Rakhitha Dilshan Malewana of Nalanda College, Colombo won gold from South Asia region at the International Science Project Olympiad for a project on a drug for AIDS.

President Maithripala Sirisena, who is currently visiting Jaffna, pledges that the accused in the Pungudutivu gang rape and murder case will be punished even through a special court, the Presidential Media Division said.

Heads of all state institutions have been issued with a special circular, instructing that the lunch break of state servants be confined to 30 minutes.

The Ceylon Teachers Union wants an independent committee to inquire into the rape and murder of all schoolgirls in the north in the post-war period.

The contract for the construction of a small tourist hotel, supermarket and filling centre in Kilinochchi had been given to a friend of former minister Johnston Fernando, an investigation has revealed.