Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday prayed at the Lord Venkateshwara temple in Tirumala.
Accompanied by his wife Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe, he paid obeisance to the revered Lord at the hill shrine in the morning.
The couple was accorded a warm reception on arrival by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Trust Board Chairman Ch. Krishnamurthy, Executive Officer D. Sambasiva Rao and other officials.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and his wife were later escorted into the sanctum where they offered prayers and performed rituals conducted by the priests. The couple was blessed by the priests at Ranganayakula mandap.
The priests presented the Prime Minister Wickremesinghe the silk ‘vastram’ of the deity while the authorities gave him ‘laddu prasadam’ and a memento. Wickremesinghe described his visit as personal.
“The relationship between India and Sri Lanka is getting stronger day by day and I prayed to the Lord for the welfare of the people,” the statement quoted him him as saying. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and wife arrived in the temple town on Wednesday evening and had a night halt at the Sri Krishna rest house. Prison Reforms and Hindu Religious Affairs Minister D.M.Swaminathan and Infrastructure and Community Development Minister Palany Thigambaram also accompanied the premier on his visit.
The National Christmas celebrations were held in Negombo yesterday under the patronage of President Maithripala Sirisena. The event at the Maha Veediya Church was held on the directions of the Archbishop of Colombo, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith. Ministers John Amaratunga, Sudarashani Fernandopulle and Deputy Ministers Ranjan Ramanayake, Nimal Lansa and a large gathering were present. Picture by President’s Media
Amidst the U.S.dollar appreciating to Rs.152 against the Sri Lankan rupee yesterday, the government claimed that the "real exchange rate " had strengthened.Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva told The Island last night that most countries had devauled their currency with the strenthening of the US dollar following the election of Donald Trump as the next President of America.
It was the nominal exchange rate that had gone up and not the real exchange rate, he said adding that it would boost exports.
The SLFP would not leave the government until two terms were completed, but it was up to the party’s Central Committee to make a final decision in that regard, party Spokesman and State Minister of Highways Dilan Perera said.
Addressing the media at the party head office in Colombo, he said the SLFP had joined the national unity government for a two-year period, which would end shortly.
The UNP wanted SLFPers to leave the government as they could not implement their own policies and corrupt deals, while the SLFP was part of the government, the minister said.
Perera, citing an example, said the UNP had failed to extend the term of former Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran due to the pressure from the SLFP members in the government.
He said they would not support the Development (Special Provisions) Bill in Parliament as it would create a super minister.
"We have to facilitate foreign investments, but that is reason for creating a super minister vested with more powers than the President or the Prime Minister," Perera said, accusing the previous government of having had such minister.
Perera said a majority of the JO were SLFP parliamentarians and expected a drastic political change at the local government election scheduled to be held next year.
Western Province Chief Minister Isura Devapriya said that not only Chief Ministers of seven provincial councils which were controlled by the SLFP led UFPA but the Northern Provincial Council, too, opposed the proposed bill.
He said however Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had called them for a meeting to explain the ingredients of the bill this evening.
Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure Tharanath Basnayake said 80% of the electoral restructuring of the SLFP Youth Wing had been completed so far to face a future election.
He said 90% of the other restructuring programmes of the party too had been completed for the purpose.
KANDY: Scientists of the University of Peradeniya have found that Sri Lanka is home to the world’s largest and smallest species of scorpions.
This finding has been made by a team of scientists from Department of Animal Science of the Faculty of Science.The largest scorpion is nine inches in length. The smallest is about one centimetre long. They said their study had been conducted from 2013 to the end of 2015 countrywide.
Prof. Kithsiri Ranawana and scientists Sanjeeva Jayaratne and Fantisek Kovarik of Czechoslovakia were involved in the study.
The BIA yesterday assured that it would continue with almost 90 per cent of its flight operations during the period BIA runway undergoes resurfacing scheduled from Jan. 6 to April 5 next year.
Transport Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told the media at a special briefing held at the BIA in Katunayake that the resurfacing of the 3,350m long only runway at the airport would be completed within three months by a Chinese Company at a total cost of Rs. 7.2 billion which would be financed by Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd.
The contract would be a joint venture of China National Aero Technology International Engineering Group (CATIC) and Shanghai New Era Airport Design and Research Institute Co. Ltd of Civil Aviation Authority of China. The design review and construction supervision would be conducted by the Netherlands Airport Consultant (NACO) and Engineering Consultancy Ltd. (ECL).
According to the Minister, the airport would be closed for eight hours from 0830hrs to 1630hrs during the runway resurfacing period.
The Minister stressed that the immediate overlay of the runway was compulsory as it had not been resurfaced for the last 30 years and its lifespan would expire next year. Therefore, if it was not renovated next year, all operations would have to be stopped as the runway would not receive the international certification.
Even though the renovation work should have been conducted in 2001, successsive governments had not undertaken the important task for the last 15 years, de Silva stressed.
All contractors and consultants had been selected through approved competitive procurement process, Minister de Silva added.
Due to the closure of the BIA, 20 flights would have to be cancelled per day including 16 Srilankan flights and four foreign flights, Minister de Silva said, adding that a special traffic plan would be implemented by the Minuwangoda and Katunayake police within and around the airport.
Visitors would not be permitted entry to the departure terminal except for differently-abled, child and elderly passengers, the Minister said.
He said the respective airlines would update their passengers on any revision to their flight schedule and the number of check-in counters would be increased to avoid congestion at the airport.
Special security programme would also be conducted and all immigration departure counters would be kept open during the period, the Minister said.
In addition, the military flights during day times would have to be operated from alternative bases and limited domestic operations could be operated from BIA before closure and after re-opening, subject to availability of slots which would not affect scheduled international operations.
The BIA stated that all business jet aircraft during the closure period would be handled at Colombo Airport, Ratmalana while the training flights including instrument training would not be allowed to operate into, over or out of BIA during the runway resurfacing period and no domestic aircraft operations would be allowed to operate into or out of BIA. Such operations could take place from Ratmalana airport.
Although the airport had a capacity of six million passengers, today it handled about nine million passengers. Therefore there was an urgent necessity for another terminal at the BIA. With the assistance of Japan’s JAICA the construction work of another terminal would be launched by April next year. Tenders had already been called for the proposal and the construction would be completed within two years. Once the new terminal was added to the BIA, it would have a capacity of 20 million passengers, the Minister added.
BIA has a single runway constructed and commissioned in 1986 under the Colombo International Airport Development Project Phase I and it had been designed to conform to ICAO international standard for airports for 20 years with 10,000 movements annually. Currently there were around 175 aircraft movements per day.
A stock of 5,424 sets of kitchen apparels with printed images of the Buddha was seized today by the Customs in a container in transshipment, Customs Spokesman Dharmasena Kahandawa said.
He said the kitchen apparel sets were found during the Customs checking on several other goods from India.
“Each set included an apron, two oven gloves and a table serviette in 904 cartons,” he said. The stock was detected while the container was opened for unloading some other items in Sri Lanka. The shipment had arrived from Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) few days ago and the ship was travelling to Slovenia, in the Central Europe via Sri Lanka. The cargo arrived at the BQ4 warehouse of the Colombo Port on December 2 and the shipment arrived on SS St. John Ark. Officials said investigations would be done and relevant actions would be taken by the Custom
s He said the Sri Lanka Customs would inform to the Indian Customs to conduct an inquiry and to stop such items that hurt the sentiments on any religion. After the investigation Customs will hand over the consignment to the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, he said. (Chaturanga Pradeep)
The Cabinet has approved the Development (Special Provisions) Bill on Tuesday, Government sources said.
The Cabinet Sub-Committee on Economic Management headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe endorsed the Bill, before the Cabinet approval.
Strategic Development and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrema addressing a press conference at his Ministry premises in Colombo yesterday said the Prime Minister would hold a special meeting with all Chief Ministers on Friday to clear their doubts and discuss the implementation of the provisions in the Bill. The minister also said President Maithripala Sirisena was also in agreement with the provisions in the new Bill.
He said the Bill would be presented to Parliament in February. Replying to questions by journalists, the minister however completely rejected the speculations that the Bill would pave way for a “super minister”.
“Nobody in this Government wants to be a super minister, nor are we going to create one. We have seen the repercussions of creating super ministers by the previous Government. This Bill is to provide easy access and facilities for the investors by processing their investment proposals by one centre,” he said.
“Over the past years the average Foreign Direct Investments received by the country annually did not exceed USD 800 million whereas this amount in Myanmar was over USD 6.8 billion. Myanmar has a ‘one stop’ agency to process the investments coming into the country. We want to put up a similar mechanism. The BOI would be the implementing agency” he said. He said innovative thinking is necessary to take the country forward, adding that the private sector participation is essential to develop the economy. Responding to a question by a journalist on the provisions in the Bill giving legal immunity to the officers attached to the new body to be set up, the minister clarified the said legal immunity does not cover fraud and corruption.
“Anybody can go to court over such allegations. Our intention in this move is clear. We want to make a real change and take the country forward,” he said.
