Mar 19 (FT) The seas must remain open to all nations, governed not by force but by the rule of law. Principle reflected in modern international maritime law. The reported submarine attack on an Iranian naval vessel close to SL’s southern maritime approaches raises important questions under int'l maritime law and neutrality doctrine. For Sri Lanka, located at the crossroads of one of the world’s most important maritime corridors, the stability of surrounding seas is a matter of national interest more..

Mar 19 (FT) The questions on our minds these days are manifold. They range from the practical to the philosophical. Where did the good years go? Will fuel stocks be sufficient, despite/because of the fuel quota? And is there a blessed end in sight to this wretched war that arguably heralds a desperate empire in decline? A US-Israeli war on Iran – or is it another game of oil and fire to choke China and Russia? – has a current strategic shape that holds out some hope in regard to the end of a conflict. more..

Mar 19 (DM) Fresh controversy has erupted over the country’s fuel reserves after trade unions warned that SL has diesel stocks for only about 18 days, despite having the capacity to store enough fuel for nearly three months, while petrol stocks are sufficient for about one and a half months. Situation has raised serious concerns about energy security and stock management. Trade union representatives said the country currently more..

Mar 19 (AD) US Govt has commenced transferring a total of 10 TH-57 Sea Ranger helicopters to the SL Air Force, the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington D.C. stated. The Embassy confirmed that the batch of TH-57 Sea Ranger helicopters, received as a donation, departed the US to Sri Lanka. Prior to the shipment, a SL Air Force delegation, including Group Captain Iranga Gunasinghe, Group Captain Nalaka Etipola, and Squadron Leader Chamara Dissanayake, visited the U.S in January. more..

Mar 19 (TM) Two ships carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) docked yesterday morning at the Thaldiyawatta gas unloading jetty in Uswetakeiyawa. Unloading operations at the depot have already commenced. Additionally, a fuel tanker also arrived in the country yesterday. Prez Anura Kumara Dissanayake highlighted that Sri Lanka has already imported 38,000 MT of LPG this month (March). Another shipment of 33,000 MT of LPG is expected to arrive over the next two days, more..

Mar 19 (EN) Sri Lanka’s tea industry is navigating a deepening crisis as prolonged conflict in West Asia has jeopardized the island nation’s top export commodity, tea. Since the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28, Red Sea turmoil has transitioned from a logistical delay to a systemic threat. High-value teas are becoming unsellable, and Port of Colombo warehouses are reaching maximum capacity, top exporters say. more..

Mar 19 (FT) The Ministry of Public Admin, PCs and Local Govt has issued a circular setting out new guidelines for the continuation of Govt office operations, aimed at conserving fuel amid the ongoing crisis. The directive, issued to ministry secretaries, provincial chief secretaries, heads of departments and heads of State corporations and statutory bodies, outlines adjustments to work scheduling following the decision to grant public servants leave on Wednesdays. more..

Mar 19 (DM) Former SLC secretary Nishantha Ranatunga has conveyed to ex-Sports Minister Navin Dissanayake that what he (Minister) did in 2015 by preventing him (Ranatunga) from contesting an election of office bearers of SLC paved the way for the gradual demise of the national team on the international stage. Ranatunga made the remarks in an open letter to Dissanayake who in a Social media post stated that he (Dissanayake) regretted disallowing Ranatunga from contesting SLC more..

Mar 19 (NW) Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) has decided to temporarily suspend the collection of parking fees for vehicles entering Colombo City. Addressing the media, CMC officials stated that the decision will be implemented with immediate effect until further notice. They further stated that the decision was taken in view of the ongoing fuel supply issue in the country, resulting from the conflict in the Middle East region. CMC’s Financial Committee has agreed to this decision, more..

Mar 19 (TM) Russian Embassy in Colombo clarified yesterday that no financial or logistical matters were discussed during recent talks on potential energy supplies to Sri Lanka, pushing back against a wave of speculation surrounding the meeting. Embassy said that discussions between Russian Ambassador L. Dzhagaryan and senior officials of SL’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had not progressed to any concrete arrangements. However, the Embassy stressed that it continues to work on more..

Mar 19 (TM) Multi-day boat owners are bleeding up to Rs. 4 million per vessel as the Govt’s troubled QR code-based fuel rationing system begins to take a heavy toll on the fisheries sector, with daily fishermen left unable to head out to sea for want of fuel even as fish prices remain high. President of All Island Multiday Fishing Boat Owners' Association, Tyrone Mendis, lamented that while multi-day boats are getting their full fuel ration more..

Mar 19 (TM) The New Zealand ‘A’ team will arrive in Sri Lanka in April 2026 to play three One Day matches and two Four-Day games, SLC announced in a media release. The team is scheduled to arrive in the country on 2 April. SLC stated that it will use this tour to prepare national players for upcoming international assignments while also providing an opportunity to young and emerging players and keep them ready to compete at the highest level of the game when the opportunity arises. more..

Mar 19 (NW) Amir of the State of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received a telephone call from Prez Anura Kumara Dissanayake. At the beginning of the call, the president inquired about the situation in Qatar, expressing his country’s solidarity and support in light of the ongoing Iranian aggression against Qatar and other countries in the region. For his part, the Amir reassured the president about the well-being of the SL community in Qatar, affirming the State’s care and concern more..

Mar 19 (FT) The Ministry of Education has issued special guidelines for schools to ensure continuity of teaching and administration while reducing energy consumption amid ongoing fuel constraints. Under the new measures, all schools will operate four days a week, with Wednesdays designated as a holiday until further notice. Principals have been instructed to assign exercises, revisions and other activities to enable students to continue learning from home on those days. more..

Mar 19 (FT) Globally celebrated and one of the most successful stand-up comedians in the world Russell Peters will perform live on 31 March 2026 at 6 p.m. at the Lumina ballroom at Cinnamon Life at City of Dreams, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The one-night-only performance in Sri Lanka is part of Russell’s latest RELAX World Tour and will bring his signature style of comedy to Colombo and enthral SL audience with his sharp wit, cultural observations, and high-energy storytelling. more..

~Mar 19 (FT) SL’s tourism sector has begun to feel the strain of the escalating Middle East conflict, with visitor arrivals during the first 15 days of March falling 5.15% year-on-year (YoY), even as cumulative figures for 2026 remain firmly in positive territory. The country attracted 92,573 visitors between 1 and 15 March, as airspace closures, airport shutdowns and rising jet fuel costs disrupted key transit routes and dampened travel flows. more..

Mar 19 (DM) ​The SL govt has initiated the preliminary discussions with Emirates and Qatar Airways to utilise Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport as an alternative transit hub, as the escalating geopolitical tensions continue to paralyse the primary aviation networks in the Middle East. ​The tourism and aviation officials confirmed that both the Middle Eastern carriers have expressed strong interest in repositioning some of their operations to the southern Sri Lankan airport. more..

Mar 19 (FT) EDB Chairman Mangala Wijesinghe underscored a priority program aimed at ensuring exporters receive essential fuel supplies without delay amid ongoing energy constraints. He said the Industry and Entrepreneurship Ministry is currently collecting critical operational data from exporters to facilitate targeted allocations. “If you haven’t submitted your information yet, do so immediately,” Wijesinghe urged at a media briefing, highlighting the EDB’s role in coordinating and expediting more..

Mar 19 (DN) Sri Lanka is set to send a squad of 14 athletes to India following an invitation from the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). The team will compete in the National Open Relay Championship in Chandigarh on March 28. SL will field two men’s 4x400m relay teams and one women’s 4x400m relay team. Men’s 4x400m Team A features Aruna Dharshana, Kalhara Indupa, Pasindu Kodikara, and Sadeera Wimansa Rajapaksa. Aruna Dharshana, who represented SL at the Tokyo Olympics, more..

Mar 19 (ST) The prevailing hot weather affecting several parts of the country is expected to continue until next week, with elevated temperatures likely to persist until May, the Meteorological Department warns. The country is experiencing sunny to partly cloudy conditions, with scattered clouds and occasional passing showers, particularly in the afternoons or evenings. The Met Dept Director General, Athula Karunayaka, said Sri Lanka is currently facing hot weather, even though more..

Mar 19 (FT) Fitch Ratings said it does not expect SL’s sovereign rating to face severe downside pressure from the ongoing global energy shock linked to the escalating Middle East conflict, although it could blunt recent improvements in credit metrics. “SL is quite vulnerable to energy price shocks. However, we think of it perhaps more as blunting some positive improvements in credit metrics that we’ve seen over past few years, more..

Mar 19 (FT) SL Tourism has launched an aggressive push into India’s high-value travel segments, rolling out immediate roadshows in Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, as it seeks to capitalise on shifting regional travel dynamics and geopolitical uncertainties in the Middle East. SLTPB Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam said on Tuesday that the strategy is designed to tap into India’s fast-growing outbound MICE & destination wedding segments, particularly at a time when traditional hubs more..

Mar 19 (TM) For years, Finland has been held up as a model education system. Its emphasis on equity, well-trained teachers and student wellbeing has earned global admiration. Yet, even Finland is now sounding a note of caution. Faced with rising concerns over children’s mental health, excessive screen exposure, and the influence of social media, it has begun to draw firmer boundaries around the digital lives of young people. That shift should give countries like SL pause, more..

Mar 19 (ST) More than a thousand people are still living in temporary displacement camps in the districts of Kegalle, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya, three months after Cyclone Ditwah. Many affected are still waiting for permanent housing solutions. Secretary of the Ministry of Public Admin, Home Affairs, PCs, LG, and Labour, Aloka Bandara, said that “The recovery process is complicated and will take time. We are also trying to balance more..

Mar 19 (FT) Impact Hallmarks (IH) has announced the nomination of 20 distinguished icons from South Asia and China for the international opinion poll of the Quarticentennial Merited Impacts Gazette (2000-2025), a global initiative aimed at documenting the most meritorious and transformative contributions of the first quarter of the 21st century. The nominations form part of the official launch of the opinion poll under the theme The Mirror of Rectitude, chronicling 181 icons shortlisted more..

Mar 19 (Island) A large-scale move to establish solar power plants in Hambantota has triggered a major environmental and social crisis, with more than 1,000 acres of forest—identified as critical elephant habitat—cleared in violation of the law, environmental activist Sajeewa Chamikara said. Chamikara, speaking on behalf of the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform, said that 17 companies have already begun clearing forest land along the boundaries of the Hambantota more..

Mar 19 (Island) Whenever the JVP-NPP govt gets into hot water, Prez Anura Kumara Dissanayake rushes to Parliament and makes special statements; the CID and the national anti-graft commission try to pull a rabbit out of the hat to distract the public. While the govt is drawing heavy flak for mismanaging the current fuel quota system, with long queues of vehicles persisting near filling stations, CIABOC has recorded a statement from former Prez Gotabaya Rajapaksa on more..

Mar 19 (CT) Nations do not collapse only through coups or revolutions. Sometimes they decay quietly and progressively, through the gradual erosion of ethics that once restrained power. SL’s political journey since 2005 is a story not of dramatic constitutional collapse, but of a slow normalization of lawlessness where the law increasingly became a tool of politics rather than an instrument to maintain a just society. The years following the end of the civil war in 2009 should have marked more..

~Mar 19 (SO) The recent sinking of the Iranian warship IRIS Dena by a US-flagged submarine off the coast of SL pushed the island nation to the epicentre of a diplomatic and environmental crisis of unprecedented proportions. Yet the incident, the first of its kind since the end of WWII, also highlighted the ecological and environmental crisis that the ever deteriorating international law and rules of war in the Indian Ocean poses to Sri Lanka. more..

Mar 19 (ST) Years ago, I lived in the suburbs of Colombo and commuted daily to the Uni of Colombo in a 45‑minute journey. By the main road, on one side there was a rubber estate, the other – a residential area. Early in the morning, some motorists on bikes, tuk‑tuks, cars, and vans would bring their household trash in polythene bags and toss them over the fence into the estate. Though no one lived there, the garbage became a nuisance for the villagers opposite: heaps of waste, more..

Mar 19 (SO) SL figured in a classic new age geopolitical drama involving two Iranian maritime vessels last week. One of the Iranian ships (IRIS Dena) was torpedoed by a US submarine and the surviving sailors were rescued by the SL Navy (SLN). Ever since these events transpired, interested parties have evinced an interest in getting the SL Govt to skirt the extremes. Some wanted the Govt to come down heavily on the side of the Iranians and there were others who implied more..

Mar 19 (TM) As several countries that were early adopters of digital learning begin restricting devices in schools, questions are being raised about the role of technology in classrooms and what this means for countries like SL. While many countries leant heavily into digital learning in previous years by introducing laptops, tablets, and educational apps in efforts to modernise learning, some are now gradually reversing these more..