BANGALORE - Sri Lanka's ongoing economic emergency has become an out-and-out political crisis, with citizens taking to the streets in protest and a defiant government announcing a nationwide curfew and social media shutdown in reprisal.

Public anger has reached its peak as a result of a slew of disastrous policies that have sped the South Asian country towards bankruptcy. Citizens now face worrying food and fuel shortages, the worst rice harvest in decades, and are without power for almost half the day during heatwaves.