By Neelam Rahim

In discussion with Radio Islam International is Senusha Naidoo.

Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has fled the country on a military jet to the Maldives. Morphed into a strict set of civil unrest, Sri Lankan citizens have just had enough. They felt that the political leadership was not necessarily responsive to their needs and socio-economic challenges. And eventually decided to seize the presidential residence.

Senusha tells Radio Islam, “The situation has escalated in unprecedented ways. Questions around whether peace and stability can be restored in order as the economic situation has become so dire in Sri Lanka. Part of the problem was that when the Rajapaksa family were in power, they made cuts to the middle class, and then there was no more money in the coffers. I think this is something that we in South Africa need to be very cautious of and take a lesson from there to say that as we continue to see, our cost of inflation is increasing. As we see other aspects of food prices increasing, and the fuel of petrol increasing, we’re going to start finding these issues becoming much more prevalent.”

In Japan, the assassination of former Prime Minister Abbey has shocked the country ahead of the polls.

Senusha says, “The assassination of former Prime Minister caught Japanese society, political circles, and the country in a complete unawareness and shock. He was on the campaign trail for the party he represents, liberal Democrats. The individual that assassinated him was a former Navy officer. There are so many issues that are coming out now around this assassination, one of them being that Japan has stringent gun laws. Still, it seems as though this individual who assassinated the former PM essentially was able to navigate around those gun laws. Secondly, the challenge is when you’re on the campaign trail in Japan. Security is important. And, of course, not all of the security you want. But there’s also a sense of a bit of a more openness between the rally and the citizens you are addressing at that rally.”

“Some people have argued that he’s a disturbed individual. Others have argued that he has major gripes with the political, economic, and social systems. It’s a shockwave to Japanese society. But it seems like a political party the former PM was part of is going around this business. But I think somberly, and it’s something that I don’t think Japanese society will forget very soon,” she added.

India is to surpass China as the most populous nation in 2023.

“Important to understand is that the report suggests that India was supposed to become a populous nation in four years. It’s happening faster, which suggests that population growth in India is quite rapid. The second important thing is that this will impact the global population growth in terms of where we’re going to be in 2050. that’s not sustainable for the world on the whole. In terms of climate change and terms of development, we’ve got more and more pressure that was put on the Indian, as well as the global infrastructure, structural conditions, access to food access to help water sanitation, and more pressure on the global commons and more pressure on domestic provision of services. I think it’s a question of whether or not there’s going to be enough ability to absorb people into the economy,” Senusha said.