Monday Oct 27, 2025
Monday Oct 27, 2025
Monday, 27 October 2025 03:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
LKIIRSS Board Member and Sri Lanka Navy former Chief Hydrographer Rear Admiral (Retd.) Y.N. Jayarathna
The Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) held the 3rd session of the month for the lecture series titled ‘Admiral’s Morning’ on 21 October at the Lighthouse Auditorium in Colombo. The series began in September, with the aim of building awareness regarding Sri Lanka’s maritime issues.
The lecture was delivered by the LKIIRSS Board member and Sri Lanka Navy’s former Chief Hydrographer Rear Admiral Y.N. Jayarathna (Retd), who presented on the topic of ‘Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA)’. He spoke particularly on the varying international definitions of Maritime Domain Awareness as per respective national interests, the Sri Lankan Navy’s evolution of MDA through the Network Centric Warfare System developed during the separatist terrorism, the Navy’s entry in to new technology like High-Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR) system used for maritime surveillance of up to 200 nautical miles from land, and the introduction of Information Fusion Centre (IFC) Colombo in 2019 and the Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) in 2000 as parts of wider MDA umbrella for the island nation.
The session also featured an introduction to a plethora of web-based sources through which real-time and near-real-time updates regarding weather patterns, changing temperatures and maritime threats are provided for better decision making whilst understanding the maritime domain better.
The session also had several scenario-based demonstrations on the usage of MDA tools by the Navy, explaining how capable the navy is in maintaining the domain awareness using both Restricted and Commercial platforms. These included usage of MDA tools such as SeaVision, IORIS, VMS and commercial sources, to track, detect, and coordinate the rescue missions, as well as providing technical evidences.
The audience raised questions and sought further elaborations on matters disclosed during the session, and one such was on the wide availability of data within Sri Lanka’s maritime domain, and the need for further collaboration within the government agencies in order to further enhance the development of the island nation’s own research and data acquisition on our seabed, reducing reliance on other nations. The discussion further encompassed inquiries on practical, legal and international relations aspects of this issue, including managing the threat of piracy, balancing international incentives to share data, the use of MDA in warfare and so on.
The LKI’s final ‘Admiral’s Morning’ session of the month will take place on the 28 October on the ‘Bay of Bengal and Gulf of Mannar; Strategic Neighbourhood of Sri Lanka’ and will be free and open to the public. This will conclude the series of eight lectures under the banner ‘Admiral’s Morning’ conducted for two months at LKI. These lectures covered the very essence of this island State’s maritime interests, giving a greater understanding of why we should invest in our maritime affairs.
