News
Prez champions digital infrastructure for Lanka’s economic renaissance
By Harischandra Gunaratna
President Ranil Wickremesinghe recently delivering the keynote address at the Digital Public Infrastructure Conference organized by the Indian High Commission in Colombo at the Taj Samudra Hotel, underscored the importance of digital infrastructure in modernizing agriculture, addressing multi-dimensional poverty and reforming the education system.
Wickremesinghe characterized the country’s economy as a ‘patchwork economy’ calling it a symphony of desperate elements stitched together.
Acknowledging the importance of digitization, the President highlighted the significance of discussions on the digital public economy whilst outlining the government’s plans to establish a new institutional framework to facilitate this transition, moving away from the existing structures such as IT Councils and focusing on creating a Digital Transformation Agency and AI Centre, allocated with a budget of one billion rupees. He said the agency would be building a robust economy, departing from the previous approaches which failed to yield the desired results.
The President expressed gratitude to the Indian government for its support, in advancing Sri Lanka’s digital economy, highlighting plants to collaborate with Indian institutions and leverage their expertise, particularly establishing a campus of the Chennai Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) and additionally planning to launch three universities, two of which will focus on technology.
Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Santosh Jha in his welcome address said India’s own journey stands as testimony to the power of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). The digital transformation in India over the last decade or so has been driven by these inter operable and open protocols of DPI.
The High Commissioner said that India’s DPI journey started with the basic need to provide direct access to public services and Government benefits to its citizen.
“This what gave birth to India’s Digital Identity Number AADHAAR- and the Unique Identification Authority of India in 2016. This became the foundational building block of DPI and the magic began.
At the heart of this magic is what we call India Stack: – government-backed APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, upon which third parties can build software with access to government IDs, payment networks and data Jha said.
This digital infrastructure in inter operable and “stacked together – meaning that private private companies can build apps integrated with state services to provide consumers with seamless access to everything from welfare payments to loan applications and making investments, the High Commissioner stressed.
“Probably even the architects of of AADHAAR didn’t envisage that India was on path to finding a world-beating solution for building out and regulating the online commons that is more equitable than laissez-fare approach, more transparent and more innovative than some of the regulation-heavy models.” he said.
During an operation conducted in the dark hours of 22 Feb 26, the Sri Lanka Navy seized an Indian fishing boat and apprehended twelve (12) Indian fishermen while they were poaching in Sri Lankan waters, in the sea area south of Mannar.
The seized boat and the Indian fishermen were handed over to the Fisheries Inspector of Dikovita for onward legal proceedings.
FSL assures legal backing for them
Families of those sentenced to death by the Three-member Gampaha High Trial-at-Bar, over the killing of SLPP MP Amarakeerthi Atukorale, and his police bodyguard, met a senior official of the Presidential Secretariat, yesterday (23), to seek backing for their move to appeal against the verdict.
Having made representations, they addressed the media, outside the Presidential Secretariat, where they declared their intention to move the higher court against the decision.
The SLPP MP and his security officer were killed by an Aragalaya mob on 09 May, 2022, at Nittambuwa. The same day Aragalaya mobs unleashed violence against the then government MPs across the country, torching dozens of their properties.
The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) yesterday said that they would help the families of those sentenced to death to move court against the Gampaha High Court Trial-at-Bar decision. Responding to The Island queries, FSP spokesman Pubudu Jayagoda said that their representatives had already met the families and necessary work was being done to move the Supreme Court. Twenty three persons were acquitted and four handed six-month prison terms, suspended for five years
Jayagoda said that one of the HC judges differed in the ruling. Asked whether they received backing from any other political party and groups that had been involved in the 2022 protest campaign to defend those who had been found guilty, Jayagoda said such support was lacking.
The JVP/NPP played a significant role in the violent protest campaign that forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down. Pointing out that the Attorney General, too, was appealing against the court decision on the basis that the number of persons sentenced to death should be much higher, Jayagoda said that the Nittambuwa incident couldn’t be examined in isolation without taking into consideration the SLPP goon attack on Galle Face protesters on 09 May, 2022. (SF)
Offshore Patrol Vessel P 628 of the Sri Lanka Navy departed Baltimore, USA, for Colombo, on 20 February.
The ex-United States Coast Guard Cutter, USCGC Decisive was officially handed over to the SLN on 02 December, 2025, as the latest addition to the SLN fleet, under the Pennant Number P 628.
Measuring 64 metres in length, this ‘B-Type Reliance Class 210-foot Cutter’ is equipped with advanced technological systems and facilities, capable of conducting extensive surveillance operations spanning up to 6,000 nautical miles per patrol.
The vessel’s voyage to Colombo is historic, possibly marking the longest-ever passage undertaken by a Sri Lanka Navy ship. Covering approximately 14,775 nautical miles, the journey will see the P 628 navigate from Baltimore through the Atlantic Ocean, the Panama Canal (a first for a Sri Lankan naval vessel), the Pacific Ocean, and into the Indian Ocean, via the Straits of Malacca. The ship is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka during the first week of May, 2026.
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