The Chief Incumbent of the Sri Sambuddha Jayanthi Bodhiraja Viharaya in Trincomalee, Venerable Kalyanawansa Tissa Thera, has filed a writ petition before the Court of Appeal seeking an order to prevent the demolition of a section of the temple premises.
The Sri Lankan Report
Evidence related to the Easter Sunday attacks has been destroyed, but that will not stop the government from uncovering the truth behind the carnage, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament today.
Representatives of the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) met President Anura Kumara Dissanayake today to discuss a series of long-standing issues affecting medical specialists.
The Defence Ministry’s expenditure head was approved today by a majority of 92 votes, with 101 MPs voting in favor, while 9 MPs representing Tamil parties from the North and East voted against it.
A 68-year-old man and his 59-year-old wife were shot dead in Tangalle this evening, in a brazen attack that has shocked residents of the coastal town.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament yesterday that a renewed investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks is now underway, stressing that previous attempts to uncover the truth were deliberately obstructed when political groups suspected of involvement assumed power. The President said investigators are currently analysing phone records, connections, and other technical data to identify the masterminds behind the attacks, adding that evidence must be re-established in court after years of suppression. He said the Easter Attacks should have been investigated when memories and evidence were still fresh, but the process stalled due to political interference. According to the…
The Colombo Stock Exchange witnessed another weak trading session on Tuesday (18th November 2025), with the ASPI declining 172.02 points (-0.72%) to close at 23,051.66, extending its pullback from the all-time high of 23,769.5. Market sentiment remained cautious as investors continued to lock in profits, while selective buying emerged in fundamentally strong counters amid the broader market correction.
Parts of the web appear to have stopped working amid a technical problem at Cloudflare.
The National People’s Power (NPP) secured control of the Seethawaka Pradeshiya Sabha today with the election of P.K. Premaratne as chairman, in a vote supervised by Western Province Local Government Commissioner Sarangika Jayasundara.
The low pressure area over the island is moving away, its influence on the island’s weather is gradually reducing. A fresh low pressure area is likely to form over southeast Bay of Bengal around 22nd of November. This low pressure area may intensify further and likely to move near the Northern coast of Sri Lanka. Navel and fishing communities, the general public, particularly living in the Northern and Eastern provinces are requested to be attentive to the future forecasts and bulletins issued by the Department of Meteorology in this regards. The post Weather special bulletin: Two key updates appeared first…
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that credible threats had been identified in Arugam Bay last year, which the National Security Council immediately thwarted. Addressing Parliament today, the President said that at the time when security concerns were raised, officials, worked tirelessly to ensure national security. “The National Security Council was convened twice, at 1 am and 7 am. It was convened through Zoom. I was in Dambulla, when we received all the information. We were able to prevent it,” Dissanayake said. Dismissing criticisms on how the matter was handled, the President said “There truly was evidence to point to an…
A shooting incident has taken place this afternoon (18) in the Unakuruwa area of Tangalle. Two persons have lost their lives in the shooting reported in the Kapuhena Junction area of Tangalle Unakuruwa. This shooting took place around 6:55 p.m. today. The deceased are a husband and wife aged 68 and 59. (Newswire) The post Couple shot dead in Tangalle appeared first on Newswire.
The Budget Heads of the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs passed by a majority vote Today (18), on the third day of the Committee Stage of the Appropriation Bill for the year 2026, the budget head of the Ministry of Defence (103) taken up for debate, was passed by a 92 majority of votes, with amendments. Following the debate of the Committee Stage held today at around 6:50 pm, Member of Parliament of the All-Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) G. G. Ponnambalam, called for a division for the budget head of the Ministry of Defence,…
A discussion with the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) took place today at the Parliament, presided over by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. During the meeting, the President stressed the importance of protecting the economic stability we have achieved and highlighted that rebuilding the country requires cooperation from all sides. He also noted that strengthening the health service remains a key priority of the government and assured that the concerns raised will be addressed in a practical and responsible manner. AMS raised concerns about their service constitution, and the government agreed to complete the drafting of this within the next two…
The President said the government’s policy is to build a defence force capable of responding to emerging technical threats, particularly in cyberspace, while also strengthening the country’s maritime and airspace security capabilities. He made these remarks while dismissing concerns that communal tensions or racist conflicts could escalate into armed conflict. He also outlined the support being extended to Sri Lanka’s security forces by India and the United States. India has provided 70 jeeps along with a range of technical assistance, and has proposed supporting the establishment of a technical academy to enhance the skill levels of the armed forces. The…
Social media platform X was down for thousands of users, according to Downdetector. More than 5,600 people reported issues with the social media platform on Tuesday morning. Cloudflare, a web infrastructure company, also had problems impacting other services. It is unclear whether the outages were related. “We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem. More updates to follow shortly,” Cloudfare said on its status page. It later added: “We are seeing services recover, but customers may continue to observe higher-than-normal error rates as we continue remediation efforts.” OpenAI, Facebook, AWS (Amazon Web Services), bet365, Canva, Spotify,…
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake today said that the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security has been instructed to call for a full report on the incident surrounding the removal of a Buddha statue from a Dhamma School premises in Trincomalee. Addressing the matter publicly for the first time, the President said the issue should not be turned into “another round of old racist drama,” pointing out that attempts to provoke ethnic tensions belong to the country’s past and must not shape its future. He said certain individuals were attempting to continue agitating despite the original issue already being resolved,…
ECONOMYNEXT – Internet sites including X.com is experiencing outages, report said, with automatic messages pointing to a cloudflare error. Cloudflare provides services including caching to speed up websites and security. EconomyNext is also experiencing intermittent outages, pointing to error code 500 (a server side error) linked to cloudflare.
Sri Lanka’s hopes of breaking a decades-long winless run against Thailand were dashed today after suffering a heavy 4–0 defeat in Colombo. Coming into the match with history already against them — having never beaten Thailand in seven previous meetings since 1979 — the home side faced immense pressure before a packed crowd at one of the country’s premier football venues. Head coach Abdulla Al Mutairi’s men entered the game as South Asia’s sole remaining representatives, with regional teams such as India, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Brunei, Bhutan and Pakistan already eliminated. However, the task proved too difficult against the world’s…
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Cabinet of Ministers has approved a proposal by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to table the gazetted Public Debt Management Regulations to the parliament for approval. Sri Lanka’s Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) was established in January 2024 under the Ministry of Finance and formally operationalised through the Public Debt Management Act. The PDMO’s will cover the roles previously scattered across the Central Bank, External Resources Department, and Treasury with an aim of eliminating policy conflicts, enhance transparency, and align borrowing with the medium-term debt strategy targets including cut in central government debt-to-GDP to below 95 percent…