Sep 15 (AD) A female student of a leading school in Kandy had allegedly been kidnapped from the front of her home in Bahirawakanda area this morning. However, she had been dropped off near another school in Kandy three hours later, stated the Police. Parents of the 12-year-old schoolgirl had lodged the complaint with the police that a group of people who arrived on a vehicle had kidnapped her when she came out of the house at around 6.45 am in the morning to go to a nearby house to get more..

Sep 15 (FT) A month has passed since the Parliamentary Elections. In terms of its life, over 1% has already been consumed. While it’s still in early days, it could still be evaluated based on the initial signs of direction. First and foremost, the handling of the COVID-19 outbreak should be commended although the measures were implemented from March onwards, well before the current Govt was formed. Secondly, it is heartening to note that the Govt has well understood that of more..

Sep 15 (FT) WSO2, the open source API-first integration company, yesterday announced a series of high profile appointments within its senior leadership team as the company looks towards further growth in key global markets, particularly North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. Padmika Dissanaike has been appointed as the Senior Vice President – Finance and Operations. Padmika has been heading the global finance function at WSO2 since 2009 and in her new role, more..

Sep 15 (Island) The soil damaged and made ill by agrochemicals should be cured by using carbonic manure, says the Governor of Eastern Province Anuradha Yahampath. Participating in the Aluth Sahal Mangallaya or the New Rice Festival, the first harvest festival of the 100 acres of organic paddy cultivation in the Eastern Province for the Yala season and trade exhibition in Kantale last week, Governor Yahampath said that witnessing the harvest of the first 100 acres cultivated more..

Sep 15 (Island) Ministries of Education and Sports and Youth Affairs hope to commence the admission of students to sports schools from Grade 8. The aim is to produce outstanding athletes at the school level who can win internationally, the Ministry of Education states in a media release. It states: The admission of students to sports schools is started from grade 8 and the students who have special abilities and more..

Sep 15 (FT) Pursuing and accomplishing the Prez’s objectives and aspirations is a huge and complex task. Stirring exhortations calling for commitment to deliver his plans is like rattling stones in a tin. They only produce noise. Unless he creates a good management structure supported by good processes he is not likely to achieve all his plans and aspirations. At best it will be like a patchwork quilt of many colours. Some achieved, others partly to varying degrees and some not at all. more..

Sep 15 (FT) Govt has decided to invest Rs. 2 billion to boost cargo capacity at the BIA by 100% to facilitate international trade and to enhance SL’s hub status in South Asia. The expansion at cargo village in Katunayake will increase current capacity from 250,000 MTs to 500,000 MTs per annum. The project is expected to be completed by the first half of 2022. According to the CB Annual Report cargo movements declined by 8.2% to 246,406 MT last yr from 268,496 MT recorded in the previous yr. more..

Sep 15 (AD) Three-wheelers and motorcycles will be allowed to drive only on the bus priority lane starting from tomorrow , says Senior DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon. He noted that the decision was taken as three-wheeler drivers and motorcyclists frequently shift from one lane to another while driving, creating traffic congestion. He accordingly urged the three-wheelers, motorcycles as well as bicycles to use only bus priority more..

Sep 15 (NR) Lanka Private Bus Owners Association has raised objections to the decision of three-wheelers and motorbikes utilising the priority bus lane. Chairman of the Association Gemunu Wijeratne said a gazette notification was issued citing that the priority bus lane is allocated for buses. Wijeratne said the number of accidents could increase if motorcyclists attempt to manoeuvre between buses. He said therefore all buses, three-wheelers and motorcycles will be required more..

Sep 15 (CT) Two major schools in the Kilinochchi District saw maths and science, and arts and information technology (IT) added to their GCE A/L syllabus due to the intervention of Minister Douglas Devananda. Two beneficiary schools are the Ramanathapuram Maha Vidyalaya (MV) and the Ramanathampuram East Tamil Govt School. Ramanathapuram MV, set up in 1956, has a student population of 850. At the request of the parents and teachers of this school, more..

Sep 15 (AD) The recommendations of the committee appointed by PM Mahinda Rajapaksa to study the proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution Draft Bill are to be submitted today. The relevant committee report will accordingly be handed over to Prez Gotabaya Rajapaksa and PM Mahinda Rajapaksa. It is slated to be tabled at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers scheduled for tomorrow, according to reports. more..

Sep 15 (EN) A school principal has been given a suspended sentence by Court after being found guilty of cruelty against a 12-year-old student in 2013, NCPA said. The 52-year old man had been sentenced two-years Rigorous Imprisonment suspended for five years. It did not say whether he had been sacked from his job, or which school the man worked. Although the govt has banned physical punishment in schools, the tradition of corporal punishment continues. more..

Sep 15 (AD) Former Northern Provincial Councillor M. K. Shivajilingam has been arrested by the Kopay Police, says Ada Derana reporter. He was arrested this morning (15) while commemorating the 33rd death anniversary of former LTTE member Thileepan, who died during a hunger strike in 1987. The police had obtained a restraining order from the Jaffna Court to prevent the commemoration. However, the former parliamentarian had attended the event disregarding the court order. more..

Sep 15 (DM) UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has informed the party working committee that he is willing to resign from the leadership at any moment, party sources said. Mr. Wickremesinghe has said this in response to a few members of the working committee who had said the party should not suffer any more over leadership struggles. “Mr. Wickremesinghe was responding to working committee members more..

Sep 15 (CT) Jathika Jana Balawegya National List MP Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said, the present Govt was in the process of duping the masses by presenting the draft proposal for the 20th Amendment to the Constitution while claiming that they were protecting the positive aspects of the 19th Amendment. She charged, the sinister aim of the present regime is to plunder the country’s resources at will while making provisions for one family to lead princely lives at the cost of the people. more..

Sep 15 (AD) Supreme Court has decided to take a Fundamental Rights (FR) petition filed by a disabled soldier requesting Rs 10 million in compensation from the govt over complete blindness in one eye caused by tear gas attacks during a protest stated by disabled soldiers in 2017. The petition filed by a disabled soldier residing in Matara named Nishantha Mihiraj was taken up before the SC judge bench comprising of Justices Priyantha Jayawardena, Vijith Malalgoda, and Yasantha Kodagoda, today. more..

Sep 15 (AD) The management of 32 private and State bank branches have been ordered to submit a detailed report to the court on the bank accounts of ten suspects including the relatives and girlfriend of slain gangster Eron Ranasinghe alias SF Lokka. The order was delivered by Chief Magistrate Janaka Samarasinghe taking into account the submissions presented by Anuradhapura Police. more..

Sep 15 (CT) The Leader of the TUIF V. Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman said that Tamil political parties in the Ampara District must unite, in order to make the underprivileged Tamil community the beneficiaries of development projects being implemented by the Govt. Muralitharan said that our aim is to bring a Tamil Chief Minister to the Eastern Province at the Provincial Council Election, which is to be held soon and the TNA must cooperate with us in this regard. more..

Sep 15 (AD) The committee appointed to study and review the draft bill of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution handed over its report to PM Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees today. The nine-member committee comprised of Cabinet Ministers, State Ministers and MPs is chaired by Minister of Education Professor G.L. Peiris. The committee members briefed the PM on what needs to be added and amended, as identified by them during the review of the draft bill, the PM’s Office said. more..

Sep 15 (DM) A new mechanism is to be introduced where the number plates will not have to be changed when transferring the ownership of the vehicle outside the province, State Minister Dilum Amunugama said. According to the new process, each vehicle would have only one number, even when the ownership was switched between provinces. “Hence the new number plates will not indicate the letters mentioning the province more..

Sep 15 (DM) Former DIG Nalaka de Silva of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) has withdrawn a Fundamental Rights (FR) petition filed with the Supreme Court. The former Director of the TID was arrested by the CID on October 25, 2018, over a suspected plot to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. De Silva had then filed an FR petition seeking the Supreme Court to rule that his arrest and detention are unlawful. more..

Sep 15 (DM) Mr I.M. B. Premalal was appointed as the new Mayor of Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte Municipal Council unopposed, following the election of previous Mayor to parliament. Since the previous Mayor Madhura Vithanage was elected to the parliament in the recent General Election from the SLPP, the post at the MC fell vacant. A special council on the appointment of the new mayor was convened under the patronage of Western Province Commissioner Kasun Epa Seneviratne. more..

Sep 15 (AD) The UN Core Group on SL expressed their disappointment over SL govt’s stand to no longer support resolution 30/1 at the UNHRC 45, today. UK’s Int'l Ambassador for Human Rights, Rita French, delivered this statement on behalf of Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, Montenegro and the UK, the Core Group on SL. Core Group notes that SL has suggested for a new domestic process to continue its commitment more..

Sep 15 (AD) It is unfortunate that large-scale heroin traffickers go free due to negligent actions and mistakes of the officers conducting raids on heroin trafficking, said Colombo High Court Judge Vikum Kaluarachchi in open court today. Judge stated this after acquitting and releasing a suspect named Merinnage Dhanasiri who was charged with possession and trafficking of 198.19 grams of heroin in 2012. Passing the verdict, the Justice stated that the plaintiff has failed to prove more..

Sep 15 (DM) Chinese Embassy in SL yesterday slammed allegations by Chinese virologist Dr Li-Meng Yan who has claimed that the novel coronavirus which has so far claimed hundreds of thousands of lives world over, was made in a govt-controlled laboratory in Wuhan and asserted that she has scientific proof to back the claim. The scientist who was working in Hong Kong claimed that she discovered a cover-up operation during her investigation and said that Chinese govt more..

Sep 15 (TS) A group of Tamil Canadians is calling on PM Justin Trudeau for legal changes to remove sovereign immunity as a defence for international crimes. Such a move would enable SL families to seek justice for their disappeared loved ones, said Kumenan Kunaratnam, a Tamil activist in Ottawa, in a Parliament Hill news conference Monday. A civil war gripped the country between 1983 and 2009, more..

Sep 16 (CT) The formulation of the draft 20th Amendment and its unanimous acceptance by the cabinet is indicative of Prez Rajapaksa’s dominant role in the govt. The unanimous cabinet decision to approve amendment uncritically has paved the way for the political embarrassment the govt currently faces with no one prepared to accept responsibility for it. It therefore took more than a week for the government to reach agreement to appoint a committee to review 20th Amendment more..

Sep 16 (CT) SL, officially known as the Democratic Socialist Republic of SL is a small island country in South Asia region. SL is a multicultural country consists with different ethnic groups with various religious identities, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Muslim… etc. SL has successfully cooperated with SDG goals applying them into its national policy framework. In a speech to the UN in 2015, former prez Sirisena declared that SL is fully committed to dealing with sustainable development goals. more..

Sep 16 (Roar) Following the advent of the ninth parliament led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the introduction and enactment of yet another amendment to the constitution of the country is not far off. The proposed amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka will mark the 20th instance it will be amended since its introduction. With this on the horizon, it is vital to look back and educate ourselves on the constitutional history of the nation. more..

Sep 16 (DM) Sept 16 is designated the Int'l Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer by the UN. Scientific studies have shown ozone depletion since the late 1970s resulted in a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone cover in Earth’s atmosphere. The ozone layer is the region of the Earth’s stratosphere that absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. The layer absorbs 97- 99% of the sun’s medium frequency ultra violet light, which otherwise would damage life on Earth. more..

Sep 16 (CT) It would not be an exaggeration to state that the recent news about the tragic, suspicious death of a SL woman who died in a hospital in Kuwait was essentially a sign that SL should pay more attention to its existing foreign employment policies and practices. It was reported that the deceased, who was working as a housemaid in Kuwait at the time of her death, had been admitted to the hospital by her sponsors, with cuts, burns and wounds that had been inflicted over a period more..

Sep 16 (CT) Free education and free healthcare are two sectors in which SL is renowned in the world. The country is ahead of many countries in terms of both preventions and cures. However, the health sector in SL is in a severe crisis due to several issues. The reasons for the problems are related to weak administration. The quality of the health service is deteriorating as a result of the decisions taken by the health administration more..

Sep 16 (GV) The elephant is a symbol of pride, and of cultural and religious significance to Sri Lankans. They have been a feature of attraction, bringing large numbers of tourists to SL’s National Parks such as Yala and Wilpattu. However, these parks are now subject to over-visitation and over-crowding (with an average of 250 vehicles entering Yala per day, and as much as 700 vehicles during the holiday season). The Terrestrial Protected Areas (PAs) of SL have been established more..

Sep 16 (DM) They say that there are so many fathers to victory but defeat is a bastard. Well, in the present SL context we can make an adjustment to the saying; it would go something like there are so many aspirants for the unbridled and unchecked power, a relapse into the pre 19A Constitutional setup would provide, but the amendment bill itself, is illegitimate. That is what the 20th amendment bill to the 1978 Constitution which was presented to the cabinet recently has become: fatherless. more..

Sep 16 (GV) The pandemic is not the great equalizer that many claims it to be. In fact, COVID-19 has exacerbated social, economic and class divisions affecting the vulnerable communities the most. It has widened the gap between the privileged and the vulnerable, such as the ability to stay safe and healthy, or meeting the cost of life in the new normal or even reaching personal life goals. Many of the disproportionate impacts are directly related to political and social determinants of more..

Sep 16 (Island) The traffic police are all out to enforce lane discipline strictly, again. They tried to do so several months ago, but coronavirus put paid to their efforts. The offence of lane jumping carries a fine, they have warned motorists. Many a motorist does not seem to have taken kindly to this scheme. Lane discipline, however, is a prerequisite for making roads less chaotic. Undisciplined drivers are a nuisance to other road users. They are mostly private bus and trishaw drivers. more..

Sep 16 (ST) British School of Colombo student, 14-year-old Yannik Kumara underlined his credentials as a golf prodigy when he annexed the Royal Colombo Golf Championship defeating a 14-time champion Rusi Captain 8&7 in the 36-hole Matchplay final last Sunday in his second attempt after having lost to a different opponent Sachin de Silva in the semi-finals last time. “I just decided to just play my game. more..

Sep 16 (DM) A special urine test will be made mandatory for those who apply for heavy vehicle or commercial vehicle driving licences to check whether they are users of alcoholic or non-alcoholic intoxicants, State Minister Dilum Amunugama said. Currently medical tests were conducted at checkpoints or roadblocks to check whether the applicant had consumed any alcohol. “We have received several complaints from people that those driving three-wheelers and buses are under more..