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Sri Lanka, an island nation rich in natural resources, faced severe economic crisis in the recent history. In 2022, these vulnerabilities triggered a series of interconnected crisis, marked by the decline in budget, increase in debt, and inflation, in addition to a significant sociopolitical upheaval when it defaulted the external debt payments. This study attempts to explore the multifaceted causes that led to these long-standing economic vulnerabilities, which included resource mismanagement, political instability, and global economic conditions. The discussion also touches on the prospects for recovery with emphasis on both immediate and long-term measures. The primary cause of economic crisis in Sri Lanka was the country’s long-running, budgetary shortfalls, which were exacerbated by unmanageable national debt, especially from external commercial loans. The effect of the crisis on different sectors of society, including poverty, unemployment, and public services, is examined. For Sri Lanka’s medium-term recuperation, stability, and long-term growth, key measures would include significant debt reduction and reprofiling, restructuring of both national and international debt to achieve debt sustainability, and implement significant fiscal policy reforms focused on increasing revenue and optimized expenditures to mitigate the budgetary deficit. In addition ambitious structural reforms aimed at growth are also required.

Keywords: Sri Lanka, Economic crisis, Debt Restructuring, Debt-trap Diplomacy, Policy, Recovery.

The Bathudi tribe, an indigenous community predominantly inhabiting the northern regions of Odisha, is a significant cultural group with a rich heritage. Their lifestyle, traditions, and spiritual practices reflect the harmonious relationship they have maintained with their natural and cultural surroundings for generations. Among the prominent symbols of this connection is the Atharadeula Temple, a historical and spiritual landmark that holds immense significance for the tribe.

The village of Meemure has developed its unique architectural and technological identity due to extensive lying in a deep narrow valley of the knuckles mountain range and having the oldest architectural constructions for various agricultural purposes built since huge number of years. The research study, therefore, aimed at an investigation and documentation of these ancient agricultural constructions of the region to enlighten the society with the findings. The methodology consists of the collection of data, namely: library research, field observations, and interviews. The mainstay of the people of Meemure continues to be agriculture. By and large, rainwater forms the main input through which agriculture receives water, while the remaining part is taken from a system established by the people of Meemure themselves. The introduction of these special constructions began the use of home-conceived knowledge. Based on some of the constructions, stones were naturally found in the Meemure area. The people of Meemure have diverted water from dimbi-golla stream to the paddy fields by damming it at various places using man-made canals. Water moves through these canals to the paddy fields. The natural form of the land has been used in this respect. Besides the agricultural constructions, they built architecturally well-built stone structures for creating cultivation areas around their houses, demarcating land boundaries, and preventing soil erosion. Cement is not used in these constructions. These buildings belong to the technique of setting stones at such angle that they do not press on each other. Currently, these ancient constructions are deteriorating due to the lack of interest from the current generation regarding the stone constructions built in agricultural lands in the past and the lack of proper understanding of the technology used historically. Regrettably, concrete has been used during maintenance work in places that are being destroyed. It is problematic that heritage conservation institutions have not conducted proper research on these areas and that information about ancient constructions in these areas has not been transmitted to the wider society. It is very important to further study the stone technology in Meemure village and to preserve the remaining stone creations in the way they existed in the past.

Keywords: Agriculture, Architecture, Constructions, Meemure Village, Stone Technology.

The Bhumij, an indigenous community inhabiting West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Odisha, have sustained a distinctive food culture rooted in forest ecology, traditional agriculture, and community practices. Their dietary patterns rely on rice, millets, forest greens, tubers, fermented foods, and locally brewed beverages such as handia and mahua liquor. This paper documents key Bhumij traditional foods, their preparation methods, and nutritional composition, drawing from food composition databases, ethnographic studies, and field-level observations. The analysis underscores the nutritional strengths of the Bhumij diet—particularly its richness in micronutrients and fermented foods—while highlighting emerging challenges such as deforestation, loss of millet diversity, and health risks associated with alcohol overuse.

Keywords: Bhumij tribe; traditional food culture; nutrition; fermented foods; millets; forest ecology; food security; West Bengal.

Archaeo-botanical work from the coastal lowlands of Odisha has begun to fill a long-standing geographic gap in South Asian palaeobotany. Excavations and flotation/phytolith sampling at Neolithic–Chalcolithic mound sites provide direct evidence of crop choices, cultivation strategies and crop processing activities. This review synthesizes archaeobotanical research from coastal Odisha, focusing on two influential Neolithic–Chalcolithic mounded settlements: Golbai Sasan (Khurda/near Chilika) and Suabarei (Puri district). Systematic flotation, macrobotanical identification, phytolith analysis and direct AMS radiocarbon dating have produced robust plant assemblages that document rice (Oryza sativa) as the principal staple in these coastal occupations, accompanied by a consistent complement of pulses (horse gram, mung/green gram, urd/pigeon pea) and low-frequency small millets and wild grasses. Suabarei is notable for a directly dated rice grain (calibrated to 3370–3210 cal BP), which provides an explicit chronological anchor for rice use in the Odisha coastal plain; Golbai Sasan provides a stratified sequence with rice spikelet bases and phytolith assemblages that indicate domesticated rice cultivation over multiple occupational phases. The combined evidence from these sites indicates mixed, resilient cropping systems adapted to estuarine and wetland ecologies rather than exclusive high-input irrigated paddy systems. Integration with faunal, ceramic and geomorphological data highlights flexible coastal economies that combined cultivation with fishing and foraging. The review evaluates methodological strengths and biases (taphonomy, sampling intensity) and identifies research priorities: expanded flotation across more sites, systematic single-seed AMS dating, geoarchaeological work to resolve cultivation ecologies (wet paddy vs. rainfed), and integration of aDNA/isotopic methods. These priorities will refine models of rice adoption and agricultural intensification along the Bay of Bengal littoral.

Keywords: Archaeobotany; Odisha; Golbai Sasan; Suabarei; rice domestication; flotation; phytoliths.