Namini Wijedasa

Deputy Editor (Investigations) The Sunday Times; The Economist; NHK, Japan. Member, @ICIJorg. Views personal, RTs not endorsements. Email: [email protected]

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

We have come full circle in one of #SriLanka's worst recent procurements: low-quality coal for the Lakvijaya power plant (LVP).

As our story this week shows, not only did all 19 shipments of #India's #TridentChemphar coal fail to meet the tender's target gross calorific value (GCV) of 6,150 kilocalories per kilogram of coal, ALL of them were BELOW the minimum REJECT value of 5,900 kcal/kg.

On the most basic reading of it, Trident Chemphar sold Lanka Coal Company (Pvt) Ltd low-quality coal at high-quality price.

Earlier this year, when LVP engineers released information based on operational data indicating that the plant was not generating the required amount of electricity when burning Trident Chemphar's South African coal, we were told the LVP lab was not "accredited". The implication was the data could not be trusted.

A lot of pressure and publicity later, samples obtained at the discharge port (Puttalam) from the 19 shipments were sent to the internationally accredited, independent Bureau Veritas lab in Australia.

The results were revealed at last week's Parliament Sectoral Oversight Committee on Infrastructure and Strategic Development: consignment one had a GCV value of 5,426 kcal/kg; two was 5,607 kcal/kg; three was 4,901 kca/kg; four was 5,389 kcal/kg; five was 5,503 kcal/kg; six was 5,011 kcal/kg; seven was 4,762 kcal/kg (the worst stock); eight was 4,776 kcal/kg; nine was 4,924 kcal/kg; ten was 4,959 kcal/kg; eleven was 4,831 kcal/kg; twelve was 4,858 kcal/kg; thirteen was 4,959 kcal/kg; fourteen was 4,897 kcal/kg; fifteen was 5,822 kcal/kg; sixteen was 4,871 kcal/kg; seventeen was 5,789 kcal/kg; eighteen was 5,340 kcal/kg; and nineteen was 4,943 kcal/kg.

Separately, the Ceylon Electricity Board's successor company, Electricity Generation Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, reported that in just four months (March 1 to June 30 this year), the substandard coal cost them Rs. 5.68bn in estimated direct financial losses, not including those arising from meeting the energy shortfall from burning low-quality coal through other power generation sources.

One more thing: ash production has increased. The burning of substandard coal has caused the pile of ash at LVP to grow to 12-13 metres (39 to 42 feet) high—just two metres away from the top of the wind barrier, which is 15 metres tall.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.

She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.

The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.

She handed out the checks herself.

In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.

When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.

You've probably heard that part.

Here's the part you haven't:

The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.

Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.

She built her county an entire hospital.

She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.

In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.

Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.

In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.

And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.

She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.

She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.

Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸

[Shamara Wettimuny @shamara4w]

My book ‘Ethno-Religious Violence in Colonial Sri Lanka, 1853-1915’ published by OUP in Feb ‘27 explores how British colonial policies brought local populations into conflict against the backdrop of religious revival, migration, economic competition & WW1

https://t.co/yEwK36hIXw

[Asiri Fernando @AsiriFernandoLK]

#SriLankan entities that offer services to #US -#sanctioned vessels and banks which enable such activities may run the risk of backlash by the global power, with SL yet to warn local entities about the risks, while the Ministry of Ports and Shipping awaits notification about sanctions from the US authorities, The Sunday Morning learns.

This, as over a dozen – 16 by our last count – Iranian-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier (#VLCC ) #tankers idle at the edge of Sri Lankan waters for weeks, some for over a month.

👇
https://t.co/T5uugd2IIK

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

In the first half of this year, institutions under the Transport, Highways, Ports and Civil Aviation Ministry awarded 73 procurement contracts worth nearly Rs 150bn (a hundred and fifty billion)—compared to an average annual value of Rs 34bn in the two years from 2022 to 2024 and an average annual value of Rs 52.6bn throughout 2025.

The vast majority of the ministry’s awards—numbering 70—are listed under the “highway section” and “Road Development Authority”. The health sector was next, with 55 awards; the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), with 49; and water, with 21. The data pertains only to contracts worth more than Rs 200mn each, given out between 2022 and June this year.

https://t.co/6vXKDZKzXX

[SilentRoom Journal @silentroomjrnl]

The em dash vanished from machine text because it annoyed readers, and from human text because writers kept getting mistaken for bots. Now the detector punishes the human for writing like a machine and rewards the machine for writing like a human.

[Mahishini Colonné @Mahishini]

තරුද නිදන මහ රෑ…
නිදමි මහද නිදි නෑ…
මතක පොතේ කඳුළින් කටු ගෑ
කවි කියවෙයි මහ රෑ…
A voice that will never be forgotten.
Rest in peace, Nanda Malini.

https://t.co/qH65hDHaKS

[Shining Science @ShiningScience]

Children often reserve their most intense emotions for their mothers because they view her as a secure, unconditional “safe base” where they can release stress without fear of rejection.

This pattern is strongly supported by attachment theory, which explains that children express their biggest feelings with the caregiver they trust most.

Mothers are often that primary attachment figure, so emotional outbursts can actually signal a healthy, secure relationship rather than disrespect or defiance.

According to research from the Child Mind Institute, children feel safest expressing overwhelm to the caregiver who provides the most consistent comfort.

Understanding this dynamic helps parents respond with empathy and recognize that these big emotions are a sign of deep trust and emotional safety.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

Recent magnitude 7 and above earthquakes in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia have killed and injured thousands, prompting concern that the world is shaking more.

Al Jazeera’s Julide Ayger explains.

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

#Coal Scam #SriLanka: This story is not confined within Sri Lanka's borders.

When do we look at the role of the laboratories?

Independent tests carried out by the accredited international laboratory Bureau Veritas (BV) on Trident Chemphar’s coal sold to Sri Lanka between Jan and Jun 2026 showed that none of the supplier’s 19 consignments was above the tender’s minimum reject gross calorific value of 5,900 kilocalories per kg of coal.

Then how did two other laboratories—one chosen by the Indian supplier and the other via tender by Lanka Coal Company (Pvt) Ltd (LCC)—produce such vastly different outcomes to both the BV results and data from the Lakivijaya power plant’s (LVPP) own lab?

How did one of these labs suddenly start releasing reports that closely matched the BV results (which came weeks later) from Trident’s 12th shipment onwards?

And how did this fiasco occur? Were the samples switched, or the labs compromised?

Without arriving at conclusions, we let the official data and documents speak.

1) There were serious issues from the start about the laboratory nominated by Trident. But LCC went ahead anyway.
2) Doubt was cast upon LVPP lab results, saying that the lab wasn't "accredited". But LVPP consistently failed to generate optimum electricity when Trident coal was fed into it.
3) The lab selected by LCC suddenly started producing results that closely matched both LVPP lab results and BV lab results from the 12th shipment onwards.
4) BV had to be hired as a third umpire to bring some sense into the picture.
5) In the end, it took FOUR labs.

https://t.co/l3THbbZRog

[Earth @earthcurated]

There’s something magical about mornings like this in Tuscany.

Soft fog drifts through the valleys, the rolling hills fade into gentle layers of green and blue, and the bright red poppies in the foreground light up the whole scene. Everything feels quiet, calm, and almost untouched.

This is the Val d’Orcia at its best wide open countryside, ancient trees standing alone, and that peaceful early light that makes the land feel timeless.

Moments like this are why so many people fall in love with the Tuscan landscape.

[𝓼𝓪𝓷𝓴𝓪𝓻 @yansan]

In the late 1920s, she was in Germany pursuing her doctoral degree in Anthropology at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute under the prominent academic Eugen Fischer. Fischer was driven by a mission to prove that racial inferiority was biologically determined, operating on a strict hypothesis of Aryan superiority.
​Risking her academic career as a scholar under such a man, she directly contradicted Fischer’s theories. She presented her own research findings that there was no biological basis for racial superiority, least of all tied to skull size. Unsurprisingly, Fischer gave her the lowest possible grade yet she stood resolutely by her scientific integrity.
​Her name was Irawati Karve, India’s first female anthropologist and a true trailblazer who rejected age old customs and gender inequality.
Born in 1905 in Burma, her name was inspired by the Irrawaddy River.
​Throughout her life, she consistently challenged dogmatism. Her celebrated book 𝘠𝘶𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢, a critical study of the Mahabharata, won the Sahitya Akademi Award, even as it drew the wrath of orthodox sections of society.
​In one of her papers, she offered a profound critique of religious intolerance -
​"Many Hindus dream that if the government were wiser, it could rid India both of Muslims and Christians so that one has an entirely Hindu India. It is foolish to think one can establish uniformity and keep it as such through ages. Without the Muslims and Christians, there were bitter wars between Buddhists and non-Buddhists, between Jains and Hindus in the South and between Shaivas and Vaishnavas. The rational humanitarian’s aim cannot be the establishment of one religion but to bring about conditions by which people of different cultures can live together in mutual understanding and respect."
​On August 11, 1970, Irawati Karve passed away. Her fierce courage, intellectual honesty, and invaluable contributions deserve to be remembered and celebrated.

[Stephen Abbott Pugh @stephen_abbott]

Reaction from the @FACTCoalition: Criminals Get Free Pass in Treasury’s Rule Rolling Back Protections to Fight Dirty Money https://t.co/i1EFFUvLOK

[Stephen Abbott Pugh @stephen_abbott]

FinCEN is also deleting all the beneficial ownership information which had already been submitted by US companies when the Corporate Transparency Act was still being enforced https://t.co/OD8GRGLsTD

[Stephen Abbott Pugh @stephen_abbott]

It’s been years in the making but a sad day to see FinCEN’s final rule exempting US companies from beneficial ownership reporting, flying in the face of its own criminal investigations, growing evidence and global collaboration
https://t.co/IciIqGqAWH

#beneficialownership #UBO

[Ambika Satkunanathan @ambikasat]

When Prez Sirisena engaged in penal populism and said the same in 2019, it was challenged in Sup Crt by many. Evidence shows death penalty does not curb or prevent crime, certainly not drug offences. Then why are you discussing a failed, regressive option? https://t.co/k9MgFJ5FMs

[Shayan Sardarizadeh @Shayan86]

Some of the content generated by the latest AI models are frighteningly realisitc, to the point that it's becoming increasingly difficult to spot any obvious errors in them with naked eyes, even for those with eyes well-trained on AI content.

Going forward, digital watermarking and identification technology seems to be one of the only practical solutions to AI-generated misinformation.

It works by embedding watermarks in any content generated by an AI model at the time of creation, which will then allow a verification tool, preferably developed by the owner(s) of that same AI model, to detect those embedded watermarks.

[English Grammar @GrammarUpdates]

Fictional vs. fictitious: what is the difference?

[English Grammar @GrammarUpdates]

What is a grawlix?

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

...if the topics addressed are not politicised. This is about the public good, about corruption (which is by no means restricted to one political party or another, one politician or another), taxpayer funds and a whole lot more that isn't about just about party politics.

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

We have come full circle in one of #SriLanka's worst recent procurements: low-quality coal for the Lakvijaya power plant (LVP).

As our story this week shows, not only did all 19 shipments of #India's #TridentChemphar coal fail to meet the tender's target gross calorific value (GCV) of 6,150 kilocalories per kilogram of coal, ALL of them were BELOW the minimum REJECT value of 5,900 kcal/kg.

On the most basic reading of it, Trident Chemphar sold Lanka Coal Company (Pvt) Ltd low-quality coal at high-quality price.

Earlier this year, when LVP engineers released information based on operational data indicating that the plant was not generating the required amount of electricity when burning Trident Chemphar's South African coal, we were told the LVP lab was not "accredited". The implication was the data could not be trusted.

A lot of pressure and publicity later, samples obtained at the discharge port (Puttalam) from the 19 shipments were sent to the internationally accredited, independent Bureau Veritas lab in Australia.

The results were revealed at last week's Parliament Sectoral Oversight Committee on Infrastructure and Strategic Development: consignment one had a GCV value of 5,426 kcal/kg; two was 5,607 kcal/kg; three was 4,901 kca/kg; four was 5,389 kcal/kg; five was 5,503 kcal/kg; six was 5,011 kcal/kg; seven was 4,762 kcal/kg (the worst stock); eight was 4,776 kcal/kg; nine was 4,924 kcal/kg; ten was 4,959 kcal/kg; eleven was 4,831 kcal/kg; twelve was 4,858 kcal/kg; thirteen was 4,959 kcal/kg; fourteen was 4,897 kcal/kg; fifteen was 5,822 kcal/kg; sixteen was 4,871 kcal/kg; seventeen was 5,789 kcal/kg; eighteen was 5,340 kcal/kg; and nineteen was 4,943 kcal/kg.

Separately, the Ceylon Electricity Board's successor company, Electricity Generation Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, reported that in just four months (March 1 to June 30 this year), the substandard coal cost them Rs. 5.68bn in estimated direct financial losses, not including those arising from meeting the energy shortfall from burning low-quality coal through other power generation sources.

One more thing: ash production has increased. The burning of substandard coal has caused the pile of ash at LVP to grow to 12-13 metres (39 to 42 feet) high—just two metres away from the top of the wind barrier, which is 15 metres tall.

[Namini Wijedasa @nimilamalee]

...including the Committee on Public Finance and the Committee on Public Enterprise. They call for information that would otherwise be hidden and they seek answers. That is why they must always be headed by the Opposition. However, they will only be effective...