Apollo to re-enter Sri Lanka

Medical care services provider Apollo Hospital's group on Wednesday said it will be investing about Rs 1,000 crore in the next 18 months to set up about 15 hospitals in tier II and III cities in India.

The hospital chain, which is looking for an overseas expansions, is also planning to re-enter Sri Lanka besides expanding its operations in African continents.

"The idea is to set up tertiary hospitals in tier II and III cities, we plan to set up about 15 hospitals in next 18 months with an investment of about Rs 1,000 crore," Apollo Hospitals Group Chairman Prathap C Reddy said in New Delhi on the sidelines of CII annual session.

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Sri Lanka gets Dutch aid to build big fisheries harbour

Sri Lanka has signed a deal with the Netherlands government to get eight billion rupees (44.9 million euro) in aid to build a fisheries harbour to accommodate deep sea trawlers and develop the island's fishing industry.

The port will be built in Dikowita on the western coast, fisheries minister Felix Perera said.

The new port will be Sri Lanka's largest fisheries harbour with the capacity to dock 340 multi-day 65-foot trawlers and 150 smaller fishing boats.

Spread over 6.5 hectares, the harbour will be equipped with cold storage units, ice manufacturing machines and equipment to process the deep sea catch.

The Netherlands will provide 17.1 million euros as a grant, with the rest as a soft loan, Perera told reporters Wednesday.

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SLC media manager given the sack

Samantha Algama, Sri Lanka's popular and proficient media manager, has been given the sack by Sri Lanka Cricket's interim committee which is headed by former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga. Duleep Mendis, the board's chief executive, confirmed that Algama had been asked to quit his honorary role with effect from April 30.

Algama, it seems, has paid the price for being too media-friendly. The accusation leveled against Algama was that he had not defended the interim committee when their activities had been criticised in the media. His departure comes two days before the start of the 4th Women's Asia Cup which is being hosted by Sri Lanka, and that is followed by an important tour by India to Sri Lanka in July-August.

Algama who has held the position for the past three years is the second longest serving media manager in international cricket after England's Andrew Walpole. This latest move by the interim committee follows a series of wholesale changes that have been implemented by the Ranatunga administration. They have replaced Dharmadasa loyalists from all other subcommittees since taking over at the beginning of the year.

Mendis said a new media manager would be appointed shortly.

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UN worker arrested with small pistol in Sri Lanka

A Sri Lankan national working with the World Food Programme (WFP) of the UN was arrested Wednesday with a micro pistol in his possession at a security roadblock in the north of the island nation.

'The suspect was travelling from Kilinochchi to Batticaloa when he was arrested by the security forces at the Irattaperiyakulam road block in Vavuniya around 12.45 p.m. on Wednesday,' the defence ministry here said.

It said that the suspect, identified as Thiagaraja Prabhakaran, 'is a resident of Batticaloa and is currently working with the UNDP office in Kilinochchi', an area held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north.

According to the ministry, the suspect while questioning confessed that an LTTE agent had given him the micro pistol to be handed over to a person in the eastern Batticaloa district, where the provincial council election is set to be held May 10.

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