Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

International Mother Language Day organized by the High Commission of Bangladesh in Sri Lanka was held at Independence Square, Colombo today (21) under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.

International Mother Language Day is celebrated on February 21st every year, with the aim of establishing peace, promoting multilingualism and protecting mother languages around the world.

This year’s national celebration was jointly organized by the High Commission of Bangladesh in Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Education, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Scout Association.

Ambassadors and High Commissioners of many countries including Bangladesh High C MORE >>

Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena urged the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JAICA) to recommence all the ongoing projects that are temporarily halted due to fiscal issues.
He made this request when JAICA Director General for South Asia, Ito Teruyuki called on him on Monday (20). Mr Teruyuki assured the Prime Minister that JAICA projects would be resumed no sooner the debt restructuring programme is finalized by the International Monetary Fund.

US$ 2.5 billion worth 12 JAICA projects have been temporarily halted due to the fiscal crisis. JAICA delegation expressed satisfaction over the progress in debt restructuring plans, in which Japan also played a major role.

The Prime Minister thanked JAICA D MORE >>

Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said it is essential to purchase paddy at a reasonable price from the farmers in order to implement the program for providing subsidies to the lower-income families in the country.

He said this at a discussion held at the Prime Minister’s Office on purchase of paddy and distribution of rice. The issues pertaining to paddy purchase, its present position, the needs for reforms in the social security data system, production of agricultural crops were discussed at the meeting. It was revealed that harvesting has been completed in many districts and purchase of paddy would be commenced by next week.

It was decided to solve the problems with regard to restructuring of the social pr MORE >>

Anunayake of Matwathu Chapter, Ven Niyangoda Wijithasiri Nayake Thera, Anunayake of Asgiri Chapter Ven Anamaduwe Dhammasiddhi Thera, Mahanayake of Kotte Sangha Sabhawa, Ven Itthapane Dhammalankara Thera, Minister of Buddhasasana and Culture, Vidura Wickremenayake, Yadamini Gunawardena MP, Prime Minister’s Secretary Anura Dissanayake, Chief Custodian Nilanga Dela and Ambassadors and High Commissioners were among the dignitaries who were at the launching. MORE >>

Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said the people of Sri Lanka will always be grateful to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation, its sovereignty and territorial integrity and to keep us free to defend our values and protect our way of life. He said this after unveiling a War Memorial at the Kotalawala Defence University on February 17.

Sri Lanka, nurtured by the teachings of the Gautama Buddha believes in peace, compassion and tranquility. It is not in our nature to seek out wars and conflicts, he said and added that but whenever they have come, when adversaries have left us no alternative, our brave armed forces have stood ready to take the risks and pay the ultimate price.

The Prime  MORE >>

Secretary to the Prime Minister Anura Dissanayake, Atle Hoie, General Secretary 0f IndustriALL Global Union, Praveen Rao, Coordinator, South Asia Regional Office of IndustriALL Global Union, Leslie Devendra, General Secretary, Sri Lanka NIdahas Sevaka Sangamaya, Anton Marcus, General Secretary, FTZ&GSEU, Dilakson, Admin Coordinator, FTZ&GSEU, Palitha Athukorala, President, NUSS, Ranjan Perera, NUSS, Swasthika Arulingam, UFL and Sujeewa Amarasinghe, UF took part in the discussion. MORE >>

The Prime Minister declared that any damage or tampering to Article 9 of the Constitution would not be allowed and that right should be protected for the purpose of preserving Buddhism. He said this at the conferment ceremony of the twelfth Srimath Maha Nayake Eknaligoda Vihara sect of Sri Lanka Amarapura Chapter to Most Venerable Karannagoda Senananda Nayaka Thera held at Siddharthodaya Piriwen Vihara, Karangoda, Ratnapura on 14.02.2023.

He further said that “the order to throw down the flag of the British Emperor could be given because of the power of the Buddhist monks as displayed in the freedom struggle. Venerable Wariyapola Thera had done that because the colonial rulers broke their own promise. I would like to recall MORE >>

Seeks Prime Minister’s assistance for speedy recruitment
A leading transport service in Lithuania plans to recruit 600 truck drivers for its trans-Europe services and sought Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena’s intervention for speedy training process for selected drivers.

This request was made by Dana Janerikaite, Senior Director of Manvesta in Lithuania who called on Prime Minister Gunawardena at the Temple Trees on February 13. She said the company plans to recruit 600 truck drivers but could select only 109 persons with good driving skills and basic English knowledge.

“We pay a monthly salary of SL Rs one million to work in our trans-Europe truck services. We have contracts for transport of lu MORE >>

In the presence of Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, Ambassador of Japan Mizukoshi Hideaki planted a Ruk sapling at Sithawaka Wet Zone Botanic Garden to mark Sri Lanka’s 75th Independence anniversary and to commemorate 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Sri Lanka. MP Yadamini Gunawardena, Japanese Embassy officials and Hiroyuki Shimotori, Director Shimokikaku co, Ltd, who established Japanese Language Center in Sithawaka were also present on this occasion. MORE >>

Free Japanese language and culture education to youths
Mathsuri Japanese Language Center in Sithawaka opened by Prime Minister Dinesh Guunawardena and Ambassador of Japan Mizukoshi Hideaki at Sithawaka in Avissawella on Saturday (11).

Mr Hiroyuki Shimotori, Director Shimokikaku co, Ltd. In Japan has established this Center to educate youths in Japanese language and culture to youths free of charge. He also assured that qualified youths would be provided employment in Japan.

Prime Minister Gunawardena expressed confidence that this Center would be highly beneficial to the youths of the entire district. He thanked the Japanese Ambassador, Mr Hiroyuki Shimotori for their initiatives to set up this Center in MORE >>

Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena held a special discussion regarding the provision of humanitarian aid for the earthquake-affected people in Turkey and Syria. On the instructions of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the meeting was held at the Temple Trees on 09.02.2023 to discuss early assistance to earthquake victims.
The provision of essential requirements including manpower resources by government institutions, non-government institutions, and the private sector was discussed at the occasion.
It was planned to provide a  MORE >>

අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරයා මේ බව සඳහන් කළේ 2023.02.08 දින කොළඹ ටාජ් සමුද්‍රා හෝටලයේ දී ඉන්දියානු අලෙවි නියෝජිතවරුන් පන්සියය පනස් දෙනෙකුගේ සහභාගිත්වයෙන් පැවැති tata steel සහ tata tiscon ගනුදෙනුකරුවන්ගේ වාර්ෂික සමුළුවේ සමාරම්භක අවස්ථාවට එක්වෙමිනි.

ඉන්දියානු සාගරය හරහා වැටී ඇති ගෝලීය මුහුදු වෙළෙඳ මාර්� MORE >>

Chair of the Global Green Growth Council, former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon met Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena at the Temple Trees today (07).

Mr. Ban Ki-moon said that he is satisfied with Sri Lanka’s initiatives in environment-friendly programmes and will support the country’s renewable energy sector, public transport sector, electricity generation projects and street lights systems powered by solar energy.

The Prime Minister submitted the new energy plan to be implemented within the next ten years in Sri Lanka to Mr. Ban Ki-moon at the occasion.

Ministers Ali Sabri, Bandula Gunawardena, Nasir Ahmed, Yadamini Gunawardena MP, Secretary to the Prime Minister Anura MORE >>

Foreign Minister of Maldives Abdulla Shahid and State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena separately at the Temple Trees in Colombo during their visit to represent their countries at the 75th Independence Anniversary celebrations. They discussed whole range of areas of bilateral relations and corporation and exchanged views on regional and international affairs during the discussions.

Prime Minister Gunawardena thanked the Ministers for their visit and said that such high level exchanges would result in further strengthening of bilateral relations and regional cooperation.

Maldivian Foreign Minister said the two countries could enhance cooperati MORE >>

Bhutan Minister of Education and Skills Development Jai Bir Rai called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena at the Temple Trees today (6) and held detailed discussion on bilateral relations, potential for investments and regional issues.

The Prime Minister referred to historic religious and cultural relations between the two countries and said the efforts must be made to enhance trade, investments and tourism.

Minister Jai Bir Rai thanked Sri Lanka for providing scholarships to Bhutanese students to study medicine, engineers, information technology and other courses of in premier universities. He also expressed willingness to send Bhutanese teachers and educationists to the South Asian Teacher Education Develop MORE >>

1948 පෙබරවාරි මස 4 වැනි දින නිදහස ලැබීමෙන් පසුව එවකට අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය ඩී එස් සේනානායක මහතා මෙම විහාරස්ථානයට පැමිණ ආගමික වතාවත් සිදු කොට අඹ පැළයක් රෝපණය කොට තිබේ. එතැන් සිට මේ දක්වා සෑම වර්ෂයකම මෙම නිදහස් දින සැමරුම ජනාධිපතිවරුන්ගේ සහ අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරුන්ගේ සහභාගිත්වයෙන් අඛණ්ඩව සිදු කර ඇත.
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වැල්ලවත්ත වෛශාඛ්‍යා බාලිකා විද්‍යාලයේ නව සිවුමහල් ගොඩනැගිල්ලක් සඳහා අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය දිනේෂ් ගුණවර්ධන මහතාගේ ප්‍රධානත්වයෙන් 2023.01.27 දින ඉඳි කිරීම් ආරම්භ විය.

වසර 60 ක් පුරා අඛණ්ඩව පවත්වාගෙන ආ මෙම පාසලේ අධ්‍යාපන කටයුතු වසර කිහිපයක සිට අඩාල වීම හේතුවෙන් පාසල වැසී යාමේ තර්ජනයකට මුහුණ � MORE >>

Foreign Ministers of Bangladesh and Nepal, Dr A.K. Abdul Momen and Dr Bimala Rai Paudyal respectively called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena at the Temple Trees during their visit to Sri Lanka to attend the 75th Independence Anniversary.

The two Ministers emphasize importance of regional cooperation in South Asia. They pointed out that the South Asian countries can learn from the experiences of each other and said the closer cooperation is hampered by the current deadlock in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Nepal Foreign Minister Dr Paudyal referred to historic religious and cultural relations between the two countries and said air connectivity which is limited to Colombo and Kathm MORE >>