Gotabaya Rajapaksa, ousted as the president of Sri Lanka in a popular public uprising in 2022, on Thursday hinted that India was keen on his continuation despite the growing public discontent against him at the behest of certain Western powers. “There was, in fact, a major foreign power that was insisting that I should not … Read more
Ranil Wickremesinghe. File | Photo Credit: AP Dismissing the possibility of an international probe into the 2019 Easter terror attacks, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has reiterated that such an investigation into the incident was not permissible under the country’s law. Responding to Sunday’s editorial in the Catholic Church’s Messenger newspaper titled “An international investigation … Read more
Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was ousted from power last year over his government’s mishandling of the cash-strapped country’s economy, has returned here from Dubai, his first foreign trip since returning to Sri Lanka four months ago. Rajapaksa and wife Ioma arrived at Bandaranaike International Airport here from Dubai on Thursday, the Daily Mirror Lanka … Read more
Sri Lanka’s ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Sri Lanka’s ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country in July last year and then returned after nearly two months, has applied for restoration of his U.S. citizenship after he failed to get asylum in any country, according to a media report. However, … Read more
Ousted Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Sri Lanka’s ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was issued a notice by the Supreme Court on November 24 over a presidential pardon granted by him to a former lawmaker of his party who was convicted in a murder of a party colleague in 2011. Mr. … Read more
India and Sri Lanka held the first round of talks here last week on restructuring the bilateral official debt of the island nation facing economic crisis, according to an official statement on Tuesday. The discussions symbolise India’s support to early conclusion and approval of a suitable IMF Programme for Sri Lanka, for which financing assurances … Read more
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, once considered a “war hero” by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority for crushing the LTTE and ending the nearly 30-year civil war, is now detested by the same people who dramatically stormed his official residence over Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis following which he fled the country in the middle of the night. The … Read more
Sri Lanka’s former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and ex-finance minister Basil Rajapaksa on Thursday gave an undertaking to the Supreme Court through their lawyers that they will not leave the crisis-hit country until the Fundamental Rights petition filed against them is heard on Friday, a media report said on Thursday. A five-judge bench of Lankan … Read more
Sri Lanka’s main Opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) on Monday said it would offer conditional support to the interim all-party government headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to help tackle the country’s crippling economic and political crisis. Wickremesinghe, the United National Party (UNP) leader was appointed as Sri Lanka’s 26th prime minister on Thursday … Read more
The ancestral home of the Rajapaksas in Hambantota has been set on fire by a group of anti-government protestors, hours after Mahinda Rajapaksa, the patriarch of the powerful clan resigned on Monday in response to mounting demand for his ouster as Sri Lanka’s prime minister. Video footage showed the entire Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and … Read more