The Doghouse

A frequent problem encountered by journalists is how we can use technology like satellite imaging to provide more depth to stories on environmental degradation. This episode Yudhanjaya and Nadim discuss ways in which these maps can contribute to journalistic storytelling. You can access the maps and get an overview of how we built these maps on ⁠GitHub⁠. Music and sound effects from ⁠⁠⁠⁠u_5wgfa0ekjt⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠GoldenSound Labs⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay

This episode Yudhanjaya and Nadim look at the interplay between the tourism industry and loss of forest cover in Sri Lanka. We look at developments particularly in the "buffer zones" around national parks and protected forest areas. You can access the composite satellite maps and get an overview of how we built them on ⁠GitHub⁠. Music and sound effects from ⁠⁠⁠⁠u_5wgfa0ekjt⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠GoldenSound Labs⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay

Deforestation and the loss of forest cover in Sri Lanka is an issue that the team at Watchdog has been passionate about, but how to go about telling this complex story? We needed a better vantage point. In this episode we delve into how we used satellite imagery to build a series of detailed maps covering 2017-2024, the anomalies we discovered, and how agriculture features in this story. You can access the maps and get an overview of how we built these maps on GitHub. Music and sound effects from ⁠⁠⁠u_5wgfa0ekjt⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠GoldenSound Labs⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠Pixabay

Our resident mechatronics engineer (yes, we have one of those), has built a sensor kit for the budding home gardener! Curious about how much light, heat, and moisture your plants are getting? Well then look no further, the Watchdog Agri Sensor Kit is just for you - the catch? You'll have to build it yourself or rope in your friendly neighbourhood electrician. Schematics and a detailed guide can be found on GitHub Music and sound effects from ⁠⁠u_5wgfa0ekjt⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠GoldenSound Labs⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠Pixabay

This week we're shifting from urban planning to agriculture with the launch of Lanka Wiki, a database we've put together on 70 crops. Each listing includes growing conditions and a difficulty rating. Listen on to find out more. Whether you're a doomsday prepper or a city slicker looking to cut down on food costs, we think you will find this useful. Music and sound effects from ⁠u_5wgfa0ekjt⁠ and ⁠GoldenSound Labs⁠ on ⁠Pixabay

Why build Colombo in Cities: Skylines? Yudhanjaya and Nadim discuss the use cases for Colombo's digital twin; from road design and the placement of bus stops to ideas surrounding basic urban planning. Download the virtual city and access the wiki on ⁠GitHub⁠ Music and sound effects from ⁠u_5wgfa0ekjt⁠ and ⁠GoldenSound Labs⁠ on ⁠Pixabay

Why have two of the brightest minds at Team Watchdog spent the better part of the last 6 months playing a city-builder? Welcome to Colombo in Cities: Skylines, our solution to the problems of ideation, visualization, and communication in urban planning for the city of Colombo! Download the virtual city and access the wiki on GitHub Music and sound effects from u_5wgfa0ekjt and GoldenSound Labs on Pixabay

Sri Lanka's economic crisis has caught the attention of international media outlets over the past couple of weeks. Two separate narratives are at play here. One is that China is the biggest obstacle to debt restructuring. The other is that private lenders who own our International Sovereign Bonds (ISB) are to blame. Our resident economist Umesh Moramudali points out that while both narratives have merit, neither are absolute truth. Restructure, Reset, Recover, these should have been Sri Lanka's New Year resolutions going into 2023 but is the country doing enough to meet these goals? We're discussing this and more on the first episode of The Doghouse for 2023. Knowledge is key to understanding, so here's a throwback to our extensive primer on Sri Lanka's debt burden - The Sri Lankan Foreign Debt Problem Follow Watchdog's special reports and coverage of the economic crisis, the infrastructure crisis, and the food & agriculture crisis at www.longform.watchdog.team Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

All roads lead to doom; that's what seems to best describe transport policymaking in Sri Lanka since independence. On this episode of the Doghouse Nadim Majeed speaks to Prof. Amal Kumarage, head of the Moratuwa University's Department of Transport & Logistics, on his decades of research on the subject. We're covering everything from colonial history to the present day.  Consider this a primer to our layman's thesis on Sri Lanka's Transport network available here - Too Slow Too Furious: Inside Sri Lanka's incompetent, inefficient, and increasingly overloaded transport systems. Read it and weep, get angry, or get inspired.  Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Sri Lanka's economic crisis has become a favourite case study/guinea pig for parties seeking to push a certain narrative or to cherry-pick issues to discount others. From currency boards and the myth of the Chinese debt trap to the "ESG" spellbinding of the Green elites, it appears that every blue tick has their own narrative spin on what caused Sri Lanka's economic crisis. Despite having debunked these myths and mis/disinformation many times over - here we go again. On this all in one debunking episode of the Doghouse we're discussing the motivations of these myth-peddlers and how woefully misinformed they are. Read our complete deep dive courtesy of Umesh Moramudali, Rehana Thowfeek, and Chayu Damsinghe here - "From currency board to Chinese loans - How accurate are the claims about Sri Lanka's economic crisis". Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Despite promises of lean and frugal government, Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe last week appointed 37 state ministers to the executive branch. The list of appointees reads like a who's who of some of the most controversial figures in the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the party of the Rajapaksa's. Former PM and SLPP Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa's son, Namal Rajapaksa, has announced that a new alliance is to be established under his father's leadership. What does this mean for political stability and the democratic legitimacy of the government? What do the actions of the Wickremesinghe government portend for the 'aragalaya', or people's struggle, that drove the Rajapaksa's from power? Has the pre-aragalaya political status-quo been restored? These are the questions we are pondering on episode 20 of the Doghouse. Follow our coverage on the protest movement here - Incident Report - The Mirihana Protest, a Timeline The SLPP Attack on GotaGoGama: a Timeline The Attack on GotaGoGama: The Aftermath The Protest Tracker Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License. Cover art generated through Stable Diffusion

Sri Lanka has finally reached a long-awaited staff level agreement with the IMF to enter into a 2.9 billion dollar Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program. What does this mean and what happens next? This week on The Doghouse, Watchdog's resident economist Umesh Moramudali, takes us through the next steps vis a vis debt restructuring and economic reforms. We're also talking about the government's interim budget and the recently announced import restrictions. How do these measures track with an IMF sponsored reform agenda? Find our extensive coverage of the economic crisis in Sri Lanka at www.longform.watchdog.team Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Sri Lanka's main coal power plant has suffered yet another breakdown which means power cuts have been extended again. Add to this the fact that electricity tariffs have nearly doubled and it's fair for consumers to wonder if they are being treated fairly by the state-owned Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). we're discussing the CEB's generation costs, allegations of corruption, and fossil fuel dependency. As one politician put it - "there is a lot of corruption and wastage happening in the CEB and it is unfair to dump all the mismanaged costs on the consumer saying ‘this is how much it costs us to produce a unit of electricity’." This week we're revisiting one of our lengthier long-form investigations into the energy infrastructure of the country to explain why Sri Lanka is powerless and to help our listeners understand the problem of energy dependency. For a deeper understanding of the problem, check out the full investigation here. Soundbites - Face the Nation on TV 1, aired August 15, 2022 1. Dr. Rohantha Abeysekera - Acting General Manager, CEB 2. Mr. Damitha Kumarasinghe - Director General, Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

TRIGGER WARNING - In this episode of the Doghouse we are talking about the grief inflicted upon thousands of victims of COVID-19 and their families by the administration of ex-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Beginning with retro-active changes to public health guidelines on the handling of the bodies of COVID-19 victims, disinformation regarding the spread of the virus post-mortem, jingoist posturing, and racist dog whistling, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration denied thousands of people basic human decency and the right to mourn the dead in line with their faith. We're also talking about how even after deciding to allow burials at a specific location, the government foisted the burden of maintaining and operating the cemetery on resettled IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and the local government authority. Our investigation into the forced cremations policy and the burial site in Majma Nagar, Oddamavadi, can be found here. https://longform.watchdog.team/observations/oddamavadi-no-rest-for-the-dead Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

On August 3, President Ranil Wickremesinghe opened the 3rd session of the 9th Parliament of Sri Lanka, delivering his policy statement. The problem though is that while the President acknowledged facts in terms of the economic crisis and set out some lofty goals, he failed to tell us how he plans to reach those goals. In a nutshell - we got the what and the why, but not the how, or the when. This week on the Doghouse we're analysing the economic goals set forth by President Wickremesinghe, Our resident economist Umesh Moramudali takes us through realistic timelines for these goals and a potential agreement with the IMF. We're also debunking the false narrative that an IMF agreement is being delayed due to protests. Read more on Sri Lanka's economic crisis. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

This week Nadim and Yudhanjaya discuss the crisis of legitimacy facing the Sri Lankan government. What happens when a parliament that has seemingly lost its mandate from the people, elects from among themselves a President who has no mandate? Sri Lanka needs elections for democracy to prevail, but there are a number of hurdles we need to jump. We're discussing the legal/constitutional obstacles, the IMF question, and of course the cost of running an election in a bankrupt country short on food, electricity, and fuel among other essentials.  Listen on to find out how this house of cards is stacked. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License. Soundbites - TRT World Now *We erroneously refer to the 1978 constitution as having been passed in 1982 in the first instance.

History has been made in Sri Lanka, where the world witnessed one of the most farcical departures from power of a Head of State in global political history. What happens next? In this episode we take a look at the events leading up to mass protests on 9 July, the storming of President's House, the Presidential Secretariat, and Temple Trees. We're talking about the role of Parliament and the fears of extra-legal power grabs in the aftermath of Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation. We're also putting international media and 'blue tick' pundits on notice - Stop trying to take away Sri Lanka's agency! We apologise for the garbling of some syllables/words - our co-hosts are in opposite ends of the country and we had to make do with audio conferencing software dependent on Sri Lanka's now unreliable internet coverage. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License. Soundbites (Fair use of copyrighted material) - WION Tom Nash The New Atlas

Dystopia beckons... How can Sri Lanka get through the worsening food crisis? Continuing our coverage of the aftermath of the catastrophic decision to ban the use of synthetic fertilisers, we look at potential solutions to mitigate the disaster, and the knock on effects of the ban. Follow our reporting on food and agriculture at www.longform.watchdog.team Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License. Soundbites - The Star Malaysia and Newsfirst Sri Lanka

7 Billion Rupee Software??? What does the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation want, exactly?  Well if you want to combine the functionality of Google, Uber, Adobe, Canva, and a myriad of other existing tech solutions, you could consider 7 billion rupees to be cheap. We wouldn't touch this beast even if the amount was ten times higher. We read the documentation so you don’t have to. Welcome to one of the stupidest software requests we’ve seen. Read more here - 7-Billion Rupee Software: The Monstrous Idiocy of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

This week on the Doghouse Amalini De Sayrah and Nadim Majeed take us through their journey across some of the major agricultural districts in the country, investigating the impact of the sudden ban on synthetic fertilisers. From Hambantota to Jaffna we met a diverse cross section of farmers who spoke to us about their shattered hopes and despair at what the future holds. Listen on to find out how the government left the entire farming community in the lurch. Read more on the history of broken promises and policy blunders.  Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Sri Lanka could be facing one of the severest food shortages in recent history in the coming months. How has it come to this pass? What was the science behind Sri Lanka's ill-fated organic only policy? Why should we be worried about massive losses in the maize harvest? We posed these questions and more to Prof. Buddhi Marambe, Senior Professor at the Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Why is Sri Lanka on the brink of a major food crisis? What role did Gotabaya Rajapaksa's overnight 'organic' farming policy have in exacerbating this crisis? Food is finally on the menu at The Doghouse. With this episode we're kicking off our deep dive into Sri Lanka's agriculture sector and discussing the tragic impact of policies fuelled by myths. Read The Myth of the Agricultural Nation Read Fertilizer: a Sri Lankan Tragedy Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Ignore the 'Forwarded many times' messages from your 'politically savvy' uncle claiming that there's pots of billions of dollars coming into Sri Lanka now that we have a new Prime Minister. What is actually happening with securing bridge financing, debt restructuring, and the negotiations with the IMF? This week on The Doghouse, Umesh Moramudali, our resident economist, paints a bleak but realistic picture of the tough decisions we have to make. Read more about Sri Lanka's future with the IMF.   Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

What a week it's been! Peaceful protestors attacked, violent reprisals against the attackers and those perceived to have supported them, curfews and patrols by armoured vehicles, and the return of the inimitable Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister for a record 6th time. In this episode of The Doghouse we are dealing with false claims made by Namal Rajapaksa on NDTV, outlining the events of the past week as chronologically as possible, and introducing our latest project - Persons of Interest and Dossiers. Listen through to the end to find out more. Companion pieces to this episode - The factcheck of Namal Rajapaksa's claims vis a vis the incident in Mirihana. The SLPP led Attack on GotaGoGama. The Aftermath. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

This week we're joined by Dr. Dinesha Samararatne of the University of Colombo's Faculty of Law and Ms. Ermiza Tegal, Attorney-at-Law, to discuss the proposed No Confidence Motions against the Prime Minister and President, and the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. What will these political manoeuvres in the legislature accomplish? Is there reason to be hopeful that sanity will be restored to governance? These are some of the questions we're discussing this week. As rolling power cuts continue, we ask our listeners to excuse the background noise (birds, dogs, generators, and "choon paan tuk tuks"). Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

The public rollout of Elixir is done; we're giving you some context on the worsening health crisis and introducing you to our #OSINT tool to track medicine shortages. Over the next six months, we’ll need millions of units of medicine and equipment. Here’s introducing Elixir, and how you can help out. We're also "briefly" looking at the proposed constitutional amendments which will be the focus of Episode 6. Check out Elixir. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

This week on the Doghouse we discuss the denial of the healthcare crisis by the Department of Government Information. We're introducing you to Elixir - A Watchdog tool that enables healthcare professionals to submit lists of medicine shortages at hospitals around the country and provides a platform for donors to identify suppliers and ensure that the right medications are provided to hospitals in need. We'll also be taking you through our Protest Tracker! - At last count we've tagged 265 protests happening across the country since March 30. Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

We're putting international and Indian media in the doghouse this week. The crisis in Ukraine and Chinese debt are not the primary causes of Sri Lanka's ailments. Stop trying to take away Sri Lanka's agency. Also on the doghouse this week - Ask Watchdog! - "brief' explainers on some interesting questions posed on our socials. We're also in conversation with Watchdog CTO, Nisal Periyapperuma, to discuss our medicines and medical equipment shortage demand mapping project. Listen through to the end for our musical guest Jayanga Nanayakkara with Dear Mr. President! Download the Watchdog App for Android! Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

We realise that a lot has happened since we sat down to record on Wednesday (30/3/2022), but in this episode of the Doghouse, we're taking you through the minutiae of the key issues that have forced people onto the streets. We're looking at one of our first longform analyses from January this year when we broke down the power cut saga and its causes. We're also breaking down our foreign debt burden and trying to understand how on earth we managed to rake up so much debt with so little to show for it. Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Power cuts, queues for everything from food to fuel; why is the Sri Lankan economy in this sorry state? On the first episode of the doghouse we give you an overview of the current situation and the 'policies' that have brought about this mess. Read the companion piece for this episode here. Music - Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Coming soon to your favourite podcast platforms! Music: Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.