Who will be the first Muslim CM in the East?

OPINION 

BY President, South Eastern Social Welfare Association, M H M Haleem

A M Jameel

It has been confirmed that a Muslim will be appointed as the Chief Minister (CM) in the Eastern Province. There is also a confirmation that the first Muslim CM position will be occupied by a member from the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).  

The SLMC having won 7 seats in the just concluded Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) elections by contesting independently and campaigning against the government during the run up to the elections has now become the deciding factor or as one may call it the ‘kingmaker’ in deciding which party would govern the Eastern Province.

Therefore, a situation has arisen that if the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to govern the Council in the East, it cannot do so without the support of the SLMC and therefore it has been forced to sacrifice the CM position to a member from the SLMC.
In the current scenario, there has been a growing debate both among SLMC supporters and the Muslims in general as to which SLMC member would be the most fitting and eligible candidate out of the SLMC members elected who could take up this huge mantle of the CM.

“It’s a wild wild market…”

Clamour for credit and indirect pressure exerted to stop investigations have been the main demands of the so called ‘stock market mafia’ existent on the Colombo Bourse, says Tilak Karunaratne, who tendered his resignation as the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday.  Reluctantly stepping down barely nine months after taking over the position, the former Chairman said that he had tried to fast track investigations into market malpractices under his tenure so as to bring sanity to what he described as ‘a wild market where some people were shooting  from the hip’.
In what could be his first interview with The Nation Gain following his resignation, Karunaratne explains the sequence of events that led him to call it a day and his expressions showed that his main disappointment was that he could not effectively take some of those real perpetrators of the Colombo’s Stock Market to task.

Dabur India sets up new subsidiary in Sri Lanka

Firm plans setting up a manufacturing facility which is expected to start production by the end of this fiscal

FMCG firm Dabur India today said it has formed a new entity, Dabur Lanka Pvt Ltd, as part of a strategy to strengthen its presence in Sri Lanka. 
In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Dabur said Dabur Lanka has been incorporated under its wholly-owned subsidiary, Dabur International, which manages the company's overseas operations.

Moving car imports from Colombo Port to Hambantota Port

Importers claim the move a Trojan Horse

By Azhar Razak

The Ceylon Motor Traders Association (CMTA) last week expressed their anger to a plan mooted by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) Chairman, Dr Priyath Bandu Wickrama to move the clearance facilities of all car imports from Colombo to the Hambantota Harbour claiming that logistically it was not practical.

Sri Lanka Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged to Support Growth

Sri Lanka’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rates unchanged for a fourth straight month to support economic growth as the nation emerges from a 26-year civil war.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka left the reverse repurchase rate at 9 percent, the lowest level since November 2004, and the repurchase rate at 7.25 percent, according to a statement on the Colombo-based bank’s website today.