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Home » NewsPresident places relic casket for low-key Navam Perahera
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa placing the relic casket on the tusker Migara to begin the Colombo Gangaramaya’s annual Navam Perahera on Friday night. With him is the temple’s Acting Chief Prelate the Ven. Kirinde Assaji Thera. In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and health guidelines, the perahera was limited to a small scale this year. Pic [...]
PC polls by June
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to announce that Provincial Council elections will be held by June this year. With this in mind, he will meet former PC members from parties that form the ruling alliance for a discussion on Wednesday. He is to tell them to prepare the election machinery while assisting in the Government’s [...]
Beijing-based AIIB approves US$180mn loan to Sri Lanka for COVID-19 response
The Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a US$180 million loan to Sri Lanka under its COVID-19 Emergency and Crisis Response Facility. The decision was conveyed to Sri Lanka’s Ambassador Palitha Kohana during a meeting on Friday with AIIB Vice President D. J. Pandian in Beijing. The ambassador was informed that the bank [...]
Burials will have to wait till guidelines arrive
Cremation of people who die of COVID-19 will continue until modalities and guidelines for burial are worked out, a senior Health Ministry official said yesterday. He said more time was required to prepare fresh guidelines and name designated places for burials. He said locations for burial would need to be decided upon after consulting agencies [...]
LNG project: CEB calls for proposals before ADB releases feasibility study
The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has called for international proposals to deploy a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) and a mooring system for liquefied natural gas (LNG) even before the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released the feasibility study it funded for the project. Feasibility studies map out the pros and cons of undertaking a [...]
COVID-19 vaccination: Govt. set to give second shot from mid-April, says task force chief
The first batch of people who have been vaccinated from January 29 will be expected to have their booster or second shot by mid-April, Presidential Vaccine Task Force Chief Lalith Weeratunga told the Sunday Times. “We have plans for the second round,” Mr. Weeratunga said but admitted well-designed plans could go wrong on the ground [...]
Chaos reigns at vaccination centres
Some chaos reigned as a vaccination saga gripped mainly the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area, with reports from other areas within the Western Province indicating a slightly more organized approach in Phase I of the community vaccination programme from around February 17 to 25. The preventive measures that the Health Ministry has been stressing on [...]
Phase II of rollout more streamlined, say officials
Systems fell into place even though Friday was a poya and a public holiday, as 500,000 more doses of AstraZeneca’s COVISHIELD vaccine arrived from India on Thursday, with a mass rollout being launched on Friday itself in the high-risk districts of Colombo and Gampaha. The furore over the priority list which engulfed the first public [...]
Vaccine is safe, stress 2 experts
With some people expressing concern over the side-effects after the COVID-19 vaccine, the Sunday Times spoke to two experts. The vaccine is safe, stressed Consultant Physician Dr. Ananda Wijewickrama attached to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID), Angoda, who was the first to get the jab symbolically on January 29. He said that there [...]
Many attempts to contact CMC fail
PHI says people rushed to vaccination centres paying little heed to dates given Numerous calls and messages to officials of the CMC this week to get clarification with regard to the chaos were futile. The Sunday Times tried to get the CMC’s “side” of the story but the calls were cut and the messages went unanswered. [...]
PHIs in Gampaha withdraw threat to stop work
In a different development, the Gampaha Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) who threatened to stop work after Friday, alleging that instructions with regard to vaccination were being changed often, withdrew the threat on Saturday after getting proper instructions from the Health Ministry. “The vaccination programme has been initiated in selected GN divisions but we have not [...]
Concerns over Sri Lanka being able to get adequate COVID-19 vaccines
Several experts expressed “worries” whether Sri Lanka would be able to secure adequate COVID-19 vaccines. Looking at the numbers, one source said on a rough calculation there are around 14.5 million people over 18 years of age and as such the country would need a total of around 30m doses (for both the first and [...]
BASL elections: Saliya Pieris wins with thumping majority
Saliya Pieris, PC, was this week elected as 26th President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) for the year 2021-2022 with a thumping majority over his rival candidate Kuvera de Zoysa, PC. Mr Pieris secured total of 5,178 votes while Mr de Zoysa polled 2,815–a difference of 2363 votes. In Colombo, Mr Pieris [...]
Attack on law student: BASL wants zero tolerance for Police brutality
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has called on the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General to take legal action against policeman responsible for the alleged assault on a third year law student inside the Peliyagoda police station. which has left the student with serious injuries. The letter was sent as the [...]
Imran visit ends on a positive note
What had been an awkward build-up over the cancellation of an address to Parliament was all but forgotten as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s two-day official visit to the country ended with both countries reaching “broad consensus” on ways and means to strengthen bilateral cooperation. Premier Khan arrived on Tuesday evening along with a high [...]
Codifying laws on Contempt of Court: SLPI sends editors’ proposals to Justice Minister
The Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) has forwarded to Justice Minister Ali Sabry, PC a set of proposals by The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka (TEGOSL) setting out the rationale for the codification and enactment of a Contempt of Court Act in Sri Lanka in line with many other countries. In its letter to the [...]
More questions than answers as guns, enclosure and relocation of animals touted to protect crops
A committee that recently recommended providing guns to small-scale farmers to control their pest problem has also suggested caging the animals in large enclosures where they would be given food and water or relocating them to forests and less-populated islands in the country. But the problem with relocation was whether sufficient food would be available [...]
Alarm over return of leprosy: Rising cases among children
An increase in the number of young children reporting with leprosy in the country in the past 10 years has prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare Sri Lanka as a highly endemic country in the region. The WHO has determined that the high proportion of children among new cases reported in Sri Lanka [...]
Lokubandara: Mr Speaker and Orator
It is a tragic coincidence that two emblematic figures of J.R. Jayewardene’s historic 1977 victory – Neville Fernando and WJM Lokubandara — should succumb to the Covid virus within two weeks. Both were over eighty years, having entered UNP politics over half a century ago. JRJ recruited many popular regional personalities who could stand up [...]
Pick of the Pix
Pic by Chandani Kirinde captured using a D-90 Camera, Pix by Nilan Maligaspe, Pic by H K Wijeratne captured using a Samsung Galaxy M20, Pic by Noble Jayasuriya, Pic by Hiran Priyankara, Pix by Reka Tharangane Fonseka, Pic by Shelton Hettiarachchi and Pix by M A Pushpakumara FROM OUR READERS Shutterbugs out there, we [...]
Nawam Perahera lights up Gangaramaya
The annual Navam Perahera of the Gangaramaya Temple, Colombo took place on Thursday and Friday. The event, organised under the directions of Chief Incumbent, Gangaramaya Temple, Ven Dr Kirinde Assaji, included a large number of traditional dancers, drummers and elephants. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa placed the casket on the tusker, Migara, on the final day of [...]
Cheap and dangerous vehicle imports to be cut
In a bid to reduce road deaths, restrictions will be imposed on imports of vehicles that fail to meet safety standards, and a drug test will be compulsory before obtaining a driving licence. “We have conducted a study and found out that one major contributing factor for road traffic accidents is low-quality vehicles with no [...]
Who is doing what with the treasure of the Muthurajawela wetlands?
Environmentalists say private companies trying to grab land for hotels and golf courses, but ministry officials say allegations are baseless Environmental groups are questioning the Government’s plan to hand over Muthurajawela wetland to the Urban Development Authority (UDA), without much notice. The wetlands were handed over to the UDA by a gazette issued by the [...]
Rare orchids stripped from forests hawked at bus stands
Thieves who were selling wild orchids stripped from forests were arrested following a tipoff, a senior wildlife officer in Mirissa said. The Department of Wildlife Conservation Ranger in charge of the Mirissa Range Office, Chinthana Abeyratne, said two Kandy residents, Upasaka Gedara Vishwa Tharanga Piyawardana Wijenayake and Upasaka Gedara Ranjith Kumara, had been selling several [...]
Easter Sunday attacks: The COI version
The authorities failed to take adequate and effective steps to meet the threat from Islamic extremism in the critical build-up phase from 2016 to 2019 prior to the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the Commission of Inquiry (COI) that investigated the attacks has noted in its final report. Volume 1 of the final report, a copy [...]
Peradeniya University library celebrates 100 years with new logo and ola leaf glory
One hundred years ago, Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam laid the foundation for a library — by donating more than 1600 books in memory of his son Padmabah Arunachalam who died in a London car accident. It was then known as the library of the Ceylon University College. The Library was shifted to Peradeniya in 1952 and [...]
Mutant coronavirus strain puts work places in tight spot
Public and private sector offices are taking more precautions in the wake of the detection of highly contagious mutant coronavirus disease strains in the country. The UK mutant virus strain, B.1.1.7, was confirmed in Sri Lanka in mid February in patients in Colombo, Avissawella, Biyagama and Vavuniya as well as a few people in quarantine. [...]
Police Minister explains new plans to combat organised and narco-crimes
As another illegal weapons amnesty ends without a major a response, police have decided to double down on their war against organised crime. The operation’s focus would be on the Western, North Western and Southern Provinces which accounted for 45 percent of the crime in the country, Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekara said. The new [...]
‘Nobody to care if we are dead or alive’, lament guides at protest
As tourist guides around the world marked International Day for Tourist Guides, local guides held a silent protest at Galle Face to express grievances aggravated by the pandemic. They complained of being ignored by the authorities and left to fend for themselves during the shutdown when their incomes dried up along with tourism. According to [...]
Panadura Bridge under threat
Residents of Moratuwa and Panadura are expressing concern that the authorities have neglected to repair the Panadura New Bridge. They point out that the river banks of the bridge have collapsed due to erosion. The bridge is the primary road access used to reach the country’s South from the Western Province and seems nowhere close [...]