Sri Lanka top developments: Senior Buddh monk says President ready to form interim government

Sri Lanka’s embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has agreed to form an interim government to tackle the unprecedented economic crisis, a senior Buddh monk claimed on Monday, as the debt-ridden country stepped up efforts to keep the economy afloat.
Here are some of the top developments:
🔴 The street protest opposite the presidential secretariat entered its seventeenth day on Monday, demanding the resignations of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa, his 76-year-old elder brother.
🔴 The Sri Lankan President expressed his intention to form the interim government in a letter to the powerful Buddh. In an April 4 letter the chief monks of four Buddh chapters, Rajapaksa was urged to dissolve the Cabinet to set up an interim government. The President has now responded to the letter, Madagoda Dhammananda, Chief Regrar of one of the chapters, said. The four Buddh chapters – Malwathu, Asgiri, Amarapura and Ramanya chapters – wield power to influence Sri Lanka’s political leaders. To form an interim government, the President would either have to remove his older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as the prime miner or volunteer to resign.
🔴 The Sri Lankan stock market was shut half an hour into trading on Monday after shares tumbled nearly 10 per cent in their first session. This comes in the backdrop of the central bank doubling its interest rates two weeks ago to tame inflation amid a crippling economic crisis.
🔴 Prime Miner Mahinda Rajapaksa will present proposals submitted political parties to Parliament to draft the 21st Amendment of the Constitution at the first meeting of the new cabinet, ANI quoted local media as saying. The opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya, the United National Party and a group of those MPs who recently became independent have submitted their proposals to the Speaker of the Parliament for the drafting of the 21st Amendment of the Constitution, Colombo Page reported. The first meeting of the newly formed cabinet will start on Monday at 5 pm.
🔴 Teachers and principals of government schools launched a token strike demanding solutions to their problems. Due to the strike, academic activities were not carried out in schools today. Mahinda Jayasinghe, General Secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Service Union told Colombo Page that teachers and principals are engaged in a trade union action demanding a solution to the exing transportation problems as well as the problems faced the country as soon as possible. Teachers and principals reported sick and refrained from reporting to schools today.
With inputs from agencies