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Home » NewsBy last night, 7000 Indian and Lankan pilgrims on Kachchativu island
More than 7,000 devotees from India and Sri Lanka had gathered in Kachchativu by last night to attend the annual St. Anthony’s mass to be held today. The pilgrims had started arriving shortly after noon and more are expected this morning. Around 300 priests and nuns were among the crowd. Earlier in the day around 500 Lankan [...]
See what they are doing to our sea
The Sunday Times investigative team went to the explosive Palk Bay where thousands of Indian fishing boats have been indulging in bottom trawling, an illegal fishing practice. What our journalists found was something worse. The Indians have now doubled the damage, indulging in pair trawling, widening the catch area and destroying hundreds of marine species. [...]
Rape of Lanka’s seas worsens
As the Sri Lankan Government looks the other way, poaching by Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters in the Palk Strait has taken a serious turn with the use of “pair trawling” where two steel hull boats scrape the sea bottom. Navy Commander Ravindra Wijegunaratne confirmed that the new method, now in operation, destroyed marine [...]
Facebook plot to kill MS, Ranil: Court orders arrest of suspect
Colombo’s Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya has ordered the arrest of a suspect who through his Facebook page allegedly called for the assassination of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The judge ordered the Immigration Controller to arrest and hand over the suspect to the CID after the Cyber Crimes Division of the CID [...]
Rajitha is stable, says son
Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne who was flown to Singapore for treatment on Friday is in a stable condition, a family member said last night. Dr. Senaratne’s son and Parliamentarian Chathura Senaratne, said his father had undergone medical examinations and more tests were to be done. The minister was rushed to a private hospital in Colombo, following [...]
ETCA will be signed, traitors can’t sabotage deal with India, says PM
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday vowed to go ahead with the Indo-Lanka Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). “We will take this agreement forward. We have a majority in Parliament,” the Prime Minister said during a tour of Hambantota. He said those who opposed it were attempting to sabotage Government plans to give employment to one [...]
Startling revelation
The Indian Coast Guard has told a Chennai High Court that the Sri Lanka Navy has neither trespassed into Indian waters nor attacked Indian fishermen in Indian waters. From January 2014 to March 2015 as many as 36,865 Indian fishing boats poached in Sri Lankan waters. In a startling disclosure through an affidavit filed by [...]
Constitution: Full debate on Thursday
Parliament on Thursday will take up for debate the Resolution on the Appointment of the Constitutional Assembly. The debate will begin at 9.30 a.m. and will continue till 7.30 p.m., Parliament officials said. The resolution seeks to appoint a Constitutional Assembly consisting of all Members of Parliament, for the purpose of deliberating, and seeking the [...]
US$ 50m underground pipeline to transport jet fuel to BIA: CPC
Government is to construct a US$ 50 million underground pipeline to transport aviation fuel from the Muthurajawela storage facility to the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), said Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) Chairman T.C. Jayasinghe. Tenders will be called for within the next two weeks for the project scheduled to start in June and end within an [...]
Babel Game error
Readers are asked to please disregard this week’s Babel Game No 13 (published in the Plus section -Page 9) due to an error in the game. The correct version of Babel Game No. 13 will be published next Sunday. We regret the inconvenience caused.
Indian fishermen won’t hold protest in Kachchativu
Indian fishermen will not go ahead with a proposed protest in Kachchativu today, following last minute talks Sri Lankan fisher leaders held with their Tamil Nadu counterparts, the Sunday Times learns. Indo-Lanka Fishermen’s Welfare Forum Advisor S.P. Anthonymuttu told the Sunday Times he urged Rameshwaram Mechanical Fisheries Craft Association President N. Devadas not to use [...]
By last night, 7000 Indian and Lankan pilgrims on Kachchativu island
More than 7,000 devotees from India and Sri Lanka had gathered in Kachchativu by last night to attend the annual St. Anthony’s mass to be held today. The pilgrims had started arriving shortly after noon and more are expected this morning. Around 300 priests and nuns were among the crowd. Earlier in the day around [...]
Here’s the Gazette the Finance Minister doesn’t know about
The Central Bank, through a Gazette notification, appears to have stymied declared efforts by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake to invite those abroad to remit money to Sri Lanka, assuring no questions will be asked. This Gazette extraordinary notification on January 27, 2016 (the date in English is erroneously stated as January 27, 2015 at the [...]
Palk Strait may end up as a dead sea
Sri Lankan naval vessels regularly patrol the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) to keep the Indian fishermen away, but the exercise is turning out to be a ‘cat and mouse’ game. “As soon as the navy boats turn away, the Indian boats return to poaching in the Sri Lankan territorial waters,” a Navy officer explained. [...]
Indian fishermen poach in SL waters, and it is illegal. Period.
It is time for Sri Lanka to stand up boldly and tell the world that fishermen from Tamil Nadu, the southern state of India, are poaching its precious marine wealth. Every week, we come across news reports about J. Jayalalithaa, chief minister of T’Nadu writing letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that the Sri [...]
Gabriel, the last of the ’43 group is no more
One of Sri Lanka’s contemporary greats, the artist Richard Gabriel, the last surviving memberof the country’s internationally famed ’43 Group died in Australia on Friday morning, (February 19) on his 92nd birthday. A founder member of the original ’43 Group, Richard Gabriel was the youngest of the august company spearheaded by Lionel Wendt – of [...]
Bountiful Maha means there’s rice to sell, give and keep
Great harvests of Maha season paddy are already being collected in the north and east, and with a glut expected, the government is preparing to sell current stocks of rice abroad and make a donation to the World Food Organisation. Authorities are desperately trying to clear government storehouses of paddy bought from the last season [...]
Suicide rate drop aided by change in poison use
Sri Lanka has made progress in bringing down the number of suicides after being a country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world in 1996 – yet every year, for the past five years, more than 3000 people have taken their lives. Men are three times more likely to commit suicide than [...]
Greed and need at heart of Thotalanga evictions
The government tried to explain why it sent in dozers to demolish scores of makeshift homes amid scenes of shrieking women confronting police, explaining most of the residents had other homes. Almost 350 residents of unauthorised homes built down Ferguson Road, Thotalanga, an area known as Kajima Watte, were evicted by the Urban Development Authority [...]
NGO challenges Fonseka’s appointment as MP
A Colombo based Non-Government Organisation (NGO) is seeking a court order to quash the appointment of Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to Parliament on the grounds that it contravenes the Constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Act. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and its Executive Director Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu this week filed a fundamental rights (FR) [...]
Basil petitions SC against his imminent arrest by FCID
Former Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa filed a fundamental rights (FR) petition this week in the Supreme Court seeking to preempt his possible arrest by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID). The one time minister alleged that the illegally set up FCID unit is planning to arrest him over five different magisterial inquiries under the [...]
Many questions raised on grads demanding mainly State jobs
Last week’s protest by the unemployed graduates demanding they be granted State jobs has opened up a debate as to why these youth holding degree certificates from reputed national universities cannot find employment in the private sector. According to the Unemployed Graduates’ Association there are around 25,000 graduates who have passed out of the fourteen [...]
Kandy’s new traffic plan working but pylons ‘must go’
Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake criticised the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) for being a “stumbling block” in resolving the severe traffic congestion that has become the bane of Kandy town. He made the observation while addressing a conference called to explore ways to ease traffic flow in Kandy. Mr. Ekanayake, who is also the [...]
British MPs call for probe into Cherrie Blair’s law firm over deals with Maldives
Back in March last year, Maldives opposition leader Mohammed Nasheed was thrown into prison for 13 years by the country’s despotic President Abdulla Yameen, in what Amnesty International dubbed a ‘travesty of justice’. Days later, his anxious supporters received some heartening news. An email arrived in their inbox suggesting that famous British human rights lawyer [...]
Villagers demand speedy arrest of alleged rape-murder suspect
Residents of Ukkulangkulam in the Vavuniya district staged a protest on Friday demanding the arrest of persons responsible for the alleged rape and murder of a 14 year-old schoolgirl, police said. According to the police report, the girl had been strangled and later hanged from a rafter of the house in an effort to make [...]
GPO to stamp its return with a grand old look
It will be business as usual by March at the 120 year-old General Post Office (GPO) in Fort, after a lapse of 10 years, Post Master General D.L.P. Rohana Abeyaratne said. The grand old dame is getting a facelift estimated to cost over Rs. 200 million, with the aim of regaining its former colonial grandeur [...]
Constitution making: Expats also want their views heard
The Constitution Committee is expected to finalise its report by the end of April. So far the committee has held public sittings in sixteen districts and depending on the demands it will hold public hearings again in Colombo and Jaffna. “We could not finish the process in some of the districts because there was so [...]
Photo focus: Transport woes and employee fitness
Today a majority of both state and private sector employees use public transport to and from work. Unfortunately the public transport system is haphazardly operated. Riddled with an inadequate fleet of vehicles in both the rail and bus services, they seldom operate to timetable often subjecting commuters to inordinate delay. Resultantly employees can be seen [...]
Another loon balloon to reach Lankan skies
The Google Loon Centre and the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) expect one more Google loon balloon to reach Sri Lanka‘s stratosphere within the coming week, ICTA Programme Manager Gavashkar Subramanium said. “It is important to acknowledge that Sri Lanka is adjusting to the scope of the loon balloon technology and hence the initial [...]