Srilanka

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, during a discussion at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday , has advised the authorities to expedite surveying of the land units.President stated that the government has identified a total of 14mn land units and during the last 20 years 10% of it has been surveyed.President added that he would facilitate the process and instructed the remaining 90% of the land units to be surveyed immediately.

India, as a trusted partner in Sri Lankadevelopment efforts, will increase cooperation with Sri Lanka on enhancing economic, business, and investment relations, people-to-people connectivity and regional security, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said meeting with Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa.The Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is on an official visit to India, and his delegation met with Prime Minister Modi Saturday at the Hyderabad House in Delhi for bilateral discussions.

No Sri Lankan has so far tested positive for the Coronavirus disease, the Health Ministry said yesterday in its latest assessment of the impact of the potentially deadly disease on the country. The only ‘positive& case so far has been the Chinese woman who was swiftly treated at the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), Mulleriyawa and is now listed as ‘recovering&, although the Health authorities are still keeping her under observation in hospital.

On January 3, many parts of the country faced unexpected and unannounced two-hour power cuts. Though the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) had warned that power cuts during the month of March would be a possibility due to several factors, the earlier than expected power cuts had left the public disgruntled.Many even complained to the authorities. At least on the face of it, this was a sign of the deepening power crisis in the country.The CEB is said to be currently in a deep financial crisis. Unable to clear its debt to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) officials say the CEB has exceeded its credit limit leaving the CPC to halt supplying the CEB with the necessary fuel for power generation.The CEB currently owes the CPC 83 billion rupees and 4.3 billion to independent power producers after being hit with an 85 billion rupee loss in 2019.