The Sri Lankan government has pledged to provide a relief package to Myanmar, which is reeling after a devastating earthquake on March 28.

Speaking at the Cabinet briefing today (April 02), Cabinet Spokesman – Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said that this will include financial relief amounting to USD 01 million.

In addition, dry rations collected under the guidance of Buddhist Theros will be transported immediately to Myanmar with the mediation of the government.

Also, a group of relief services, including medical officers and other health staff, will be stationed on alert for immediate departure to Myanmar at any time.

A number of decisions have been taken at the Cabinet meeting held yesterday (April 02).

The decisions taken by the Cabinet of Ministers are as follows :

The Court of Appeal has further suspended carrying out activities related to conducting Local Government (LG) Elections for institutions where petitions have been filed challenging the rejection of nomination papers.

Accordingly, the court once again ordered Returning Officers to halt the election process related activities of the Colombo Municipal Council and several other local government bodies until tomorrow (03).

The petitions were taken up for further hearing today, during which an agreement was reached to accept nominations that included original birth certificates from among the previously rejected submissions.

As a result, the court issued an additional directive preventing further election-related steps from being taken for the affected local government institutions—except for the nominations that have been agreed to be accepted—until further proceedings.

The court subsequently adjourned further hearings until this afternoon.

So far, nearly 30 petitions have been filed in the Court of Appeal by parties including the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UNFPA), ‘Sarvajana Balaya’ alliance, and several independent groups, challenging the rejection of nomination papers for multiple local government bodies, including the Colombo Municipal Council.

(adaderana.lk)

(Except for the headline, this story, originally published by adaderana.lk has not been edited by SLM staff)