Thawheed Jamath Secretary arrested

Secretary of the Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamath, Abdul Razik was arrested by the Maligawatta police today on charges of speaking against other religions in an offensive manner during a protest campaign held in Maligawatta on November 3. 

The Thawheed Jamath protested against moves to amending the Muslim Marriage Act as a requirement to regain GSP+ from the European Union. Police said the 30-year-old suspect who was a resident of Slave Island would be produced to the Aluthkade Court.

Suspect in Kurunegala shooting arrested

A suspect in the shooting that killed a police sub-inspector this morning, was arrested by police a short while ago. Police are on the hunt for the other suspects. 

The shooting occurred at a restaurant at Paldeniya, Kurunegala, when a police patrol car that responded to an emergency 119 call attempted to inspect a vehicle parked there. Gunmen from inside the vehicle had shot at the policemen, killing one, and injuring two others. The injured policemen were rushed to the Kurunegala Hospital.

Maithri & Ranil have failed to meet aspirations of voters

At a meeting held to mark the 30th anniversary of Ravaya at the Committee Room ‘A’ of the BMICH yesterday (16th) the JVP leader Anura Dissanayaka said in front of President Maithripala Sirisena and prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that the government had failed to meet the aspirations of those who had voted to oust the Rajapaksas and bring in a so-called ‘yahapalana’ government.

Mr. Dissanayake stating that massive spending of public funds on politicians couldn’t be condoned under any circumstances said that the government was planning to spend approximately Rs. 2,436 million to hire luxury vehicles for 58 MPs. 

He asked the President and the Prime Minister, who were present, “How could this be compatible with yahapalana promises?” Mr. Dissanayaka pointed out that the taxpayer had to pay approximately Rs. 700,000 for a month for each MP and at the end of the term, the vehicles would have to be returned to the company which owned them and asked whether it was not an utter waste and a sham.

The JVP Leader told the meeting, with President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister attending, that the controversial agreement between the Agriculture Ministry and a businessman under which a building had been hired for a staggering monthly rent has incurred a loss of a large amount of money to the government. He pointed out that several hundred million rupees had been paid in advance as rent for a year but the Ministry had not moved into the building yet.

Mr. Dissanayaka also severely criticized the government regarding the appointment of ministers, State Ministers and Deputy Ministers contrary to the 19 Amendment to the Constitution which restricted the number of ministers and deputies to 30 and 40, respectively.

The JVP Leader said in spite of the change of government, those who had been in power still remained very powerful and were still challenging the current administration. He also told that the people who voted for the ‘Yahapalana’ government couldn’t be satisfied regarding the judiciary process being carried out and cited several cases to justify his assertion that an influential section of the judiciary had been cooperating with those who had previously governed the country.

He said those who were involved in frauds and corruption and still are influential and challenge the administration include a few hundred military personnel, police, public servants, politicians, the media as well as the underworld.

Sarath Weerawansa Granted Bail

Wimal Weerawansa's brother Sarath Weerawansa was released on bail by Colombo Fort Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne today.

The Magistrate considered the special case where his child is sitting for the GCE O/L examination and granted Weerawansa bail.

He is charged over the misuse of two state vehicles when his younger brother was a government minister.

He is accused of causing a loss of Rs 10.5 million to the state by accepting rental for two vehicles of the Presidential Secretariat and the Ministry.

Facebook Releases Population Map For Sri Lanka

Facebook's Connectivity Lab released its high-resolution population maps for Malawi, South Africa, Ghana, Haiti and Sri Lanka, with the promise to make more datasets available over the coming months. The population maps are a joint effort between the Facebook Connectivity Lab, Columbia University and the World Bank, though Facebook is interested in the project as part of its effort to launch wireless communication services in rural regions around the globe.

Facebook and friends used software to identify buildings in commercially available satellite images, and then estimated population using census data and a few other surveys and programs. Convolutional neural networks powered a model capable of identifying individual buildings in images from across the world.

"There has been a lot of work recently on neural networks that can recognize individual buildings with very high accuracy, but these models are finely tuned on the local characteristics of the region where they are trained," the Connectivity Lab's Tobias Tiecke writes. "We found that these models do not perform well at a global scale with realistic amounts of training data. Therefore, we developed a model that is trained only on binary labeled data -- if an image does or does not contain a building -- which allows for fast acquisition of the training data."

Facebook's preliminary findings suggest that of the 23 countries it studied, 99 percent of the population lives within 63 km of the nearest city, with 44 percent of people living in cities.

"Hence, if we are able to develop communication technologies that can bridge 63 km with sufficiently high data rates, we should be able to connect 99 percent of the population in these 23 countries," Tiecke says.

Facebook has been toying with a handful of options for rural communication technologies, including the shoebox-size OpenCellular platform and a satellite initiative. The population maps will help Facebook streamline its designs.

"We would love to hear ideas (preferably also in an open manner) on how to bridge this distance in an economically viable fashion for line of sight and non-line of sight use cases, and we hope that by sharing these datasets we will stimulate further research," Tiecke says.

(Engadget)

Three wives claim Body of accident victim

Gampaha Police Station witnessed high drama on Tuesday after three women fought each other to claim the body of a man. The man had died in a road accident.

The three women, each claiming to be the deceased’s wife, demanded exclusive rights to cremate the body and be entitled to the benefits as the rightful survivor of the deceased. The three women had two children each between them and the dead man.

He was killed in a motorcycle accident on Sunday night after the motorcycle hit a lamppost on the Gampaha – Kirindiwala road. The deceased was under the influence of liquor at the time. The accident had taken place at around 11.30 p.m., police said.

Gampaha Police HQI CI A.W.A. Gaffar said the three women, one from Rambukkana aged 40, one from Adagaspitiya, Gampaha aged 25 and the other from Deraniyagala came to the station to claim the body of the 44-year-old man.

“We were forced to take them to the Gampaha Magistrate’s Court over their claims that the deceased was their husband and the fact that they presented marriage certificates and had six children who they said were the children of the deceased,” said HQI Gaffar.

The drama took a new turn at the Courts when one of the wives, the second one , had pleaded that she should have the body for at least two or three hours, the third wife announcing that she would not accept it and the first wife requesting full custody of the body.

Gampaha Additional Magistrate G.L. Kannangara ordered the two women to discuss and reach a settlement with regard to the disposal of the body and asked them to appear before Court to reveal their conclusion.

Asked what would be the fate of the children with regard to legal benefits that they may be entitled to as survivors of the deceased, HQI Gaffar said: “The way I see it, the first marriage is going to be valid and the other two will be declared invalid.

“Since the children are involved, as survivors of the deceased, the affected parties can file a lawsuit to claim benefits on their behalf.”

English Edition Click Here (Lanka Hot News)

CCD files case against Watareka Vijitha Thera

The Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) yesterday filed a case against Jathika Bala Sena General Secretary Ven. Watareka Vijitha Thera before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court for allegedly lashing out at the National Flag of Sri Lanka during the 2015 election campaign.

A video clip showing a statement made by Watareka Vijitha Thera at the release of the election manifesto of the NSSP in Colombo had started going viral in the social networking sites.

He had allegedly lashed out at the National Flag calling for it to be burnt as the flag has reserved 75 percent for the Sinhala community. Filing a facts report in this regard, the CCD informed the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court that it was expecting to initiate an investigation regarding the incident on the advice of the Attorney General.

The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Organisation lodged a complaint with police about the defamatory statement made on the National Flag by Ven. Watareka Vijitha Thera.

Cannot Face People After Budget Speech

Deputy Minister Nishantha Muthuhettigama complained that he cannot face his people after the budget speech as they were questioning as to what the budget had offered to them.

Speaking at a meeting in Galle, Muthuhettigama said that he could face his people before the budget speech. However, after the budget speech, he is unable to answer their questions, Muthuhettigama went on.

The increase of the minimum fine for traffic offenses and some other increased levies are being questioned by the people, he added.

However, Muthuhettigama said that he will vote for the budget according to the decision of the SLFP. He requested Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake to remove the measures which hit the people hard.

Sinhala Edition Click Here (Lanka Hot News)