Basil had negotiated the Indian economic relief package to help Sri Lanka tackle the current foreign exchange crisis.
Sri Lanka's former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, who is the youngest brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was stopped from boarding a flight to Dubai on Monday evening, local media reported.
A spokesman of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) said a video released by Ajith Dharmapala, a former police officer, claimed that President Rajapaksa was staying at the house belonging to Pathirana.
Glimpses of the protests in Colombo against the worsening economic crisis
The dissidents, led by former president Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, would leave the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna coalition with its 14 Members of Parliament, party sources said after their meeting with the President on Monday.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
There have been reports that the Rajapaksa brothers, which dominates the current Sri Lankan government, are not on the same page. Gota, it is said, is not on the same wave length as his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former president, or Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who is seen to be the family's strategist.
Thousands of protesters in Colombo broke through police barricades and stormed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's official residence in the Sri Lankan capital, demanding he resign and accept responsibility for the island's gravest economic crisis that has caused thousands of Sri Lankans to live on one meal a day.
Mahinda Rajapaksa completed 50 years of parliamentary politics in July this year. He was elected as a Member of Parliament at the young age of 24 in 1970. He has since been elected president twice and has been appointed prime minister thrice.
The SJB has begun to collect signatures from MPs for the no-confidence motion, according to media reports.
The Sri Lankan government has appointed an advisory committee comprising eminent economic and fiscal experts to provide guidance on addressing the current debt crisis and engaging with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other lenders as the country struggles to combat the unprecedented shortage of foreign reserves.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday fired Basil Rajapaksa from his post and invited the Opposition parties to join a unity Cabinet to tackle the raging public anger against the hardships caused by the economic crisis.
Unofficial results indicate that the SLPP would comfortably win at least 17 out of the 22 districts on offer.
Menon, who arrived in Colombo by a special flight just after midnight on Thursday night, is scheduled to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his younger brothers Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic development; and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary, officials said.
New Delhi is approaching Gota with an open mind, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The SLPP, led by prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, has won in 145 constituencies, bagging a total of 150 seats with its allies, a two-thirds majority in the 225-member Parliament, according to the results announced by the election commission.
Notwithstanding stiff opposition from political parties in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka on Wednesday asserted that it was 'very firm' on continuing the training programme of its defence personnel in India and ruled out sending them to countries such as China.
Sri Lanka has welcomed a whopping Rs 1,372 crore Indian housing assistance programme to build around 4000 homes in the country's eastern province.
New Delhi has a chance to rid itself of its image as the bully in the subcontinent by helping a neighbour tackle problems that India, for once, has no role in creating. It should grab the opportunity with both hands, suggests Aditi Phadnis.
When the first flight arrived at Kushinagar airport on Wednesday, it was not Gota or Mahinda who stepped out, but another Rajapaksa. Namal Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's minister of sports.
The Government also defended the President's decision to enforce a state of emergency, that had given him sweeping authority to act in the interests of public security and preserving public order, including suspending any laws, authorising detentions and seizing property, saying it was declared after attempts were made to attack the President's Office and other public property.
President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Rajapaksa will transform Sri Lanka's political landscape after Thursday's electoral triumph, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran Colombo watcher.
The 73-year-old leader on Thursday emailed his resignation letter to the Speaker soon after he was allowed by Singapore to enter the city-state on a "private visit".
Sri Lankans were on the edge on Tuesday as they waited whether embattled Gotabaya Rajapaksa will honour his offer to resign as president, amid signs that key members of the erstwhile powerful ruling family were attempting to flee in the face of massive public anger against them for mishandling the economy that has bankrupt the country.
National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon arrived in Colombo on Monday to hold crucial talks on the controversial 13th amendment on devolution of power in the Tamil-dominated northern province and a trilateral maritime security treaty with Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
The Sri Lankan government on Friday reached out to fishermen community of Tamil Nadu as President Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother and economic development minister Basil met their delegation here with a promise of addressing their concerns.
Sri Lanka's new Finance Minister Ali Sabry on Tuesday resigned, a day after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him after sacking his brother Basil Rajapaksa amidst the island nation's worst economic crisis.
Sixty-five Indian fishermen in nine trawlers have been detained by the Sri Lankan navy for allegedly violating the international maritime border.
The protesters left the main anti-government protest camp at Galle Face promenade where they had been staging sit-ins since April 9, branding it as the 'Gota go home village' (Rajapaksa go home).
Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency on Wednesday as angry protesters stormed the prime minister's office in Colombo, hours after president Gotabaya Rajapksa fled to the Maldives on a military jet, amid the country's worst economic crisis in decades.
The ex-president returned to Sri Lanka on a Singapore Airlines flight.
In the endlessly entertaining and absorbing soap opera that is India-Sri Lanka relations, wait for the next episode, Aditi Phadnis reports.
'This is a historical moment in the political history of Sri Lanka.' 'You can see the amount of pressure that is coming from the people because nobody addressed the policy blunders, multiple corruption charges and huge scandals.'
Dealing with the Sirisena government in Sri Lanka, says G Ganapathy Subramaniam, is a lot easier for India than engaging with the Rajapaksa regime.
Sri Lankan government on Monday admitted that it has run out of cash to buy fuel as pumps in most filling stations across the country have run dry, exacerbating the deepening foreign-exchange crisis that has crippled the island nation's economy.
A Sri Lankan court on Tuesday ordered the release of 56 Indian fishermen who were detained for allegedly fishing in the island nation's territorial waters.
Sri Lankans on Thursday voted in large numbers in the bitterly contested presidential election in which incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking a record third term against his friend-turned-foe Maithripala Sirisena, with an unusually high voter turnout in Tamil and Muslim areas.
Whether it is Sri Lanka, Maldives, or Nepal, quietly but steadily, India has been reclaiming some of the ground it had lost to China, observes Aditi Phadnis.
'If Ranil Wickremesinghe starts repressing and suppressing the protesters who represent the people, that will pose a danger for him to continue in office.'
Democratic Left Front politician Nanayakkara was among the 42 members who declared independence in Parliament from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) coalition.
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