Ranil Wickremesinghe -- six times Sri Lanka's prime minister -- realised his long cherished dream when he arrived on Wednesday, August 3, 2022, to inaugurate the country's parliament, finally as its president.
Demonstrators continue to protest outside the office of Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Colombo, Wednesday, July 13, 2022, the day the veteran leader was appointed acting president by the speaker of the island's parliament.
Outside parliament, Sri Lankans continued their protests against their newly elected president, who they charge with being close to the Rajapaksa political dynasty.
Mayhem prevails in Colombo after protesters enter President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's home; mysterious vandals set afire Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's private residence.
In addition to participating in the swearing-in ceremony, the leaders will attend a banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, it said.
All the ministers who participated in this meeting were of the opinion that as soon as there is an agreement to form an all-party government, they will hand over the responsibilities to that government, it said.
The protests seem unlikely to end until the people's anger and grievances with the leaders who have brought Sri Lanka to economic ruin are redressed.
China will not be allowed to use the southern port of Hambantota for military purposes, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said, apparently attempting to allay fears in India and the United States about China's increasing maritime presence in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
Sri Lanka's Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday imposed emergency giving him sweeping powers ahead of the key election on July 20 to pick a new President as he urged the political parties to put aside differences and form an all-party government, with the Opposition dubbing his decision as an 'undemocratic draconian act'.
There was a 'fascist threat' to democracy in Sri Lanka and 'we can't let them tear up our Constitution', acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe told the crisis-hit nation on Wednesday, as he vowed to restore normalcy as well as stop the destruction of state property.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday thanked India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving Sri Lanka 'a breath of life' by providing timely economic assistance to his country as it faced the worst economic crisis in decades.
India considers the full implementation of the 13th Amendment in Sri Lanka "critical" for achieving reconciliation with the minority Tamil community, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, underlining that New Delhi has always supported both the political and economic stability in the island nation.
A group of protesters on Saturday entered the private residence of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and set it on fire, hours after he offered to resign to make way for an all-party government amid unprecedented protests in the country for the resignation of the government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
'We don't have a plan for the crisis at all. The uncertainty will continue.'
From India's neighbourhood and extended neighbourhood, presidents of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Iran, Seychelles and prime ministers of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Mauritius have sent congratulatory greetings to Modi.
This is the first appointment made by President Wickremesinghe on his first day in office.
The Sri Lankan Parliament is all set to elect the successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a three-way presidential contest on Wednesday, following a high-voltage political drama which saw the former president fleeing the country and resigning after a popular uprising against his government for mismanaging the economy.
'While parliament has elected him, the people are demanding that he goes home.'
Wickremesinghe will resign after an all-party government is established and the majority is secured in Parliament.
Sajith Premadasa, the 55-year-old leader of Sri Lanka's principal opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya, said on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the race of President to provide support to Alahapperuma.
The recent 'revelation' by TN fishers freed by Sri Lanka after they had paid up Lankan rupees 50,000 each in fines, that their hair was tonsured in prison and they were forced to remove their garments other than the underpants, and were also made to clean toilets, as if with vengeance, has touched a raw nerve this time, just as another issue or issues had done it ahead of the Jallikattu protests, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
After Gotabaya Rajapaksa e-mailed his promised letter of resignation as Sri Lanka's president shortly after arriving in Singapore, Sri Lankans celebrated on the streets of Colombo late on Thursday, July 14, 2022, night.
Sri Lankan protesters have vowed to continue their struggle for a complete change of the system by abolishing the presidency, as the popular uprising that ousted Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President marked the 100th day on Sunday.
During the 13-minute special session, Dhammika Dassanayake, ecretary general of Parliament, announced the vacancy for the post of president.
This is the first time in 44 years that Sri Lanka's parliament has directly elected a president.
Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned last month in the face of a popular uprising against his government for mismanaging the island nation's economy.
Sri Lankan security forces raided the main anti-government protest camp at the President's Secretariat in Colombo early on Friday, arresting nine people and injuring several others, as the protesters continued to occupy the sensitive area despite the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing on Tuesday for the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
India will encourage greater investments in Sri Lanka's economy, especially in areas of energy, tourism and infrastructure, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, as he expressed India's solidarity with the debt-ridden Island nation during its "difficult moments".
Rajapaksa has departed from the Maldives on Saudi Airline flight SV 788 to Singapore, sources said.
Sri Lanka's embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would resign on Wednesday, Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena announced late on Saturday night, hours after thousands of protesters stormed the former's official residence, blaming his government for an unprecedented economic crisis that has brought the country to its knees.
Sri Lanka is bankrupt, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared on Tuesday.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Engagement with neighbours is a strategic imperative, and not an option, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
Sri Lanka's main opposition party Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) on Monday said it is ready to lead the next government to bring stability to the bankrupt island nation as it grapples with political and economic crises and any resistance to the move in Parliament will be seen as a 'treacherous act'.
Sri Lanka on Wednesday declared a state of emergency after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on a military jet in the face of a public revolt against his government for mishandling the country's economy.
Sri Lanka's main Opposition parties on Sunday agreed to form an all-party interim government after the anticipated resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday, following unprecedented political turmoil that forced him and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to offer their resignations over the mishandling of the nation's crippling economic crisis.
The anti-government protesters in Sri Lanka on Sunday continued to occupy the residences of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, a day after they stormed into the premises and set on fire one of the buildings protesting over the nation's severe economic crisis even as the island nation is still in the dark about the embattled President's whereabouts.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
