Number of members elected to 336 Local Government bodies under the new electoral system will be doubled while the number of Local Government bodies will be increased by one Pradeshiya Sabha the Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Faiszer Musthapha said yesterday.

Accordingly the number of members to be elected to the Municipal Councils, Urban Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas is to be increased to 8,825 from the current 4,486, and the new number of Local Government bodies will be 336.

Under the newly introduced Local Government Electoral (Amendment) Act no. 22 of 2012 more than 2,200 women members representing 25% of the total number of elected members are expected to be elected and a new Pradeshiya Sabha will be established at Millennia.

“I expect party leaders will approve the amendments to the Act at the next session of Parliament enabling the government to conduct Local Government polls in this year. We will have to go for the polls before November as the Elections Department is scheduled to conduct GCE O/L examination during this time. The Elections Department also needs a minimum 65 days to conduct polls since the Gazetting of the Local Government election,” Minister Musthapha added.

“The delimitation commission report released in August 2015 following passing of the Act in 2012 was full of errors, mistakes and inconsistencies and was vehemently opposed by minority parties as well as the SLFP and the UNP. If we are to conduct Local Government polls under the new electoral system, we should have first rectified the blunders that had been made by the Delimitation Commission in addition to finalizing the marking of boundaries of Local Government bodies. That is why I appointed the five member official committee headed by Asoka Peiris to look into the issue with the consent of all political parties,” Minister Musthapha emphasized.

If the government postponed the Local Government polls accordingly, the elections to 23 Municipal Councils, 41 Urban Councils and 272 Pradeshiya Sabhas will have to be held on a same day as all current Local Government bodies numbering 335 would have completed their term of office by then.

Many Local Government bodies completed their term of office on March, 31, 2015, some others on July 31st of that year and few others on October 16, 2015. Another few Local Government bodies completed their term of office on August 24, 2013 and they are being run under special commissioners or Secretaries.

All Local Government bodies in the Western Province, including the Colombo, Kotte- Sri Jayewardenepura, Dehivala – Mt. Lavinia, Negombo and Gampaha completed five year term on October. (Sandun A Jayasekera)

Time had come for the legal sector and the Government to think whether it was possible to regulate social media such as Facebook, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Saturday.

The Prime Minister came up with this statement at the 28th Law Asia Conference in Colombo over the weekend.

“Modern technology society has changed the issues which the legal sector in particular is facing. For example consider the internet, Facebook. If you regulate Face Book and the internet is it a violation of Fundamental Rights?

“Many foreign governments are tackling it especially in the social sector and child welfare. These are the issues which we have to tackle. These are new issues which we have not even thought of,” he said.

The Premier said there were three areas which the Government and the law experts would have to discuss.

“First is the ease of doing business, the Ministry of National Policies and International Trade and Ministry of Finance coming up with a plan for it and we will send it across to you and you place your views, you know the problems. It is the same with the trade reforms. Then we need to focus on off shore financial city,” he added.

“How are we going to be creative? We are going to talk with China Harbour and with a Reserve Bank of India. That matter needs consultation with both from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) and the bench. You cannot bring about changes in a controversy but in a consensus background. Let’s start working on this. What are the commonalities with principals and changes which economic and legal sectors should work together? We are willing to work with you,” he told the members of BASL and Law Asia.

“We are hoping for free trade agreements with India, China and Singapore and with other Asian countries which means in no way that will take domestic industries a risk. In the next ten to 15 years we have to become competitive. Now the modernisation will have to take place and we are concentrating on trade agreement with India and we must work with the five Southern states,” the premier stated.

“We have a combined GDP of $ 600 billion, if we work together getting a trillion dollar GDP for the five states and us it will be possible. We should think out of the box. Now within it, we need new laws, we have to draft the laws, we have to talk to the BASL on new systems” he added. .

“What Sri Lanka wants to become is the hub of the Indian Ocean, to become hub of logistics and communication. This requires modernisation,” he added.

He said the foreign exchange Bill would be debated in Parliament this week. (Yohan Perera)

A group of Naval personnel attached to the Eastern Naval Command had to rescue two elephants that were swept out to the sea, in-between Round Island and Foul Point, Trincomalee this morning, the Navy media said. 

The jumbos were first noticed by an Inshore Patrol Craft during a routine patrol.

The Navy launched a combined rescue operation with the Trincomalee Wildlife Department; to save the two wild elephants with the support of the Navy divers and three Fast Attack Crafts.

Accordingly, the mammoth effort of the rescue teams saw the two jumbos being carefully directed to the shore without causing any harm to the animals. The animals were later released to the Foul Point forest.

In the same vein, a team of Naval personnel belonging to the same Naval command saved an elephant caught in current in the seas about 8 Nm off Kokkuthuduvai on July 11. (Amadoru Amarajeewa)

Two suspects had been arrested by the Police in connection with the shooting incident in which a gunman opened fire at Jaffna High Court Judge M. Ilanchezhiyan and his security detail at Nallur in Jaffna on Saturday, killing a police sergeant.

Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara said according to the initial investigation, it was revealed that the shooting was unexpected incident but not a pre-planned attacked.

The 51-year-old Police sergeant Sarath Premachandra was killed and Police Constable Wimalasiri was injured in the shooting.

SP Gunasekara said Jaffna High Court Judge M. Ilanchezhiyan, who is a member of the trial-at-bar that is hearing the gang rape and murder of Vidya in Jaffna, his driver and constable Wimalasiri were traveling in a car at the time of the incident, when sergeant Premachandra was escorting in front of the car in a motorcycle providing security.

The Sergeant got off the motorcycle at Nallur to clear the road as there was traffic congestion in the area caused due to an argument among a group of drunk individuals.

Suddenly one of the drunken man had grabbed a pistol of the Sergeant and had shot at him.

Police Constable Wimalasiri, who was in the car had then get off and opened fire at the gunman.

However, the Constable was also injured in the shootout and the gunman had fled the scene.

The judge escaped unhurt as the bodyguards prevented the judge from getting off the vehicle.

The injured policemen were admitted to the Jaffna General Hospital for gunshot injuries and Sergeant Premachandra, who was a father of two, succumbed to injuries early this morning.

The Police arrested the two suspects at the scene in connection with the shooting and investigations revealed the suspects were brothers and a relative of the main suspect in the shooting.

SP Gunasekara said the Police had deployed several teams to arrest the main suspect and ruled out the claims that the Judge was targeted by the gunman.

Northern Province Senior DIG Roshan Fernando is leading the investigations. (Darshana Sanjeewa)

Sri Lankan Navy on Friday arrested eight Tamil Nadu fishermen for allegedly fishing in the restricted Sri Lankan territorial waters, an official from senior Indian fisheries told news agency PTI. 

Nagapattinam joint fisheries director Amala Xavier told PTI that the arrested fishermen, who were taken to Kangesanthurai port, were from Nagapattinam district and were fishing off Nedubtheevu near the Sri Lankan coast.

It is the fifth such arrests made by Sri Lankan navy in the month of July. In a similar incident earlier this week, four fishermenfrom Jagadapattinam in Pudukottai district were arrested for allegedly fishing off Neduntheevu. Seven other fishermen from Mandapam were arrested on July 13 on similar charges.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to find a permanent solution to recurring mid-sea arrests. “Such continuing incidents of arrests of fishermen were a deliberate attempt by Sri Lanka to derail India’s efforts to find a permanent solution to the vexed issue,” the Chief Minister wrote in a letter to PM Modi.

Major General Amal Karunasekara has been appointed as the new Chief of Staff of the Army, the Army Headquarters announced.
He is currently serving as the Commandant at Defence Services Command and Staff College, Sapugaskanda.
He has the honour of being the Commander of the first-ever Sri Lankan contingent of troops for the United Nations Peace Keeping Operations that was sent to Haiti in 2004.
He has also commanded an infantry Battalion and an infantry Brigade during many military operations conducted against LTTE terrorists.
Major General Amal Karunasekara is a product of Nalanda College where he was a senior Cadet in the school cadet platoon.

The Attorney General said the subject minister’s power was restricted in the proposed Inland Revenue Bill, but information could be sought from the Inland Revenue Department to be made available to Parliament when necessary as stipulated in the Constitution .

Additional Solicitor General Farzana Jameel with Senior Deputy Solicitor General Arjuna Obeysekere, State Counsel Suren Gnanaraj, Kaniska de Silva, Chaya Sri Namuni and Hashini Opatha appeared for the AG and Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera.

She made her submissions before a Bench comprising Chief Justice Piyasath Dep and Justices Anil Gooneratne and Nalin Perera

She responded to Sanjeeva Jayawardena PC on the ambiguity and apathy and the allegation of siphoning off classified information on the tax payers to the minister.

The ASG said the Ministers are collectively responsible and answerable to Parliament and that the conduit between Parliament and the executive is the minister.

She said the President has the power to assign subjects and functions to ministers and the functions of the IRD has been entrusted to the Finance Minister and as such he was functioning in terms of the Constitution.

The ASG said the minister was sworn to maintain secrecy and that it must be continued even after he or she leaves office.

She said any violation of this obligation of secrecy can be punished with fines or a term of imprisonment and that the power bestowed on the minister to call for information is not arbitrary.

Sanjeeva Jayawardena PC complained that there had been complete suppression of any definition of the tax officers other than the Commissioner General.

The ASG said the definition of tax officials were too wide and that the Government was agreeable to amend the definition of Tax Officials. (S.S. Selvanayagam)

The main objective of the proposed Inland Revenue Bill (IRB) is to introduce a 60:40 direct to indirect tax ratio from the current direct to indirect tax ratio of 20:80 within the next three years with an across-the-board tax regime for taxable income including those at religious places of worship, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said yesterday.

He rejected the joint opposition charge that the IRB was targeting the poor and pointed out that this Bill would help rope in the large number of professionals such as doctors, engineers, surveyors, private tuition masters and architects who evade tax on the millions they earn monthly.

“The proposed IRB aims at taxing each and every one who is legally required to pay tax. If a temple earns an income from leasing out its property, rooms or a building and collects revenue by by issuing tickets to visitors will be liable for tax,” the minister said.

“The government expects to pass the IRB by next month after introducing the amendments and the determination by the Supreme Court. We also expect to introduce further amendments proposed by the public and the Opposition at the committee stage. The Bill will be finalized in a transparent manner,’ he said.

Referring to the allegations made by the JO that the government was attempting to even tax beggars, he said, “Yes, why not, if the beggar earns Rs.10,000 a day?

The minister said the government would discuss with the Mahasangha before imposing any new tax on income generated by temples and other places of religious or culturally important sites. (Sandun A Jayasekera)

With the Office of Missing Persons Act becoming operational, the Constitutional Council (CC) chaired by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya will meet next week to discuss the appointment of officials to this office, an official said.

The Act became operational after President Maithripala Sirisena placed his signature for the gazette notice.

The office will consist of seven members who will be recommended by the CC for endorsement by the President.

The OMP will investigate cases of disappearances primarily about those who went missing during the armed confluence. (Kelum Bandara)