• CCC calls for greater transparency

The new tariffs that have been made effective from 12th April 2013 will entail significant increase in electricity costs for all industry sectors. On average, the increase is estimated at around 20% - 30%. It will be difficult for businesses to absorb such an increase and it will result in a sharp fall in profitability, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.

"The tariff increase will acutely affect businesses engaged in producing goods and services for exports, as they are already facing severe competition from other countries and losing their market share. Sri Lanka’s merchandise exports contracted by 7.4% in 2012 and by over 18% in January 2013.

• Bidding round for petroleum exploration licenses for 13 blocks ends September 30, agreements expected to be signed in first quarter of 2014
• Total and Exxon Mobil purchase Sri Lanka’s seismic data set
• ENI, BP, OVL, PVEP, other international majors in discussion with govt on potential future operations in Sri Lankan

The Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat (PRDS) is planning to amend the current Petroleum Resources Act of 2003 in a bid to reduce bottlenecks and improve governance by more clearly separating the functions of regulation, policy formulation and operations. It hopes to be an independent statutory body before the bidding round for 13 blocks on Sri Lankan waters closes this September.

The recent vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva was upsetting, and it would make sense for Sri Lanka to assess what happened and work towards ensuring that such a situation does not occur again. However there seems little chance of that, since the same was obvious a year ago, but nevertheless nothing was done, except to sit back and hope disaster would not strike twice.

The only efforts at analysis we saw from the Ministry of External Affairs were leaks to the effect that the vote engineered by the United States had put Sri Lanka back on track to working with what were described as its traditional allies.

NEW DELHI, March 2:

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has claimed that the island’s army did not kill LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s 12-year-old son Balachandran at the end of the socalled Eelam IV War. His reason for thinking so: if the army did it, he would have known. Since he does not know, it could not have happened!

In an interview to The Hindu’s Colombo Correspondent RK Radhakrishnan published in the newspaper today, Rajapaksa proclaimed: "Had it happened, I would have known (it). It is obvious that if somebody (from the armed forces) had done that, I must take responsibility. We completely deny it. It can’t be."