May 26 (EN) SL�s power grid has been hit by 300,000 outages as heavy winds brought down trees, restoring supply has been delayed by unfilled vacancies of breakdown staff, a union statement said. Despite electricity being declared an essential service, vacancies have not been filled, the CEB Engineers Union said. �In this already challenging situation, the Acting General Manager of CEB issued a circular on May 21, 2024, abolishing several essential service positions, including more..

May 26 (DM) SL Customs have raided 13 leading jewellery-making institutions and seized a stock of gold smuggled into the country and a fine of Rs. 4.5 billion is to be imposed in this regard. There are a few leading jewellery business operators involved in this racket. It is learnt that these business operators have continued to bring gold from India through unlawful means for a long time denying tax revenue to the govt. more..

May 26 (TM) Health authorities have assured that no outbreaks of monsoon-related diseases have been reported yet, with mitigatory measures underway given the ongoing southwest monsoon accompanied by heavy showers. Epidemiology Unit Head Dr. Samitha Ginige said: �The Ministry of Health has a stringent monitoring mechanism for communicable diseases in affected areas. No outbreaks have been reported yet and all possible precautionary measures have been taken.� more..

May 26 (Island) What Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe had told his ministers at their meeting last week, according to what spokesman Bandula Gunawardane, as well as other published reports, is that he does not intend dissolving the incumbent parliament before the upcoming prez election is concluded. This is a clear signal that he is not going to fall in with SLPP founder and strategist Basil Rajapaksa�s demand that a parliamentary election be first held before the presidential contest more..

May 26 (TM) SL Customs has said that it cannot locate the finance minister�s authorisation, issued many decades ago, for the distribution of contentious reward funds among officials and informants in accordance with Section 153(2)(b) of the Customs Ordinance No.17 of 1869. Despite regulations mandating the distribution of such funds according to a scheme approved by the minister of finance, National Audit Office more..

May 26 (AD) A youth is suspected to have jumped to his death from a flyover to the Outer Circular Highway in Colombo last night (24). The 19-year-old male had died after falling from the flyover near the 1.2km post of the Outer Circular Highway in Colombo on to the expressway at around 7 p.m. last night. At the time, he had collided with a car heading towards Matara. The youth, who was seriously injured in the accident, was pronounced dead after being admitted to Homagama Base Hospital more..

May 26 (ST) Dialog Axiata powered SL para athletes proudly hoisted the Lion flag as they won three medals�silver and two bronze medals at the World Para Athletics Championships held in Kobe, Japan. The event concluded yesterday, with five athletes from SL competing for honours. Sprinter Indika Gamage secured a bronze medal in the T44 100m final held on Monday, clocking a time of 11.83 seconds. Gamage qualified for the final after winning Heat 1 with an impressive time of 11.75 sec. more..

May 26 (Island) Founder and chief functionary of Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR) S.C. Chandrahasan said that SL refugees living in South India welcome recent move by the govt to issue passports to them. �This recognition will help around 100,000 SL refugees in South India. This was announced by Eastern Province Governor Senthil Thondaman at a function held at the SL consulate in Chennai during his recent visit. Around 600 Lankans living in refugee camps have more..

May 26 (DM) Yupun Abeykoon secured first place in the Men�s 100m event at the Anhalt Athletic Championship 2024 in Germany, clocking in at 10.16 seconds. Poland�s Dominik Kopeć finished second with a time of 10.21 seconds, while Omani sprinter Ali Anwar Ali Al-Balushi took bronze, finishing in 10.25 seconds. The Anhalt 2024 - Internationales Leichtathletik Meeting, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze level event, was held at Paul-Greifzu-Stadion in Dessau, Germany. more..

May 26 (TM) SJB MP Hesha Withanage said that IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon should order the CID to arrest Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) President Shammi Silva and Lanka Premier League (LPL) Director Samantha Dodanwela. He said the two officials should be nabbed on charges of match-fixing and other acts of financial corruption linked to the popular T20 tournament which is due to commence this July. more..

May 26 (ST) The JVP is still studying the report on Accountability for Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka issued by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the party�s Propaganda Secretary MP Vijitha Herath said. He said the JVP would comment on the report that was issued a week ago (May 17) once it had studied it. He was responding to a question from the Sunday Times on what the party had to say about sections in report that referred to allegations more..

May 26 (AD) Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe emphasized the confirmation of land rights for the people, ensuring avenues for progress. The President highlighted SL�s unique status as the sole South Asian nation offering free land rights to its citizens. Encouraging recipients to safeguard the freehold deeds from the Heritage program for future generations, he made these remarks during today�s (24) ceremony, where land deeds were bestowed upon the residents of the Jaffna district. more..

May 26 (EN) SL plans to bring down international artistes, and hold water festivals to boost tourists, SL Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman, Chalaka Gajabahu said. �We will be hosting a few international artists in September to December,� Gajabahu said. �We would also be having a fashion show in Sigiriya.� SL is targeting 2.3 million tourists in the year 2024 with expectations that it may go up to 2.5 million Gajabahu said. SL is also planning on having a water festival in coastal towns more..

May 26 (ST) Restricting Treasury guarantees for loss-making state-owned enterprises, controls on their finances, and the policy on restructuring the institutions will be included in a bill to be submitted to Parliament shortly. The proposed bill is being finalised by the Attorney General in terms of the state-owned enterprise reform policy of the government. One of the key features of the proposed bill is that the stress caused by SOEs on state banks by extending support through more..

May 26 (TM) Controversy surrounds Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) President Kaushalya Nawaratne, PC, as multiple Bar Council members and former BASL presidents have expressed concerns over his role as a Board Director of Jaya Container Terminals Ltd (JCT), a subsidiary fully owned by Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA). Concerns about him holding office as a JCT Board Member arise in the backdrop of an ongoing more..

May 26 (ET) At least 43 Pakistani prisoners will be repatriated from Sri Lanka, announced Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Friday after securing an agreement with the SL govt. The announcement came following a meeting between Naqvi, SL High Commissioner Admiral (retd) Ravindra Wijegunaratne alongside Interior Secretary Khurram Ali Agha, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Chairman Lt General Muhammad Munir, and other officials. more..

May 26 (SO) Minister Bandula Gunawardena said that the Presidential Election will definitely be held this year and Rs.10 billion has been allocated from the Budget for the purpose. Minister said that according to the Constitution, it is mandatory to hold the Presidential Election this year and the dates for the election have been announced by the Election Commission (EC). Accordingly, the EC has announced that the election will have to be held in September-October this year. more..

May 26 (ST) Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe laid to rest, once and for all, wild speculation by telling his ministers last Wednesday that the prez election will be held first, that is between Sept 17 and Oct 16. Within hours of his announcement, Election Commission gave the go-ahead to District Secretaries, who function as Returning Officers in different districts, to embark on arrangements. This was after the Treasury informed him that more..

May 27 (TM) Each year, Southwest monsoon conditions create adverse weather challenges for Sri Lanka with many parts of the island inundated with rain accompanied by thunderstorms. This pattern of weather has been consistent for decades, with rare exceptions. It is a period of challenges which the Govt gears up to face each year, with Govt Agents (GA�s), district secretaries, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) and the armed forces preparing for the season ahead of time. more..

May 27 (DM) The large-scale pardoning of prisoners by Lankan Presidents for the commission of minor crimes has become customary during particular festivals, for example the day marking the country�s independence, Vesak and Christmas. Often these pardons have been granted to persons who were among those taken in for commission of petty criminal activity. Task Force on Judicial and Legal Causes for Prison Overcrowding and Prison Reforms reveals that nearly 52% of prison more..

May 27 (TM) While the numbers are moving in the right direction, the ground situation is another matter altogether, with poverty more than doubling and most people unable to make ends meet, charged SJB MP Dr. Harsha de Silva, pointing to the disappearing middle class. As for the status of the ongoing IMF programme, he said it was presently stuck due to the lack of concrete progress on external debt restructuring, while more..

May 27 (ST) My dear Miris Kudu Prasanna, I thought I should write to you when I saw that you were in the news again, this time for assaulting a worker at the airport. At first many thought it must be some kind of joke because ministers are not supposed to go around assaulting people in that manner, but then we all got to see the CCTV footage. On second thoughts, though, there was no reason to be surprised at all. We shouldn�t have expected anything more from you (or anything less, more..

May 27 (DM) UNP suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in the 2020 Parliamentary elections. Electoral debacles were nothing new to the UNP which is referred to by some as the grand old party. In 1956 the UNP got only eight seats in a Parliament of 101 MPs. In 1970 the party won 17 seats in a Parliament of 157 MPs. The year 2020 was distinctly different. For the first time in its history, UNP failed to get even a single MP elected to Parliament. Mercifully the UNP polling 249,435 (2.15%) votes more..

May 27 (SO) Under the guidance of Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe, current Govt has initiated numerous legal reforms, positioning SL as a leader in South Asia with the enactment of approximately 75 new laws in the past two years alone. Among these legislative advancements, the Anti-Corruption Act (ACA) No. 9 of 2023 stands out as particularly significant. Sunday Observer this week conversed with Sarath Jayamanna PC, more..

May 27 (CT) This is probably an extension to the articles published under the title RTI & Educational qualifications of MPs by the Economist DNR Samaranayaka and the story under Parliament writes to MPs under RTI to get educational qualifications but no response!, both in 2021. In an article on the Politics and Education website, Pawan Singh went into the contentious issue of educational qualifications among politicians, drawing parallels with the Indian political landscape. more..

May 27 (ST) The govt on Wednesday (22) presented two more key draft bills which it said is essential to continuing the country�s economic recovery. The opposition however, used the day�s adjournment debate to attack Prez Ranil Wickremesinghe�s administration over what it claimed was a serious breakdown of the rule of law. Economic Transformation Bill and the Public Financial Management Bill have been described by the govt as two significant pieces of legislation more..

May 27 (TM) A three-cornered tussle for the top post of the Netball Federation of SL (NFSL) is expected to take place when incumbent President Lakskmi Victoria, ex-President Tamara Dharmakirti-Herath and Olivia Gamage vie for the presidency during its annual election scheduled for Thursday (30). Annual General Meeting (AGM) is slated to be held at the Duncan White Auditorium of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs. When nominations closed for the upcoming AGM on 22 April, more..

May 27 (FT) A significant milestone was achieved in Sri Lanka�s sustainable energy landscape and the David Pieris Group with the inauguration of the new head office of David Pieris Renewable Energy Ltd. Strategically situated at No. 734B, New Parliament Road, Pelawatta, Battaramulla, the new office was opened by David Pieris Group Chairman and Managing Director Rohana Dissanayake along with the board directors of David Pieris Renewable Energy and directors of Group companies. more..

May 27 (ST) Celebrated SL para-athlete and two-time Paralympic medalist, Dinesh Priyantha, has been forced to end his athletic career, following a reclassification process carried out by the World Para Athletics (WPA) Classification Committee in Kobe Japan. As a result, Herath had to concede the silver medal he won in the Men�s Javelin Throw F46 event at the World Para Athletic Championship in Kobe, Japan on Friday, and more..

May 27 (Island) An attempt by the COPF to convene a meeting as part of its ongoing inquiry into the on-arrival visa scandal has come a cropper once again owing to the unavailability of relevant state officials, according to media reports quoting an �X� message posted by COPF Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva. The COPF has been compelled to reschedule the meeting for 04 June, as a result. This is a very sad state of affairs that Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene should take serious note of. more..

May 27 (Island) Last week, 22nd of May was the 52nd anniversary of the Republic of SL. It was an event that everyone appears to have forgotten. There was no mention of it in any of the newspapers. It was not a national holiday. The govt did not choose even to hoist the national flag. Our neighbour, on the other hand, celebrates its Republic Day, 26 Jan 1950, with spectacular cultural and military pageantry, while also marking Aug 15th as Independence Day. more..

May 27 (SO) A delegation of the Immigration Checkpoint Authority (ICA) of Singapore is due to visit SL from May 26 till 31 to explore opportunities for collaboration in enhancing SL�s immigration system through the integration of advanced technology and achieving standards similar to those of Singapore. The visit has been organised following a request by Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles from Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Law Singapore K. Shanmugam, more..

May 27 (SO) US Ambassador in Colombo, Julie Chung visited Asia�s only Palmyrah Research Centre in Jaffna recently and pledged assistance to develop research activities. She said that they were keen to support the marketing of palmyrah products in Western countries. Many people in the North find their livelihoods by engaging in Palmyrah cultivation. �We are keen to support this segment,� Chung said. Chairman of Palmyrah Development Board (PDB), Dr. Krishantha Pathiraja said that more..

May 27 (FT) Commercial banks have been slower in reducing lending rates as opposed to on deposits, latest data reveal whilst despite perceived softening of rates and a pick-up in economic activity, private sector credit hadn�t gathered pace. Whilst latest monetary policy review scheduled for tomorrow, between last year October and March this year, policy rates have been reduced by 250 basis points. more..

May 27 (ST) At least 10 money laundering convictions are on the cards at the higher courts, after the IMF nudged Sri Lankan authorities to walk the talk in fighting black money in the country, top officials said. Money laundering is the process of making illegally obtained funds, appear legitimate by disguising their true origins. Most of these deal with drug trafficking, officials said, noting that during the past year, at least six to seven convictions happened. more..

May 27 (CI) Just like the 2015 World Cup final, Mitchell Starc led the rout of the second-best team of the tournament as Kolkata Knight Riders fashioned the most one-sided IPL final to secure their third title. Starc started with arguably the ball of the tournament, and the most complete attack of the tournament was too good for Sunrisers Hyderabad on a pitch that offered seam movement for at least seven overs followed by grip off the surface too. SRH were bowled out for the lowest total more..