Lanka Crisis: 40,000 Tonnes Of Diesel Given By India

Fuel to be distributed across Lanka!

 New Delhi: Amid the Lanka protest, the ship carrying 40,000 tonnes of diesel under a $1 billion credit line given to Sri Lanka by India has reached the island nation. According to the officials, the fuel will be distributed across Sri Lanka this evening.

Taking notes from the reports, the nation of 22 million people is in the grips of its worst downturn since independence, sparked by an acute lack of foreign currency to pay for even the most essential imports.

According to the media and officials, Diesel, the main fuel for buses and commercial vehicles -- was unavailable at stations across the island.

Owners of private buses -- which account for two-thirds of Sri Lanka's fleet, said they were already out of oil and that even skeleton services might not be possible after today.

Amid the economic crisis, Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency on Friday, giving sweeping powers to security forces a day after hundreds tried to storm his house in anger over the unprecedented economic crisis.

President Rajapaksa invoked the tough laws allowing the military to arrest and detain suspects for long periods without trial as demonstrations calling for his ouster spread across the island nation.

Rajapaksa's office said on Friday that the protesters wanted to create an "Arab Spring" -- a reference to anti-government protests in response to corruption and economic stagnation that gripped the Middle East more than a decade ago.