President Ranil Wickremesinghe in his New Year Message to the nation says that it is the responsibility of every Sri Lankan to contribute towards the resurgence of the nation from its current state of crisis President Wickremesinghe’s New Year Message: As we step into the year 2024, we find ourselves facing both challenges and the […]

North Korea plans to launch three more spy satellites next year as part of efforts to ramp up its military, the country’s state media has said. Last month Pyongyang put a spy satellite into space – and claims it has since photographed major US and South Korean military sites. Setting out his aims for 2024, […]

by Amal Jayasinghe The controversial arrest of Sri Lanka’s senior most Kapuwa, or the intermediary between devotee and deity, has renewed a debate over who should benefit from the valuable offerings to the gods. Somipala Ratnayake, the chief “Kapuwa” at the Kataragama Maha Devale was taken into custody on Wednesday over a missing gold tray […]

Sri Lanka’s inflation rose to 4.0 percent in December, the third consecutive monthly rise as the cash-strapped nation was set to increase taxes from the New Year.The benchmark Colombo Consumer Price Index jumped by 1.7 points to reach 195.1, or a 4.0 percent increase compared to a year ago when inflation was 57.2 percent. The […]

The strained balance sheets of the household and the corporate sectors in the backdrop of the severe economic crisis which resulted in an erosion of real income levels amid elevated price levels, hindered the debt repayment capacities of households and corporates, the Central Bank said in its Financial Stability Review for the Year 2023. Households […]

Pakistan’s election body has rejected former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s nomination to contest the 2024 parliamentary elections, with Khan’s Pakistan Tahreek-e Insaf (PTI) party accusing authorities of stopping most of its candidates from participating in the elections due in February. The 71-year-old former cricket star, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for corruption, was […]

Sam Bankman-Fried, who once ran one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges and is facing decades in jail, will not face another trial, US prosecutors say. The 31-year-old was found guilty of fraud and money laundering last month. Prosecutors said the “strong public interest” in a resolution of their case against the former billionaire outweighed […]

The Pathfinder Foundation has formed a Study Group of Experts to develop a blueprint and framework aimed at doubling Sri Lanka’s economic growth rate through accelerated economic integration and infrastructural connectivity with India. The framework document is expected to be formally launched in March 2024. Most economic forecasts place Sri Lanka on an average growth trajectory of 3% per […...

One of the key factors that contributed to the exodus of medical specialists from the state sector is the disparity of the total remuneration received by the state medical specialists when compared to parallel grades in the government sector, the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) says. There was always a shortage of medical specialists in […]

Saturday 30th December, 2023 Sri Lankans are gripped by an anticipatory dread of another surge in the cost of living owing to the crippling effect of enhanced VAT and the expansion of its application. Hardly a day passes without people being shown on television cursing the government for the untold suffering it has inflicted on […]

China has named Dong Jun as its new defence minister, two months after his predecessor was officially sacked. Dong, a former navy commander, takes over from Li Shangfu – who was last seen in public in August. Mr Dong’s appointment was announced by China’s top legislators at a Standing Committee meeting of the National People’s […]

Education of about 54.9 percent of Sri Lankan students has been affected by the economic crisis since March 2022, the latest Household Survey on Impact of Economic Crisis – 2023 by the Department of Census and Statistics reveals. Out of the respondents surveyed 93.5 percent have adopted at least one strategy to counter the impact […]

Friday 29th December, 2023 The police are all out to eradicate the scourge of narcotics, and their efforts must not go unappreciated. But it needs to be added that they would not have had to exert themselves in this manner if they had carried out their duties and functions properly over the years. Having let […]

The economic crisis has left a profound impact on household finances, influencing both income and expenditure significantly, a survey conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) has found.