Smart bee colony monitoring system
Bees play a critical role as pollinators, supporting both biodiversity and agriculture in our ecosystem. Beyond sustaining plant life, and enhancing the food chain, they produce honey, a natural product prized for its medicinal properties. Recognizing the urgent need to protect the bees, Ruk Rakaganno (the Tree Society of Sri Lanka), in collaboration with the [...]
Sri Lanka to host ‘twin’ congress next year
Sri Lanka will host the Joint 8th World Congress on Twin Pregnancy and the 20th Congress of the International Society of Twin Studies (ISTS) from August 11-13, next year (2025) in Colombo. This decision had been taken at the 7th World Congress on Twin Pregnancy and the 19th Congress of the ISTS held from September [...]
Lankan Ambassador to Japan meets Japanese Defence Minister
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Japan Rodney Perera had the opportunity to congratulate the newly appointed Japanese Defence Minister General Nakatani, Member of the House of Representatives [Kochi Prefecture], an old friend of his from the Minister’s days at his country’s Defence Ministry. As a member of the official Sri Lanka ministerial delegation that visited Tokyo [...]
Ceylon Baithulmal Fund – Office Bearers 2024/2025
The 67th annual general meeting of the Ceylon Baithulmal Fund (CBF) was held on Sunday, September 29 at the CBF premises. A A M Illiyas, PC was re-elected as President for 2024/2025. Other office bearers elected were: M S F Haqque – Vice President A N Nazvi Rahman – Secretary A F Feroze Noon [...]
Pera Uni Alumni Colombo Chapter celebrates World Children’s Day 2024
Sri Lanka celebrated World Children’s Day on October 1 offering an opportunity to promote and celebrate children’s rights that will build a better world for them. The Management Council of the Alumni Association of the University of Peradeniya, Colombo Chapter selected the Katumuluwa Junior School, Kanaththewewa in Paduwasnuwara Division of Kuliyapitiya Zone in North [...]
Sonali Wanigabaduge wins South Asia Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity 2024
News 1st’s Sonali Wanigabaduge won the South Asia Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity 2024, representing Sri Lanka, at an award ceremony at the Tata Theatre, Mumbai, on October 9. The awards, organised by Population First, a Mumbai-based social impact organisation that has been working for over two decades to promote gender sensitivity [...]
Rising to power: Lanka’s third woman premier and gender politics
By Shyama Basnayake The appointment of Harini Amarasuriya, a social anthropologist, PhD holder, and women’s rights activist with a background in humanitarian work, as Sri Lanka’s third woman prime minister, marks a significant moment in Sri Lanka’s political history. Her appointment has fired the public imagination and has earned admiration and respect across the nation, [...]
The akd presidency must show political maturity in running the ship of state
What the Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) Presidency and his (rather frighteningly) new administration faces as a daunting challenge up to the General Elections on November 14th 2024 and beyond, is not a lack of good intentions but to prove that it possesses political stagecraft and due capacity to run the ship of State. Places of religious [...]
Israel after October 7: Between decolonisation and disintegration
By Ilan Pappe A year has passed since October 7, 2023, and it is time to explore if we have a better understanding of this monumental event and everything that followed it. For historians like me, a year is usually not enough to draw any significant conclusions. However, what happened in the past 12 months [...]
AKD and his team: English is not the be-all and end-all
By M.H.M. Faizer We Sri Lankans have a prejudiced mind in many matters of interest. When I shared an image of the NPP team in one of my WhatsApp groups, most members did not comment, but one person rejected the team since he thought none of them could converse in English and that they were [...]
Building a buffer against food price shocks
By Isabella M. Weber, Jayati Ghosh, and Sudeep Jain BOSTON – Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030, eliminating hunger used to be seen as the most feasible. But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 15 years of progress on improving access to food have [...]