01. President Ranil Wickremesinghe says a separate unit would be established to send military personnel overseas to help out at the times of health disasters, in commencement of a new chapter in military medicine.
02. NPP vows people in millions will be brought to Colombo today in objection to the RW-led regime responsible for unlawfully and unconstitutionally delaying the Local Government Polls and violating the rights of the people: Meanwhile, trade unions and activists to declare March 01, 2023 ‘a day of strike’; The union of high-level professionals says the negotiations with the President ended without an agreement and therefore the strike action will be held as planned.
03. Education Minister Susil Premjayanth caught on live calling Opposition MP Rohini Wijeratne an obscene word during a parliamentary debate: Activists vehemently condemn the Minister’s actions and demand apology; call for immediate reforms in the ‘patriarchal’ parliamentary tradition where men are allowed to objectify women.
04. Development agencies including ADB, WB and JICA, agree to extend support for restructuring the CEB: Their assistance includes; enrolment of foreign and domestic experts in energy, finance and legal fields to expedite the implementation of the process, obtainment of necessary support for separation of generation, transmission and distribution of power, conducting of audits related to finance and energy, human resource management, establishment and adaptation of public-private business models, legislation and drafting, research required for the restructuring process, implementation of generation plans based on renewable energy and required communications, and technical and financial support to maintain a plan office till the completion of the programme.
05. Finance State Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya says 53 per cent of the payments that should have been settled by the Government of Sri Lanka have been settled in the past few months; assures Rs. 191 billion have been spent on it and another significant portion has to be paid for renovations and capital expenses in the future.
06. A Police OIC, a sergeant and two constables attached to the Katunayake Bandaranaike International Airport’s Police Station arrested over the failure to contain a person wanted for producing counterfeit documents to leave for Dubai during apprehension; the suspect is believed to have connections to a number of crimes including murder and is under an overseas travel ban.
07. Martin Raiser, a Deputy Chairman of the WB, pays a visit to Sri Lanka to observe the progress achieved by the Primary Healthcare System in Sri Lanka and provide support for future activities: Former DGHS and current Director of the WB Project to Empower the Primary Healthcare System of the Health Ministry Dr. Jayasundara Bandara says the Deputy Chairman will visit the regional hospitals of Marawila and Chilaw and pay attention on providing quality services amidst the economic crisis.
08. The three-member Committee chaired by Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda appointed by ex President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to probe into the violence occurred on May 09, 2022 determines Chief of Defence Staff General Shavendra Silva has neglected his duties in not taking necessary action to prevent the events: Committee recommendations handed over to the Appeal Court.
09. SLT-MOBITEL Enterprise partners with VMware Inc. to launch Sri Lanka’s first ever VCF Cloud Deployment and double VCF Cloud, as a testament to the company’s commitment to providing customers the highest level of technical expertise, reliability and security to accelerating the island nation’s digital infrastructure: VMware is a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control.
10. Probe carried out by a group of professors of the Anthropology Department of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura reveals the crops in the wet zones have decreased significantly due to climate change and the decline in the population of animals that contribute to pollination such as bees and wasps: Senior Lecturer of the University Dr. Ravindra Withanachchi says the probe was conduced over a period of one and a half years after interviewing the farmers of about 600 villages in the wet zone.
