COLOMBO, Sept 1: Inflation in crisis-hit Sri Lanka eased to 4.0 percent in August, the lowest since before last year's unprecedented financial crisis, official figures showed Friday.The island nation endured months of food, fuel and medicine shortages after a foreign exchange crunch that sparked widespread protests culminating in the ouster of its president.

KATHMANDU, Aug 31: Nepali cricket team has reached Sri Lanka for the second match of Asia Cup 2023.

KATHMANDU, July 10: A Nepali cricket team is leaving today for Sri Lanka to participate in the ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup 2023.

KATHMANDU, July 3: CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal left for Sri Lanka on Monday.

COLOMBO, June 1: Cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Thursday sharply cut interest rates for the first time since it last year crashed into its worst economic crisis, with the central bank saying the country was showing signs of recovery.

COLOMBO, May 9: Sri Lanka has earned nearly 700 million U.S. dollars from tourism in the first four months of 2023, an increase of 17.8 percent from the same period last year, an official said on Monday.

COLOMBO, April 22: Sri Lanka's headline inflation dropped to 49.2 percent in March from 53.6 percent in February this year, said the Department of Census and Statistics here on Friday.

COLOMBO, April 9: Sri Lanka has seen an increase from tourism earnings with around 530 million U.S. dollars being received in the first three months of 2023, according to the latest data from the country's central bank.

COLOMBO, April 4: Sri Lanka is set to increase duty-free allowances for migrant workers at the airport starting May in order to encourage remittance, Minister of Labor and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara said on Monday.

KATHMANDU, Feb 5: Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Bimala Rai Paudyal, paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Dinesh Gunawardena.

KATHMANDU, Jan 31: Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Bimala Rai Paudyal will visit Sri Lanka on Thursday to participate in the 75th Independence Day functions as an honored guest in Colombo on February 3-4 .

The Himalayan nation of Nepal and the Indian Ocean Island nation of Sri Lanka have a progressive multi-pronged agenda which facilitates member SAARC and BIMSTEC states to better target their collaboration with other regional economies.

COLOMBO, Sept 27: Sri Lanka will step up efforts to revive a stalled free trade pact with Singapore, President Ranil Wickremesinghe told the city state's premier on Tuesday, his office said in a statement.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Sept 3: Sri Lanka’s former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country in July after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over the country’s economic crisis, has returned to the country after seven weeks.

COLOMBO, Sept 1: Sri Lanka has reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of about $2.9 billion, the global lender said on Thursday, as the country seeks a way out its worst economic crisis in decades.

TOKYO, Aug 26: Japan is seeking to organise a Sri Lanka creditors' conference, hoping it could help solve the South Asia nation's debt crisis, but uncertainties cloud the outlook for any talks, three people with knowledge of the planning said.

COLOMBO, July 22: Senior Sri Lankan lawmaker Dinesh Gunawardena was sworn in on Friday as the new prime minister, his office said, a day after the swearing-in of a new president as the Indian Ocean nation grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades.

COLOMBO, July 18: Sri Lanka's acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Monday that the country had almost concluded negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a day after he declared a state of emergency in the island nation.

COLOMBO, July 18: Sri Lanka's acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe gazetted orders late on Sunday for a state of emergency in the crisis-ridden island nation, in an effort to head off unrest ahead of a vote in parliament later this week to elect a new president.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, July 14: Sri Lankans woke up to confusion on Thursday, still waiting for their embattled president to resign after he fled the country, as the island nation fumes over an economic meltdown that has sparked political chaos.

KATHMANDU, July 13: Sri Lanka has declared a state of emergency Wednesday as thousands of people mobbed the prime minister's office after the country's president flew to the Maldives, following months of widespread protests against an economic crisis, according to media reports.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, July 13: The president of Sri Lanka fled the country early Wednesday, days after protesters stormed his home and office and the official residence of his prime minister amid a three-month economic crisis that triggered severe shortages of food and fuel.

COLOMBO, July 12: Sri Lankan immigration officials said on Tuesday they prevented the president's brother and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa from flying out of the country, as anger rises against the powerful family for a debilitating economic crisis.

COLOMBO, July 10: Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa plans to step down, the country's parliamentary speaker said on Saturday, bowing to intense pressure after a violent day of protests in which demonstrators stormed the president's official residence and set fire to the prime minister's home in Colombo.

COLOMBO, July 9: Thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka's commercial capital Colombo stormed the president's official residence and his secretariat on Saturday amid months of mounting public anger over the country's worst economic crisis in seven decades.

KATHMANDU, July 2: Former Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri has said that the situation in Nepal's economy was not like that of Sri Lanka. However, according to him, if the political rights are given to the wrong person like in Sri Lanka, then there is a possibility of Nepal becoming the next Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, May 20: Sri Lanka's prime minister has warned of a food shortage as the island nation battles a devastating economic crisis and vowed the government will buy enough fertiliser for the next planting season to boost productivity.

COLOMBO, May 17: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Monday that the South Asian country's economy is extremely precarious with the next few months being a very hard time, and urged Sri Lankans to work together to overcome the difficulties.

COLOMBO, May 10: Streets were calm on Tuesday in the Sri Lankan commercial capital of Colombo, following a day of clashes that killed five people and injured more than 200, police said, in violence that prompted Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to resign.

COLOMBO, May 7: Sri Lanka’s president declared a state of emergency on Friday giving him broad authority amid widespread public protests demanding his resignation over the country’s worst economic crisis in recent memory.

KATHMANDU, May 4: Senior economist and former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission, Dr Swarnim Wagle has said that the Nepali economy is not heading toward a crisis, unlike the present situation of Sri Lanka.

KATHMANDU, April 8: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has made it clear that Nepal's economy will not collapse like that of Sri Lanka.

COLOMBO, April 5: Sri Lanka's newly-appointed Finance Minister Ali Sabry resigned on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after his appointment on Monday. Sabry said he had accepted the portfolio only as an interim measure.

COLOMBO, April 4: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa called on Monday for a unity government to deal with the country's economic crisis after cabinet ministers and the central bank governor offered to resign.

COLOMBO, April 2: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a nationwide public emergency late on Friday following violent protests over the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

COLOMBO, Dec 4: Sri Lanka's Health Ministry on Friday said the country had detected its first patient infected with the Omicron variant of the COVID-19.

While scanning MCC, Nepal can also learn from the Sri Lankan experience where a US aid scheme sparked debate and MCC was not approved. Critics argue that the MCC’s primary commitment is not poverty reduction but to reshape the legal, institutional, infrastructural and financial contexts of poorer countries to better suit US economic and Indo-Pacific Strategy Pact interests of the government and becoming an instrument of the new imperialism pursuing economic hegemony through the extension and ever-deepening penetration of neoliberal capitalism. Vietnam has already rejected MCC.

KATHMANDU, August 29: Direct flights between Nepal and Sri Lanka are resuming from Tuesday after a hiatus of four decades.

Police in Sri Lanka on Thursday arrested the reigning Mrs. World for pulling the crown off the head of the winner of a Mrs. Sri Lanka beauty pageant and allegedly causing injuries. She was later released on bail.

KATHMANDU, April 1: Nepal has called for taking concerted efforts to make Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) as an effective organization through deeper cooperation among member states for the progress and prosperity of people living in the region.

COLOMBO, March 16: Sri Lanka said on Tuesday a call to ban the wearing of the burqa was “merely a proposal”, following criticism from regional allies ahead of a crucial United Nations vote on human rights in the island nation.

COLOMBO, Mar 14: Sri Lanka will ban the wearing of the burqa and shut more than a thousand Islamic schools, a government minister said on Saturday, the latest actions affecting the country’s minority Muslim population.

COLOMBO, Nov 5: Sri Lankan authorities will end a pandemic curfew imposed in parts of the country, saying people themselves should take the responsibility to avoid being infected the new coronavirus.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Oct 7: Sri Lankan authorities have banned all public gatherings as a new cluster of COVID-19 expands in the Indian Ocean island nation.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Aug 7: Sri Lanka’s powerful Rajapaksa brothers secured a landslide victory in the country’s Parliamentary election, according to results released Friday.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, April 30: Sailors at a Sri Lankan naval base have become the biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the Indian Ocean island nation with 248 testing positive for the disease, authorities said Thursday.

KATHMANDU, April 8: As the entire world is battling against the coronavirus pandemic, South Asian countries are no exception.

DHAKA/COLOMBO, March 21: Bangladesh tightened border controls while Sri Lanka arrested more than two dozen people for violating a nationwide curfew as part of increased efforts on Saturday to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in densely populated South Asia.

COLOMBO/LUCKNOW, March 20: Mosques in Sri Lanka were shut indefinitely from Friday, and the island is set to impose a countrywide curfew over the weekend, as South Asian countries step up efforts to check the spread of COVID-19 cases.

ISLAMABAD/COLOMBO, March 18: Pakistan’s prime minister has urged calm after its tally of coronavirus cases rose to 245 while Sri Lanka sealed itself off and shut its stock market on Wednesday, fuelling fears that South Asian countries are struggling to stem the pandemic.