Gampaha district UPFA MP Prasanna Ranatunga said the anti-government campaign cannot be blunted by his removal from the party organiser post in Minuwangoda because the government would be definitely toppled within the next two years. Addressing a meeting of the Minuwangoda SLFP Balamandalaya at his Udugampola house, he said he would never shelve his people-friendly political campaign however much he was removed from party posts or positions.Ranatunga said he would join hands with Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Common Opposition and give leadership to topple the government within the next two years.

Ranatunga said he joined his late father in village politics when his other siblings were resident in Colombo. He said he also told former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga that he would never aspire to go to Parliament until his father was living. Ranatunga said the people had rallied round to make him victorious at elections. He said he mustered 384,000 votes at the last general election. Ranatunga said he backed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the compulsion of the people who voted for him.

The Cabinet of Ministers approved drafting a new bill to combat illegal and unregulated poaching in Sri Lankan waters, replacing the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act No. 2 of 1996.

Sri Lanka Police has suspended its annual transfer orders for 2025 for six months. The suspension was based on a directive from Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Priyantha Weerasooriya on 24 December.

The National People's Power (NPP) is to contest the upcoming Local Government (LG) and Provincial Council (PC) Elections under its current structure, with the groups currently aligned with them.

The government is yet to assign vehicles to the MPs of the new Parliament though it has taken a policy decision to do so. Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told Daily Mirror yesterday that the government is currently in the process of auctioning luxury vehicles. He said most of the MPs were using their own vehicles at the moment.

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna had decided to go to court over reducing the strength of security provided to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that it would disclose details about Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s planned official visit to China in mid-January “in a timely manner.”

The government will conduct fresh probes into the scams involved in the import of a stock of biofertilizer from China and in the introduction of organic farming during the time of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a minister said yesterday.

Cabinet spokesman Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said today that the people will know whether the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) MPs had sought assistance from the President’s Fund as claimed by SJB MP Dayasiri Jayasekara when the rest of the list is released soon.

The circular issued by the Western Province Education Zonal Ministry prohibiting private tutoring classes for students by school teachers, along with the letter issued by the Education Ministry regarding modulators, has been withdrawn, Parliamentarian Mahinda Jayasinghe said.

Adding further controversy to the misuse of the President’s Fund, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Dayasiri Jayasekera yesterday said some of JVP members also sought assistance from the President’s funds prior to 2010.