Verité Research is an interdisciplinary think tank that provides strategic analysis and advice to governments and the private sector in Asia.
Joined September 2011
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"The problem is not the price at the pump. It is the price at the port".
A new column by Saliya Wickramasuriya - former CPC Chairman and Public Policy Fellow at @VeriteResearch with @NCdeMel and @Im_Anushan On why CPC is paying 13–15% above world market prices, and who is profiteering in the middle.
@FT_SriLanka
Read: ft.lk/ft_view__editorial/The…
#SriLanka
While consumers are paying above the global formula rate for diesel, the CPC is still operating at a loss.
How can fuel be technically overpriced for the public, yet underpriced for cost recovery?
It all comes down to a gap in procurement costs.
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Verité Research retweeted
While consumers are paying above the global formula rate for diesel, the CPC is still operating at a loss.
How can fuel be technically overpriced for the public, yet underpriced for cost recovery?
It all comes down to a gap in procurement costs.
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Verité Research retweeted
Jun 12
On 9 June Parliament approved the 6th extension of the State of Emergency in Sri Lanka since Ditwah, with 135 MPs voting in favour and 07 against.
@ParliamentLK
#srilanka
May 8
🔴 On 08 May 2026, Parliament approved the 5th extension of the State of Emergency in Sri Lanka since November 2025.
See how emergency regulations expands executive power, the role Parliament plays in approving extensions....
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Jun 11
The Constitutional Council has long been placed ambiguously in the structure of Sri Lankan democracy, resting between the scaffolding of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Does the emerging scholarship around ‘fourth branch’ institutions finally offer a clearer explanation?
Taking the Constitutional Council as an example, the talk traces how such institutions have emerged, why they resist easy classification, and what follows from giving them — or denying them — a branch of their own.
The stakes are practical as well as theoretical: how we classify an institution shapes how we appoint it, fund it, insulate it from capture, and hold it to account. Join us as Sanjit Dias explores the Supreme Court’s decision on the Constitutional Council’s rejection of a judicial nominee, and analyses its implications in theory and practice.
Participation requires no prior background beyond an interest in how democracies are built.
Register: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/GTaM…
#VThink #SriLanka
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The Constitutional Council has long been placed ambiguously in the structure of Sri Lankan democracy, resting between the scaffolding of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Does the emerging scholarship around ‘fourth branch’ institutions finally offer a clearer explanation?
Taking the Constitutional Council as an example, the talk traces how such institutions have emerged, why they resist easy classification, and what follows from giving them — or denying them — a branch of their own.
The stakes are practical as well as theoretical: how we classify an institution shapes how we appoint it, fund it, insulate it from capture, and hold it to account. Join us as Sanjit Dias explores the Supreme Court’s decision on the Constitutional Council’s rejection of a judicial nominee, and analyses its implications in theory and practice.
Participation requires no prior background beyond an interest in how democracies are built.
Register: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/GTaM…
#VThink #SriLanka
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Our Legal Analyst, @SajiniKW_97, joined a closed-door session last week with the Executive Board of UNICEF during their official visit to Sri Lanka - sharing her experience on climate action and policy as part of the NDC Youth Sounding Board.
The Executive Board included UN Permanent Representatives of Estonia, Iceland, Eritrea, Liechtenstein, and the Dominican Republic, along with the Secretary General of the Board.
The conversation focused on youth-led climate action in Sri Lanka.
@UNICEF
#SriLanka #climateaction
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Verité Research retweeted
At current rates, Sri Lanka is missing out on around Rs. 17.3 billion a year.
That is 1.2× the Disaster Management budget and 1.3× the Nutrition budget.
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SLCERT has warned of AI-generated fraud videos featuring the President, Prime Minister, and other public figures.
Would you know if a video of the President or Prime Minister was real — or AI-generated?
Don’t just watch. Don’t just share.
If you can’t #Trace-it, don’t trust it!
#Trace-it #Srilanka
Feb 25
🔴 If you can’t #Trace-it, don’t trust it!
👉For more information, see: veriteresearch.org/content-a…
#FakeNews #AI #SriLanka #Tech #Authenticity #SocialMediaSafety
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Verité Research retweeted
Jun 5
At 6 months: MS had 17 bills gazetted, 6 passed. AKD had 7 gazetted, 3 passed.
At 18 months: MS 54 gazetted, 20 passed. AKD 50 gazetted, 32 passed.
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May 31
Economics has long ignored gender, Dileni (@dilenigun) argues.
What is feminist economics, and why must it have a seat at the table?
Join us at our next VThink, where Prof. Dileni explores where neoclassical and marxist economics miss the bus, and what feminist economics has to offer.
Professor Dileni Gunewardena is the Professor of Economics (Chair) at the University of Peradeniya and a Non-Resident Fellow at @VeriteResearch.
Her research is at the confluence of inequality, gender and development economics. She is a PEP Research Fellow, and a former Fulbright Scholar, Brookings Echidna Global Scholar, and two-time Global Development Network awardee.
Register: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/k1wc…
#developmenteconomics #feminism #marx #srilanka
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Between 2021 and 2026, Sri Lanka raised the tax on almost everything - incomes, biscuits, gas cylinders, soap.
The tax on a pack of cigarettes was quietly allowed to fall.
A new opinion piece by @VeriteResearch's @NCdeMel and @R_R_Prabu:
#srilanka #notobacco
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The @WHO recommends tax on a cigarette to be at 75% of price .
Sri Lanka currently stands at 66.8%.
The gap is worth Rs. 17.3 billion in foregone revenue this year alone.
That's 2.4 times the cost of paying maternity leave benefits in the private sector. 1.3 times the country's nutrition budget. 1.2 times the disaster management ministry's allocation.
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No new law. No new tax. not a rupee more from any household buying essentials - just an end to a tax subsidy that's been quietly costing the Treasury Rs. 17.3 billion a year.
Full piece: ft.lk/columns/The-cigarette-…
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May 31
Economics has long ignored gender, Dileni (@dilenigun) argues.
What is feminist economics, and why must it have a seat at the table?
Join us at our next VThink, where Prof. Dileni explores where neoclassical and marxist economics miss the bus, and what feminist economics has to offer.
Professor Dileni Gunewardena is the Professor of Economics (Chair) at the University of Peradeniya and a Non-Resident Fellow at @VeriteResearch.
Her research is at the confluence of inequality, gender and development economics. She is a PEP Research Fellow, and a former Fulbright Scholar, Brookings Echidna Global Scholar, and two-time Global Development Network awardee.
Register: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/k1wc…
#developmenteconomics #feminism #marx #srilanka
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May 31
On World No Tobacco Day, the same case was made by @VeriteResearch in two different rooms in Colombo this month: Sri Lanka is under-taxing tobacco, and it's costing the country in both lives and revenue.
On 15 May, our Lead Economist Raj Prabu Rajakulendran (@R_R_Prabu) took the argument to the RESPIRE roundtable on tobacco control - convened by the University of Edinburgh with the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and the University of Peradeniya, alongside the Ministry of Health, NATA, SLMA, and the Sri Lanka College of Pulmonologists.
His case: taxation remains one of the most effective tools available for tobacco cessation.
Earlier this week, our Executive Director Dr. Nishan de Mel (@NCdeMel) took the same argument to the press, and surfaced a striking anomaly.
Through Sri Lanka's economic crisis, taxes on virtually every good rose. Cigarette tax rates actually fell.
Correcting that - bringing rates up to the WHO benchmark of 75%, with no change in the retail price - would generate an additional Rs. 17.3 billion in revenue this year alone.
@ADICsrilanka @WHO
#srilanka #worldnotobaccoday #NoTobacco
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May 31
Today is World No Tobacco Day.
Did you know that tax rates on cigarettes in Sri Lanka have actually decreased this decade, even as tax rates on everyday essential goods have risen?
Raj Prabu Rajakulendran (@R_R_Prabu), Lead Economist at @VeriteResearch, explains this trend at a conference organized by the Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (@ADICsrilanka).
Stay tuned: Tomorrow, we will break down the specific tax rates, the massive revenue the government missed out on, and what that public money could have funded for your benefit.
#srilanka #WorldNoTobaccoDay #notobaccoday #NoTobacco
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Verité Research retweeted
May 30
I am hearing a lot of voices demanding removal of the fuel price subsidy.
For the discerning, I like to recommend this analysis published in March:
Showing why and how fuel prices could be reduced/subsidized from the price calculated by the existing formula used to do that.
Mar 20
𝐅𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬: 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐘𝐞𝐬/𝐍𝐨 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐞
🔴 Middle East tensions are pushing up Sri Lanka’s fuel import costs, but who should bear the burden?
It doesn’t have to be a binary choice between passing on the cost entirely to the consumer or the government fully absorbing it.
@VeriteResearch has formulated a mechanism that strikes a balance between these two extremes.
See the solution 👇
👉 For a deeper understanding, read our blog at shorturl.at/o6iIy
@PublicFinanceLK
#srilanka #fuelprice
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May 30
Let me say why we don't agree.
#SriLanka ISB borrowing was all due to paying back concessional debt amassed previously.
@R_R_Prabu and I called it
"Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul"
links below to our paper published in peer reviewed Palgrave Macmillan Journal of Development.
May 30
In my discussion on Point Blank, I explained that Sri Lanka’s economic collapse cannot be understood by looking only at the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration. The root vulnerability was the country’s growing dependence on International Sovereign Bond (ISB) borrowings accumulated over successive governments since 2008.
When global financial conditions tightened and Sri Lanka lost access to international markets, the Gotabaya government could not refinance maturing ISBs as previous governments had done. The resulting foreign exchange crisis became the decisive factor behind the economic collapse and ultimately led to the fall of the administration.
Understanding the crisis requires an objective analysis of structural debt vulnerabilities rather than a purely political narrative.
#SriLanka #Economy #DebtCrisis #ISB #PointBlank #EconomicPolicy #SriLankaPolitics
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May 28
Today is the day.
Thanks to everyone who's registered. Looking forward to a thought provoking discussion.
see you there.
#srilanka #mentalhealth #VThink
May 26
Statistics show that youth mental health has worsened over recent years. Our speaker, Kiara, talks about her research in trying to understand the causes and new types of interventions that could respond to the emerging crisis.
Kiara Wickremasinghe is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research. Her PhD in Anthropology at SOAS University of London focused on Open Dialogue, a social network approach to psychiatric crisis care, as part of an ESRC-funded research project. She also trained and worked as an Open Dialogue practitioner within the NHS.
With a background in geography, music, and anthropology, Kiara is also an opera singer, violinist, and composer. Her current research explores operatic storytelling as a response to Sri Lanka’s youth mental health crisis.
Register: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/yd5Q…
#srilanka #youth #mentalhealth
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