New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- The year 2024 was widely hailed as the year of elections with 73 countries conducting nationwide polls and more than 1.5 billion voters exercising their franchise. While the 2024 Indian general elections may have been the biggest contest on offer, there was another important election in South Asia which has important ramifications both for India and the wider Indo-Pacific. In September 2024, for the first time in Sri Lanka's history, a third-party candidate - Anura Kumara Dissanayake (known as AKD) - was elected president.

On last week's episode of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, veteran Sri Lanka watcher Neil DeVotta...