News

It is reported that Dulanjali Jayakody Premadasa, the sister of Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa is preparing to contest the local council elections slated to be held next year.

Former Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera has warned that the military coup in Myanmar is a red light for Sri Lanka.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya youth movement today lodged a complaint with the Commission to Investigate Bribery or Corruption, demanding a full investigation into the alleged sugar fraud that cost the government over Rs. 11 billion.

Myanmar's military seized control of the country on Monday and detained leading politicians, including Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The current problems of the country have nothing to do with the laws and statutes but with the governance where the executive has taken over the functions of the judiciary, opposition lawmaker Eran Wickramaratne said.

In the wake of rising world market prices and rupee depreciation, LP Gas companies have made a request from the government authorities to increase the price of a 12.5 kg domestic LP gas cylinder by at least Rs. 407 with immediate effect, official sources said.

But the reality was that Sri Lanka’s soaring food prices at present were due to bad weather and intermediaries, and they will come down in time for April New Year, market sources revealed.

"It is well-known that vegetable prices were increasing rapidly in the last few months," a spokesman of a traders' association in Colombo said.

"The main reason for this was the climate situation which resulted in excess rain in both upcountry and low country regions simultaneously," he added. 

Headline inflation, as measured by the year-on year (Y-o-Y) change in the Colombo Consumer Price Index decreased to 3% in January 2021 from 4.2% in December 2020, Central Bank claimed. 

Further, non-food inflation (Y-o-Y) decreased to 1.4% in January 2021 from 2.0% in December 2020.

The change in the CCPI measured on an annual average basis decreased to 4.3% in January 2021 from 4.6% in December 2020.

Responding to the government’s decision to develop the East Container Terminal (ECT) on its own, the Indian High Commission in Colombo said India expects the expeditious implementation of the trilateral Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) signed in May 2019 among India, Japan and Sri Lanka for the development of ECT.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed a Special Presidential Commission to implement the recommendations of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) into political victimisation. The three member Commission will be headed by Supreme Court JudgeDhammika Priyantha Samarakoon. Supreme Court Judge Khema Kumuduni Wickramasinghe and Appeal Court Judge Rathnapriya Gurusinghe have been appointed as the other members of the commission.

In January 2020, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed a three-member Presidential Commission of Inquiry to inquire into political victimizations that have taken place from 2015 to 2019.

The Commission were tasked with investigating incidents of political victimisation which had taken place in the wake of investigations conducted by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), FCID, CID, and the Special Investigation Unit of the Police from January 8, 2015, to November 16, 2019.

The final report of the Commission consisting of three volumes and 2043 pages was handed over to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat on December 08, 2020.