Mar 27 (CT) Ministry of Transport and Highways has given permission to sell products along the road that is under the jurisdiction of RDA from 1 April to 18 April 2023. Minister Bandula Gunawardena said the people of our country have missed out on celebrating the Sinhala Tamil New Year as usual in the last two years due to crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. As a result, he said, many manufacturers faced significant difficulties in selling their products. more..

Mar 27 (TL) Fifteen years of social media activism against racism and regression in Muslim society is no longer possible due to prevalent threats and dangers, said writer Ramzy Razeek. “What I wrote before I got arrested cannot be written now. I have to think a lot before writing,” said Raseek who had been kept behind bars for five months by misusing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Also a retired public servant, he was speaking at the launch of a study report more..

Mar 27 (DM) Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe said homosexuality is an offence under the Penal Code, and the govt will most probably take action to repeal this provision. Prez said this in response to a question during an interview organized by Harvard Uni. “On the first question on queer rights, as our law now stands, homosexuality is an offense under the Penal Code, but it has not been enforced for the last 5 decades to my knowledge. Certainly, the govt will or will not enforce that law. more..

Mar 27 (CT) The programme to distribute free rice to 2.9 million people will begin today. Minister Mahinda Amaraweera announced that the Govt will convert paddy purchased from farmers into rice and distribute it to low-income families. He said during the Maha season, Govt has made arrangements to purchase 61,300 metric tonnes of paddy from farmers. “In the first phase, Rs 10 billion was allocated. The Ministry of Finance decided that rather than the Paddy Marketing Board, more..

Mar 27 (EN) SL’s leading leftist alliance NPP, whose popularity is on the rise according to some opinion polls, is taking an increasingly vociferous anti-IMF stance as the crisis-hit nation goes into its 17th IMF programme. NPP frontliner Sunil Handunneththi, who is widely seen as the party’s spokesman on economic matters, slammed the IMF in a recent public speech in which he claimed the int'l lender was quick to approve a US$ 2.9 b more..

Mar 27 (AD) Court of Appeal today ordered the dismissal of a writ petition filed against SDIG in charge of the Western Province Deshabandu Tennakoon accusing him of assaulting protestors near Galle Face during the Gota Go Gama protests. Accordingly, the petition has been ordered to be dismissed with costs when the relevant petition was taken up before the Appeals Court judge bench consisting of the President of the Court of Appeal Nissanka Karunaratne & Justice A. Marikkar. more..

Mar 27 (DM) Attorney General has filed a revision application before the Colombo High Court calling to set aside the order issued by Colombo Chief Magistrate releasing the Convener of the IUSF Wasantha Mudalige from all charges filed against him. AG's Dept had filed the application before the High Court and it was fixed to be taken up for inquiry on April 3 by the Registrar of High Court No 4 yesterday. AG by the revision application had contended that the Magistrate does not more..

Mar 27 (EN) Trade unions and professional associations in SL have renewed a threat to go on strike if a promised meeting with Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss an interim solution to the IMF-backed income tax hike issue does not materialise. GMOA secretary Dr Haritha Aluthge said that during a recent meeting held with Prez’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake, PTUA, of which the GMOA is a key partner, was promised more..

Mar 27 (DM) The SL Navy said today that there is no other religious shrine on Kachchativu Island other than St. Anthony’s Church and they emphasized that the Navy had no intention of building any other shrine or religious monument on the Kachchativu Island. The Navy made this statement following media reports that the Navy was aiming to construct other religious shrines on Kachchativu island. Kachchativu is an uninhabited island located about 50 nautical miles off the mainland. more..

Mar 27 (EN) Stocks closed near a four-week low on Monday, recording the lowest turnover for the year on weakened investor sentiment as the market took a waiting stance until more clarity on local debt restructuring is given. ASPI closed up by 1.42% or 134.14 points to 9,285.21, the lowest since Mar 1, 2023. The fears of debt restructuring mainly affected the banking and financial sectors, which dragged the index down for the day. “There was significant interest in SLT with the divestment news, and more..

Mar 27 (Island) National Peace Council (NPC) has said that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the lines of the South African set-up could help SL address accountability issues. “There have been media reports of a ministerial delegation visiting South Africa to undertake a study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the reconciliation process that took place in that country over two decades ago. South African reconciliation process, and its Truth & Reconciliation more..

Mar 27 (ORF) On 20 March 2023, the Executive Board of the IMF approved a four-year US $2.9 billion bailout package for SL. This approval has made way for an immediate IMF disbursement of US$ 333 million and enables the country to access an additional US $7 billion from other countries and institutions. To tap into the IMF package, SL had to push through difficult fiscal reforms and seek debt restructuring guarantees from its major lenders—India, Japan, and China. more..

Mar 27 (TM) A delegation of the IUSF led by its Convener Wasantha Mudalige that travelled to Jaffna, were met with a protest calling for them to leave. Mudalige and the IUSF members had gone to Jaffna to participate in a seminar held at the Jaffna University, urging the Govt to repeal the PTA. The Govt last week gazetted a new Anti-Terrorism Act, which is expected to be tabled in parliament soon. The IUSF had organised a seminar more..

Mar 27 (DM) All Island Canteen Owners Association (AICOA) today advised people not to buy cakes during the new year season which are baked using eggs imported from India. AICOA Chief Asela Sampath told the media that the liquid eggs received at the Colombo port had not been released as yet. The eggs at the Colombo Port have been there for nearly seven days. These liquid eggs can rot pretty fast, and it is the responsibility of the minister to get them released from the port immediately. more..

Mar 27 (AD) The Colombo High Court has rejected the request made by the attorney representing Lt. Col. Prasad Hettiarachchi seeking to relax the bail conditions imposed on her client. Lt. Col. Prasad Hettiarachi has been named as the 10th accused in the case filed by the Attorney General under the indictments regarding the forced abduction and murder of 11 individuals including youths. The Attorney General has filed the relevant case against 14 defendants under 667 charges. more..

Mar 27 (CI) The fourth edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) will take place from July 31 to Aug 22 this year. If it goes ahead as planned, this will be the first LPL season held in its originally scheduled July-Aug window. Similar to last year, the five-team tournament will take place at three venues, likely to be Hambantota, Colombo and Kandy, with each squad comprising a maximum of 20 players - 14 local & 6 overseas players. more..

Mar 27 (CT) Opposition MP Harsha de Silva called for a plan to turn the economy around and create jobs, adding that IMF agreement is only a stabilisation programme and not a road map to develop the country. He stressed the need to cut Sri Lanka’s debt stock, but argued that foreign creditors were not willing to carry the entire burden, as, of SL’s debt to GDP ratio of 128%, 63.6% was foreign debt, while 64.6% was domestic. De Silva said the IMF’s focus was on the Govt reducing more..

Mar 27 (AN) The SL govt wants to work with Russia to generate nuclear energy; hence, it is looking at the possibility of installing small, offshore and onshore modular reactors or floating nuclear plants. To this end, the cabinet has given its approval for application to two international conventions on nuclear energy and damage. The goal is to diversify the country’s power supply and nuclear energy is viewed as a low-carbon option to achieve carbon neutrality (zero emissions) by 2050. more..

Mar 28 (CT) For centuries, street hawkers have been a part of Sri Lankan culture. Many people rely on street hawking to earn a living. Due to the economic crisis, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Govt recently granted temporary permission to vendors to hawk their wares on the streets. As reported, Minister Bandula Gunawardena had given permission for hawkers to sell their products along the roads, that come under the jurisdiction of the RDA, from 1 to 18 April. more..

Mar 28 (DM) It was a warm April night. You could say typical, notwithstanding global warming and vagaries of weather. But something exceptional happened. With the first anniversary of that massive, spontaneous people’s rising – voices saying in unison enough is enough, Gota go home – approaching, these images come alive vividly in my mind. As dusk fell and it grew dark, I heard that spontaneous demonstrations were happening all over Colombo. more..

Mar 28 (TM) The Govt’s defence reforms process aims to right-size the military in line with a new national security and defence policy which is being drafted, State Minister of Defence Premitha Bandara Thennakoon said. According to Minister Thennakoon, while the Govt does plan to reduce troop numbers, the process may not necessarily reduce overall defence expenditure, as the State plans to upgrade the military to more..

Mar 28 (Island) Sri Lanka’s seventeenth IMF agreement sealed last week may well prove to be the most devastating one of them all. The reason is that the agreement comes along with Sri Lanka having defaulted on its external debt for the first time in its history. The IMF amounts to being the arbiter of the debt restructuring process with Sri Lanka’s external creditors, which will provide considerable leverage for Sri Lanka to be held accountable to IMF conditionalities. more..

Mar 28 (TM) It has been found that one fourth of all operating room based waste is attributed to anaesthesia-related material while a large sum of money is wasted on unnecessary preoperative investigations and for the repeat of such investigations on a routine basis. These observations were made in a correspondence sent to the Editor of the SL Journal of Anaesthesiology, Prof. V. Pinto (Professor of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care attached to Peradeniya Uni more..

Mar 28 (TM) According to the World Bank’s collection of developmental indicators, female labour force in SL was just 33.5% in 2021. According to Govt reports, the unemployment rate for females in the first quarter of last year (2022) was 6.5%. While the statistics bear witness to some startling facts, what is not overt are employer perceptions in hiring women and being gender inclusive. In our series celebrating more..

Mar 28 (TM) There is no debate that the Govt must start taking the tax issue seriously, or the rising opposition against increased income tax rates, and that it has to expedite the existing measures aimed at dealing with the issue. Responses such as tax hikes are necessary to revive the economy, the IMF's programme for SL recommends tax hikes and that the Govt will look into revising tax rates in the future are not answers that could alleviate the anger expressed by professionals and high-ranking more..

Mar 28 (Island) The efficiency of the police is truly amazing, the only problem being that it is selective. Our brave cops sprang into action and arrested a person after giving chase in Homagama over the weekend. His crime? He booed Minister Bandula Gunawardena while driving past a ceremony where the latter was laying the foundation stone for the construction of a Buddhist shrine. What is the world coming to when those who have plundered public wealth, committed many crimes including more..

Mar 28 (DM) The recent visit to Jaffna, after several years of forbidden travel due to the pandemic, provided an opportunity to revisit areas of interest and observe the changes, including positive and negative developments, in both the economic and social fronts. It was a quick visit and unexpectedly the timing of the visit coincided with the visit of the Prez who declared open the Jaffna Cultural Centre on 11 Feb 2023. The festive atmosphere that prevailed on that day was combined with more..

Mar 28 (DM) Education Minister Susil Premajayantha stated during an event at the Colombo University on March 20, that the Ministry has decided to teach spoken English from grade 1 in all national schools from March 30. Earlier in September, last year the Minister said during an event under the theme “English is simple” that his ministry was planning to introduce English medium in all schools from grade 1 from this year (2023), as a part of envisaged education reforms. more..

Mar 28 (FT) Cabinet yesterday approved a strategic move to open up the fuel retailing market further with the grant of a 20 year licence to three more global players from China, the US and Australia. Minister Kanchana Wijesekera took to Twitter to announce the Cabinet decision. He said approval was granted to award licences to China’s Sinopec, Australia’s United Petroleum, Australia and US-based RM Parks in collaboration with more..

Mar 28 (FT) To expand the reach of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including women-owned small businesses, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is supporting the Commercial Bank of Ceylon (CBC) launch a digital marketplace in SL, helping business owners connect with more customers locally and abroad. Named Commercial Bank LEAP, this one-of-its-kind initiative, which is supported under the Women in Work partnership between IFC and the govt of Australia, more..

Mar 28 (FT) Marking another milestone in its 50-year journey of excellence in SL, Noritake Lanka Porcelain (NLPL) obtained ISO 14064-1:2018 accredited GHG Carbon Footprint Verification. At an event recently held in NLPL’s Colombo office, Secretary to the Ministry of Environment, Dr. Anil Jasinghe, who was also the Chief Guest gracing the occasion, presented the certificate to NLPL’s Managing Director Kenji Obara. NLPL is the first company in the porcelain and ceramic sector more..

Mar 28 (ST) COVID-19 and economic crisis-affected small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are now faced with a double shock of the CB’s interest rate hike of around 30% imposed by banks in their debt recovery action and the interest on interest levied by them under re -payment plans, SME associations complained. SME’s and some hotels were among those badly hit by the so-called repayment plans with compound interest at time when the tourism industry is regaining momentum, more..

Mar 28 (ST) SL Golf Ranking Golf Tournament, conducted monthly together as trials for the selection of the Asian Games golf team, concluded at the Victoria Golf Resorts Course (VGRC), with Vijitha Bandara, a home-grown professional golfer playing in the PGTI, holding on to a slender one stroke victory over M.U. Chanaka Perera, 2021 SL National Amateur champion. Bandara’s four round gross total of 298, six over par, doesn’t give a sound reading compared with the standard of golf more..

Mar 28 (TM) State Minister of Tourism Diana Gamage, in a statement made to the CID, has said that she had revoked her British citizenship by handing over documents stating that she did not need British citizenship after 2014, and that she had never obtained dual citizenship. According to the Citizenship Act, No. 18 of 1948, the citizenship of a Sri Lankan citizen ceases when they obtain citizenship in another country. more..

Mar 28 (FT) The ICT industry has come together to commend the Prez, Treasury, and CB for enabling the nation to secure the IMF EFF to aid the crisis hit economy. “The approved IMF facility will make a significant contribution to boosting investor confidence in SL as a viable investment and business destination, now that the country is on the path towards economic recovery,” said a joint statement issued by the BCS the Chartered Institute for IT (SL), Computer Society of SL (CSSL), more..