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Harini Amarasuriya
Harini Nireka Amarasuriya (born 6 March 1970) is a Sri Lankan sociologist, academic, activist, and politician serving as the 16th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka since 2024.
Having spent a decade as an academic at the Open University of Sri Lanka, where she was engaged with the Federation of University Teachers' Association in trade union action; Amarasuriya was nominated by the National People's Power (NPP) party as its National List Member of Parliament in 2020.
She was appointed as the 16th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in September 2024, concurrently appointed as the interim minister of justice, health, women, education, trade, and industries in the first Dissanayake cabinet. She is the third woman to hold the office of prime minister of Sri Lanka, after Sirimavo Bandaranaike and her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga. Amarasuriya was reappointed as the 17th Prime Minister following the NPP's landslide victory in the 2024 Sri Lankan parliamentary election, in which she received 655,289 votes—the second-highest ever obtained by a candidate in Sri Lanka's parliamentary electoral history.
Born in Galle on 6 March 1970, her father was a planter and her mother a housewife, Amarasuriya was the youngest of three. She is a relative of H. W. Amarasuriya, Cabinet Minister for Trade and Commerce from 1948 to 1952.[citation needed] The family moved to Colombo after her father's estate was taken over by the government under the Land Reform Act of 1972, where she attended Bishop's College, with a year in the United States as an exchange student.
Amarasuriya gained an Indian government scholarship to read Sociology at the Hindu College, from 1991 to 1994, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in sociology from the University of Delhi. Her contemporaries at Hindu College included Imtiaz Ali and Arnab Goswami. Following her return from India, she worked as a community health worker with Nest Sri Lanka, working with tsunami-affected children. Five years later she gained a Master of Arts in Applied and Development Anthropology from Macquarie University, followed by a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh.
She joined the Open University of Sri Lanka as a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences in 2011 after completing her PhD, where she later became the head of the department. Amarasuriya has undertaken research into Human Rights and Ethics in Sri Lanka, funded by the European Research Council, and research into the influence of radical Christians on dissent in Sri Lanka, funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The University of Edinburgh.
Becoming a member of the Federation of University Teachers' Association (FUTA), she took part in trade union action demanding better working conditions and fair treatment for university staff.
Amarasuriya has been an advocate for educational reforms to truly enable free education as envisioned by C. W. W. Kannangara when free education was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1938. She has called for the equal access to quality education independent of the economic power of the people thus ensuring equal education opportunities for everyone, by which to stop the concept of popular schools in Sri Lanka. On this note, Amarasuriya campaigned with the FUTA in 2011 and 2012 for government allocation of 6% of the GDP for education. In 2023, Sri Lanka had only allocated 2% of its GDP for education.
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Harini Amarasuriya
Harini Nireka Amarasuriya (born 6 March 1970) is a Sri Lankan sociologist, academic, activist, and politician serving as the 16th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka since 2024.
Having spent a decade as an academic at the Open University of Sri Lanka, where she was engaged with the Federation of University Teachers' Association in trade union action; Amarasuriya was nominated by the National People's Power (NPP) party as its National List Member of Parliament in 2020.
She was appointed as the 16th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in September 2024, concurrently appointed as the interim minister of justice, health, women, education, trade, and industries in the first Dissanayake cabinet. She is the third woman to hold the office of prime minister of Sri Lanka, after Sirimavo Bandaranaike and her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga. Amarasuriya was reappointed as the 17th Prime Minister following the NPP's landslide victory in the 2024 Sri Lankan parliamentary election, in which she received 655,289 votes—the second-highest ever obtained by a candidate in Sri Lanka's parliamentary electoral history.
Born in Galle on 6 March 1970, her father was a planter and her mother a housewife, Amarasuriya was the youngest of three. She is a relative of H. W. Amarasuriya, Cabinet Minister for Trade and Commerce from 1948 to 1952.[citation needed] The family moved to Colombo after her father's estate was taken over by the government under the Land Reform Act of 1972, where she attended Bishop's College, with a year in the United States as an exchange student.
Amarasuriya gained an Indian government scholarship to read Sociology at the Hindu College, from 1991 to 1994, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in sociology from the University of Delhi. Her contemporaries at Hindu College included Imtiaz Ali and Arnab Goswami. Following her return from India, she worked as a community health worker with Nest Sri Lanka, working with tsunami-affected children. Five years later she gained a Master of Arts in Applied and Development Anthropology from Macquarie University, followed by a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh.
She joined the Open University of Sri Lanka as a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences in 2011 after completing her PhD, where she later became the head of the department. Amarasuriya has undertaken research into Human Rights and Ethics in Sri Lanka, funded by the European Research Council, and research into the influence of radical Christians on dissent in Sri Lanka, funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The University of Edinburgh.
Becoming a member of the Federation of University Teachers' Association (FUTA), she took part in trade union action demanding better working conditions and fair treatment for university staff.
Amarasuriya has been an advocate for educational reforms to truly enable free education as envisioned by C. W. W. Kannangara when free education was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1938. She has called for the equal access to quality education independent of the economic power of the people thus ensuring equal education opportunities for everyone, by which to stop the concept of popular schools in Sri Lanka. On this note, Amarasuriya campaigned with the FUTA in 2011 and 2012 for government allocation of 6% of the GDP for education. In 2023, Sri Lanka had only allocated 2% of its GDP for education.