Developing an operational definition for household poverty requires the consideration of two aspects. Firstly, it needs to identify an indicative property or combination of such properties which are generalisable across all households facing poverty (within the population of interest), and secondly, it needs to explain how they would be empirically measured and the degree of poverty calculated. According to the discourse on the limitations of both Samurdhi and Aswesuma, this article highlights how these aspects need to negotiate the complexities of at least three conflicting cues (a triple bind). 

In Sri Lanka, the way telecommunication technologies have embedded themselves into people’s lives cannot be ignored. However, within this sector, the roles played by states and larger enterprises tend to overshadow ancillary roles played by people organised at smaller scales.

An article on the pricing of fish in Colombo, exploring more into the function and capacity of the markets to coordinate the movement of seafood from the ocean to our plates using price mechanism and relationships.

Solving issues related to people’s capacities to access infrastructure requires a more grounded approach that’s sensitive to understanding the variety of contexts in which people live, and not only counting and accounting revenue generated, costs incurred, and average monthly incomes.