Piyumi Fonseka profile image

Piyumi Fonseka

Freelance Journalist

Piyumi Kanchana Fonseka Gunaratne is a journalist based in Colombo, with a decade-long experience covering local and regional issues. Formerly the Deputy Editor for Investigations at Sri Lanka’s leading English daily, the Daily Mirror, she is also the recipient of the Young Reporter of the Year (2015) and Investigative Journalist of the Year (2021) awards at the Sri Lankan Journalism Awards for Excellence. Piyumi is also an alumna of the World Press Institute in Minnesota, USA.

September 20, 2024

It was an economic crisis that felled Sri Lanka's last elected president - contenders running for his job on Saturday promise to turn the economy around and raise the standard of living on the South Asian island. 

That cannot come too soon for the more than 300,000 people who pick Ceylon tea, a crucial sector that accounts for 11% of Sri Lanka's exports and earns more than $1 billion a year in vital foreign currency.

February 19, 2024

Once considered one of the best in the region, Sri Lanka's healthcare system is ailing, laid low by the exodus of hundreds of doctors and, with patients left languishing, experts are calling on the government to act to stop the loss of talent.

More than 1,700 medical officers - an umbrella term for doctors and other healthcare professionals - have left Sri Lanka over the past two years, according to the Government Medical Officers' Association trade union, which shared data exclusively with Context. 

February 08, 2023

When Kiri Banda retired from his job as a cook in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, he hoped for a peaceful old age living with his son. But with his medical bills straining household finances last year, he decided it was time to move out.

"I didn't want to be a burden," said Banda, who spends his days begging or searching for food and sleeps on a bench in a public park.