President Wickremesinghe invites Sri Lankan parties to form national government
Colombo(PTI): Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has written to members of Parliament, inviting them to form an all-party national government to help the bankrupt country to recover from the worst economic crisis.
The government is currently engaged in great efforts to gradually restore normalcy to the political and social unrest created by the economic crisis that the country is facing today," Wickremesinghe said in the letter on Friday.
"Accordingly, initial plans required to implement a systematic economic programme are being formulated while preliminary measures are also being undertaken for the creation of economic stability, he added.
Wickremesinghe said a programme could only be implemented with the participation of all political parties represented in Parliament, expert groups and civil society.
He also proposed to start a dialogue with parties on the reintroduction of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
The 19A adopted in 2015 pruned presidential powers by empowering Parliament above the executive president. Wickremesinghe was the main sponsor of the 19th Amendment in 2015.
However, the 19A was scrapped after Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the November 2019 presidential election.
Sri Lankan MPs on July 20 elected Wickremesinghe as the country's new president, with the majority of the vote coming from lawmakers representing ousted President Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party.
There were only two non-SLPP lawmakers in the Cabinet appointed on Friday. Constitutionally, the Cabinet can be extended up to 30 members.
The 73-year-old President was appointed for the rest of the term of Rajapaksa who initially fled to the Maldives and then to Singapore.
Rajapaksa is accused of mishandling the economic crisis, the worst since 1948. Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister by Rajapaksa in mid-May.
He was tasked with reviving the economy by giving early solutions to fuel, cooking gas and power shortage problems, which triggered mass agitations against Rajapaksa.
The government declared bankruptcy in mid-April by refusing to honour its international debt.
Wickremesinghe on Wednesday said his government's main priorities are to fix the country's ailing economy and end the severe fuel shortage that has exacerbated after the last shipment under the Indian credit line arrived in the country in June.
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Dense fog disrupts Delhi airport operations, over 130 flights impacted
New Delhi: Flight operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport were severely disrupted on Monday due to very dense fog that drastically reduced visibility across the national capital, officials said.
According to a report published by The New Indian Express, more than 130 flights were impacted, including 128 cancellations 64 arrivals and 64 departures while eight flights were diverted to other airports as airlines struggled to operate under adverse weather conditions.
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Sharing a passenger advisory on X (formerly Twitter), the Delhi Airport informed that "flight operations are currently being conducted under CAT III conditions due to dense fog, which may result in delays or cancellations."
The disruption comes amid worsening weather and environmental conditions in the city. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued an orange alert for very dense fog across Delhi-NCR, warning of travel delays and poor visibility during early morning hours.
As per the report, the city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) hovered around 460 in the early hours, placing it in the “hazardous” category. As many as 19 monitoring stations reported hazardous air quality, with Anand Vihar recording the worst levels. Other areas reported air quality ranging from “very poor” to “severe.”
Meanwhile, the Delhi government is considering a partnership with IIT Kanpur to deploy Artificial Intelligence for pinpointing pollution sources and evaluating their impact.
Officials reportedly said the environment department is working on a roadmap for the partnership, including institutional mechanisms and phased implementation. Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said the focus would be on data-driven decision-making. “We are moving towards a model where decisions are driven by real-time data, source identification, and measurable outcomes, not reactive measures.” he said.
He proposed initiative aims to enable targeted interventions across sectors by strengthening Delhi’s ability to track pollution sources at a granular level.
