Colombage Melani Manel Perera

Card Malcolm Ranjith calls on the police to undertake a transparent inquiry; instead, they arrested the sacristan who found the device, refusing to view CCTV footage. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church held a national day of prayer today to mark a thousand days since the Easter Sunday attacks.

Street vendors and day labourers can't even buy the cheapest food like vegetables. Some products are available only in informal markets. The government plans an aid package but has not explained how it intends to fund it.

Forced by the COVID-19 crisis to cut his employees’ wages by half, Shantha Herbert told AsiaNews that at the shrine in Tewatta, he realised that as a Christian he could not do that, so at Christmas he “decided to give them six months of back wages as a Christmas gift.”

People will be able to use the platform to report offences using their mobile phones. The trilingual website (Sinhala, Tamil and English) was launched on International Anti-Corruption Day.

A court forced the diocese to cancel the event. Twenty-two families with at least one relative in prison were expected to receive tokens of appreciation. For Fr Nandana Manatunga, “these actions show the use of force by the authorities against oppressed people.”

The brutal killing of Priyantha Kumara sparked demonstrations in his home country as well. Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Ranjith: "There is no more tragic moment in the world when extremists kill people in the name of religion".

AGT Gloves Knitting has suspended employees for joining a union. They had complained of harassment and being forced to work at a grueling pace. Ninety percent of the workforce in Sri Lanka has no union representation.

A recent survey by the Institute for Health Policy found that many Sri Lankans are dissatisfied with the economic situation and the handling of the COVID-19 epidemic. Many voters are disappointed by the government.

For two days, police have questioned Fr Cyril Gamini Fernando, a member of a committee representing victims, after he accused the intelligence services of failing to follow certain leads in connection with the 2019 massacres.

Torrential rains continue to cause damage and deaths in in 17 districts with more than a thousand houses badly damaged. In Jaffna province, schools are closed. After people “started to breathe” following the worse of the COVID-19 pandemic, “this huge loss” came.

Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church opposes government acquisition of an ecologically valuable but fragile area. For environmentalists, grabbing the land to build a power station would not only damage the environment but also the economy.

The government has appointed a controversial Buddhist monk to lead a task force to provide advice to the president on legislation for all of the country’s communities. The bishops' conference condemns the decision and calls for a new constitution that guarantees the equality of all citizens before the law.