LKIIRSS ‘Admiral’s Morning’ Series Continues

October 7, 2025    Reading Time: < 1 minute

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The Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) held the first session of the month for the lecture series titled ‘Admiral’s Morning’ today, 7 October, at the Lighthouse Auditorium in Colombo. The series began in September, with the aim of building awareness regarding Sri Lanka’s maritime issues. 

Today’s lecture was delivered by the LKIIRSS Board member, Rear Admiral Y.N. Jayarathna (Retd.), who presented on the topic of ‘Seabed 2030’, detailing various seabed explorations conducted since the 1950s, the importance of mapping and understanding the seabed using tools such as the website seabed2030.org, the Afanasy Nikitin Seamount contention with India and much more. The lecture was accompanied by a question and answer segment, during which questions on the value of seabed data for military and economic purposes, the importance of sharing hydrographic information and nautical charts on a global scale and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement were asked and answered. Professor N.P. Wijayananda, the Chairman of the National Ocean Affairs Committee, who was in attendance, also commented on the process of data collection and some of its challenges.

The LKI has planned the ‘Admiral’s Morning’ series to continue this month on Tuesday mornings, from 8.30-10.00 am at LKIIRSS premises, Horton Place, with the following lectures lined up: on 14 October – Sri Lanka’s Claim for the Outer Continental Margin under UNCLOS, on 21 October – Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), and on 28 October – Bay of Bengal and Gulf of Mannar; Strategic Neighbourhood of Sri Lanka. All sessions are open to the public.