Apr 21 (CT) The minorities including the island’s 5% Sinhala Christians traditionally vote UNP at a Prez Poll, which has a history of 37 years, with the first Presidential Election having been held in 1982. The only exception was the Nov 1994 Prez Election where they voted for the then SLFP/ PA candidate Chandrika Kumaratunga who won that Poll. The minorities, including Sinhala Christians, Tamils and Muslims comprise 30% of the country’s vote, while the balance 70% is Sinhala Buddhist vote. more..

Apr 21 (SO) Court filings obtained by Sunday Observer from the US District Court for the Central District of California paint a striking picture of how former Defence Secretary was set upon by a legal ambush in the empty car park of a Los Angeles supermarket two weeks ago today (7). Ahimsa Wickrematunge has emerged in recent years as a fierce champion of justice for her father, renowned journalist and founding editor of more..

Apr 21 (Island) We report in today’s issue of this newspaper that an Extraordinary General Meeting of SriLankan Airlines has been summoned at the end of this month to discuss the serious erosion of the company’s capital that has reduced it to a negative net worth organization. Several measures for correcting an undoubtedly disastrous situation have been proposed. It has been well known for a number of years that the national carrier has been in deep financial distress and that govt has been more..

Apr 21 (ST) Last week we wrote on the Indian elections now underway and lessons for Sri Lanka on how its Elections Commission (EC) is monitoring the polls to ensure a level playing field and free and fair election – as far as is possible. Already India’s President has cancelled elections to a seat in Tamil Nadu on an EC report that a candidate got caught red-handed using cash to influence voters. As this is the nonagathey (no activity) period in SL politics, and with this being election year as well, more..

Apr 21 (CT) The joyous eve of Sinhala and Tamil New Year in 2017 suddenly turned out to be one of the worst horrors this country has ever faced. The 300-foot Meethotamulla waste mound collapsed, sweeping houses and taking many lives in its wake. Thirty-two precious lives were lost forever, while eight are counted as still lying under the debris of the waste mountain. In addition, 240 people belonging to 61 families more..

Apr 21 (ST) My dear Dimuth, I thought I must write to you when I heard that you had been appointed as captain of our cricket team for the World Cup, however unexpected that announcement was. After all, you were not in the team for the past four years but here you are today, leading it at no less an event than the World Cup! It is not that we think that you are not good enough or that someone else is better suited than you for the job, Dimuth. Still, it comes as somewhat of a surprise more..

Apr 21 (SO) From Feb 3 to April 14 this year, across Sri Lanka, there has been some sort of disruption against a Christian worship service every Sunday - on 11 successive Sundays to be specific. Christians in Sri Lanka suffer violations of their right to religion and belief regularly, but most incidents do not make it to the news – or even to the Twittersphere. But the attack on the Methodist Church Centre in Anuradhapura, last Sunday, which was also Palm Sunday, a day of religious significance more..

Apr 21 (Island) The two cases filed against Gota in California gave him, as a potential presidential candidate, a great deal of publicity. For nearly two weeks, Gota was the center of all attention in the country. The details of the case filed by Roy Manojkumar Samathanam under the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act is out in the public domain but the plaint filed by Ahimsa Wickrematunga has not been made public yet. It must be said that the lawyers appearing for Samathanam more..

Apr 21 (Island) Expectations are high when team captain Nimali Liyanarachchi enters the arena to defend her women’s 800 metres title on the opening day of the 23rd Asian Athletics Championships here in Doha Qatar today. The athletes from Sooriyawewa, Liyanarachchi and her closest rival and last edition’s silver medalist Gayanthika Abeyratne will kick start Sri Lanka’s campaign when they run in the 800 metres heats in the morning. Sprinter Himasha Eshan, more..

Apr 21 (CT) The festivity of Sinhala and Tamil New Year that would otherwise be felt was missing to most of those actively engaged in politics and the media fraternity in the country, as all were expecting something serious and big that would change the political landscape of the country. Prez Sirisena was slated to kick off these political changes by making a controversial statement along with certain political decisions he is set to more..

Apr 21 (ST) A news item that caught my interest this week was about the Indonesian parliamentary and presidential elections which were, interestingly, held on the same day on April 17 and maybe an exercise that Sri Lanka should consider to cut costs and time. The report in a local newspaper said 117 Indonesian citizens based in Sri Lanka had cast their ballot at an Overseas Voting Booth located at the Indonesian Embassy in Colombo on April 13, while another 718 Indonesians (also in SL) more..

Apr 21 (ST) At the time of writing, the World Cup squad has been selected and there is a kind of mysterious silence regarding the availability of Lasith Malinga–a key player. There was speculation, fuelled by some of his comments, that he will retire from the game if he is not given the captaincy. Sri Lanka Cricket confirmed today that he has written to the board asking to be allowed to continue playing for Mumbai Indians until their goose is cooked in the IPL. more..

Apr 21 (ST) SL’s leading athletes will be exploding into action at the Khalifa Int'l Stadium today when the 23rd Asian Senior Athletics Championships gets underway in Doha, Qatar. Asia’s premier athletic competition will attract the top stars in the region as it serves as a qualifier for the World Athletics Championship to be held from Sept 28 to October 6 also in Doha. SL will be represented by a 15-member squad at the Asian gala but more..

Apr 21 (ST) Sri Lanka’s most celebrated and top rated motorsports event to be held annually, the Fox Hill Supercross 2019, will rev up with a fleet of 28 events at the Military Academy Track in Diyatalawa today. Sri Lanka’s only motorsport event to go uninterrupted for years with a large spectator turnout, will be hosted for the 27th occasion this year by the Sri Lanka Military Academy and organised by the Sri Lanka Automobile Sports and Sri Lanka Motorcycle Federation. more..

Apr 21 (ST) With the sensational outcome where Spirited Touch outsmarted champion mare Alcazaba to clinch the RTC Governor’s Cup 2019 at the Racecourse in Nuwara Eliya on April 15, the third and final installation of Royal Turf Club’s (RTC) holiday season races today is set to generate more excitement than ever. Today when the RTC hosts its Magic Million Cup Raceday, much excitement is anticipated as main race, Class I Thoroughbreds, is tipped to be a thriller of an event. more..

Apr 21 (ST) SL’s corporate tax has been constantly over-estimated and on average, fallen short of estimates during the last few years, the Parliamentary Committee on Public Finance (COPF) says. The corporate tax rate stands at 28% while it averaged 31.95% from 1997 until 2018. SL 2019 Budget has over-estimated the tax revenue making the task of tax collection authorities challenging and in this context the Govt should consider more..

Apr 21 (SO) SL’s netball players are gearing up for the forthcoming World Cup which will be held in July in Liverpool, England under the guidance of head coach Thilaka Jinadasa with 15 players in training after the completion of a triangular tournament that involved Kenya and Malaysia. Malaysia defeated Kenya in the final as Sri Lanka lost both matches. “We started our regular training from January and this triangular tournament was the first major event after the Asia Cup,” said Jinadasa. more..

Apr 21 (ST) Sri Lanka (SL) Indoor Cricket team after excellent performances in the preliminary and knockout rounds, disappointingly went down to New Zealand (NZ) in the finals to end 2nd best in the New Zealand- Asia Cup Indoor Cricket tournament concluded on April 6, at the Indoor Premier Cricket Stadium, Singapore. Seven teams from 6 nations participated, with host nation Singapore fielding two teams, while the other teams were SL, India, Malaysia, UAE and NZ. more..

Apr 21 (Island) This week, Sri Lanka Cricket announced their World Cup squad. Ironically, they had chosen Maundy Thursday to make the announcement. Maundy Thursday is an important day in the calendar for Christians as this day marks the betrayal of Jesus by two of his disciples – Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter. Judas openly betrayed his master while Peter, Jesus’ most trusted disciple, denied more..

Apr 21 (SO) It could be the end of the road for off-spinner Akila Dhananjaya who was sent to South India to correct his bowling action which was declared illegal by the ICC. Dhananjaya who had been discovered sometime ago by Mahela Jayawardena and even found a place in the Mumbai Indians team at last year’s IPL, could join another spinner Tharindu Kuashal who suffered the safe fate after been found guilty of throwing the ball instead of bowling which is called chucking in slang. more..

Apr 21 (ST) A pilot project to harness electricity from sea energy will get underway immediately after the Minister Ravi Karunanayake accepted the challenge thrown down by inventor Duncan Wickramasinghe that he will be able to generate energy from wave power. Mr. Wickramasinghe had charged successive govts in the past of ignoring proposals presented by him over the years to turn sea energy into electricity. He said that the current power crisis could have been averted if more..

Apr 21 (ST) The Mahapola Higher Education Scholarship Trust Fund established three decades ago in 1981 by then Education Minister Lalith Athulathmudali to assist the needy university students has come under fire over its controversial past and present investments. The Trust Fund has invested in a partly state-owned leasing and finance company violating the Cabinet decision of August 28 2018, public interest activists and more..

Apr 21 (SWI) Swiss Federal Court must decide whether the Tamil Tigers are a criminal group – following a complaint from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The OAG has filed a complaint against last year’s verdict from the Federal Criminal Court, which ruled that 13 alleged financiers of the SL Tamil separatist group – LTTE – could not be convicted of supporting a criminal group. On Saturday, a spokesman for the OAG confirmed a report published by CH Media newspapers, more..

Apr 21 (Island) Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has stressed the need for continuity in selections and longer duration for members of the national selection panel in a bid to retain consistency in selections. The national selection panel announced the World Cup squad on Thursday and sprung quite a few surprises by recalling five players who had not featured in an ODI for the last 18 months. "I think it’s very important that there’s continuity in selection. more..

Apr 21 (ST) PM Ranil Wickremesinghe warned Minister Ravi Karunanayake that his Ministry and CEB officials will be held personally responsible if there were more power outages. His strong warning letter came as threats of renewed power cuts loomed large due to supply generated falling far short of expectations. PM has told Minister Karunanayake that the ministerial committee dealing with the power situation more..

Apr 21 (DM) Excise Department which regulates all laws pertaining to the sale, possession and production of liquor will set up its first Special Operations Room at its headquarters before June this year, sources said. A fully-fledged round the clock Special Operations Room linked to a dedicated communications network throughout the country will be set up at the Excise Headquarters in Narahenpita. The Special Ops Room will be set up to upgrade and streamline the department’s more..

Apr 21 (Island) The Executive Director of PAFFRREL, Hettiarachchi said that the country needed a special court to deliver express verdicts on elections. Hettiarachchi said the tenure of the Western Provincial Council would end tomorrow and with that eight provincial councils would function under the respective Governors. The PAFFEREL Executive Director said "Although we have informed the President and the PM in writing urging them to hold prolonged Provincial Council elections, more..

Apr 21 (Island) Shareholders of SriLankan Airlines have been summoned to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the company next week to consider its serious loss of capital and its ability to continue as a going concern. Company owning the national airline is almost solely owned by govt with its last annual report stating that the govt held 99.1% followed by EPF with 0.36%. Others, including present/past employees, own 0.53%. more..

Apr 21 (Island) The candidate nominated by the UNP will win the next presidential election with an overwhelming majority, Minister Mangala Samaraweera, predicted. "It is the die-hard UNP membership that will name the next presidential candidate later this year, and no one can prevent the our party from securing the largest landslide victory", he said, after viewing a photographic exhibition titled Matara’s past three decades held at Cultural Center in Nupe to celebrate his 30 yrs in politics. more..

Apr 21 (AD) Speaker Karu Jayasuriya says that he has never asked for any post or position and that everything he has received was given by destiny. However, he said that he is ready to fulfill his national responsibility should destiny come calling at any certain point. Speaking to reporters after meeting with the Mahanayake Theros during a visit to Kandy, he said that he will fulfill his responsibility to ensure that democracy, justice and people’s rights are safeguarded in the country. more..

Apr 21 (CT) Karapitiya Teaching Hospital owes the CEB a staggering Rs 135 million which has led to a Rs 350 million worth Tomo-Therapy and Linear Accelerator, imported to the hospital in Nov 2014, to treat cancer patients, being abandoned. According to a number of letters exchanged between the hospital management and the authorities in the CEB regional branch in Galle and the health authorities, Karapitiya Teaching more..

Apr 21 (Island) Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to be the UNP’s presidential candidate, a senior Cabinet Minister said. "The premier is tipped to be the party’s nominee to contest the upcoming presidential election", says Minister Lakshman Kiriella. He was reponding to a question by a journalist during the Haritha Udarata Bakmaha Ulela 2019 held with the participation of all 13 electorates of Kandy district, at Gatambe Grounds, Kandy, last week. more..

Apr 21 (Island) UNP rejected a claim by Opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa that a planned coup in the UNP had been scuttled due to it being revealed too soon. A senior UNP Minister said that coup theories would be heard more often in the coming months as the Presidential Election was due by December this year. "We have been hearing of coups and a change in the leadership for a long time, but nothing of the sort happened. This theory is being revived because Mahinda Rajapaksa more..

Apr 21 (ST) Retired Lieutenant Colonel Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Defence Secretary, handed in documents to the US Embassy in Colombo on Wednesday to relinquish his US citizenship. That included the surrender of his US passport and signing an oath of renunciation. Unlike other aspects of the relinquishment, it is accepted by the US govt that the loss of citizenship occurs when the US citizen meets Consular more..

Apr 21 (Island) For all the betrayals by the elected beneficiaries, the electoral victories of Jan 2015 and Aug 2015 can be credited with two positive outcomes. One, there has not been a single state-implicated or state-sponsored killing in the country in the last four years and four months – the first such period in, lo and behold, 48 years. I am counting from the 1971 JVP insurrection when it all began, even though a spate of the so called emblematic state-sponsored individual killings more..

Apr 21 (Island) One cannot draw the hard conclusion from the experience of someone feasting on hoppers and stabbing his host in the back on the morrow that he will undoubtedly screw Gota. But here’s the point: With actions pending in California courts it may take lawyers months to smooth things over and clear the way for US authorities to approve Gota’s renunciation of citizenship. Our top-coot is surely scheming: "If Gota can’t get SLPP-SLFP nomination, how about me giving it another more..

Apr 21 (Reuters) Pope Francis on Sunday condemned attacks that killed at least 138 people in three churches and four hotels in Sri Lanka as such cruel violence and said he was close to the Christian community, hit while celebrating Easter. The blasts, which hospital and police officials said wounded more than 400 people, followed a lull in major attacks since the end of the civil war 10 years ago. "I learned with sadness and pain of more..

Apr 21 (LBO) PM Ranil Wickremesinghe says recent attacks occurred this morning is an attempt to make the country and economy unstable. Delivering a statement he said the law will be strictly enforced against the persons those who are responsible for these attacks after finalizing the investigations. Full statement: On behalf of the Govt, I would like to offer my deepest sympathies to the injured persons and more..

Apr 21 (AD) Social media platforms including WhatsApp, Viber, and Facebook have been blocked temporarily in the country following the explosions this morning. WhatsApp, Viber and other social media platforms have been blocked in Sri Lanka. The govt took this step after a series of explosions took place in several parts of Sri Lanka. In a bid to curb fake news and rumor-mongering regarding the SL blasts, SL govt had more..