Tag: sri lanka news

Tourism-reliant Sri Lanka faces backlash over new visa system

May 6, 2024 admin

A fortnight after Sri Lanka switched to a new visa issuing system, authorities are facing a backlash over higher visa costs that could deter tourists, “Indian involvement”, and “corruption” in the subject minister’s push to outsource visa processing. Beginning April 17, 2024, Sri Lanka’s Department of Immigration and Emigration directed travellers to a new visa…

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Deep wounds in Sri Lanka five years since Easter bombings

April 21, 2024 admin

The New Wings activists take part in a silent protest demanding justice of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide attack, in Colombo on April 20, 2024. | Photo Credit: AFP Sri Lanka marks on April 21 five years since Islamist bombers slaughtered 279 people in the island’s deadliest suicide attack, but grieving families say they are…

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Sri Lankan media hit out at Modi’s Katchatheevu remarks

April 2, 2024 admin

A view of Katchatheevu in Sri Lanka. File | Photo Credit: L. BALACHANDAR The Sri Lankan government is yet to comment on the recent remarks by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Katchatheevu, but the island nation’s media took a critical view of the development, while fishermen’s associations urged Sri…

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Sri Lanka Cabinet did not discuss Katchatheevu issue: spokesman

April 2, 2024 admin

A view of Katchatheevu in Sri Lanka. | Photo Credit: L. Balachandar Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has not discussed the Katchatheevu issue so far as it was never raised, a government spokesman said in Colombo on April 2, after India’s ruling BJP blamed the Congress for ceding the tiny island to Colombo in 1974. “The Cabinet…

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Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe releases 234 acres of land in Jaffna for farmers’ use

March 22, 2024 admin

A file photo of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe | Photo Credit: AP Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on March 22 released 234 acres of land, previously held by the Jaffna Security Forces Headquarters, to farmers in the area, a statement said. Jaffna is a Tamil-dominated capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka….

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Chinese vessel begins research off Sri Lankan coast today

October 30, 2023 admin

Chinese research ship Shiyan 6 is seen berthed at Colombo harbor, Sri Lanka, on October 26, 2023. | Photo Credit: AP Chinese research vessel Shiyan 6, which arrived in Colombo last week amid concerns raised by India and the United States, is set to begin its two-day research off the Sri Lankan coast today, Sri…

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Escalating tensions in Gaza under sharp focus in civil war-scarred Sri Lanka

October 18, 2023 admin

Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe. | Photo Credit: Reuters The escalating tensions in Gaza have come under sharp focus in Sri Lanka, an island nation that is struggling to get out of its own devastating civil war, nearly 15 years after it ended. While President Ranil Wickremesinghe recently called for a “four-state” solution involving Israel,…

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Citing ‘inadequate progress’ on rights front, India urges Sri Lanka to keep its promises

September 12, 2023 admin

Sri Lanka is far from reconciling the ethnic conflict even after 14 years since the end of the country’s civil war. | Photo Credit: AFP India on Tuesday said the progress made by Sri Lanka, on its commitment to fulfill the Tamils’ aspirations, was “inadequate” and urged the island nation to “work meaningfully” to keep…

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