such decisions require (e.g. judicial oversight).
Kaye recommends that States ensure an enabling environment for online freedom of expression and that companies apply human rights standards at all stages of their operations. Human rights law gives companies the tools to articulate their positions in ways that respect democratic norms and
counter authoritarian demands. At a minimum, he says, global SM companies and States should pursue radically improved transparency, from rule-making to enforcement of the rules, to ensure user autonomy as individuals increasingly exercise fundamental rights online.
We can shape the new cyber frontier to be safer and more inclusive. But a safer web experience would lose its meaning if the heavy hand of government tries to make it a sanitized, lame or sycophantic environment. Sri Lanka has suffered for decades from having a nanny state, and in the twenty first century it does not need to evolve into a cyber nanny state.
From time to time, certain Lankan academics make unsupported claims that the Sinhala language – spoken as native tongue by about 70% of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people – is in danger of ‘going extinct’. These claims are peddled without question by some journalists and on social media. I have been countering this for some time, going to authoritative global references that track the status of languages worldwide.
Key among them is the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. The latest edition of the Atlas (2010) lists about 2,500 languages (among which 230 languages extinct since 1950), approaching the generally-accepted estimate of some 3,000 endangered languages worldwide. Sinhala language is NOT among them. However, Sri Lanka does have one endangered language: spoken by the indigenous Veddah people, whose numbers are dwindling (below 500) due to cultural assimilation.
World Atlas of Languages in Danger, image captured on 11 June 2017
Op-ed written for The Weekend Express broadsheet newspaper in Sri Lanka, 18 November 2016
The Big Unknown: Climate action under President Trump – By Nalaka Gunawardene, Weekend Express, 18 Nov 2016
What does Donald Trump’s election as the next President of the United States mean for action to contain climate change?
The billionaire non-politician — who lost the popular vote by more than a million votes but won the presidency on the basis of the electoral college — has long questioned the science underlying climate change.
He also sees political and other motives in climate action. For example, he tweeted on 6 November 2012: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Trump’s tweet on 6 November 2012 – What does it mean for his administration?
His vice president, Indiana governor Mike Pence, also does not believe that climate change is caused by human activity.
Does this spell doom for the world’s governments trying to avoid the worst case scenarios in global warming, now widely accepted by scientists as driven by human activity – especially the burning of petroleum and coal?
It is just too early to tell, but the early signs are not promising.
“Trump should drop his pantomime-villain act on climate change. If he does not, then, come January, he will be the only world leader who fails to acknowledge the threat for what it is: urgent, serious and demanding of mature and reasoned debate and action,” said the scientific journal Nature in an editorial on 16 November 2016.
It added: “The world has made its decision on climate change. Action is too slow and too weak, but momentum is building. Opportunities and fortunes are being made. Trump the businessman must realize that the logical response is not to cry hoax and turn his back. The politician in Trump should do what he promised: reject political orthodoxy and listen to the US people.”
It was only on 4 November 2016 that the Paris climate agreement came into force. This is the first time that nearly 200 governments have agreed on legally binding limits to emissions that cause global warming.
All governments that have ratified the accord — which includes the US, China, India and the EU — carry an obligation to contain global warming to no more than 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels. Scientists regard that as the safe limit, beyond which climate change is likely to be both catastrophic and irreversible.
It has been a long and bumpy road to reach this point since the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992. UNFCCC provides the umbrella under which the Paris Agreement works.
High level officials and politicians from 197 countries that have ratified the UNFCCC are meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, this month to iron out the operational details of the Paris Agreement.
Speaking at the Marrakesh meeting this week, China’s vice foreign minister, Liu Zhenmin, pointed out that it was in fact Trump’s Republican predecessors who launched climate negotiations almost three decades ago.
It was only three months ago that the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters – China and the US — agreed to ratify the Paris agreement during a meeting between the Chinese and US presidents.
Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an independent advocacy group in Delhi, has just shared his thoughts on the Trump impact on climate action.
“Will a Trump presidency revoke the ratification of the Paris Agreement? Even if he is not able to revoke it because of international pressure…he will dumb down the US action on climate change. Which means that international collaboration being built around the Paris Agreement will suffer,” he said in a video published on YouTube (see: https://goo.gl/r6KGip)
“If the US is not going to take ambitious actions on climate change, I don’t think India or Chine will take ambitious actions either. We are therefore looking at a presidency which is going to push climate action around the world down the barrel,” he added.
During his campaign, Trump advocated “energy independence” for the United States (which meant reducing or eliminating the reliance on Middle Eastern oil). But he has been critical of subsidies for solar and wind power, and threatened to end regulations that sought to end the expansion of petroleum and coal use. In other words, he would likely encourage dig more and more domestically for oil.
“Trump doesn’t believe that renewable energy is an important part of the energy future for the world,” says Chandra Bhushan. “He believes that climate change is a conspiracy against the United States…So we are going to deal with a US presidency which is extremely anti-climate.”
Bhushan says Trump can revoke far more easily domestic laws like the Clean Power Plan that President Obama initiated in 2015. It set a national limit on carbon pollution produced from power plants.
“Therefore, whatever (positive) action that we thought was going to happen in the US are in jeopardy. We just have to watch and ensure that, even when an anti-climate administration takes over, we do not allow things to slide down (at global level action),” Bhushan says.
Some science advocates caution against a rush to judgement about how the Trump administration will approach science in general, and climate action in particular.
Nature’s editorial noted: “There is a huge difference between campaigning and governing…It is impossible to know what direction the United States will take under Trump’s stewardship, not least because his campaign was inconsistent, contradictory and so full of falsehood and evasion.”
We can only hope that Trump’s business pragmatism would prevail over climate action. As the Anglo-French environmental activist Edward Goldsmith said years ago, there can be no trade on a dead planet.
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala, appearing in the print issue of 9 Oct 2016), I profile and salute Dr Ajith C S Perera, a leading champion for accessibility rights in Sri Lanka.
A chartered chemist by profession, a former senior manager in industry, a qualified training instructor, also a former test-match-panel cricket umpire, his life changed when an accident left him a paraplegic. Today he is a writer, speaker, author, a disability rights activist and accessibility adviser-accessor.
He is the founder and holds the honorary position of Chief Executive and Secretary-General of Idiriya, a registered, not-for-profit humanitarian service organisation in Sri Lanka. He has petitioned Supreme Court seeking and successfully obtaining rulings on mandatory accessibility provisions in all newly built public buildings. Sadly, however, many such premises blantatly ignore this ruling.
Wisden Cricket noted in a profile, “Society tends to have a myopic view when it comes to the disabled: people, by and large, sympathise when they ought to empathise. Perera, despite his years of experience, can’t even become a third umpire because stadiums in Sri Lanka are not fully wheelchair-accessible.”
Jurors Nalaka Gunawardene & Dian Gomez presenting Sri Lankan of the Year – Unsung Hero award to Dr Ajith C S Perera [Photo courtesy Pulse/Derana Media]දෙරණ මාධ්ය ආයතනය සංවිධානය කළ විශිෂ්ඨතම ශ්රී ලාංකිකයන්ට (Sri Lankans of the Year 2016) ප්රණාම පුද කිරීමේ සත් කාර්යයට ස්වාධීන ජූරි සභාවේ සාමාජිකයකු ලෙස මා ද සම්බන්ධ වුණා.
Sir Arthur Clarke on his custom-made dune roller at Hikkaduwa beach, southern Sri Lanka, circa 2004 [Photo by Rohan de Silva]බැංකු, තරු හෝටල්, කලාගාර, සිනමා හා නාට්ය ශාලා, සුපිරි වෙළඳ සංකීර්ණ ආදී බොහොමයක පඩි නොනැග, රෝද පුටුවක් ගෙන ගිය හැකි ramp තිබුණේ කලාතුරකින් බව ඔහු දුටුවා.
The South-East Asia Region of the World Health Organization (WHO-SEARO) held its 69th Regional Committee meeting in Colombo from 5 to 9 September 2016. The meeting of 15 ministers of health from the region took a close look at Sri Lanka’s public health system – which has been able to provide substantial value over the decades.
Yet, the public health system rares gets the credit it deserves: the media and citizens alike often highlight its shortcomings without acknowledging what it delivers, year after year.
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala, appearing in the print issue of 4 Sep 2016), I salute the public health system of Sri Lanka that has accomplished much amidst various challenges.
Sri Lanka’s public hospitals and related field programmes – like public health inspectors, family health workers and specific disease control efforts — provide a broad range of preventive and curative services. In most cases, these are provided free to recipients, irrespective of their ability to pay.
This is sustained by taxes: Sri Lanka’s public health sector annually receives allocations equal to around 2% of the country’s GDP.
I quote from the recently released Sri Lanka National Health Accounts (2013) report. Its data analysis shows that the Government of Sri Lanka accounts for 55% of the total health care provision of the country. Considering all financial sources (public and private), the per capita current health expenditure of Sri Lanka in 2013 amounted to LKR 12,636 (97.2 US$).
L to R – Dr Palitha Mahipala, Director General of Health Services, and Dr Jacob Kumaresan, WHO Representative to Sri lanka [WHO Photo]කොතරම් කළත් ලෙහෙසියෙන් හොඳක් නොඅසන රාජ්ය ක්ෂේත්රයන් තිබෙනවා. එයින් එකක් තමයි අපේ මහජන සෞඛ්ය සේවාව.
Distribution of Sri Lanka’s current health expenditure 2013 by Broader Categories of illnesses (LKR million, %) – Source: National Health Accounts 2013
Half a century after narrowly missing the opportunity to eliminate malaria in the mid 1960s, Sri Lanka seems to have reached this significant public health goal.
“With no indigenous malaria cases being reported since October 2012, Sri Lanka is currently in the malaria elimination and prevention of re-introduction phase,” says the website of the Sri Lanka Anti-Malaria Campaign.
In this week’s Ravaya column (appearing in the print issue of 22 May 2016), I summarise how we reached here, and what challenges remain.
I point out that Malaria is an ancient enemy in Sri Lanka that has killed tens of thousands and affected millions over centuries. There is speculation that malaria contributed to the historical shifting of the seat of government (kingdom at the time) and majority of human settlements from the dry zone to the intermediate and wet zones.
A severe epidemic in 1934-35 led to an estimated 5.5 million cases and 80,000 reported deaths – around 2 per cent of the total population of 5.3 million in the 1931 census. My father, now 83, is one of its survivors.
In the mid 1940s, Ceylon became the first Asian country to develop a scheme of indoor industrial spraying using DDT. In 1946, when spraying commenced in earnest, the island still had around 3 million malaria cases, high for a population of 6.6 million (1946 census). With widespread use of DDT and other measures, there was a drastic reduction: down to 7,300 cases in 1956 and just 17 in 1963.
Then there was a resurgence, which took over two decades to bring under control. As Dr Risintha Premaratne, Director of Sri Lanka’s anti-malaria campaign, told WHO, “Key components in the elimination efforts included enhanced malaria parasite screening in high transmission areas through active case detection using mobile malaria clinics; early diagnosis and prompt treatment effectively reducing the parasite reservoir and the potential for transmission; and strengthening the malaria mosquito surveillance leading to evidence based vector control.”
Malaria elimination in Sri Lanka has been achieved through a period overlapping with a 30-year separatist war in areas that were endemic for malaria. The challenge now entails sustaining a malaria-free country and preventing the reintroduction of malaria to Sri Lanka…in the context of rapid postwar developments in the country, say three Lankan leaders in this struggle writing in WHO South East Asia Journal of Public Health in Jan-March 2014.
Managing disaster early warnings is both a science and an art. When done well, it literally saves lives — but only if the word quickly reaches all those at risk, and they know how to react.
We have come a long way since the devastating Boxing Day tsunami of December 2004 caught Indian Ocean countries by surprise. Many of the over 230,000 people killed that day could have been saved by timely coastal evacuations.
Early warnings work best when adequate technological capability is combined with streamlined decision-making, multiple dissemination systems and well prepared communities.
Rapid onset disasters — such as tsunamis and flash floods — allow only a tight window from detection to impact, typically 15 to 90 minutes. When it comes to tsunamis, it is a real race against time. Effective tsunami warnings require very rapid evaluation of undersea earthquakes and resulting sea level changes, followed by equally rapid dissemination of that assessment.
Following the 2004 disaster, the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWS) was set up in 2005 under UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. It is a regional collaboration that brings together three regional tsunami service providers – scientific facilities operated by the governments of Australia, India and Indonesia — and over a dozen national tsunami centres. The latter are state agencies designated by governments to handle in-country warnings and other mitigation activities.
Participants of SHER (Science, Health, Environment & Risk) Communication – Role of S&T Communication in Disaster Management and Community Preparedness held in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 8-9 Dec 2015
It was organised by the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA) in collaboration with the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI), Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) in Indonesia.
The workshop brought together around 25 participants, most of them scientists researching or engaged in publication communication of science, technology and health related topics. I was one of two journalists in that gathering, having been nominated by the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka (NAASL).
I drew on over 25 years of journalistic and science communication experience, during which time I have worked with disaster managers and researchers, and also co-edited a book, Communicating Disasters: An Asian Regional Handbook (2007).
Nalaka Gunawardene speaking at Science, Health, Environment & Risk Communication Asian regional workshop held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 8-9 Dec 2015
The challenge in disaster early warnings is to make the best possible decisions quickly using imperfect information. With lives and livelihoods at stake, there is much pressure to get it right. But one can’t be timely and perfectly accurate at the same time.
We have come a long way since the devastating Boxing Day tsunami of December 2004 caught Indian Ocean countries by surprise. Many of the over 230,000 people killed that day could have been saved by timely coastal evacuations.
The good news is that advances in science and communications technology, greater international cooperation, and revamped national systems have vastly improved tsunami early warnings during the past decade. However, some critical gaps and challenges remain.
The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWS) was set up in 2005 under UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Over USD 400 million has been invested in state of the art equipment for rapid detection and assessment. However, the system’s overall effectiveness is limited by poor local infrastructure and lack of preparedness. Some countries also lack efficient decision-making for issuing national level warnings based on regionally provided rapid assessments.
Warnings must reach communities at risk early enough for action. False warnings can cause major economic losses and reduce compliance with future evacuation orders. Only governments can balance these factors. It is important that there be clearer protocols within governments to consider the best available information and make the necessary decisions quickly.
Now, the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is making this delicate balance even more difficult. To remain effective in the always-connected and chattering Global Village, disaster managers have to rethink their engagement strategies.
Controlled release of information is no longer an option for governments. In the age of 24/7 news channels and social media, many people will learn of breaking disasters independently of official sources. Some social media users will also express their views instantly – and not always accurately.
How can this multiplicity of information sources and peddlers be harnessed in the best public interest? What are the policy options for governments, and responsibilities for technical experts? How to nurture public trust, the ‘lubricant’ that helps move the wheels of law and order – as well as public safety – in the right direction?
As a case study, I looked at what happened on 11 April 2012, when an 8.6-magnitude quake occurred beneath the ocean floor southwest of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Several Asian countries issued quick warnings and some also ordered coastal evacuations. For example, Thai authorities shut down the Phuket International Airport, while Chennai port in southern India was closed for a few hours. In Sri Lanka, panic and chaos ensued.
In the end, the quake did not generate a tsunami (not all such quakes do) – but it highlighted weaknesses in the covering the ‘last mile’ in disseminating early warnings clearly and efficiently.
Speakers on ‘ICT Applications for Disaster Prevention and Treatment’ in Jakarta, Indonesia, 8-9 Dec 2015
I concluded: Unless governments communicate in a timely and authoritative manner during crises, that vacuum will be filled by multiple voices. Some of these may be speculative, or mischievously false, causing confusion and panic.
Population ageing happens when older people (typically over 60) account for an increasingly large proportion of the total population. It is the result of declining fertility rates, lower infant mortality and increasing survival at older ages – all triumphs of development.
This happened slowly but steadily during the last few decades. Worldwide, older people’s share of population has risen sharply. In 1950, when the world’s population was 2.5 billion, there were 205 million persons over 60. In 2014, there were 868 million such persons – nearly 12% of the total.
Meanwhile, the number of new-borns has been falling. In 2000, for the first time in history, there were more people over 60 globally than children below 5. And within the next decade, the number of older persons will surpass 1 billion.
Proportions matter more than absolute numbers. It is the age structure of a country’s population that directly affects economic productivity and human development.
In South Asia (SAARC region), Sri Lanka has the highest proportion of older people, which was 13% in 2014. This is projected to rise to 20% by 2031, and a quarter by 2041. Parallel to this, the proportion of working age population – which reached its peak in 2006 (65.1%) – will keep falling. This is similar to what is happened in many East Asian countries.
“As Sri Lanka experiences a demographic transition, the country will face several economic and social challenges, especially in handling the social protection and health care needs of a rising elderly population,” cautioned the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in its ‘Sri Lanka State of the Economy 2014’ report. “In addition, Sri Lanka will also have to address the implications of a shrinking workforce on the growth of the country.”
How can we prepare for this shift, to avoid being overwhelmed economically and socially?
In this week’s Ravaya column (appearing in issue of 13 Dec 2015), I explore this big challenge, with data and analysis from 2012 Census and the Global AgeWatch Index 2015 that came out in September 2015.
Sri Lanka’s 2012 Census of Population and Housing categorised only 18.2% of the Lankan population as being urban. However, that figure is highly misleading because we currently use a narrow definition.
Currently, only those living in Municipal Council (MC) or Urban Council (UC) areas are considered urban. However, some Pradeshiya Sabha areas (the next local government unit) are just as urbanised.
At the recent LBR/LBO Infrastructure Summit 2015 held in Colombo in early November, Minister of Megapolis and Western Development Champika Ranawaka took on this myth head on. He argued that Sri Lanka’s urban population share is probably as high as 48% — which is two and a half times higher than the current figure.
His concern: misconceptions such as this distort the country’s policy decisions on infrastructure planning and urban development.
The World Bank’s global lead for urban development strategies, Sumila Gulyani, who spoke during the opening session, agreed with the Minister’s contention of nearly half of Sri Lanka’s population having already become urban.
I discuss the matter in this week’s Ravaya column, (appearing in issue of 29 Nov 2015).
South Asia at night – composite satellite image acquired by NASA between April 18 – October 23, 2012 This new image of the Earth at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands.
![Jurors Nalaka Gunawardene & Dian Gomez presenting Sri Lankan of the Year - Unsung Hero award to Dr Ajith C S Perera [Photo courtesy Derana Media]](https://movingimages.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/jurors-nalaka-gunawardene-dian-gomez-presenting-sri-lankan-of-the-year-unsung-hero-award-to-dr-ajith-c-s-perera.jpg?w=840)
![Sir Arthur Clarke on dune roller at Hikkaduwa beach [Photo by Rohan de Silva]](https://movingimages.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/sir-arthur-clarke-on-dune-roller-at-hikkaduwa-beach.jpg?w=840)
![L to R - Dr Palitha Mahipala, Director General of Health Services, and Dr Jacob Kumaresan, WHO Representative to Sri lanka [WHO Photo]](https://movingimages.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/l-to-r-dr-palitha-mahipala-director-general-of-health-services-and-dr-jacob-kumaresan-who-representative-to-sri-lanka.jpg?w=840)
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 