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President Maithripala Sirisena, who reduced his wide powers through the 19th Amendment, taking part in physical exercises along with Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka as part of a campaign to launch the national energy conservation month. A large number of people took part in the event which included a race from Independence Square. The [...]
Swiss bank exposé: Names of 40 Lankans revealed
Some 40 Sri Lankans stashed away around US$ 50 million in secret Swiss bank accounts, according to details made available exclusively to the Sunday Times by the US based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The details were obtained by the ICIJ from the French newspaper Le Monde and led to many collaborative projects by the [...]
20A as urgent bill; CC within two weeks
The 19th Amendment’s provisions including the one that does away with the presentation of urgent bills will become effective only when the term of the next parliament begins after the general elections. The 19th Amendment, certified on Wednesday by Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, includes the changes made during the Committee stage of the debate before it [...]
Sri Lanka rejects demands by Indian fishermen
The Sri Lankan Government will officially convey to India that Sri Lanka’s fisheries organisations have rejected their Indian counterparts’ demands including access to Lankan territorial waters, a senior Fisheries Department official said yesterday. He said the decision was taken after a series of consultations among local fisheries associations. Sri Lanka’s position would be conveyed to Indian [...]
Elections to 335 local councils on single day; new mixed system
The Government is making arrangements to hold elections to all 335 local councils on a single day before the end of the year, Public Administration Minister Karu Jayasuriya said yesterday. He said the Delimitation Commission appointed to demarcate wards for the local councils under a new system has finalised its report which would be gazetted soon. [...]
President to select Pera VC from 3 names
The 25-member Council of the University of Peradeniya yesterday selected three professors whose names will be sent to President Maithripala Sirisena for him to select a Vice Chancellor (VC) of the university for the next three years. There were five applicants, namely the present VC Prof Athula Senaratne, former Deputy VC Prof Anura Wickramasinghe, Prof [...]
Brazil strike scuttles Lankans’ Rotary show travel plans
More than 150 Sri Lankans who are scheduled to travel to Brazil to attend a gala Rotary Club event are kicking their heels waiting for visas due to a career civil servants’ strike which has crippled much of the consular activities of Brazil’s missions abroad. The Brazilian Embassy in Colombo sent a notice to travel [...]
Three brothers arrested for alleged rape and killing
Three brothers from the same family in the Jaffna peninsula have been arrested over the alleged rape and killing of an 18-year-old school girl and remanded until next Thursday, police said. Initial investigations have revealed that a long-standing dispute between the two families had allegedly led to the abduction of the girl while she was [...]
President Sirisena launches National Energy Conservation Month with 4-km road run
A campaign on energy conservation was launched yesterday with a public event, under the patronage of President Maithripala Sirisena and Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka, in Colombo. A promotional race ‘Javana Shakti Yatra’, the first stage of the ‘Hetak Venuwen Ratak’ (A Country for Tomorrow) programme for this year’s National Energy Conservation Month, began [...]
Woman (72), grandson (16) gunned down by man out on bail
A man released on bail three months earlier, this morning shot a woman, Anula Kandambi (72) and her grandson, Lashen Niroshan (16), of Uyanwatte in Matara, police said. Police said they had been shot over a private dispute, and to take revenge on Anula’s son. The victims were taken to Matara General Hospital, where they [...]
Find better place for Kapilavastu relics: Swaminathan to Modi
A cabinet minister has sought the relocation of the Kapilavastu relics of Lord Buddha, now housed at the National Museum in New Delhi, to a more appropriate place in keeping with the sacred nature of the widely venerated relics. Hindu Religious Affairs Minister D.M.Swaminathan had sent the request to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi through [...]
Worker killed as shop lift cable snaps
A worker at a textile factory at Pamunuwa Road, Maharagama died after the lift he was using crashed down, according to police spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunesekera. The Maharagama police are investigating the accident. The tragedy occurred on Friday when one of the workers was taking some clothes to the upper floor of the building. The [...]
Expand existing relations, explore new areas of cooperation: Israeli Envoy
Israel is keen to expand existing relations with Sri Lanka and explore new areas of cooperation including military ties, if there is potential, said Israel’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Daniel Carmon. Ambassador Carmon who is concurrently accredited to India and Sri Lanka, and based in New Delhi, was here to celebrate Israel’s 67th National Day. [...]
Ranaviru Commemorative Parade in Matara on Tuesday
The ‘Ranaviru Commemorative Parade’, the National Commemoration Ceremony for war heroes, will be held in Matara under the patronage of President Sirisena, on Tuesday (19). The event will showcase a special segment of retired officers participating for the first time. “This ceremony is to honour war heroes who sacrificed their lives for the sovereignty of [...]
BTF London rally, vigil to mark ‘Mullivaikkal Massacre’
The British Tamil Forum (BTF) is to hold a mass rally and a vigil tomorrow in London to mark what it calls the “Mullivaikkal Massacre” six years ago, when “tens of thousands of Tamils” were killed in May 2009. The BTF, in its website, has called on Tamils and others to join them in central [...]
‘We are fishermen – we do not see borders’
A baby sleeps peacefully in a cradle made with a saree hung from the roof of the cadjan hut. It is a small house with a single bedroom, a living area where the baby is sleeping and a kitchen in which an elderly woman in her late seventies is waking from her afternoon nap. We [...]
Sri Lankans reject Indian request outright
Heads of Sri Lankan fishing associations have decided to turn down all the requests made by their counterparts in Tamil Nadu, following a series of discussions with their communities in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The decision was made during talks held this week. Fisherfolk leaders this week met the Director-General of the Fisheries Ministry [...]
Lack of staff allows drug syndicates to open up Lanka as major transit route
In the early hours of last Sunday, Police Narcotics Bureau officials at Bandaranaike International Airport, alerted to an attempt to smuggle drugs through the coastal town of Thoduwawa, Marawila, sped there and found caches of heroin hidden in the scrub along the beach. The drugs were allegedly smuggled in from India with the use of [...]
AMS will be an apolitical union says its President
Lobbying will be the main weapon to solve issues and strike action the very last resort, while we work with dedication for the public good as an apolitical trade union, assured a group of Sri Lanka’s top medical specialists yesterday. Listing out the three burning issues that the newly-strengthened Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) will [...]
Hoteliers say industry faces crisis
While the controversy over the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) granting clearance certificates to hotel kitchens continue, and its Medical Laboratory Technicians (MLT) prohibited from testing ‘hotel staff’ during office hours, hoteliers complain that the decision has placed the entire hotel industry in jeopardy with no proper guidelines to follow. Food hygiene managers of two leading [...]
UDA’s castles-in-the-air projects on hold till after polls: Chairman
A string of Urban Development projects put on hold pending reviews will be further delayed until new investors are found, estimates reviewed and fresh avenues on return on investments are decided upon, said a senior official of the Urban Development Authority (UDA). UDA Chairman, Ranjith Fernando told the Sunday Times that a team from Singapore [...]
Schoolbus in tragic accident had no permit
The school bus from which a seven-year-old child fell and was tragically run over this week was not authorised to transport schoolchildren, police said as family and friends mourned the death of the child. Police informed the Magistrate’s Court that the bus had beenusing a permit given to a schoolbus that, incidentally, had belonged to [...]
Betel-chewing bus drivers on a dangerous high
The speeding and overtaking common among bus drivers in the city and suburbs could be due to betel chewing, a medical researcher revealed. It has been found that drivers and bus conductors chew betel to stay awake and concentrate on driving. The survey conducted by the Institute of Oral Health, (IOH) Maharagama, on 103 bus [...]
No laws to govern child transport
Lack of authority and law are hampering the provision of safe school transport, the Chairman of the All-Island Inter-District Schoolchildren Transport Association, N.M.K Harishchandra Padmasiri, said. He said school van drivers have been urging the government to set up a monitoring system with laws administered by a government authority. There was no proper method for [...]
Lanka’s rescue efforts attain Himalayan proportions in Nepal
When Major Dr. Cyril Kuruge was requested to take a relief Mission to Nepal on April 25, just hours after the devastating earthquake struck, he agreed without hesitation. He was asked to get his teams organised and be on standby. “I immediately prepared the drugs list and ordered them. I also got a team of [...]
We are Telugu…
The Sri Lankan gypsies -a branch of the Romani people- have entranced the public with the sinuous cobra dance and with their skill as soothsayers. According to ‘Wikipedia’ genetic evidence connects the Romani people to the descendants of groups which emigrated from South Asia towards Central Asia during the medieval period. Sadly these people have [...]
Weatherman warns of more rains
The Meteorology Department has warned of more thundershowers in the upcoming weeks with the threat of floods and earthslips occurring. Showers and thundershowers will occur in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, North Western and Southern Provinces during the day and at night with rainfall of more than 100 mm. expected, Met Department Director S. R Jayasekara said. [...]
Waiting to open a new chapter in their lives back home
After 24 years for the first time P. Kugan is returning to his motherland, or at least to the country where his parent’s roots lie. He was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gummidipoondi, Tamil Nadu after his family left the country during the war in 1990. “I’m hoping to start a new [...]
