Sri Lanka, Oct. 21 -- The New Delhi Metro was designed and built by Indians with an Indian engineer E. Sreedharan in charge. The Sri Lankan Government now mandates that all software procurements have to give priority to Sri Lankan companies. The same applies to the construction and furniture sector.

Will Sri Lankan engineers be able to build something akin to the Delhi Metro one day? Perhaps. The new laws on procurement are a good start. There was a time Sri Lanka had engineering talent wizardry, such as the well-known B.D. Rampala of Sri Lanka Railways (SLR), for instance.

But this is the era that countries haplessly worship at the foreign godhead. The pandemic however has accelerated the need to utilize local talent, but the new laws ...