{"id":111659,"date":"2021-02-14T15:37:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-14T22:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111659"},"modified":"2021-02-14T15:37:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T22:37:45","slug":"fmr-speaker-w-j-m-lokubandara-passes-away-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/02\/14\/fmr-speaker-w-j-m-lokubandara-passes-away-from-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Fmr Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara passes away from Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Adaderana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Former Speaker of Parliament W.J.M. Lokubandara has passed away today (February 14) at the age of 81, his family sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was under medical care for Covid-19 at the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) at the time of his passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u0d9a\u0ddc\u0dc0\u0dd2\u0da9\u0dca \u0d86\u0dc3\u0dcf\u0daf\u0dd2\u0dad\u0dc0 \u0db4\u0dca\u200d\u0dbb\u0dad\u0dd2\u0d9a\u0dcf\u0dbb \u0dbd\u0db6\u0db8\u0dd2\u0db1\u0dca \u0dc3\u0dd2\u0da7\u0dd2 \u0dc4\u0dd2\u0da7\u0db4\u0dd4 \u0d9a\u0dae\u0dcf\u0db1\u0dcf\u0dba\u0d9a\u0dc0\u0dbb\u0dba\u0dcf \u0d85\u0db7\u0dcf\u0dc0\u0db4\u0dca\u200d\u0dbb\u0dcf\u0db4\u0dca\u0dad \u0dc0\u0dda...\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Dz-3pdgz9U4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this month, it was revealed that the former speaker had tested positive for novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lawyer by profession, Lokubandara embarked on his political career in 1977 after being elected as a Member of Parliament representing the United National Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was appointed as the Cabinet Minister of Cultural Affairs, Education and Media in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the UNP\u2019s defeat in the parliamentary election in 1994, Lokubandara became the Chief Opposition Whip of the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was the Cabinet Minister of Justice, Law Reforms, National Integration and Buddha Sasana in the UNP administration which was formed in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lokubandara also served as the 16th Speaker of Parliament from 2004 to 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Adaderana Former Speaker of Parliament W.J.M. Lokubandara has passed away today (February 14) at the age of 81, his family sources said. He was under medical care for Covid-19 at the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) at the time of his passing. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the former speaker had tested positive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category--19-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}