Admiral R Hari Kumar, Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Indian Navy arrived in Colombo on 12 December 2022 , on a four-day official visit to Sri Lanka, at the invitation of Vice Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne, Commander of Sri Lanka Navy. Rear Admiral Priyantha Perera, Chief of Staff, Sri Lanka Navy warmly welcomed CNS on his arrival.

2.     During the visit, CNS is scheduled to call on President H.E. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister H.E Dinesh Gunawardena and Minister of State for Defence Hon’ble Premitha Bandara Tennakoon. Other engagements include meetings with Defence Secretary, Chief of Defence Staff and Service Commanders. The Admiral will be the Chief Guest at the passing out parade of Naval and Maritime Academy, Trincomalee on 15 December 2022.

3.     Indigenous Indian Naval Ship Sahyadri, a multi-role missile frigate of the Indian Navy is also scheduled to make port call at Colombo on 13 December 2022 to complement the visit of the Indian Navy chief. The ship would engage in training engagements with Sri Lanka Navy and participate in Maritime Partnership Exercises with Sri Lanka Navy.

4.     It may be recalled that Indian Navy shared close interactions with Sri Lanka Navy during annual exercise SLINEX 21 in March 2022. Further, Indian Navy provided a maritime reconnaissance aircraft to Sri Lanka Air Force in August 2022 to augment its maritime capabilities. Indian Navy is also providing customised and specialised training to Sri Lanka Navy including in marine technology.

5.     The visit of CNS symbolises strong relations and close cooperation between the two countries, with Sri Lanka being accorded the status of ‘Priority One’ partner by India. It would strengthen the existing bilateral maritime relations between the two countries and areas of common security concern and enhancing capacity and capability building initiatives towards ensuring peace in the region would be discussed during the visit. The visit is also indicative of the growing camaraderie and friendship between the two nations in line with India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.

Colombo

13 December 2022

Public awareness in relation to defrauding individuals through scam calls, text messages, email messages and social media networks.

In recent times, a rapid increase in the number of complaints filed by aggrieved parties has been observed in relation to defrauding money from individuals by giving false information through fraudulent phone calls, text messages, e-mail messages and social media networks, promising to direct them to foreign employment or asking them to pay customs duties to receive parcels containing various valuable goods.

Therefore, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) hereby emphasizes to the public not to deposit money into the bank accounts of unknown parties or remit money through other means based on the above information, without proper verification.

Further, the scammers who engage in such practices, may request the following information from you in order to proceed with such transactions: • Personal Identification Number (PIN); • Card Verification Values (CVV) used to authenticate payment cards as stated on the back of the cards; • One-Time Passwords (OTP) used to authenticate transactions; • User IDs, Passwords and OTPs used in mobile banking/internet banking.

Therefore, the FIU further emphasizes to the public that such confidential information should not be shared with any third party and to be vigilant of such scams. Also, providing such details will surely make you/your family member/your close friend, a victim of a financial scam. If you receive these types of phone calls or text messages, please inform the FIU through 011-2477125 or 011-2477509.

The Central Bank has received information regarding several types of financial frauds and scams being operated through social media, and Internet-based applications. Recently, an increase of these types of scams has been observed.

Most of these scams are conducted through easy loan schemes that attract the public. During such fraudulent loan approval processes, the fraudsters lure the public to share confidential customer information such as their bank account numbers and the customer’s personal identification numbers.

The fraudsters then use such confidential information to access customer accounts and steal customers’ money.

The public is reminded to obtain real-time notification services, such as SMS alerts from their Banks or non-bank financial institutions such as finance companies, so that they would become aware of any fraudulent activity that takes place using their accounts, instantly.

The Central Bank strongly advises the public to be vigilant about these frauds and scams and not to share any confidential information, especially account usernames, passwords, PINs, OTPs or other information required for account verification, with anyone.

Such information must be used only by the customer who owns the account. Customers must also carefully read the terms and conditions of any financial product or service, before accepting them.

The enrolment of Grade 01 students is carried out by each school and the Ministry of Education has no involvement in the process, the Ministry said in a statement.

In the meantime, students applying for Advanced Levels based on their 2022 Ordinary Levels Examination results from schools that have no Advanced Level Education ought to submit their applications directly to schools that do have Advanced Level Education, and no application shall be sent to the Ministry given that the Ministry of Education makes no interference in the application process, it added.

The enrolment of students for intermediate classes in 2022 has stopped effective from 05.12.2022 which commenced the third term of this year. Accordingly, the enrolment of students for intermediate classes in 2022 will be carried out by considering the applications sent to fill out vacancies in schools after the end of the third term of 2022 on March 24, 2023.

As of now, the aforementioned affairs are being carried out solely based on the circulars issued by the Ministry in this regard, the announcement added.

MIAP