COLOMBO | Xinhua | Sri Lanka’s Education Minister Susil Premajayantha announced on Sunday that starting March 19, a pilot project will be initiated in 20 schools, providing students from Grade 8 the chance to delve into artificial intelligence (AI) within their information technology curriculum. Addressing a public gathering in Colombo, …
Read More »Ranil Wickremesinghe elected as new president of Sri Lanka
Colombo, Sri Lanka | Xinhua | Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected as the new president of Sri Lanka in an election held in parliament on Wednesday. Soon after winning the election, Wickremesinghe addressed the parliament, calling on all legislators including the opposition parliamentarians to unite and work together with him to …
Read More »Sri Lanka crisis
How family rule fails | THE INDEPENDENT | The Rajapaksas; one of Sri Lanka’s most powerful political families, were once revered as liberators. They initiated many urban development projects that pushed their country into the upper middle income status with per capita income of US$3,852 in 2019. Despite that, after …
Read More »Mob rule in Sri Lanka
How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since …
Read More »Sri Lankan president resigns, PM interim president
Colombo, Sri Lanka | Xinhua | Sri Lanka’s Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Friday announced the official resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be sworn in as an interim president. In a media briefing, Speaker Abeywardena said he has received the resignation letter of the president, …
Read More »Sri Lanka’s new president to be elected on July 20: speaker
Colombo, Sri Lanka | Xinhua | Sri Lanka’s speaker of parliament on Monday said political party leaders have decided to elect a new president on July 20 through a vote in parliament. In a statement, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said that following a meeting with all political party leaders, it was …
Read More »Sri Lankan PM agrees to quit after protesters storm president’s residence
Colombo, Sri Lanka | Xinhua | Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has agreed to resign after party leaders in the parliament demanded both he and the president to resign, as protesters stormed the president’s residence and office on Saturday. A statement from the prime minister’s office said Wickremesinghe told …
Read More »Sri Lanka declares Fridays holiday to promote agriculture
Colombo, Sri Lanka | Xinhua | Sri Lanka’s cabinet of ministers has approved a proposal to declare Fridays a holiday for government employees to encourage them to carry out agricultural work to increase production in the country, local media reported on Tuesday. According to a cabinet proposal, the ministers endorsed two key …
Read More »Sri Lankan military authorized to maintain law, order amid unrest
Colombo, Sri Lanka | Xinhua | Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday ordered the country’s armed forces to open fire on anyone looting public property or causing harm to others following a day of violent clashes. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also urged people on Tuesday to remain calm, and refrain from …
Read More »‘Where is God?’: Sri Lankans stunned after deadly blasts
Colombo, Sri Lanka | AFP | As Shantha Prasad carried children wounded in Sri Lanka’s deadly attacks into a Colombo hospital, memories of the country’s deadly civil war flooded back. “I carried about eight wounded children yesterday,” he told AFP on Monday, a day after a string of blasts hit hotels …
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