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Home » NewsAnother milestone in highway development
The Central Expressway’s second stage was opened yesterday by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. This segment from Mirigama to Kurunegala covers about 41 kilometres. See story on Page 2
US$ 4 billion needed for uninterrupted fuel supply
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has summoned an emergency high-level meeting with top officials of key institutions to discuss ways of raising US$ four billion required for oil imports for the rest of the year. The officials to be invited for the meeting include those from the Central Bank, the state-owned Bank of Ceylon and the People’s [...]
Ethnic reconciliation with India’s blessings: Highlight of President’s policy statement in Parliament
A pledge to launch an ethnic reconciliation programme is likely to be a highlight of the policy statement President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is to make to Parliament on Tuesday. The statement follows the prorogation of Parliament on December 12 last year and the requirement for a ceremonial opening with a policy statement from the President in [...]
US$ 1.5bn emergency Indian credit facility for Lanka to fund essential imports
Another emergency Indian credit facility amounting to US$ 1.5 billion is in the pipeline for importing food, essential items, medicine and fuel from India as a forex shortage continued to restrict the country’s imports. The matter was reviewed in detail when Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa held a virtual meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister S. [...]
Cancer drug to be imported without registration
The Health Ministry has given permission to a private company to import without registration a drug required for cancer on the grounds that no supplier had come forward to import it. Accordingly, a ‘Waiver of Registration’ has been granted by the National Medicines Regulatory Authority to George Steuart Health (Pvt) Ltd for the import of [...]
Skyrocketing coal prices aggravate power crisis
World coal prices are skyrocketing, aggravating an unprecedented crisis in the power sector which is already fighting to avoid electricity outages caused by insufficient foreign currency to secure fuel for various thermal plants. The coal unloading season for the Lakvijaya coal power plant–when the seas are calm enough–is from October to April. Lanka Coal (Pvt) [...]
Seek advice from non-partisan experts to find solution to crisis, urges BASL
Growing financial hardships in Sri Lanka have serious ramifications that citizens must bear, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) said. The BASL issuing a statement in response to the looming economic crisis in Sri Lanka and its potential impact to the Rule of Law and Democracy said that the downturn in the economy can [...]
Ministry wants info on all lands coming under state entities
The Ministry of Economic Policies and Plan Implementation has called for details regarding the utilisation of lands by all state departments in order to ensure the proper management of non-financial assets of the government. Issuing a circular last week to all Ministries, State-owned Enterprises, Corporations and Departments, the Comptroller General’s Office of the Ministry requested [...]
Keep your trust in us, President tells people at inauguration of 2nd segment of Expressway
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pledged yesterday to complete what he planned to do in five years, within the next three years of his term though the COVID-19 pandemic obstructed his development plans in the past two years, Addressing the ceremony to mark the inauguration of the second phase of the Central Expressway from Mirigama to Kurunegala [...]
Gazette a small win for teachers’ struggle: Stalin
The Education Ministry declared the Sri Lanka Principals’ Service, Teacher Advisors’ Service and Sri Lanka Teachers’ Service as three separate Closed Services, with the concurrence of the Public Service Commission, through an Extraordinary Gazette notification issued on Friday. The authority and provisions on the appointments, promotions, disciplinary proceedings, transfers and other establishment matters of each [...]
A bitter pill to swallow
Forex crisis and companies being unable to open their letters of credit affecting supply of medicine Consumers already complain of unavailability of certain drugs and stark price hikes The forex crisis and an inability to open Letters of Credit (LCs) are just the tip of the iceberg affecting the supply of medicines to Sri [...]
Gas cylinder victims pin hope on group action to win justice
Cooking gas cylinder explosion victims and survivors are seeking compensation – an issue, which, according to them, is in the government’s back burner. An ad hoc consumer protection group is taking up their case and sending petitions to the authorities. The All Island Consumer Collective (AICC), which has now 800 members, is seeking justice for [...]
Heat over CEB top seat as country faces worst-ever power crisis
Amidst one of Sri Lanka’s worst-ever power crises triggered by fuel shortages, insufficient capacity and repeated breakdowns at the Lakvijaya coal power plant, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is feuding over the post of General Manager (GM). The spat erupted after Power and Energy Minister Gamini Lokuge extended by one year the term of M. [...]
Grenade in church: Police yet to arrest man seen on cctv footage
Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) sleuths are yet to locate the man, who visited the All Saints’ Church in Borella on Tuesday, the day a live hand grenade was discovered inside the church premises. According to the CCD, two police teams had been deployed to arrest the man. In cctv footage shown at a media conference [...]
Heat over CEB top seat as country faces worst-ever power crisis
Amidst one of Sri Lanka’s worst-ever power crises triggered by fuel shortages, insufficient capacity and repeated breakdowns at the Lakvijaya coal power plant, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is feuding over the post of General Manager (GM). The spat erupted after Power and Energy Minister Gamini Lokuge extended by one year the term of M. [...]
If you are climbing Sri Pada be kind to nature, urge environmentalists
As this long weekend draws large crowds to Adams Peak, environmentalists have renewed their plea to pilgrims not to pollute its pristine environment. “Despite continuous reminders, visitors still discard non-biodegradable items such as plastic bottles, polythene wrappers and lunch sheets,” said Prabash Karunathilake, the ranger at the Department of Wildlife Conservation’s (DWC) Nallathanniya office. The [...]
Commuters thrown under the train as station masters take on railway authorities
Repeated strike action by trade unions, stern decisions by the authorities and administrative irregularities were the main causes of the derailment of Sri Lanka’s Railway service which this week once again failed the people, including tourists and holidaymakers who planned to spend the long weekend at outstation areas. Among those badly hit on Thursday were [...]
Stakeholders have to row the boat together to weather all storms, says UN expert
Visiting Assistant Secretary General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific Kanni Wignaraja believes that Sri Lanka taking credit lines from foreign governments and seeking IMF support need not be at odds. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Times following a series of discussions with Sri [...]
Student union says time to return to physical lectures; UGC says not yet
Student unions are demanding the return to physical lectures but the University Grants Commission (UGC) said this week that several factors–including the need for higher vaccination numbers and the fear of crowded hostels springing new COVID-19 clusters–were delaying the move. It was also found that the online system was largely effective and authorities are to [...]
‘Take all precautions and avoid gatherings’
Dr. Ananda Wijewickrama calls for more surveillance to get a heads-up on infection trend There seems to be an increasing trend in COVID-19 infections and we need to strengthen surveillance for Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) and Influenza-like Illness (ILI), urged a top doctor on Thursday. Looking back at the recent past of what occurred [...]
All about so-called Deltacron & Flurona
A new COVID-19 variant, the so-called ‘Deltacron’, has been reported from Cyprus, said Consultant Virologist Dr. Jude Jayamaha of the Medical Research Institute (MRI). He explained that dubbing it as a ‘mix’ of Delta and Omicron is being contested by scientists who say that as genetic sequencing is a complex process, there could be misinterpretation [...]
Glimpse of COVID-19 in Canada & Australia
The Sunday Times spoke to some Sri Lankan families living in different parts of the world to find out what is happening in those countries. A 54-year-old woman who lives in a suburb of Toronto, Canada, said that they often use home testing kits to check their COVID-19 status and when she did so on [...]
Karapitiya’s National ECMO Centre to get new home
The New Year brought new hope as the foundation stone was laid for a brand new three-storey building for the National ECMO Centre at the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital on January 10. The highlight of the ceremony was the presence of patients, big and small, who have undergone extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to save their lives. [...]
50% fall in paddy yield points to necessity to import 1 mn metric tonnes of rice
A paddy shortage by the end of February is now inevitable and the Government will have to import 800,000 to one million metric tons of rice to avoid scarcity during the April Sinhala and Tamil New Year, small and medium-scale rice mill owners said this week. There were dire predictions that the upcoming Maha season [...]
Come Avurudu, chicken and eggs to get scarce; poultry industry faces production drop
Poultry farmers are warning that rising feed prices, import restrictions and the forex crisis will lead to a production drop and further increases in chicken and egg prices ahead of the April national avurudu season. “We expect chicken prices to continue rising due to feed and maize supplies drying up amid import controls,” Ajith Gunasekara, [...]
New oil tank company offers storage facilities for Singapore and West Asia
The 61 oil tanks under the purview of the newly formed joint venture between the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the Indian Oil Company (IOC) are to be developed as a petroleum terminal, CPC chairman Sumith Wijesinghe said. He said the plan was to attract companies from Singapore and West Asia to store fuel in [...]
World Bank cuts Sri Lanka’s growth to 2.1%, while Central Bank rounds on debt naysayers
Sri Lankans reeling from unprecedented prices of daily essentials, shortages of cooking gas, fuel, critical medicines, and diminishing purchasing power, are in for further pain this year, an economic prediction from the World Bank suggests. On Tuesday, the World Bank Group forecast Sri Lanka’s economic output to sharply contract in 2022. The ‘Global Economic Prospects’, [...]
Dengue epidemic imminent if urgent measures not taken, warns expert
Nearly 4,000 cases of dengue were reported countrywide in the first two weeks of the New Year, with around 60 percent of them in the Western Province, statistics show. If urgent measures aren’t taken, Sri Lanka will suffer a dengue epidemic like the one experienced in 2017, warned Shilanthi Seneviratne, Consultant Community Physician of the [...]
Finally, animal rights activists have something to be happy about
Animal rights activists are relieved that the long-delayed Animal Welfare Bill was passed by Cabinet this week, but say the fight isn’t over until it goes through Parliament, is gazetted and implemented. The Bill has noteworthy features, the most significant being a legal definition for “animal”. While the old law defines this to be only [...]
Sometimes the law forces judges to make decisions that go against social justice: Judge
It is the responsbility of judges and lawyers to act in such a manner so as not to grind down the litigant’s confidence in the judicial process, newly-appointed Court of Appeal (CA) Judge Wickum Athula Kaluarachchi stated. Speaking at the ceremonial sitting held to welcome him at the Superior Courts complex on Wednesday (12), Justice [...]
Disputed by-road development divides neighbours, PS stakes claim
A dispute over a by-road in the Seethawaka Pradeshiya Sabha area has led to a rivalry among residents, with one section of residents with the help of a Pradeshiya Sabha member trying to lay concrete and widen the road while illegally claiming land from other residents. This is amidst claims that the Egodawatta Road belongs [...]
Child abuse in plain sight
The sight of people begging by the roads with children is a heart-rending one for all. Many of these children are just infants who cannot yet walk. They are held by an adult who usually waits by traffic lights, hoping for some money from passing motorists. These children undergo great hardships. They are helpless and [...]