Jul 30 (ST) Almost every sector in the country is caught in a morass of crass indifference. Apart from the fiscal quagmire or perhaps because of it, the body politic in our land appears to lack any sense of moral turpitude, sucking the very spirit of people striving to rise above the insidious machinations in the corridors of power. Over the last few weeks, we have read in the newspapers, the sordid mess of our health system and the cantankerous remark of the Minister who felt that more..

Jul 30 (TM) The multimillion-dollar Mixed Development Project on D.R. Wijewardena Mawatha opposite Lake House in Colombo 1 appears to be dead in the water as both local and foreign investors seek to dissociate themselves from it and the UDA seemingly unaware of its current status. In 2018, Belluna Co. Ltd, a company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section, along with Asia Capital PLC, invested Rs. 4 billion to purchase the land from the UDA and its previous more..

Jul 30 (AD) Foreign Minister of Japan Hayashi Yoshimasa and Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe today (29) engaged in discussions concerning the bilateral relationship between Japan and SL, with a mutual commitment to further strengthen their traditionally robust ties. The visiting Japanese minister paid a courtesy call to Prez Wickremesinghe in Colombo earlier today. Prez expressed his gratitude to Japanese Govt more..

Jul 30 (Island) Whilst large numbers of people stormed the entrance to the office of the president in July 22, 2022, I turned my mind to the price they may have had to pay had the govt been more confrontational. That carried me to consider the relationship between those that seek freedom of expression (some citizens speaking their minds to fellow citizens), and those who for a variety of reasons, seek to deny that freedom. Historically, organized religion has been one of more..

Jul 30 (TM) Three-time defending champions Jaffna Kings will be playing against Colombo Strikers in the curtain-raiser of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) today at the R. Premadasa Int'l Cricket Stadium. As LPL returns for its fourth season, the hype is higher than ever, with all the build-up towards the grand tournament. For the first time in the history of the tournament, Sri Lankan Cricket (SLC) together with Innovative Production Group (IPG) held the player auction last month. more..

Jul 30 (AD) Prez of France, Emmanuel Macron on Friday night undertook a brief historic visit to SL. Macron’s stopover at the island nation, a first by a French Prez, came after his visit to the South Pacific Region. Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prez Macron have held friendly and productive bilateral discussions which lasted for an hour and fifteen minutes. The main objective of this discussion was to enhance & elevate more..

Jul 30 (AD) The Human Rights Commission of SL (HRCSL) says it conducted a Suo Motu (on its own motion) investigation on the death of a patient who was under residential treatment at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Thereby, a team of HRCSL consisting of senior officials has visited NIMH on Friday and recorded statements from several staff members including nursing officers and supportive staff. The team met the NIMH Director, the Deputy Director, & other senior officials more..

Jul 30 (DM) Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe should realize that he can no longer rule the country with a suppressive mindset like in the 1980s and if he resorts to such suppressive moves, it will be a complete failure, NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said. He said that the world and society have now completely changed when compared to the 1980s. MP said ordinary people are not responsible for the present situation in the country and that the rulers should accept the blame more..

Jul 30 (AD) As a large creditor to SL, China is welcome to join the effort steered by Japan, India and France to help the island nation cope with its debt distress, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. She also called upon IMF and WB to speed up relief measures for countries facing debt vulnerabilities. Terming multilateral development banks’ (MDBs) reforms and debt-relief measures for many stressed economies as the top two finance track priorities for India more..

Jul 30 (Island) President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of SL and Bishop of Kurunegala Rt Rev Dr Harold Anthony Perera says that the powerful hands that had carried out the Easter Sunday terror attacks are behind a new campaign against Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith. Delivering his sermon presiding as the Chief Celebrant of the 117th year Concelebrated High Mass offered at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church Kurunegala, Bishop Perera said that more..

Jul 30 (TM) SL’s procurement of coal for the upcoming unloading season is already mired in controversy, with reports indicating that the selection of a coal quality tester, essential to ensure quality control of the coal supply to the Norochcholai Power Plant, is now under a cloud of suspicion. The tender to select the coal surveyor has to be finalised as soon as possible in order to commence the next coal unloading season more..

Jul 30 (EN) Australian firm are interested in investing in Sri Lanka, particularly in resource sector, but a more conducive investment environment is needed, High Commissioner Paul Stevens said. Sri Lanka is looking to foreign direct investment as a factor in taking the country out of an economic crises triggered by excessive deployment of macro-economic policy involving fiscal and monetary stimulus. Sri Lanka is also planning to draw up a new foreign investment law more..

Jul 30 (ST) A gaping loophole in the 6-year-old Foreign Exchange Act is damaging SL’s fight against money laundering. This was enacted in 2017 after repealing the 1953 Exchange Control Act. Experts say the new Act does not have provisions to regularise foreign exchange transfers in the country. “In the earlier Act section 23 regularised the foreign exchange transfers. According to this section, it is a violation not to receive goods after sending foreign currency abroad,” more..

Jul 30 (ST) Sri Lanka has been invited as an Observer to join the French initiated Indian Ocean Commission (Commission de l’ocean Indien), an intergovernmental organisation that links five African Indian Ocean member-states. The invitation came during talks between President Ranil Wickremesinghe and visiting French President Emmanuel Macron and later discussed with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi yesterday. more..

Jul 30 (ST) The newly-appointed independent National Police Commission (NPC) has retained powers of appointment, promotion, transfer, punishment, and similar matters of all officers above Chief Inspector rank, including Officers-in-Charge of police stations and functional divisions, according to a gazette notification. These powers were earlier held by the IGP and other senior officers, as the case may be. The gazette was first published in January but was removed from the website more..

Jul 30 (ST) Corruption in medical procurements is a longstanding problem but the growing practice of buying drugs bypassing national regulatory oversight has thrown open the floodgates, senior pharmaceutical industry officials warned this week. One private sector official used a cricket analogy to illustrate just how serious the status quo is. Back then, he said, it was like a Test match. Then it became a 50-over game. Now, it’s a T20. more..

Jul 30 (ST) Sri Lanka is gearing up to validate the use of the Indian rupee as a currency of transaction that will clearly generate more travellers from the subcontinent. SL tourism industry believes this is an opportunity that will encourage more visitors to tour the island nation. Former SL Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) President Mahen Kariyawasam said that this will attract more travellers from India to visit SL. He noted that this is a good move by the authorities more..

Jul 30 (DM) The two relatives of Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe, who the Daily Mirror reported earlier this week were among individuals who received letters of endorsement from SLC for Australian visas last year, were names put forward by SLC President Shammi Silva, it is learnt. Last week, a draft of the Auditor General’s report into the expenses incurred by SLC for the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia revealed that SLC had spent Rs. 68 million on sending its officials to Australia, more..

Jul 30 (ST) For most MPs, the prospects of any election at year-end have remained a nightmare. They are not ready, nor are the parties to which they belong though the focus has remained on a presidential election. This was after Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe mulled over the issue months earlier. He sounded out select party leaders over what they thought of a November presidential poll. This was after effecting amendments to more..

Jul 31 (CT) I am neither a philosopher nor a great visionary, and I lack extensive knowledge in geopolitics. Nevertheless, I have developed my own set of principles which I diligently follow throughout my life’s journey spanning 58 years. Those close to me are well acquainted with these principles. One of my core beliefs is firmly opposing racism, a value I believe I inherited from my school days and the influence of growing up in a Sinhala-Buddhist family and culture. more..

Jul 31 (TM) The 2019 Easter Sunday terror attack was a tragedy no country should ever have to witness. It was a monumental failure in governance. The tragedy also opened doors for SL to learn many lessons, ranging from having a serious dialogue on inter-ethnic/religious harmony and tolerance at the grassroots level to improving accountability on the part of political and law enforcement authorities. In the broad discourse that entailed the Easter Sunday attack, both the then UNF led govt more..

Jul 31 (TM) SL is once again focused on developing international relations given the recent interactions Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe has been engaged in with global leaders. The first was Wickremesinghe’s meeting with Indian PM Narendra Modi during his recent visit to India. The next was with French Prez Emmanuel Macron on Friday (28) night during the latter’s brief stay in Colombo on his return trip to France from a tour in Papua more..

Jul 31 (ST) The arrest of a young journalist, Tharindu Uduwaragedera recorded by onlookers this Friday being forcibly dragged out of a three wheeler, grabbed by his hair and roughly manhandled by a posse of police officers before being whisked away in a police vehicle, is a chilling warning to SL’s dissenters. The question here is not whether one agrees with the politics of his dissent or not. Or whether he possessed his media ID card, as per the police response to his repeated shouts more..

Jul 31 (GV) In 1983, a series of bloody riots swept SL, marking the start of the country’s 26 year brutal civil war. Intermittent unrest had been occurring since the late 1950s and state discrimination against the country’s Tamil community led to the formation of multiple militant groups. Of these, LTTE emerged as the strongest and on July 23, 1983, they ambushed a military patrol of the army, apparently in revenge for the killing of one of their officers and the rape and kidnapping of three civilians. more..

Jul 31 (TM) In the past few years, Sri Lanka has had about 30,000 new cancer cases diagnosed annually. In 2019 alone, there were nearly 31,850. This means that the incidence of cancer in Sri Lanka’s population is 146 per 100,000, which is a doubling from 25 years ago. Childhood cancer too is increasing with about 1,000 new cases diagnosed annually and of these, seven out of 10 are from low income families. more..

Jul 31 (CT) The first week of August, as declared by the WHO, is World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) and this year the international awareness week kicks off from tomorrow and lasts until next Monday. This year’s theme is, Let’s Make Breastfeeding and Work, Work! As achieving gender parity in the workplace is becoming the number one condition every corporate and company should maintain, women are now able to actively take part in the working world as much as men do, mostly in the white-collar job market. more..

Jul 31 (Island) French Prez Emmanuel Macron, who was here briefly, a few days ago, has reportedly pledged his country’s support for SL’s debt restructuring process. Other creditor nations, too, have offered to help this country come out of the present economic crisis. Their assistance is to be greatly appreciated. Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe has taken upon himself the thankless task of reviving the economy. He has dared to make some unpopular decisions and managed to bring about more..

Jul 31 (Island) Cassandra needs to commemorate, in words, one of the most shameful episodes, or evil occurrences, that happened in this island of ours: the planned and directed massacre of Tamils among us; burning their possessions and homes and tarnishing the name Ceylon/SL around the world. I retell what I heard and did – safe in my Sinhala-ness. I was told by a friend – Sinhalese living down a residential lane in Colombo 5 – that on that peaceful morning she noticed more..

Jul 31 (DM) Mexico has become infamous for its notorious drug wars, where drug cartels fight to control Mexico’s lucrative drugs trade. The aim to control and hold a monopoly over the trade. Here in Lanka, we too have business groups holding monopoly status over various sections of our economy. Fortunately they do not get involved in killing off their rivals. However, holding monopoly over sections of the economy especially in the food chain, in the long term has an equally more..

Jul 31 (FT) Emmanuel Macron became first-ever French Prez to visit SL Friday midnight and discussed issues of bilateral and regional interest with Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe whilst former’s official aircraft Airbus A330 re-fuelled at the BIA. French Prez was en-route to Papua New Guinea after short visits to New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Despite local hype, none of the major international media outlets such as more..

Jul 31 (DN) Sri Lanka team led by Gayanjali Amarawansa went down fighting to Wales by 56-68 in their World Cup Netball fixture played at Cape town, South Africa yesterday. It was a close battle between both teams. Wales dominated the game with a gap of 12 points to win the match after good battle. In fact first quarter Wales took an early lead 17-11 . In the second set both teams had a very close battle and finally 13-11 lead to take Wales 2-0 quarter lead. more..

Jul 31 (ST) Amidst a furore over an alleged abuse of power by the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) hierarchy during last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, Sri Lanka’s cricketers produced gutless performance to suffer their heaviest loss—a 222-run defeat in the second Test against Pakistan—making an inauspicious start to the new World Test Championships cycle. The series defeat was unexpected, given how the Test team had gone about their business in the previous cycle. more..

Jul 31 (Island) Hurdler Janindu Lakvijaya and sprinter Kalinga Kumarage were among leading athletes to leave indelible marks at the 101st National Athletics Championships which concluded with India making a clean sweep of 4×400 relay medals at the Sugathadasas Stadium on Sunday. Lakvijaya improved his own national record twice as he clocked 13.77 second in the heats on Saturday before cruising to a 13.72 seconds finish in the men’s 110 metres hurdles final yesterday. more..

Jul 31 (Island) The Wesley College Old Boys Union, under the leadership of its President Capt. Navin de Silva, has embarked upon an ambitious project to restore the Wesley College Pavilion to its former glory. This initiative is part of the school’s sesquicentennial commemoration, scheduled for March 2nd, 2024. The restoration aims to transform the existing pavilion into a monumental sports facility while preserving its splendid architectural heritage at Campbell Park. more..

Jul 31 (TM) Web Journalist Tharindu Uduwaragedara is to file a fundamental rights (FR) petition before the Supreme Court (SC) against the Police and other relevant parties over his arrest by the Police in Borella on 28 July. Uduwaragedara, who is an executive committee member of the Young Journalists' Association (YJA), said that he would file an FR petition before the SC against the Police, & other relevant parties more..