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The Exams Department manually uploads every test score, while the UGC takes a long time verifying each candidate’s residence. Some universities are teaching five or six cohorts at once. It wasn’t always this way: students once entered university just six months after sitting their exams.

Following social media outrage about Facebook groups sharing non-consensual sexual photos and teaching participants how to drug their victims, the authorities reported four more groups. Over the years Meta’s content moderation has gotten weaker, activists say.

Adults think they know what kids are up to on social media. They don’t. How do children and teenagers actually use the apps, and what do they think of plans to ban them? Seventeen-year-old Nadia Nagpal asks her fellow teens to find out.

Bimal is bullish but effective. Anil Jayantha consults everyone for everything. Harshana has no vision. Meet the cabinet’s cast of characters, and the shadow cabinet that keeps a close watch.

Conventional fertilisers aren’t very effective, nor are they environmentally-friendly. The world is shifting towards “improved” varieties. But in Sri Lanka, old-fashioned subsidies are slowing down the transition.

When a fight between inmates on Sunday spiralled into the second deadliest prison riot in Sri Lankan history, 29 died. This includes eight guards brought to Negombo from Colombo, who didn't know the lay of the land. 14 of the bodies had bullets in them, but the STF denies shooting.

Monks striving for a “Buddhist renaissance” occupy over 2,000 acres in Trinco’s Kuchchaveli. They believe “pooja bhoomi” gazettes give them land ownership, but the physical planning department insists the land's state-owned.

Hayeshika Fernando, an influencer-tutor, helps grade five students crack the life-changing scholarship exam by relying on a combination of love-bombing and well-executed teaching. Controversies surround her, but many seek her out. In some parents’ books, she’s become a modern-day guru devi.

A fortnight ago, the rupee suddenly fell steeply, driven by higher fuel imports. The government and IMF stepped-in and the rupee recovered. But a cautious Central Bank jacked-up interest rates, and now the Public Debt Management Office is in the firing line.

The police have arrested Chinese scammers for over a decade. But as South-East Asian governments crackdown, Sri Lanka is an increasingly popular destination for scam operations. Human trafficking risks follow.