Examination

Before Jerome Fernando became a controversial preacher, he was a disciplined cricketer and smooth-talking corporate executive. Today, operating a web of international companies, chairing several businesses, and drawing billions of rupees, he has come under fire — and scrutiny.

For Chamari, a lottery booth doubles as a changing room. Like her, thousands of women powering Colombo’s economy struggle for dignity in a city that forgets a basic need: toilets.

Marxists commanding a capitalist economy, sluggish growth supporting precocious human development, and rentiers relying on Gulf remittances. No, this isn’t Lanka. It’s Kerala, as sketched-out by Tirthankar Roy and K. Ravi Raman in their new economic history of Kerala.