This journal contains many articles. The main article is on the “Role of social protection in disaster management in Sri Lanka”. The study reveals that the present social protection system in Sri Lanka is not adequate to address the socio-economic vulnerability due to external shocks created by natural disasters. All the disaster-related socio-economic measures in place are highly skewed towards immediate relief, whereas long-term economic well-being of the disaster vulnerable groups has received minor attention. The disaster insurance schemes are also not properly developed and the existing crop insurance schemes show a low coverage. Microfinance services also do not adequately respond to the needs of the disaster vulnerable groups. The study recommends the need for making reforms in the existing programmes, thereby to suggest better protection against natural disasters without introducing new measures and increasing the complexity of the system. The article “Policies and issues in urban development in Sri Lanka: an examination of the inter-domain gaps by Jagath Munasinghe focuses on the issues with the current policies in urban development in Sri Lanka. Although much has been discussed on urban development related issues for many years, more attention of both the policy makers and the research community is needed since no significant improvements in connecting research, policy and practice are observed within the sector. Finding solutions for the problems at the roots of these issues is not an easy task, but a discourse on them is timely for improved awareness of those who are interested and affected. In order to contribute towards that, attention is drawn to the issues surging from the gaps in three areas: urban management, traffic management and adaptation to climate change effects, which are among the main concerns for present day urban development in Sri Lanka. In order to conceptualise the complex relationships between the policies, practices and research findings, the paper adopts a simple rational model of actors involved in the policy formulation processes which are divided into four mutually exclusive domains: research communities, interest groups, policy makers and the society. The paper highlights that many of the issues are surging from the gaps in between these four domains and hitherto the problems associated with the transfer of knowledge emanate from research findings, inevitable ground realities that are not reflected in policies, conflicts between the policy intentions and the social interests, and the perceptual differences among researchers, policy makers and the social groups.