Latest Sri Lanka News and Top Stories

(Reuters) – Voters in northern Sri Lanka go to the polls on Saturday in a provincial election that threatens to stir up old animosity between the government and ethnic minority Tamils. Defeat for the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa would be largely symbolic, but victory for the main Tamil party could reignite calls for autonomy. […]

Election propaganda activities pertaining to the Northern, Central and North Western Provincial Council polls ended from midnight yesterday (18). […]

The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) made the biggest raid in its history when officers recovered a huge consignment of expired food items which could be worth nearly Rs 100 million from a large storage in Kotahena yesterday. […]

HT: Mr. Rajapaksa, in May 2009, your government and army managed to do something all previous governments in Sri Lanka had failed to do: end the 30-year-long civil war – one of the most brutal in the world – and decimate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). What did you and your army do […]

The first killing related to the forthcoming provincial council election was reported from Puthukuduirippu, in Mullaitivu when a supporter of the UPFA was clubbed to death by other UPFA supporters on Monday night, sources said. […]

UPFA Chief Ministerial aspirant and former UNP MP Dayasiri Jayasekara yesterday warned that there could be a ‘computer Jilmaat’ when the votes were counted after the forthcoming PC polls in the Nortthwestern Province. […]

Former Police DIG Vaas Gunawardena has been granted bail over charges of soliciting a bribe to release a suspect in the murder case of Kelaniya PS member Hasitha Madawala. […]

At least four people were killed and more than 36 injured in three separate accidents at Dambulla last night. Police said three persons travelling on a motorbike were killed when the bike collided with a lorry in the Dambulla town. […]

The Defence Ministry has called for a full report on the three soldiers who searched the lorry parked near the Kotahena police since 1996, after the detection of 120 kilos of TNT explosives secreted in its chassis last week. […]

The train service on the reconstructed Northern railway line began operations from Omanthai to Kilinochchi, after 23 years Saturday (14). Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa launched the ‘Yal Devi’ train service  that departed from Omanthai, travelling as the first passenger   and arrived in  the former LTTE strong-hold, Kilinochchi. […]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa inaugurated the Chunnakam Grid substation connecting the Jaffna peninsula with the national grid after a lapse of two decades, Saturday (14) evening. […]

The Diaspora Tamils want the poor people of Sri Lanka to take up arms to further their (the diaspora’s) ideology, while sending their own children to universities in developed countries to enter lucrative professions, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa told Greg Sheridan in an interview with The Australian newspaper. […]

One hundred and twenty kilos of TNT had been found on Thursday, hidden in the chassis of a lorry parked near the Kotahena police for the past 17 years. […]

The Sri Lankan rupee was steady on Friday as dollar sales by banks offset importer demand for the greenback, with dealers expecting the rupee to appreciate in the short term due to $750 million in inflows from a bond sale by a state-owned bank. […]

Government Spokesman and the Minister for Media and Information, Keheliya Rambukwella, said the government will take action against the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) election manifesto, as it contravenes the Constitution of Sri Lanka. […]

(Reuters) – The government of Sri Lanka has approved a hotel and leisure resort deal with Australian gambling tycoon James Packer’s Crown Ltd, but the investment is likely to increase from the original $350 million, the country’s investment promotion minister told Reuters on Thursday. The finalisation of the deal was delayed because the Sri Lankan […]