Sri Lanka's Supreme Court bars overseas travel of Rajapaksa brothers till Jul 28
Colombo, Jul 15: Sri Lanka's Supreme Court on Friday barred former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country till July 28.
The order was passed by the apex court during the hearing of a petition filed by global civil society organisation Transparency International on the economic crisis in Sri Lanka.
The petition filed on June 17 had sought the court to restrict the overseas travel of the two Rajapaksa brothers, former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal, and former treasury secretary S R Attygala.
The petitioner had claimed that these persons were directly responsible for the unsustainability of Sri Lanka's foreign debt, its debt default and the current economic crisis.
Basil, the younger brother of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had tried to leave the crisis-hit island nation on Tuesday.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself fled to the Maldives on Wednesday and then reached Singapore on Thursday following massive protests against his government.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.
The country, with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in foreign debt default, had announced in April that it is suspending nearly USD 7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about USD 25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka's total foreign debt stands at USD 51 billion.
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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.
