President commends ICTA, Microsoft for removing language barriers in computer applications with the launch of Sinhala interface pack

Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Monday expressed his optimism that Sri Lanka “is poised for greater economic growth and development” and expressed the global giant’s support since much of future prosperity would be fueled by the use of software and the power of IT.

Government plans on rebuilding road network in the North   

The reconstruction of 85 kilometer Mannar - Pooneryn A-32 road has commenced. The project will be completed in several stages. Meanwhile, a feasibility study on constructing the Kandy-Jaffna A-9 highway is now underway.

*Rs.3,000 m earmarked to be disbursed initially under loan scheme

*Loan Scheme envisages meeting investment needs of people

President Mahinda Rajapaksa officially launched a Special Development Credit Scheme titled ‘Awakening North’ which is exclusively designed for the development of the Northern Province by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) at a meeting at Temple Trees yesterday with CEOs of Banking Institutions to discuss the contribution of the banking sector in the Northern Province development.

(Colombo-Lankapuvath-July 14) – President Mahinda Rajapaksa who left the country to attend the 15th sessions of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is expected to arrive in Egypt today, July 14.

The Non- Alignment’s session in Sharm El-Sheikh, organized under the theme of ‘International Cooperation and Peace for Development’. Over 118 member countries and its heads of state are scheduled to participate in the inaugural session of the NAM 15th assembly.

Speaking at the NAM Ministerial Meeting at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on 13 July Foreign Minister Bogollagama praised Sri Lanka’s heroic security forces for defeating the world’s deadliest terrorist group and rescuing civilians and securing fully the north and the east of Sri Lanka. “This achievement was possible because of the single-minded commitment, vision and perseverance of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has reunified Sri Lanka under one flag, further strengthening its territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty, as well as the liberties of people in the north and the east.”

The Export-Import (EXIM) Bank of China has agreed to provide assistance to Sri Lanka to rebuild the northern region liberated from the LTTE recently.

Visit by ministers to Jaffna bears fruit  

By Santhush Fernando  

Minister of Trade, Marketing Development, Co-operatives and Consumer Services, Bandula Gunawardene, has assured Jaffna consumers of the availability of consumer goods at fair prices with the setting up three Co-op City outlets by end of this month. The Minister stated during a ministerial delegation visit to Jaffna this week.

Investors go for high-rise buildings in Jaffna

by Shirajiv SIRIMANE  

Several local and foreign investors have shown an interest in infrastructure projects and are also keen on constructing high-rise buildings in the Jaffna peninsula. These are for mixed development projects where housing and offices would be combined.

The Department of Examinations will issue special Identity Cards for over 1,000 candidates including 42 ex-LTTE combatants at the Vavuniya and Chettikulam IDP centres to enable them to sit for the G.C.E (AL) examination this August, the Defence Ministry said.

The United Nations agencies and International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) have observed a significant improvement in humanitarian access to IDP sites in the North.  

While commending the improved facilities at camps for the displaced, the report noted a decreased military presence inside the camps.

The international community was horrified by news reports in the Times of London on July 9^th 2009 that over 1,400 people were dying each week in Welfare Centres in Sri Lanka. The Times continues to conceal its sources. This time the allegation is attributed to ‘Senior international aid figures’, though the figure was decried as ‘Ridiculous’ by the UN Resident Coordinator in Colombo.

The above headline is clearly an exaggeration, but it is based on the style of reporting adopted recently by the Times of London in its coverage of Sri Lanka. Following its extraordinary assertion, at the end of May, that over 20,000 had been killed in the conflict area, it seemed necessary to examine the motives behind such whopping untruths. The investigation revealed a culture of secretiveness and propagandist zeal that is not of course novel, given the role that some newspapers have played in the past in supporting British adventurism, as instigated by particular political parties.

By Jyoti Thottam / Colombo   

Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) came to a dramatic end in May with a decisive military victory and the killing of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers' fearsome leader. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is the man who tamed the Tigers. Now his task is to heal a nation still divided by tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. In a rare, wide-ranging interview, Rajapaksa, 63, talked with TIME's Jyoti Thottam at the President's official compound in Colombo on July 10.

by Dayan Jayatilleka

A former Israeli Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin

"The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living." - Marx, 1852 

Malinda Seneviratne has history on his mind, perfectly illustrating Marx’s point in the 18th Brumaire that "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living." I on the other hand am animated by concern about "the present situation and our tasks", "the concrete analysis of the concrete situation" (Lenin), "turning one’s face violently to the present (Gramsci) and "the fierce urgency of now" (Martin Luther King, Barack Obama). Justice CG Weeramantry, animated by a nobler, more refined version of the same concern, has given us a warning in his two part essay published a few days ago in the Daily Mirror.

National Security Advisor: Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda

New Commanders :

Army:Major General Jagath Jayasuriya

Navy: Rear Admiral Tisara Samarasinghe

We, the Ministers, responsible for the matters related to children, of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Member States, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, having assembled at the Fourth SAARC Ministerial Conference on Children in Colombo on 10 July 2009.

In light of the 1996 SAARC Rawalpindi Resolution on Children in South Asia, whereby the SAARC Ministers declared 2001-2010 as the Decade of the Rights of the Child and, inter alia, agreed to eliminate child labour, initiate and strengthen community based social support systems, reduce the Under-5 Child Mortality Rate, lessen the severe and moderate malnutrition and enable all children of primary school age to complete school;

All plans are afoot to hold the annual feast of Our Lady of Madhu on a grand scale from August 6, with Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa MP, personally monitoring the arrangements for the convenience of pilgrims.

by Dayan Jayatilleka 

The postwar moment is a hinge point in history. If we go one way Sri Lanka can make up for "lost opportunities" (as Kethesh Loganathan, martyred by the Tigers, entitled his book), and catch up with the Asian miracle. If we go another way we can enter a new cycle of conflict which will keep us stagnant and debilitated, jeopardizing even the achievements of our recent military victory. Depending on the choices we make now, the direction we take, we can have it all or not.

The recently appointed new Chief Justice (CJ) in Sri Lanka says he is ready to reform the way judicial services are administered in Sri Lanka.  

In the first ever interview with the media since taking office last month, new CJ Asoka de Silva told BBC Sandeshaya that he will soon announce reforms to the Judicial Services commission (JSC) that controls transfers and disciplinary action within the judiciary.

Dharma Sri ABEYRATNE  

UNICEF has donated ten Gully bowzers to the Ministry of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services to be used for improving hygienic facilities at the IDP villages in Vavuniya, Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said.