Jan 8 (Island) Police are analyzing fingerprints found at the scene where Managing Director of the M.D. Gunasena and Company, Ananda Gunasena and his wife were stabbed by a masked intruder on Sunday morning. No arrests had been made in connection with the incident, so far SSP Prishantha Jayakody said. He said that the Mirihana police were conducting the investigation. Mirihana HQI Chief Inspector Roshan Rajapaksa said that they were hopeful of making an arrest soon more..

Jan 8 (OU) Payment for registration of marriage is increased. From next year, it is not surprising if tax get imposed to new born and for the mother with the child. New Sihala Urumaya Leader Sarath Manamendra made these allegations. A media briefing was held on Sunday on the theme �resistance by opposition parties " and he made this statement on his participation. He said, a situation has risen in the country of not able to live. Prices of goods are daily getting increased. more..

Jan 8 (GDI) The number of camps for persons displaced by the recent floods has come down to 22 from 174. The provision of relief assistance to them is continuing under Minister Basil Rajapaksa�s guidance. In the 174 camps there were 15,281 families (56,747 individuals). Of this number 14,693 families (53,812 individuals) in 152 camps are now being settled back in their homes. The govt will spend Rs.100,000 on repairing every more..

Jan 8 (LBO) Bank of Ceylon, the country's largest commercial bank by assets is aiming for a trillion rupees in deposits, newly appointed general manager D M Gunasekara said. "We reached the target of a trillion rupees in assets last year ahead of schedule," he said after taking over duties Tuesday. "We are now aiming at a trillion rupees in deposits, which will also increase savings in the country." The bank already had deposits 700 billion rupees and the target could be reached in about two more..

Jan 8 (LT) There is an attempt to appoint a pro-Rajapaksa as the chief justice but the masses need not be subjugated by the �Rajapaksa theory� emphasized the speakers who addressed the rally held at Hyde Park yesterday. JVP MP Anura Dissanayake addressing the rally said, �Rajapaksa regime is attempting to end democracy and trod on a path to dictatorship. Today is the beginning of the movement to rally masses against this sinister attempt. This is only the beginning. more..

Jan 8 (DM) True Sri Lankan brand of the cricket will be showcased at the NCC grounds as the �1996 Cricket World Champions reunite to play a match in aid of the Baby Cheramy Big Heart Project, on January 12. The T20 match will be a public fundraiser for the �Nana Diriya� programme which is a beneficiary of Baby Cheramy�s big heart project. �It is wonderful to reunite with the team again, after almost 17 years� more..

Jan 8 (PTI) Against the backdrop of the recent attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen allegedly by Sri Lankan Navy, GPS equipment is being fitted on boats to help them in navigation. �Our fishermen, sometimes, go into their (Sri Lankan) areas. They do not know that they have crossed international boundaries. Therefore, GPS devices are being fitted to fishing boats as part of an ongoing pilot project,� Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh said today. He was replying to a query on more..

Jan 8 (Reuters) Stocks ended slightly firmer at a 13-week high on Tuesday, led by diversified shares, while block deals in large caps pushed the day's turnover even as foreign investors left what they see as an overbought market. The main share index closed 0.1%, or 5.84 points up, at 5,751.93, its highest close since Oct. 10. The index has risen 4.27% in the last nine sessions, which analysts have attributed to declining yields in govt securities after the central bank cut its policy rates last more..

Jan 8 (IRIN) Thousands of northern Sri Lankans are unable to return to their homes as the land they are on is still occupied by the army, say residents and activists, though military sources reject the allegations. �I would like to go home, but I can�t. Our homes and land are occupied by the military,� Sivaguru Angaramuttu Udayakumari, a 43-year-old mother-of-two told IRIN. Her home in Seeniyamottai, a village in Mullaitivu, more..

Jan 8 (SMH) DEAN Jones has urged Australia's greenhorn batting line-up to take on Lasith Malinga rather than let the lethal Sri Lankan slinger dictate terms in the one-day international series, starting at the MCG on Friday. Australia's batting coach for the first two games of the five-match series, Jones will tell the likes of Phillip Hughes, Usman Khawaja and Aaron Finch not to focus solely on survival against Malinga in their debut ODI campaign. Malinga, a limited-overs specialist, more..

Jan 8 (CNA) A doctor from Sri Lanka is on trial for molesting a former scrub nurse in an operating theatre at Changi General Hospital. Senaka Liyanage, 37, is accused of tapping the 26-year-old woman's buttock twice - first in the morning and later in the afternoon. This allegedly happened during a seven-hour operation on 5 April last year. The victim took to the stand on Tuesday to give her account of what happened. The trial continues on Wednesday.

Jan 8 (DM) The Colombo Magistrate�s Court ordered the Borella and Bambalapitiya Police to get relevant details from phone companies after Court of Appeal Judges S. Sriskandarajah, and Justice Anil Goonarathne had received threatening phone calls, the day before the CA delivered its ruling on PSC. Justice Sriskandarajah had lodged a complaint with the Bambalapitiya police, while Justice Goonarathne had lodged a complaint at the Borella Police. more..

Jan 8 (TL) A teenager who punched a man in the street, causing him to fall and hit his head, has been jailed for manslaughter. Father-of-two Ponnuthurai Nimalaraja died in hospital a week after he was found seriously injured at the junction of Gipsy Lane and Northfield Road, in Northfields, Leicester. At a hearing at Derby Crown Court yesterday, a 15-year-old boy, who cannot be identified because of his age, was sentenced to three years in a young offenders' centre. more..

Jan 8 (Island) The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) has collected Rs. 91,574,450 from fines last year (2012) from 27,877 raids with the highest (Rs. 10,946,550) earned from 2,537 raids from the Gampaha District, although Colombo accounted for 3488 raids which earned Rs. 9,967,800 in fines for the CAA. The previous year (2011), the fines totalled Rs. 100 million. The highest number of raids was in January (3691), followed by 3325 in February, 2967 in March, 2677 in April, 2950 in May, more..

Jan 8 (DM) UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has requested Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa to intervene immediately and prevent a constitutional crisis. Making a statement in Parliament, the UNP Leader said at present Sri Lanka was faced with a constitutional crisis. Raising a question of privilege, he said it had come to a virtual constitutional crisis, and the Speaker should take steps to call for a �ceasefire� without any further delay. more..

Jan 8 (AD) The UNP says it will vote against the PSC report on the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, when it�s taken up for debate in Parliament on Jan 10 and 11. The entire parliamentary committee process including the impeachment brought forth by the govt against the Chief Justice is unconstitutional and illegal, UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said. It has been brought to our attention that the govt intends to present this proposal for more..

Jan 8 (CG) Two leading human rights groups Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) are calling for the perpetrators of the assassination of the five youth in Trincomalee seven years ago, to be produced in court and charged over the crime. The five young boys, who had gathered for a chat in Trincomalee close to the beach, in January 2006 were found shot dead minutes after a grenade explosion in the area. Following growing pressure a Commission of Inquiry was more..

Jan 8 (CG) The Divi Neguma Bill was passed in Parliament this evening with 160 votes in favour and 53 against it. The opposition UNP, TNA and DNA voted against the bill while 11 members abstained. The govt expects to form the Divi Neguma Department bringing the Samurdhi Authority, Upcountry Development Authority and the Southern Development Authority under its umbrella. According to state media, the govt hopes to set up Divi Neguma community more..

Jan 9 (DBS) Predictably, Govt propaganda hitmen wasted little time in rushing to condemn the Supreme Court�s most extraordinary and exceptional Determination this week that the parliamentary impeachment of a superior court judge has to be determined by law and not by Standing Orders. The level to which this Govt has deteriorated was amply seen by the fact that while party seniors preferred to remain quiet, with one or two even cautioning that the time has come to take a step back, more..

Jan 9 (NS) Attempt to lure university students to terrorism by Tiger leaders abroad was started in Jaffna very recently. The plot was to start a conflict at the campus to coincide with the so-called Great Heroes� Day in November last year. With the arrest of four students including the secretary of the student union secretary Tharshanandan, who had lit lamps before the images of certain LTTE leaders, some student protests were held at the Jaffna campus at this time. Defying a Police ban on more..

Jan 9 (SO) Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ambitious project of establishing a fisheries harbour, one of the biggest in the region, in Sri Lanka is now being realised with the Dikkowita Fishing Harbour scheduled to be opened on the 18th of this month at an expenditure of 63 million Euros. Of late the WHO has recognised Sri Lanka as having developed her fisheries industry as more..

Jan 9 (NS) I am not the type of person to converse much about the vagaries of the weather, but what was up with Mother Nature this past year? Do you realize that we have had a compound of blistering droughts, bucketing rainfall and a sort of wintry mix of cold snaps and ground frost in the verdant high sierras? No, we Sri Lankans are no strangers to the recent unpredictable weather patterns. We have got it all. Frost, sunshine and rain in merry abundance and not giving us the foggiest idea of what more..

Jan 9 (DBS) With the passing away of the year 2012, I wish to invite the attention of the readers to a fresh concept. Although I may call it fresh, it is not all that �fresh� and the format that I am presenting below has been in use over and over again by various news media groups, especially in the Western Democracies where free expression of ideas, opinions and views are taken for granted. A set of categories is spelt out and in the writer�s view, the winner in each category is named from many more..

Jan 9 (DBS) Year 2008 dawned on a dreadful note for Tamils in Sri Lanka as one more democratically elected MP was assassinated in broad daylight. UNP Colombo district MP Thiagarajah Maheswaran was shot dead at the Shree Ponnambalavaneswarar Sivan temple in Kotahena. 41 year old Maheswaran was to celebrate his 42nd birthday on Jan 10th. In what was perhaps the first development of its kind, the assassin was more..

Jan 9 (CT) I decided to go public with the following story because all our efforts to get a right of reply or a comment published on a story that appeared in the Sunday Leader of December 23, 2012 has failed. In the last weeks of December a story appeared in the Leader headlined Bodhu Bala Sena To Rebel Against �Muslim Extremists� by-lined Raisa Wickrematunga and Niranjala Ariyawansha. The report described a meeting that is purported to have been held on Nov 30 at more..

Jan 9 (CT) Sri Lanka is facing a grave crisis as a result of intolerance. Once the Supreme Court the sole authority that possesses the right of interpretation of constitutional provisions had delivered its interpretation on the impeachment of the Chief Justice, the executive and the legislators who had taken oath to protect and safeguard the constitution must uphold the interpretation though it may be a bitter medicine. Liberals all over the world are keen on upholding three major areas of more..

Jan 9 (MO) I�m woken by a gentle tap on the door. �It�s time,� whispers the guide. It�s 1am. The torrential rain has stopped and a full moon fills the sky with shimmering light. Conditions couldn�t be better for my 2,244-metre climb up Sri Lanka�s most holy mountain. Sri Pada, or Adam�s Peak, has been venerated as a sacred site for centuries. A depression at its summit - said to resemble a huge footprint - has been identified variously by more..

Jan 9 (Island) The Supreme Court in its ruling stated: "A PSC appointed in terms of Standing Order 78A derives its power and authority from the said Standing Order which is not law. Therefore a Select Committee appointed under and in terms of Standing order 78A has no legal power or authority to make a finding adversely affecting the legal rights of a judge�"(p.24). An outcome of this reasoning was that "without a definite finding that the allegations have been proved no address of more..

Jan 9 (Island) Nobody not even the judges of the higher courts are perfect and somebody has to judge the judges. The western modernity with its linear thinking and rigid hierarchical structures has a problem in such cases and in this case the power to judge the judges has been invested in Parliament and the President, recognized as an institution by the Constitution for that specific purpose. This again proves that according to our Constitution Parliament is superior to the Judiciary in exercising more..

Jan 9 (Island) During the past thirty years, the National Development Bank (NDB) has financed SMEs in the tea industry with current loans amounting to Rs. 5 billion. "NDB with 30 years� heritage of commitment towards SME development,has assisted a large number of small and medium scale tea factories, tea exporters, small scale tea cultivation projects and tea plantations in all parts of the country. Having understood more..

Jan 9 (CT) Western Provincial Council (WPC) member Ajwal Mowjud (UPFA), yesterday made an open statement before the council seeking police protection following the death threats allegedly made personally against him by Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Maxi Proctor on 6 January. When the WPC met yesterday morning at its auditorium at Battaramulla, Mowjud sought permission from the Chairman, Sunil Wijerathna, to make a statement on a death threat he had received. more..

Jan 9 (Island) Laboratory technologists and pharmacists will strike today to protest against the failure on the part of the Health Ministry to meet their long standing demand for on call, overtime and risk allowances. General Secretary of the Professions Supplementary to Medicine (PSM) Saman Jayasekara said that the ministry had been dragging its feet for some time, hence, the decision to resort to trade union action. The Health Ministry had earlier promised to meet at least some of their more..

Jan 9 (Island) The India - Sri Lanka Joint Study Group, set up under a joint initiative of the Manipal Global Education (MaGE) of India and the Pathfinder Foundation of Sri Lanka, has presented its recommendations to the Govts of India and Sri Lanka. The Joint Study Group was conceived as a discreet and informal dialogue process to jointly explore ways of strengthening the bilateral relationship between the two neighbours with more..

Jan 9 (CT) A mock exam paper, similar to the Law Entrance exam paper, was distributed prior to the entrance exam at an institute in Wellawatta, President of the Law Entrance Students Union, Ramzi Bajja, alleged yesterday. "We received strong evidence a mock exam paper, similar to the Law College Entrance Exam paper, was distributed prior to the exam in an Institute in Wellawatta. We lodged a complaint with the CID. Students filed a Petition at the Human Rights Commission. more..

Jan 9 (DN) Residents of Addalaichenai should take to other field crops such as ground nut cultivation, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said. He who visited the office of the Assistant Director of Agriculture, Addalaichenai recently, said the area was highly developed in adapting improved methods of paddy cultivation. "The ministry is prepared to provide assistance and technical advice," Abeywardena said. He said the AD's office will be given all facilities manage a fully more..

Jan 9 (FT) President Mahinda Rajapaksa has 72 hours to have a change of heart and realise that the damage being done to the country by pushing through with the impeachment process will be more debilitating than terrorism, President�s Counsel and UNP Provincial Councillor Srinath Perera said yesterday. �We have no choice left but to pray that the President will somehow be made aware of the critical juncture we are at,� more..

Jan 9 (CT) The delay in admitting new students to university and the reason for cancelling the three-month English and Information Technology (IT) course for new students is because of the delays caused by the Court Order following the Z-score crisis, Minister S.B. Dissanayake said. The minister made this statement during the Students' Leadership Training Programme at the Diyathalawa Air Force Training School recently. "We decided to provide the students with a a three-month course to more..

Jan 9 (DN) Rear Admiral Ravindra (Ravi) Wijegunaratne who was the former Commander of the Eastern Naval Command assumed duties as the new Director General of Sri Lanka Coast Guard, yesterday. He studied at Royal College and joined the Sri Lanka Navy as a Cadet Officer in 1980 at the age of 18 years. He underwent his basic training at the Naval & Maritime Academy, Trincomalee and at the prestigious Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) Dartmouth, UK. more..

Jan 9 (FT) MT H�jgaard has established a commercial and fishing port at Oluvil, Sri Lanka. The project was handed over recently. �At Oluvil on the east coast of Sri Lanka, we have established a Port with two separate basins, one for commercial activities and one for the fishing industry. The work was undertaken as a main contract,� announced MT H�jgaard. On 30 Nov the handover ceremony was held with the client and representatives more..

Jan 9 (FT) Despite the Government in its Budget 2013 indicating there will be zero foreign commercial borrowing, Standard Chartered Bank said yesterday Sri Lanka was likely to return to the US Dollar market and noted a fresh IMF program would boost confidence. �We expect US$ 10.25 b of hard-currency issuance by Asian sovereigns in 2013 (slightly higher than 2012), with Indonesia and the Philippines dominating, as usual. Sri Lanka and Mongolia will likely revisit the US$ market. more..