International

French ambassador to Sri Lanka, Jean-Marin Schuh pins a medal on Sri Lanka climate expert, professor Mohan Munasinghe, during a ceremony in Colombo. Munasinghe was conferred a Legion of Honour for his efforts to combat climate change and promote sustainable development, especially in preparation for the 2015 Paris climate conference known as COP21.

Finland is ready to provide Sri Lanka with the experience and technology to generate power from the sea waves and a power generation programme will be implemented in the island country next year, said John Liljelund, chief executive officer, Finland’s AW Energy.  Liljelund made this statement when Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visited the AW Energy on a study tour on Monday. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe led a delegation to tour the facility to learn about the technology and observed the state-of-the-art equipment manufactured by the company for power generation through sea waves.  During the tour, Liljelund said they are ready to support the production of wave power in the Sri Lankan waters and all the surveys in the coastal area around Sri Lanka have been completed. They expect to begin power generation next year, the CEO stressed.  Wave energy is the largest untapped form of renewable energy in the world and is on track to produce 10% of the global energy demand in the upcoming decades, according to AW Energy.  The environmentally friendly wave energy can easily be utilised to generate electricity, seawater treatment, and pumping water. According to the research done so far, the Indian Ocean is considered as a wave power generation region.  The Finnish company has developed several products and procedures to tap wave energy and the Sri Lankan delegation has gained a basic understanding of their functioning during the visit.  The prime minister, who commenced his official state visit to Finland on Sunday with a 10-member Sri Lankan delegation, held a special discussion with the officials of the Fortum Waste Solutions which is experienced in waste management and recycling for industries, cities and communities. The Sri Lankan delegation discussed the ways modern technology is used to manage waste and new trends in waste management and was able to learn about Fortum’s procedures used in waste management and recycling.  The premier also met with the Finland’s Minister of Social Affairs and Health Pirkko Mattila yesterday. The Finnish minister hosted the premier and the delegation to dinner and had extensive discussions on issues of mutual interest to the two countries. During the discussions, Minister Mattila offered fullest support of Finland to expand the bilateral relationship in the development and enterprise fields between the two countries.

Sri Lankan police have arrested two men for allegedly helping international criminals who hacked into computers at a Taiwan bank and stole millions of dollars, an official said yesterday. The pair were arrested after they tried to withdraw large sums of money that had been wired to their accounts with a Sri Lankan bank branch in the capital Colombo, the official said. The police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was working closely with Taiwan counterparts to track down the hackers, who are said to have breached the Taiwan  bank’s computers last week. “We are looking at some $1.3mn that had come into three accounts in Sri Lanka,” the official involved with the investigation said, asking not to be named. “We have taken two people into custody and we are looking for one more person.” Police in Sri Lanka did not disclose the name of the affected bank in Taiwan or the sum said to have been stolen, but a Sri Lankan media report said tens of millions of dollars had been wired out of the island. In Taipei, the Financial Regulatory Commission confirmed that the local Far Eastern International Bank’s SWIFT system had been hacked through a computer virus but gave no details. Taiwanese media quoted the bank as saying that it detected irregularities in its SWIFT system and there were suspicious transactions starting Thursday to Sri Lanka, Cambodia and the United States. However, Taiwan police have recovered most of the money with the help of counterparts in other countries, the reports said. Bank officials were not immediately available for comment. Sri Lankan police investigated a similar theft in February last year when hackers broke into the computer system of the Bangladesh central bank and transferred $20mn of stolen money to a Sri Lankan businesswoman. The money was recovered and an court investigation is  pending.

Sri Lankan police have arrested two men for allegedly helping international criminals who hacked into computers at a Taiwan bank and stole millions of dollars, an official said on Sunday. The pair were arrested after they tried to withdraw large sums of money that had been wired to their accounts with a Sri Lankan bank branch in the capital Colombo, the official said. The police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was working closely with Taiwan counterparts to track down the hackers, who are said to have breached the Taiwan bank's computers last week. "We are looking at some $1.3mn that had come into three accounts in Sri Lanka," the official involved with the investigation told AFP, asking not to be named. "We have taken two people into custody and we are looking for one more person." Police in Sri Lanka did not disclose the name of the affected bank in Taiwan or the sum said to have been stolen, but a Sri Lankan media report said tens of millions of dollars had been wired out of the island. In Taipei the Financial Regulatory Commission confirmed that the local Far Eastern International Bank's SWIFT system had been hacked through a computer virus but gave no details. Taiwanese media quoted the bank as saying that it detected irregularities in its SWIFT system and there were suspicious transactions starting Thursday to Sri Lanka, Cambodia and the United States. However, Taiwan police have recovered most of the money with the help of counterparts in other countries, the reports said. Bank officials were not immediately available for comment. Sri Lankan police investigated a similar theft in February last year when hackers broke into the computer system of the Bangladesh central bank and transferred $20mn of stolen money to a Sri Lankan businesswoman. The money was recovered and an court investigation is pending.

India has always stood for a united and sovereign Sri Lanka, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said on Friday, as her counterpart from the island nation’s parliament assured her that the proposed new constitution would take care of all ethnic groups. After the conclusion of the 8th Conference of the Association of Saarc Speakers and Parliamentarians, the Indian Parliamentary Delegation led by Mahajan met the Sri Lankan delegation led by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and told him of India’s stand, an official statement said. In response, Jayasuriya informed Mahajan that the proposed new constitution of Sri Lanka would take care of all ethnic groups and other stakeholders. To achieve this goal, the draft of the new constitution would be widely debated, he said. Sri Lanka has a major chunk of population of Tamil origin, which constitutes more than 11% of its population. Referring to rich cultural ties between the two countries, Mahajan suggested that religious tourism for Indian tourists in Sri Lanka could be further increased. In this regard, she also referred to the Buddhist Circuit being developed in India. Both delegations expressed interest in consolidating closer ties between the two Parliaments and to organise a friendly cricket match between their members. “It was felt that regular dialogue between the two Parliaments would provide a fillip to bilateral ties,” the statement said.  Appreciating the capacity-building programmes being organised by the Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training (BPST) of Lok Sabha Secretariat for the their parliamentarians and officials, the Sri Lankan Delegation suggested that the capacity-buildings programmes, including attachment programmes, might be customised for the officials of the Sri Lanka Parliament. Mahajan assured that all such suggestions would be considered sincerely.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday launched the national food production programme aimed at preventing a food shortage in the future. With nearly 1.9mn people facing a severe drought in the island country and many agricultural lands destroyed by floods earlier this year, Sirisena said the food programme was launched to encourage food cultivation in unused lands and revive the agricultural sector, Xinhua news agency reported. Many programmes will be launched across the country and October 6 to October 12 was declared as the National Food Production Week. The government is expected to cultivate lands and take steps to encourage those who are cultivating. Legal actions will be taken against those who do not cultivate on their unused lands. The programme will also see many initiatives to promote home gardening, tree planting, prevention of food wastage and promotion of toxin-free food production. Meanwhile, Sirisena said immediate steps will be taken to stop importing unhealthy food items as well as non-essential food items into the country. He said more than Rs25bn were spent annually to import essential food items into the country and it is essential that Sri Lanka produces its own food required for consumption. The president pointed out that self-sufficiency in food is the identity and the culture of Sri Lanka for the past thousands of years and it should be protected. He also said it is important that the country gives value to local products if it is to help the agriculture economy as well as the national economy. On Thursday, the president formally opened a cable landing station that will connect the country with the latest submarine cable linking South East Asia, to Europe via the Middle East, a statement from the President’s Office said. According to the statement, the submarine cable landing station has been opened in Galle, in the southern part of the island. The South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) submarine cable system spans approximately 20,000km whilst offering POP-to-POP (point of presence) solutions from Singapore to Europe via France and Italy. “The SEA-ME-WE 5 is designed to provide upgradeable transmission facilities by adopting the state-of-the-art multiple 100 GBPS technology,” the statement said. When fully loaded, the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system is capable of carrying 24 terabytes per second, the equivalent of transmitting around 4,800 high-definition movies every second, the statement added.

Police in Sri Lanka clashed Friday with hundreds of supporters of the former president who were protesting plans to privatise an airport named after him, firing tear gas and water cannon and arresting 26. The $210 million airport in Mahinda Rajapakse's home town of Hambantota in the south of the island is one of several state-owned white elephants that were built under the former president and have never turned a profit. It is one of the world's least used airports, servicing just one flight a day, and Colombo has said it is considering selling it to an Indian investor. "We used teargas and water cannon to disperse the crowd," a police officer told AFP by telephone from Hambantota, 240 kilometres south of Colombo. "Four of our men were injured when the demonstrators pelted stones." The protest was led by Namal Rajapakse, the legislator son of Mahinda, who was ousted from power in January 2015. The new government offered to sell the airport after sealing a billion-dollar deal in July with a Chinese state-owned company to take over a majority stake in a deep sea port in Hambantota. The Rajapakse administration had raised some $8 billion in loans from China to build infrastructure, including the ports, which do not generate enough revenue even to pay staff.

Sri Lanka will soon amend its parliamentary laws to fall in line with the best international practices, Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya said yesterday. Addressing the eighth conference of the Association of Saarc Speakers and Parliamentarians, Jayasuriya said Sri Lanka hoped to make its parliamentary mechanism more effective and efficient, reports Xinhua news agency. He said the government would also soon introduce a new constitution to benefit all communities. The South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) is a regional inter-governmental organisation whose member are Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, the Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and  Sri Lanka. Speaking at the conference, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said that the support of all parties is necessary to enact a new constitution which ensures a unitary state and strengthens parliament. “Our aim is to strengthen parliament while ensuring the unitary status of the country and the support of every lawmaker belonging to all political parties is essential to fulfil it,” the president said. “Let’s strive towards fulfilling our responsibility of building a secured future for those who will be born tomorrow,” he added. He recalled that parliament was weakened by the 1978 constitution and it was further weakened by the 18 amendments to the constitution.  The president recalled that the present government was able to strengthen the legislature by the 19th amendment to the constitution. “We were able to increase powers of parliament by repealing the 18th amendment with the mandate of the people given to us on January 8, 2015,” the president said.

Sri Lanka has blocked a proposal by Chinese firms bidding to build the island’s biggest oil refinery to sell fuel locally, fearing a threat to domestic firms that dominate the small but growing market.  The veto is the latest in a tussle over Chinese investments in Hambantota, a southern town near an important shipping route, where China controls the sea port and plans an industrial zone for Chinese firms and a $3bn refinery with annual output of around 5mn tonnes.  China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corp, a subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp, and private refiner Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group have jointly bid for the refinery located near the port.  Government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said the Chinese companies had asked to sell refined products on to the local market, but had been told just to export.  “The Chinese companies asked permission (to supply local markets), but we did not give them permission. We asked them to participate in tenders of local suppliers, if they want to sell locally,” he said.  Another government official, who didn’t want to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, said Sri Lanka did not want to cede control of the local fuel market to Chinese firms.  Sri Lanka’s $6bn market is controlled by state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corp and Lanka IOC, a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corp.  “We have asked the Chinese firms to go for partnership with existing players if they want to sell their products in the local market,” the official said. “We don’t want both our companies to suffer by letting another player in.”  The two Chinese companies seeking local market access did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.  Hambantota is part of China’s vast Belt and Road initiative to build trade and transport links across Asia and into Europe, but Beijing’s widening footprint has raised concerns in India, the United States and even Europe.  New Delhi sees the massive investment in the port town as another sign of the threat of China’s growing influence in the region. Even in Sri Lanka, the plan has been criticised for the loss of land and, more broadly, the tiny nation’s sovereignty.  This year, Sri Lanka revised the terms of its deal with China Merchants Port Holdings (0144.HK), which has a 99-year lease on the Hambantota port, to give greater influence to a local state-run partner.  A Chinese source in Colombo said the two Chinese firms had made an informal request for the refinery’s products to be sold locally, but had been told by the Sri Lankan authorities that such a move could spark demonstrations by local trade unions.

Sri Lanka’s popular street art, which has been on display on the streets of Colombo for decades, is now seeing a boom in sales due to enthusiastic Chinese buyers. China has in recent years emerged as one of Sri Lanka’s leading markets with the most number of tourist arrivals, and while this has benefited the lucrative tourism industry of the country, it has also benefited the local art industry, with Chinese nationals showing a keen interest for Sri Lankan art. Many well-known local artists who were forced to choose alternative careers due to a slump in sales during the civil war, which ended in May 2009, have now re-emerged in the art field hoping to make Sri Lankan art globally popular. “During the war, sales were very bad and many of us had to stop painting. But now the war is over and we are seeing a rise in tourists so we are hoping to show our paintings to the world,” Sugath Kumara, a 42-year-old artist, told  Xinhua. Sugath’s passion for art developed from his father. He watched his father paint for hours a day and then helped him take his painting to the streets of Colombo hoping to find buyers. Sugath decided to follow his father’s dream and has now been an artist  for 25 years. “Like my father’s art, my paintings also portray Sri Lanka’s rich culture and heritage. My paintings are modern, and tourists, especially Chinese customers, really like that,”  Sugath said. Sugath’s most expensive painting, valued at Sri Lankan Rs150,000 ($978) was recently bought by a Chinese tourist. He said the Chinese buyer had really valued his painting. “Chinese tourists are our highest buyers. They appreciate Sri Lankan art. It is because of them that the industry is now booming,” Sugath said. Another artist, 63-year-old Sripala Ratnayake has been selling his art on the streets of Colombo since 1983. Specialising in “woodburn” art, Sripala says that while the industry faced a bleak period during the civil war, it has now improved with many locals and foreign tourists becoming aficionados. “Foreigners, especially Chinese nationals, are easily attracted towards our art. They prefer art portraying Sri Lankan wildlife and from these pieces we have good sales,” Sripala said. “They also value art portraying our culture and we cater to them,” he said, adding that his livelihood had now improved, especially due to Chinese  visitors. The colourful paintings and wooden art on display on the streets of Colombo portray Sri Lanka’s famous historical sites, the island’s beautiful beaches, the pera hera, which is a Buddhist religious parade featuring dancers, elephants and fire dancers, wildlife and abstract art. While these streets have now become a popular tourist attraction, the lives of these local artists, many of whom have studied the talent from their parents, is now improving. “Just as the locals appreciate our hard work, we are proud that tourists also appreciate our work. We hope tourists, especially the Chinese, continue to visit our country so that Sri Lankan art can be taken to the world,” art seller Indika Saman said. “We hope to make Sri Lankan street art a global brand,” the art seller added.

A soldier stands at the ceremony of the national parliament in Colombo yesterday. Parliament marked its 70th anniversary with a commemorative session that had Speakers of South Asian countries attending as special invitees.

A Sri Lankan court yesterday remanded in custody a Buddhist monk charged with leading a mob which evicted Rohingya refugees, including 16 children, from a UN-protected shelter. A magistrate ordered that Akmeemana Dayarathana be held for a week pending an identification parade in connection with last Tuesday’s attack on a refugee centre near Colombo. Police told the court in Mount Lavinia that the monk was a member of an unlawful assembly, obstructed police and caused disaffection among peaceful Buddhists. “Peace-loving Buddhists were shocked to see a saffron-robed monk behaving so badly,” a prosecuting police officer said. “We are charging the monk for causing distress to Buddhists.” The raid on the refugee centre, which housed 31 Rohingya refugees, was led by Dayarathana’s radical Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (Sinhalese National Force), which uploaded videos of the attack on their Facebook page. Several other people, including monks, were seen on the video urging supporters to destroy the refugee facility. Dozens of men and women led by monks stormed the building and smashed windows and furniture. Police eventually rescued the refugees who had huddled in upstairs rooms. Five men and a woman arrested over the weekend were also remanded in custody until October 9. The government of the Buddhist-majority country has accused the monks of behaving like “animals” during the attack, which left two police officers injured. The refugees arrived in Sri Lanka five months ago after the navy found them drifting in a boat off the north coast.Before that, they had been living in India for several years. More than 800,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in recent years. While most are in refugee camps in Bangladesh, a sizeable minority have moved to other parts of South Asia. The Rohingya have been the target of decades of state-backed persecution and discrimination in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, where many view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Extremist Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka have close links with ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of orchestrating violence against minority Muslims. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has expressed alarm over last Tuesday’s attack.

Street vendor wait for customers to sell fish in Colombo yesterday.

Sri Lankan police said yesterday they have arrested six people in their hunt for a mob led by Buddhist monks who attacked Rohingya refugees last week. The government of the Buddhist-majority country has accused the monks of behaving like “animals” during Tuesday’s attack on a centre housing Rohingya Muslims including children on the outskirts of Colombo. “We have identified the monks who led the attack,” an officer involved in the investigation told AFP on condition of anonymity. “We have deployed three teams to arrest them.” Two police officers had to be hospitalised after the attack, in which monks and their supporters threw stones and smashed windows and  furniture. Five men and a woman have already been arrested and a government official said several police officers were also under investigation for failing to  prevent the violence. The refugees had arrived in Sri Lanka five months ago after the navy found them drifting in a boat off the island’s north coast. Before that, they had been living in India for several years. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in recent years and while most are in refugee camps in Bangladesh, hundreds of them have moved to other parts of South Asia. They have been the target of decades of state-backed persecution and discrimination in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, where many view them as illegal immigrants from  Bangladesh. Sri Lanka’s extremist Buddhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of orchestrating violence against minority Muslims in the two countries. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed alarm over Tuesday’s attack and urged Sri Lankans to show empathy for civilians fleeing persecution and violence. The 31 Rohingya refugees, including 16 children and seven women, were evacuated by the police and accommodated at a former detention centre in the south of the island for their safety, according to the government.

Sri Lanka will bring modern technology transforming education over the next decade, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said at the opening of a hi-tech ‘smart classroom’ at one of the country’s oldest western-style schools.  Wickremesinghe visited the model classroom with students equipped with tablets and Wi-Fi connections at Sri Jayawardenepura Maha Vidyalalaya in Kotte, in an initiative started by Deputy Minister Harsha de Silva, who represents the area in parliament.  “This is a pilot project,” the prime minister told a gathering outside the classroom. “It brings cloud technology, tablet devices to the classroom.  “We want to roll this out to the education system over the next decade. We also want to give similar technology to vocational education,” he said.  Deputy Minister Harsha de Silva says the teachers of the classroom were trained in Australia.  The school was started in 1820-22 originally as a place to teach Anglican priests.  “It was kind of a seminary school,” Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said. “Later, lay students were also taught.”  The school’s students went to higher studies in India where the first western-style university was set up. Governor Maitland had helped two students from the Obeysekera family to go to Oxford University, he said.  In 1834 the then British Governor Wilmot Horten had visited the school and next year he had helped start the Colombo Academy as a public school, which later became the Royal College.  Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said students of the school were able to learn, English, Latin and Greek, geography and British history.

The Sri Lankan government yesterday slammed a group of radical Buddhist monks who attacked Rohingya refugees on the island as “animals”, pledging action against police who failed to protect them. Rajitha Senaratne, a cabinet spokesman, said the government condemned Tuesday’s storming of a UN safe house where 31 Rohingya refugees, including 16 children and seven women, had been given shelter. “As a Buddhist I am ashamed at what happened,” Senaratne told reporters.  “Mothers carrying very young children were forced out of their safe house which was attacked by a mob led by a handful of monks,” he said. The mob broke down the gates of the multi-storied building near the capital Colombo, smashing windows and furniture as frightened refugees huddled together  upstairs. There were no reports of casualties among the refugees, who were later taken to another location, but two police officers were wounded and admitted to hospital.  Senaratne said police had been ordered to take disciplinary action against officers found to have failed to control the mob. “This is not what the Buddha taught. We have to show compassion to these refugees. These monks who carried out the attacks are actually not monks, but animals,” he said. Sri Lanka’s extremist Buddhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of orchestrating violence against minority Muslims in the two  countries. One of the monks who stormed the building posted a video on Facebook filmed by his radical group Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (Sinhalese National Force) as he urged others to join him and smash the premises.  “These are Rohingya terrorists who killed Buddhist monks in Myanmar,” the monk said in his live commentary, pointing to Rohingya mothers with small children in their arms. The 31 Rohingya refugees were rescued by the Sri Lankan navy five months ago after they were found drifting in a boat off the island’s northern coast They had been living in India for several years before leaving a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu state. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed alarm over Tuesday’s attack and urged Sri Lankans to show empathy for civilians fleeing persecution and violence. Almost half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since August 25. They have been the target of decades of state-backed persecution and discrimination in the mainly Buddhist country, where many view them as illegal immigrants from  Bangladesh.

Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana and Belgian Vice-Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders pictured during a bilateral meeting at the Egmont Palace in Brussels yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s airport police have arrested a man for allegedly trying to smuggle gold articles weighing 1kg hidden in his rectum, an official said yesterday. The 45-year-old Sri Lankan man was arrested on Sunday at the Bandaranaike International Airport near Colombo as he was about to depart to India, said Sri Lankan customs’ media spokesperson Sunil Jayarathna. Customs officers found four small gold bars and eight jewellery pieces, two of them in white gold, inside the suspect’s rectal cavity, Efe news reported. The spokesperson said that despite the unusual choice of concealment, it had become an increasingly common way of smuggling gold to India. “There are various methods and hiding the contraband in the smuggler’s body has become common over the years,” said Jayarathna. The haul was valued at Rs4.5mn ($30,000). He said that the man was released after paying a $660 fine. Sri Lanka’s customs authorities have, so far, detected 44 similar incidents in 2017. Smugglers in the region buy gold in places like Dubai and Singapore, where it is relatively cheap, and then bring it to sell it in the local market or in neighbouring India at a profit. A customs officer told BBC Sinhala they spotted the man because “he was walking suspiciously”. Metal detectors then identified the hidden luggage, “carefully packed in polythene bags and neatly inserted”, according to a custom officer. Last week a Sri Lankan female, also travelling to India, was caught by customs while trying to smuggle 314.5 grams of gold pieces concealed in her rectum.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that the UN is ready to provide every possible assistance to Sri Lanka in its efforts to build as a prosperous nation where the reconciliation is strengthened. He further said that the UN will provide its maximum support to build as an exemplary nation in the world. The UN Secretary General made these remarks when he met with President Maithripala Sirisena, on the sidelines of the 72nd United Nations’ General Assembly last week. He also commended President Sirisena’s commitment in adopting agreements set out in the Paris Convention and expressed his appreciation over implementing sustainable development goals in the development process of the country. Guterres recalled the tour he made to Sri Lanka in 1978 and said that during that tour he had visited many areas including Sigiriya, Dambulla and  Polonnaruwa. He had visited Sri Lanka as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He also emphasised that the UN will continuously provide support to Sri Lanka while strengthening the ties between the UN and Sri Lanka.  Expressing his views, the president said that the government is committed for the initiatives taken for development and reconciliation. He said the assistance of all is needed to make them successful.

A Sri Lankan couple is under investigation for deploying hundreds of schoolchildren to carry the train of the bride’s saree during a wedding ceremony, authorities said yesterday. About 250 students of a state-owned school carried the train of the 3.2km (2 miles) long saree worn by the bride as she and the groom walked down a main road in the central district of Kandy on Thursday, local media reported. Another 100 students served as flower girls at the wedding. The students were from a school named after Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayaka who was a special guest at the wedding, according to media reports, which said the saree was the longest ever worn by a bride in Sri Lanka. The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) said it was probing the incident. “We have started an investigation,” NCPA chairman Marini de Livera said, adding: “We are going all out because we don’t want this to become a trend.” De Livera said deploying students for such ceremonies during school hours was against the law, with violators facing up to 10 years in prison. “What they (the wedding party) did is a violation of child rights,” de Livera said. “Depriving children of education, risking their security and harming their dignity are criminal offences.”