Sri Lanka's Uprising

Sri Lanka's Uprising: Has it made any difference to life in the country? - BBC Newsnight

BBC News
1,196 views Jan 12, 2023
6 months ago, amid an unprecedented economic disaster in the country, Sri Lankan crowds sensationally stormed the presidential palace and its widely reviled leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled.

Have the lives of ordinary Sri Lankans improved since the revolution? Despite some improvements in urban areas as a result of greater political stability and an agreement in principle with the IMF on a national bailout, Newsnight finds that there remains intense economic suffering in the country.

Food insecurity is affecting a fifth of the population and the poverty rate has doubled.

Economics editor Ben Chu speaks to fishermen who say they sometimes do not go to sea because fuel prices are too high, and to tea farmers reeling from a collapse in agriculture due to a 2021 ban on fertiliser imports as well as rocketing fuel bills pushed up by the Ukraine war.

Produced by Scarlett Barter and filmed by Jack Garland.