Indigenous Food Practices of the Dambana Vedda Community in Sri Lanka: Past and Present Scenario

Veddas are considered to be the indigenous community of Sri Lanka. A century ago, the Veddas had scattered across the Eastern Province, North-Central and Uva Provinces. Presently, their main settlement is confined to Dambana in the Badulla district. They inherit unique indigenous knowledge from their ancestors to hunt animals, gather forest goods, collect honey and dig yams to fulfill their food needs as ‘Forest dwellers’. Therefore, they had simple and efficient indigenous techniques for gathering and processing food. The main objective of the present study was to identify and document the past indigenous food practices and current food practices of the Dambana Vedda community. Focus group discussions were carried out with the different age categories of the Vedda community at Dambana to collect information. The indigenous lifestyle of the Vedda community was affected by modernization and civilization. Wild Veddas who lived in the forest have transmitted to village Veddas in colonies with modified food culture. Their indigenous food culture is mixed with the neighboring Sinhalese and Tamil communities. However, with forest reserves restricted, the Veddas are still engaging in a questionable struggle to protect their indigenous tradition and culture. Consequently, they have consumed indigenous foods rarely and novel food varieties become the daily diets of Veddas. Therefore, Veddas have been facing many challenges to protect their unique indigenous food practices for future generations.     DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v08i02.0

Scandals from an Island: Testing Anglo-American Corporate Governance Frameworks

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of banking scandals in relation to corporate governance (CG) failures in an emerging economy, arguing that Anglo-American ideas of CG are misplaced in traditional settings. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. Observations of annual general meetings (AGMs) and the personal working experience of one of the researchers, along with documentation, provided triangulating data on CG practices. Findings The authors have found that both of the banks studied had adopted CG practices contrary to the expectations of the Sri Lankan CG codes. Key features of CG practices that emerged from their investigations of these two scandals are ineffectual central bank regulations, familial boards of directors, ceremonial board meetings, biased auditing practices and manipulative AGMs, relying on traditional structures of accountability centred around families, kin and social networks. Research limitations/implications The authors argue, drawing on Weber (1958, 1961, 1968, 1978), that the traditionalist culture mediates the process of rationality in bank governance codes and regulatory frameworks Therefore, practices fall far short of expectations. Originality/value The paper builds on the extended critique of shareholder-centric CG models and their transferability to alien contexts. It contributes to the CG studies calling for more appreciation of the need to move beyond the conventional view of CG problems as simply down to conflicts of interests. The authors complement and advance the decoupling debate in CG studies drawing on the Weberian notion of traditionalism

Nutritional Evaluation of Different Mango Varieties available in Sri Lanka

The study was carried out to evaluate the nutritional properties of five varieties (Willard, Karthakolomban, Malwana, Bettiamba and Gira Amba) of mango. Nutritional properties were significantly (p 0.05) varied among the different mango varieties. The highest edible portion (79.49%), total soluble solids (0.75%), ash, total carbohydrate, sugar (30.56 mg/100 gm) and crude fiber were found in Karthakolomban. The highest amount of fat and moisture content were found in Malwana. The maximum amount of caloric value was found in Bettiamba. Gira Amba variety indicated the highest amount of protein content among the other mango varieties. Gira Amba has the highest titratable acidity meanwhile Karthakolomban has the lowest value considerably. Mango verities in this study possess pH values without any significant deviations and Bettiamba was recorded as the variety with highest pH value meanwhile Malwana claimed to be the lowest. Therefore, this study contributed to the identification of the characteristic biochemical properties of several prominent Sri Lankan mango varieties

Investigation of Daily Macronutrient intakes by Sri Lankan Managerial Level Employees working in the Private Sector

With changes of lifestyles and social values in the food culture, many individuals working as managerial level employees in the as private sector are seemingly selecting more improper daily meal combinations. This study was designed to determine whether this occurrence can have a severe impact to imbalance the daily nutrient intakes by the individuals in the mentioned social segment, which increase the tendency of having nutrition related chronic diseases. In a hierarchy range from junior executives to CEOs of private sector organizations, 800 individuals were selected by disproportionate stratified random sampling. Selected individuals are interviewed using a structured questionnaire to assess their daily food combinations and their consumed portion sizes. Frequently consumed meal combinations were then analyzed for their macronutrient composition, to compare with world Health organizations’ (WHO) Reference Dietary Intake (RDI) levels of nutrients. The results reveal of significantly (p<0.05) higher daily fat (45.3 ±1.7 g/day) and protein (65.2 ±1.4 g/day) intakes than the WHO recommendation levels and significantly (p<0.05) lower in dietary fibre (22.3 ±1.1 g/day) contents by selected participants. Carbohydrate intake (133.1 ±2.2 g/day) was higher than reference levels but was not significant (p>0.05). This indicates of a considerable risk for many individuals in the concerned social segment, of having non-communicable diseases, if observed dietary patterns are continued

Post-crisis recovery management of tourism: Lesson Learnt from the Easter Sunday attack in Sri Lanka

International tourism has evolved into one of the largest global economic sectors, contributing significantly to many national and local economies. However, the crises have caused much loss and damage over the last few decades, burdening the tourism industry. On April 21, 2019, the day of Easter Sunday, Sri Lanka experienced a series of unexpected attacks. It caused many problems and challenges to the tourism industry. This study attempts to understand respondents who are involved in the tourism industry's lived experiences of the Sunday easter attack and their involvement in recovery. The qualitative research method, particularly the phenomenological approach, was adopted to collect and analyse data through the lens of the stakeholder theory. Senior managers representing the different tourism industry sectors were purposively approached and interviewed. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that the easter Sunday attack negatively influenced the number of tourist arrivals and experiences. However, a well-designed crisis management plan under the control of the official authority can minimise the risk and reduce the negative impact of the incident. Therefore, this study presents an innovative integrated model that could be used as a crisis management plan to restore the tourism industry.  Keywords: Disaster, Easter Sunday attack, Recovery process, Tourism, Phenomenology, Stakeholder theory &nbsp

Straw bonded solid panels – the constructability, thermal performance and structural behaviour

Straw bonded solid panels manufactured as boards with a thickness of 58 mm can be used for many applications such as internal partitions, floor boards, acoustic panels, ceiling, etc. However, there have been many issues related to the use of straw panels as a load bearing material for walls. This paper describes the details and results of a full scale load test carried out with straw bonded solid panels to assess the constructability, structural adequacy with short term loads and sustained loads. It also indicates the trends that can be expected with thermal performance

A search for compact object companions to high mass function single-lined spectroscopic binaries in Gaia DR3

Gaia DR3 provides >181, 000 radial velocity solutions for single-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB1s) which can be used to search for non-interacting compact object+star binary candidates by selecting systems with large mass functions. We selected 234 such systems and identified 114 systems with good RV solutions in DR3. We used light curves from ASAS-SN and TESS to identify and remove 31 eclipsing binaries to produce a catalog of 80 compact object+star candidates, including 38 ellipsoidal variables. The positions of these candidates on Gaia and 2MASS CMDs suggest that many of these systems are binaries with luminous companions. We compared the periods and eccentricities of detached eclipsing binaries in Gaia DR3 and ASAS-SN, and found that ~11% and ~60% of the binaries had different periods and eccentricities. We also compared RV solutions for 311 binaries in both Gaia DR3 and the Ninth Catalog of Spectroscopic Binary Orbits (SB9), and found similar results. We do not identify any strong candidates for non-interacting compact object+star binaries.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to MNRA