May 31 (DM) Most families—except ministers and MPs whose big bills are paid from public funds—continue to get a shock every month and are inflamed when they see their electricity bills. Families which were paying about Rs. 1,500 a month say their bills have now soared to between Rs.4000 and Rs. 6,000 a month—a large part of the income they earn. President Rajapaksa made a widely publicised May Day announcement last year pledging that the CEB’s huge fuel more..

May 31 (DM) This year, World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is celebrated under the theme “Raise Taxes of Tobacco. Lower Death and Disease”. WNTD is observed on May 31 to highlight the health risks associated with tobacco use and the need for strengthening effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption. The global tobacco epidemic kills nearly 6 million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are non-smokers dying due to second-hand smoking. 65 people die per day in SL. more..

May 31 (SL) A private hospital has come under severe criticism for exposing patients for clinical training without considering patients consent. Kavisha Wickremaratne, an Year Nine student of President’s College Maharagama, who was admitted to a hospital attached to the College on May 5 for high fever, died on May 10. Parents of Kavisha accuse the hospital for not giving their child the necessary treatment and for allowing the more..

May 31 (NS) “What?” This time I snapped. Probably barked. “THAT is what he asked me! He asked: ‘Amma, why do they make them so beautiful if they are naughty?’ A friend of mine, quite sharp and quick in realising things quickly when others take a longer time, did not agree with me that the tobacco industry targets children in Sri Lanka. “Of course, they do in other countries. There is evidence. But not here, more..

May 31 (DBS) May 23rd was the 92nd birth anniversary of SL’s unique Trade union leader Philips Balendra Tampoe known generally as Bala Tampoe. Bala or comrade Bala as he is popularly called has been at the helm of the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU) as its General-secretary since 1948. Though called CMU still, amended name of the union is now The Ceylon Mercantile, Industrial and General Workers Union. more..

May 31 (Island) A Chinese engineer had contradicted officials of the Norchcholai Coal Power Plant (NCPP) and CEB as regards the replacement of the troublesome Condenser installed for the first phase of the NCPP, the UNP said. R. Yogarajan, one of the ten UNP MPs who visited the NCPP on a fact finding mission on Thursday siad that when they questioned the NCPP and CEB officials who were present on the recurring more..

May 31 (MoD) Children of War Heroes of the tri forces and police who had shown exceptional performance at the GCE O/L exam were awarded educational scholarships at a function held at the Ministry today (29). The event was organized in view of the Ranaviru (War Hero) month under the patronage of Secretary Defence Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Fifty students who are at present studying in the GCE A/L classes more..

May 31 (ST) Residents of Hendala, Wattala, were forced to wait a week without running water because the roads authority looked for someone sufficiently senior to give the Water Board permission to dig up a road and repair pipes – in the end the board went ahead regardless. Residents were forced to collect water distributed from bowsers, depend on tube well water from neighbours or visit relatives & friends houses more..

May 31 (IPS) Stuck in mid-day rush hour traffic, commuters packed tight into a tin-roofed bus in Colombo, peer expectantly up at the sky that is beating a savage heat down on the city. No one speaks, but it is clear they are all waiting for the same thing: for the heavens to open up and provide some relief from the scorching weather that is slowly cooking this island nation. Over 200 km east, in the agricultural district of Ampara, more..

May 31 (CG) The JVP has apologized for some of the incidents which took place during the 1988-89 period where several people were killed by JVP cadres and supporters. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that the incidents of the 1988-89 period followed a crackdown on the JVP in 1971 where several JVP members were jailed. Dissanayake recalled that after 1978 when most of the JVP members were released from jail, more..

May 31 (GDI) Eighteenth Session of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) of the Food and Agriculture Organization will be held in Colombo from 1st to 05 June. The Meeting is held in Sri Lanka on the initiative of Ministers Basil Rajapaksa, Rajitha Senaratne, and G.L. Peiris, Minister of External Affairs. This is the second time Sri Lanka is hosting the event, the first being in 2011. IOTC is an intergovernmental organization established more..

May 31 (Island) UNP MP Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, says the pruning of the Cabinet of ministers drastically as well as prohibiting ministers from hiring family members as personal staff at the behest of new Indian Premier Narendra Modi is a sterling example, which Sri Lanka should be able to emulate. He emphasised that the top-heavy SLFP-led UPFA couldn’t ignore what he called people-friendly new Indian model. more..

May 31 (CT) The new Indian PM, Narendra Modi, in his very first meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has called for the full implementation of the 13th Amendment and going beyond in order to address the political aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Modi's call was predictable and in consonance with the stance of the previous Congress Govt in New Delhi. BJP's position on the ethnic question in Sri Lanka has also been made public by its former leader of the Lok Sabha more..

May 31 (CT) The terms Country and State are synonymous and both apply to self-governing political entities. A nation however, is a group of people who share the same culture but do not have sovereignty. A state with the ‘s’ in lower case, constitutes a part of a whole country, with limited self-governing powers. Citizens are free and thus have freedom when they can lead a life of their choice; are free to choose their leaders; are treated equally, justly and with dignity in a State more..

May 31 (ST) Two inconsolable mothers weeping their hearts out. In the two homes in mourning, a stone’s throw from each other at Koralawella, Moratuwa, a little girl and a teenage boy are dead. Nine-year-old Sanduni Wasana’s life ebbed away on Vesak Poya and 17-year-old Tharindu de Alwis’s over a week ago, like three more within this same period, at the Colombo South (Kalubowila) Teaching Hospital. Dengue which is sweeping the more..

May 31 (AHRC) The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has closely monitored the situation of the rule of law in Sri Lanka, with particular emphasis on the way the criminal justice system functions. The AHRC wishes to draw your attention to some glaring acts of negligence on the part of certain magistrates that have resulted in serious consequences, including death, for persons who appeared before them. We are writing to you, the President of the Bar Association, because more..

May 31 (CT) More than a decade after the JVP insurgency the country remains trapped in the logic of terror. Instead of evolving means to surmount it, the tendency in activist circles has been to dissemble and play games with it. When terror is part of our environment, ordinary and average people often take on roles they never dreamed of. The causes may be alienation from the ruling class, a feeling of inferiority, desire for revenge, being already compromised or simply, misplaced more..

May 31 (AD) A police officer on his way for duty at the Dodangoda Interchange of the Southern Expressway has been assaulted by a group of individuals, who had then proceeded to set fire to the victim’s vehicle. The officer was traveling in his car when the men had given chase to him in a double cab and blocked his vehicle. The policeman has been admitted to the Kalutara Hospital following the assault which took place Bobuwala, more..

May 31 (Island) A woman and her daughter after purchasing drugs from a pharmacy at D.S. Senanayake Street yesterday paid the wrong cashier and lost Rs. 5,000. After issuing a bill for the medicine to the mother and daughter, pharmacy female employee had asked them to pay the money to the cashier. When they walked towards the counter a man asked for the bill and the money so that he could help them. They obliged and handed over the bill and a Rs. 5,000 note to him, more..

May 31 (ENS) The Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA) said here on Friday that it has roped in Prof W L Sumathipala, Chairman, National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka as its president and Dr K Vijay Kumar, Additional Professor, Dept of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, NIMS as the Secretary General. Besides, Prof K V Raghavan, Scientist Emeritus, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology will be the new working president while Prof P Reddanna, more..

May 31 (ST) This Monday (19) it was an ordinary afternoon at St Thomas school in Matale but then it all changed. For the first time in the school’s history a student was stabbed and seriously injured by another sparking calls for a rethink on discipline in schools. Malith Guruge, a Grade 12 student of St Thomas, began an argument with a classmate during the lunch break on Monday. He struck his foe who flew into a murderous rage more..

May 31 (LT) No statement has been taken yet from the Deputy Minister Hemal Gunasekera even when it has been confirmed by the statement of the constable attached to the police unit on duty on the Southern Expressway that the gang of thugs that shot at him and set fire to his car after failing to murder him has been directed by Deputy Minister and he is directly involved in the murder attempt say reports. Deputy Minister has not been questioned even regarding the threat he made to more..

May 31 (ST) Condominium residents who have not been granted their title deeds, as the property developers failed to obtain the Certificate of Conformity (COC) approval for the buildings, will soon be granted relief, said a senior Condominium Management Authority (CMA) official. CMA Chairman Kapila Gamage said, an amendment will be introduced so that property developers can get “special approval” for their projects. The move by the Ministry of Construction, more..

May 31 (TOI) There is no law preventing foreigners visiting India from wearing gold ornaments, the Kerala High Court has held, along with quashing the confiscation of a gold chain worn by a Sri Lankan tourist. The ruling was issued by justice PN Ravindran after considering a petition filed by Vigneswaran Sethuraman of Colombo Road Galle in Sri Lanka. On February 22nd, the petitioner had arrived at Cochin International Airport more..

May 31 (NS) UNP MP Lakshman Kiriella who fell down at the function to felicitate the 25 years long political service of Monaragala district MP Ranjith Madduma Bandara has been brought to Colombo for treatements. “The MP was in a chat with his friends just after the event, and suddenly he fell down. He was rushed to the General Hospital, Monaragala and after the initial treatments to one of his legs was later transferred to Colombo,” journalists who covered the event explained. more..

May 31 (Island) The Army will take out troops from all its camps in the Western Province and the Puttalam District to wage an all-out war against dengue, on the directive of the Commander of the army, Lieutenant General R.M.D. Ratnayake as those two areas are more prone to the disease than others. Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera told The Island that the Commander had tasked Security Forces Commander, West, Major General Ubaya Medawala to supervise the shramadana more..

May 31 (DM) India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is expected to visit Sri Lanka within the next couple of months while Indian PM Narendra Modi is to follow later. Ms. Swaraj was previously opposition leader in the Lok Sabha. She headed a parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka in 2012, and undertook a fact finding mission in the North and East where the delegates interacted with a wide cross-section of society. more..

May 31 (DN) Wellawa Traffic Police OIC Anura Gunawardhane was further remanded until June 7 for accepting bribes by Kurunegala Chief Magistrate Ravindra Premarathne on Thursday. Gunawardhane was indicted by the Commission to Investigate Allegation of Bribery and Corruption for demanding and accepting Rs. 20,000 from a tractor driver on May 28, 2014. Senior Attorney Keerthi Dunusinghe and five other lawyers moving for bail submitted to court that there is no evidence to more..

May 31 (AD) Permission to set up vehicle assembly plants in Sri Lanka for locally sold vehicles has been reportedly suspended and the govt has appointed a committee to further study the granting of permission. The long term expectation of the government is to encourage these assembly plants to add some value to the vehicles assembled for the local market. India’s Maruti has proposed to set up an assembly plant in Sri Lanka and has held several rounds of discussions. more..

May 31 (ST) Train timetables are to be altered to minimise delays following chaos caused by train cancellations on Friday, the latest of a series of problems that have upset tens of thousands of commuters, with 30 trains cancelled in a week. The Transport Ministry has agreed to a proposal by the Locomotive Operating Engineers Union (LOEU) to make alterations to timetables. On Friday (23), several trains were delayed and more..

May 31 (NS) Saliya Dissanayake, former Central Provincial Council chairman and brother of Minister S.B. Dissanayake, passed away after a prolonged illness. He was 48.In 2009, he was appointed as Chairman of the Central Provincial Council after obtaining the highest number of preferential votes from the UPFA in Nuwara Eliya District in the Central Provincial Council Election 2009.In November 2012, he was hospitalized after an attempted suicide.

May 31 (TOI) On June1, Sri Lankan Airlines, the country's national carrier will complete one month since its first flight flew out of Colombo on May 1 under the "oneworld" banner. For "SriLankan" which traces its origin back to 1947 the new beginning as part of the "oneworld global airline alliance" comes with the promise of a world class experience when tourist season picks up from July and peaks towards the end of the year. The blue waters, golden beaches, coconut tree clad landscapes more..

May 31 (GDI) An anti-tobacco flag campaign to mark World No-Tobacco Day was launched yesterday. First flag was pinned on President Rajapaksa at Temple Trees by Mansila Cooray and Sunera Sandeepa of Divi Neguma Kekuly Children's Society. The World No-Tobacco Day is commemorated throughout the world each year. Sri Lanka in 1995 parallel to this day, launched the flag week with more..

May 31 (MED) Minister Basil Rajapaksa participated as chief guest at inauguration ceremony of Build SL 2014 exhibition held at BMICH on 30th May 2014. Build SL Construction Industry Exhibition & Trade Fair is organized by the Chamber of Construction Industry, Sri Lanka for 10th consecutive time. Build SL 2014 exhibition is a platform to Potential suppliers, traders and manufacturers of building materials to share and display their latest products and services. more..

May 31 (CT) Sri Lanka Bakery owners' Association has declared that there is no decision taken yet to increase the prices of bread or pastry items. Prima Company has confirmed that they are to increase the prices of 1kg wheat flour by 1 rupees with effect from today. Yet the president of the association N.K Jayarwardhana told Ceylon Online that such decision has not been informed to the association yet.

May 31 (CI) It will not get him on the Lord's honours boards, but Kumar Sangakkara ticked off one of the missing milestones of his illustrious career with his first hundred on the ground as Sri Lanka continued the unpredictable nature of this series by posting an imposing 300 for 9 just three days after being humbled for 67. Conditions were markedly different from Old Trafford yet it was still another remarkable turnaround in fortunes. more..