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Amidst speculation of an impending general election, Thotalanga’s Nagalagam Veediya area was closed down this week after the detection of another Covid-19 patient. Wearing protective gear, health officials are seen testing other residents in the area. Pic by Lahiru Harshana
Elections: EC to get health certificate to go ahead
The Elections Commission (EC) tasked with the responsibility of holding a General (parliamentary) Election in due course will seek written advice from health authorities on the period and the manner in which the country-wide poll should be held, a senior EC official told the Sunday Times yesterday. However, a statement from the President’s Office last [...]
Courts to begin work tomorrow
All courts, except the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, will function from tomorrow for internal administrative work, including setting new dates for cases, Judicial Service Commission sources said. Accordingly, all staff who could report to work have been advised to do so by using their official identity cards as curfew passes. Commercial High [...]
Curfew in most districts to be relaxed from tomorrow
The Government will relax the curfew from next week in most districts, but will continue with it in selected police areas. The curfew in districts other than the Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Puttalam, Kandy, Kegalle and Ampara districts will be lifted from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m from tomorrow on a daily basis. However, the curfew [...]
Rs. 24 billion for the needy and those who lost income
The Government will spend a staggering Rs 24 billion to give financial assistance of Rs 5,000 each to compensate those who have lost their income, a senior Treasury official said. The sum includes Rs 9 billion needed to be paid to a range of others who were laste week added to the list of beneficiaries. [...]
Western Province to be opened up on phased basis from early next month
The Western Province will be opened up on a phased basis from early next month with priority being given to resuming work at business establishments. This comes as the government gradually eases off restrictions in the rest of the country from next week under its plans to reactivate the economy. The detailed plans, including health [...]
Developing countries unlock key industries to safeguard earnings and jobs
(Reuters) – From Africa to Asia and Latin America, emerging countries disproportionately bruised by the COVID-19 pandemic are allowing some key industries to start back up in a bid to soften the economic blow. This tentative unlocking highlights the balancing act for developing nations as they seek to protect their people while averting an economic [...]
Necessity is the mother of invention
An Aluminum item producer in Homagama has come forward to turn out a cubicle, from the safety of which suspected COVID19 patients could be tested. Sanjeewa Nawarahne, innovator of this testing booth, said that they had already produced a few cubicles and hoped to produce more of them, but finding the required material was an [...]
Guidelines to help keep online sellers in check
Online commerce business operators will be issued guidelines in the coming weeks, the consumer rights watchdog says. The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) director Asela Bandara told the Sunday Times: “Sri Lanka lacks regulations to control buying and selling in a digital marketplace.’’ He said online purchases had not been popular with the masses until the [...]
CAA raids online business for price gouging
The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) raided a high-end supermarket located at Park Street in Colombo yesterday (18) and seized goods worth over Rs 300,000. The Authority’s Assistant Director for Western Province, A A Jesoor, told the Sunday Times that the original prices of goods were erased and a higher price was marked. “This place, functioning [...]
Fervent wishes for better times
Since mid-March an islandwide curfew has been imposed in the island to control the transmission of COVID-19. During this period, people have been restricted to their residences. With global and local news focused on the numbers of afflicted and dead, many people are becoming depressed over the tragic things happening around them. Confined in their [...]
Strong winds wreck more than 1,000 homes
Strong winds have damaged 1,083 houses in six divisional secretariats of the Puttalam District, officials said. The Disaster Management Centre Deputy Director, Pradeep Kodippili, said Nawagattegama was the worst affected, where 492 houses are damaged, followed by Anamaduwa (377), Karuwalagaswewa (194), Wanathavilluwa (16), Puttalam (02) and Mahakumbukkadawala (02). The National Disaster Relief Services Center has [...]
Buses, trains on standby to resume service
Public transport operators have been readied to carry public servants reporting back to work on Monday and say they are ready to take the government’s lead on resuming normal service. The Ministry of Transport said 5,000 buses and 400 trains would start this limited service next week throughout the country, in both curfew and non-curfew [...]
A stitch in time that could save Lanka’s apparel industry
There is a glimmer of hope for Sri Lanka’s troubled apparel industry: the world just can’t have enough masks and gowns. One producer of fashion clothing is even exploring the production of fashionable facemasks—using materials such as denim—for labels in the West, including Levis and Lucky Brand jeans. With masks becoming normalised in the foreseeable [...]
IRD says no new tax but easy payment method introduced
The Inland Revenue Department reiterated this week that the recently introduced Advance Personal Income Tax (APIT) is not a new tax but only an easy payment method designed to cater to the requests made by tax paying employees’ and investment holders’. And further, it does not withdraw any tax cut granted recently by the government. [...]
Foreign Ministry seeks additional funds from Treasury to assist Lankans stranded overseas
The Foreign Ministry has sought an additional allocation from the Treasury to meet the increasing needs of Sri Lankans stranded overseas amidst the COVID-19 crisis. A statement by the Foreign Relations Ministry said the request had been made mainly to increase the efforts of the distribution of dry rations by the missions. The source said [...]
“Too early to comment on projects in SL after US decision to cut WHO funding”: WHO
The Sri Lanka Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that it is too early to comment on a threat by US President Donald Trump to slash by half the United States funding to the organization. “It is still too early to determine how, or if, the United States’ decision to cut [...]
Snail mail
Sri Lanka’s postal services are resuming after a long period of lockdown due to the pandemic. Here, postal workers are seen sorting mail at the Central Mail Exchange earlier this week. Pic by Priyantha Wickramaarachchi
Importers plead for help as lockdowns jam supply
Importers beset by delays in shipments and unloading are pleading for banks to grant special loan terms as the curfew is making it difficult to keep business flowing. A common problem is the shortage of labour: 50-60 per cent of labourers are not reporting to work due to the ongoing crisis. The President of the [...]
Virus kicks a battered people in the stomach
The deadly coronavirus that began spreading in the country rapidly from March and the four-week long curfew imposed to contain it, is wrecking lives and livelihoods across an economically weak country that is heavily in debt. Daily wage-earners, farmers, small traders, tourism-related business owners, and the self-employed such as three-wheeler operators and street vendors of [...]
Tea workers suffer a blow from the virus
Plantation workers, most of whom are tea-pluckers in the central hills, are appealing for government financial and food relief saying they are among the worst affected from the coronavirus epidemic and are struggling to buy basic essentials because they do not have enough money. They say they expect the Samurdhi allowance and dry rations relief, [...]
Covid battle: Peradeniya dons give kiss of life to dying ventilators
A team of doctors in Kandy has restored 12 ventilators discarded by public hospitals and handed them over to health officials to treat coronavirus patients. They had come together at first to build one, but abandoned the idea because they could not get the components. Peradeniya Teaching Hospital director Dr Arjuna Tillekeratne had begun a [...]
United in grief, but alone inside their own homes
For the Catholic survivors of last year’s terrorist bombings, this year is doubly hard. They couldn’t attend mass on Easter Sunday, the most important day of their religious calendar. And they cannot go to church on April 21 for the memorial service that had been planned for their loved ones. It was meant to have [...]
Guess what’s brewing in some Lankan kitchens?
The bars closed on March 21 and Sri Lanka’s “daily drink workers”—urban, rural, everywhere—are using grade school education to liquor up. The new national hobby has left the Excise officials scratching their collective heads. They cannot very well creep into kitchens and seize fruit. But kitchens are where the action is. Everything from grapes and [...]
Easter attack investigations must be credible and fair
One year has passed since the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks which resulted in the death of nearly 270 people and injured more than 600. The dastardly attacks impacted numerous families whose members were the victims of the most horrendous crimes ever committed in the country. While the entire country is grieved and bewildered by what [...]
German family stranded by curfew, unable to proceed
A German family caught up in the strict curfew are stranded in Colombo, unable to pick up their baggage from Galle and leave the country. The family, staying in a hotel in Colombo, say they are running out of funds to pay hotel bills and want to return home at the first available opportunity. Arnd [...]
Monsoon coming, with an old health enemy lurking
Another outbreak of dengue is looming around the corner with the inter-monsoon expected at the end of April, the National Dengue Control Unit (NCDU) has warned. It said 18,500 dengue fever cases have been reported so far this year with the highest number, 2,683 cases, being reported from the Colombo district. Infection has been dropping [...]
A first-responder’s life and duty in virus-times
Dr. Upul Jayathilaka (46), Medical Officer of Health (MOH), Nattandiya: That night our work ended around 10.30. It was March 28 and a person admitted to the Marawila Hospital the previous day had tested positive for COVID-19. We were on the road the whole day. We did not think of it as a challenge. This [...]
Mindfulness in these trying times
In these times of worry, concern and being restricted to our homes, it is all about the mind which “is always with you” that Dr. Sanath Mahawithanage reminds us and how to harness its immense power. He is not talking about a strange subject, for this Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of [...]
Pathetic plight of many zoos
With reports from the Bronx Zoo in New York, America, that a tiger had been infected with COVID-19 through its handler, many people’s focus turned towards the plight of zoos in this crisis. What of Sri Lanka’s famous Dehiwela Zoological Gardens, the Sunday Times asked international zoo expert Vasantha Nugegoda. He says that most zoos [...]
Experts detail staggered exit strategy to open up SL & control COVID-19
To lift or not to lift the lockdown, especially in the high-risk districts including Colombo, is the critical question Sri Lanka is facing. “We should not be in a hurry, as haste to ease the strict measures could result in an adverse situation for the country,” said a health expert, with many others agreeing, while [...]
Students in England ‘have fewer teaching hours than rest-of-UK peers’
English students have fewer scheduled hours and written assignments than their counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland despite having the highest fees, according to an analysis by the Higher Education Policy Institute. The report, which analysed nearly 60,000 responses collected between 2015 and 2019 for the Hepi/Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey, found that English students [...]