{"id":43323,"date":"2022-04-06T22:57:17","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T13:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/06\/why-are-people-protesting-in-sri-lanka"},"modified":"2022-05-10T21:21:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T12:21:23","slug":"why-are-people-protesting-in-sri-lanka-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=43323","title":{"rendered":"Why are people protesting in Sri Lanka?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Explainer: government accused of mishandling economic crisis and overseeing rampant corruption<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/06\/sri-lanka-facing-imminent-threat-of-starvation-senior-politician-warns\">Sri Lanka facing imminent threat of starvation, senior politician warns<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unprecedented shortages of food and fuel along with record inflation and blackouts have inflicted widespread misery in Sri Lanka\u2019s most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948.<\/p>\n<p>Anger over the economic crisis and the government\u2019s handling of the situation has led to weeks of unrest and calls for the president of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to step down from power. On Monday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/may\/09\/sri-lanka-ruling-party-supporters-storm-protest-site-in-colombo\">his brother, the prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned<\/a> and the parliament was dissolved as political turmoil intensified and the ruling party further lost its grip on power.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/06\/why-are-people-protesting-in-sri-lanka\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Explainer: government accused of mishandling economic crisis and overseeing rampant corruptionSri Lanka facing imminent threat of starvation, senior politician warnsUnprecedented shortages of food and fuel along with record inflation and blackouts have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,674,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43323"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44380,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43323\/revisions\/44380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}