A free, data-light utility panel for daily life in Sri Lanka. It puts four things on one fast page: power-cut information — official CEB and PUCSL links plus a plain-English explanation of how the demand-management letter groups work, with live temperatures for Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Galle; a railway directory covering the Main, Coastal, Puttalam, Kelani Valley, Northern and Batticaloa lines with key stations, typical journey times and official booking links; rupee tools — live mid-market rates for USD, AED, QAR, KRW and GBP against the LKR, a converter and a remittance true-cost calculator; and results & ID portals — G.C.E. A/L and O/L results at doenets.lk, NIC services and passports, together with the clearest short explanation of the Z-score you will find anywhere. No app install, no account — it works on cheap data and old phones.
University admission in Sri Lanka is not decided by your raw A/L marks. Each subject's marks are converted to a Z-score: in plain words, your mark minus the island-wide average for that subject, divided by how spread out everyone's marks were (the standard deviation). A Z-score of 0 means you scored exactly the national average; +1.0 means you beat the average by one "typical gap"; +2.0 puts you far ahead of almost everyone. Your final figure is the average of your three subject Z-scores. The Department of Examinations adopted this system because different subjects have very different marking difficulty — comparing raw marks across Biology, Combined Mathematics and Physics would be unfair. The Z-score puts everyone on the same statistical ruler, so what matters is how far you rose above the crowd sitting the same paper.
This is the part that surprises most families. Suppose Biology was brutally hard one year: the island mean was 45 with a standard deviation of 12. A student scoring 75 sits (75 − 45) ÷ 12 = +2.50 — two and a half typical gaps above the nation. Now suppose Combined Maths was gentler: mean 60, standard deviation 15. A student scoring 85 gets (85 − 60) ÷ 15 = +1.67. The "lower" raw mark produces the far stronger Z-score, because it represents a rarer achievement on a harder paper. This is why you cannot judge your chances from raw marks, and why cut-off Z-scores differ every year and for every course and district.
| Subject | Your raw mark | Island mean | Std. deviation | Z-score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biology (hard paper) | 75 | 45 | 12 | +2.50 |
| Combined Maths (easier paper) | 85 | 60 | 15 | +1.67 |
A high Z-score alone does not fix your fate — where you sat the exam matters too. For most courses, roughly 40% of seats are filled on all-island merit (the top Z-scores nationwide, regardless of district), about 55% are divided among the 25 districts in proportion to their population, and around 5% is reserved for a list of educationally disadvantaged districts. The practical effect: the cut-off Z-score for, say, Medicine can be noticeably lower in a rural district than in Colombo, because Colombo students compete against a much deeper pool for their district share. The exact percentages and disadvantaged-district list are set by the University Grants Commission (ugc.ac.lk) and can change — always read the current admissions handbook before making decisions.
When electricity supply falls short, the Ceylon Electricity Board does not switch the whole island off at once. The country's distribution feeders are bundled into letter groups — A through W — and a rotating schedule assigns each group its interruption window, so the pain is shared in slices of a few hours rather than a blanket blackout. Any schedule must be approved by the regulator, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), which publishes the approved time bands. Your home's group is fixed by which feeder serves your street, not by your postal district name — neighbouring streets can sit in different groups. During the 2022 crisis these group letters became household vocabulary; the same machinery is reused whenever scheduled interruptions return.
The reliable way is the CEB's own customer portal, cebcare.ceb.lk: enter your account number (printed on any electricity bill) or search by address, and the portal shows the group letter attached to your supply point plus any scheduled interruption for it. If you cannot find a bill, the 10-digit account number is also on the meter-reading slip. PUCSL's site publishes the approved schedule tables per group, so once you know your letter you can read your time bands directly. Beware of third-party "schedule apps" that are updated late — schedules can change same-day, and only CEB and PUCSL announcements are authoritative. LECO customers (parts of the Western coastal belt) should check leco.lk instead.
Sri Lanka Railways runs a compact but scenic network out of Colombo Fort. The Main Line climbs from Colombo through Kandy country to the tea highlands and ends at Badulla — the Nanu Oya–Ella stretch is often called one of the world's most beautiful rides. The Coastal Line hugs the sea south to Galle, Matara and Beliatta. The Puttalam Line serves Negombo and the airport belt; the Kelani Valley Line is Colombo's commuter artery toward Avissawella; the Northern Line reaches Jaffna and Kankesanthurai; and the Batticaloa Line branches east through Polonnaruwa. Typical journey times below are for express services in normal conditions; slow trains take considerably longer.
| Route | Line | Typical express time |
|---|---|---|
| Colombo Fort → Kandy | Main | ≈ 2.5–3 h |
| Colombo Fort → Ella | Main | ≈ 8–9 h |
| Colombo Fort → Badulla | Main | ≈ 9–10 h |
| Colombo Fort → Galle | Coastal | ≈ 2–2.5 h |
| Colombo Fort → Matara | Coastal | ≈ 3–3.5 h |
| Colombo Fort → Jaffna | Northern | ≈ 6–7 h |
| Colombo Fort → Batticaloa | Batticaloa | ≈ 7–8 h |
Daily commuters can cut fares dramatically with a monthly season ticket between two named stations. The process is old-fashioned but simple: (1) pick your origin and destination stations — the ticket is valid only on that section; (2) collect the application form from the issuing station or download it via railway.gov.lk; (3) public-sector and many private-sector employees can have the form certified by their employer for a concessionary rate, while ordinary season tickets need no certification; (4) hand in the form with a photo and pay at the counter before the month begins — busy stations run dedicated season queues in the last days of each month; (5) renew monthly, keeping the card intact. Carry it on every journey: travelling outside your named section counts as ticketless travel.
Remittances are one of Sri Lanka's largest foreign-exchange earners, and most of it flows from the Middle East (UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait), South Korea and Italy. The advertised "zero fee" is rarely the real price — the margin hides in the exchange rate. To see the true cost, compare what the recipient actually gets against the mid-market rate: (mid-market value − received value) ÷ mid-market value. Gulf corridors are among the world's cheapest (often 2–4% all-in), Korea's EPS workers usually remit through dedicated bank channels at similar cost, and Italy–Sri Lanka transfers vary widely by provider. Two rules: always compare the LKR amount received, not the fee; and avoid informal undiyal/hawala channels — they are illegal, uninsured, and starve official reserves. The calculator in the RUPEE tab does this math for you.
Sri Lanka has no single "rainy season" — it has two, hitting opposite coasts. The South-West (Yala) monsoon, roughly May to September, soaks the west and south-west — Colombo, Galle, the hill country's western slopes — and makes west-coast seas rough, while the east coast (Trincomalee, Arugam Bay, Pasikudah) enjoys its calm, dry beach season. The North-East (Maha) monsoon, roughly December to February, reverses the pattern: rain moves to the north and east while the west and south turn dry and sunny — which is why Mirissa and Unawatuna peak from December to March. Between the two sit inter-monsoon spells (October–November especially) with island-wide afternoon thunderstorms. For farmers the names matter too: Maha and Yala are the two cultivation seasons keyed to these rains.
Every lookup this page points to is a free, official government or utility service. If a site or SMS shortcode asks you to pay for a result check, a "faster" NIC status, or a power-cut schedule, it is not official. Bookmark these:
For each subject: (your mark − the island-wide mean for that subject) ÷ the subject's standard deviation. Your final Z-score is the average across your three A/L subjects. It measures how far you rose above everyone who sat the same papers, which is why it — not raw marks — decides university selection.
Log the account number from any electricity bill into cebcare.ceb.lk (or search by address). The portal shows your feeder's letter group (A–W) and any scheduled interruption. PUCSL publishes the approved time bands per group.
Yes — reserved seats on intercity and long-distance trains can be booked at seatreservation.railway.gov.lk. Unreserved (2nd/3rd class ordinary) tickets are sold at station counters only. Book hill-country trains days ahead in season.
On the Department of Examinations portal doenets.lk, using your index number. Results are free to check — ignore any site or SMS service that demands payment for the same lookup.
No — it is the mid-market reference rate from open.er-api.com. Banks and remittance providers apply their own margins. Use the remittance calculator to measure a provider's true all-in cost against the mid-market rate.
No accounts, no server storage, no ad scripts. Your language and tab preferences are kept only in your own browser's localStorage, and nothing you type in the terminal or calculators leaves your device.
After the all-island merit share (roughly 40% of seats), about 55% of seats for each course are divided among the 25 districts in proportion to population, with around 5% reserved for educationally disadvantaged districts — so the cut-off Z-score for the same course differs from district to district. The UGC handbook has the current figures.
West and south coasts (Colombo, Galle, Mirissa): roughly December to March, during the North-East monsoon when that side is dry. East coast (Trincomalee, Arugam Bay): roughly May to September, while the South-West monsoon soaks the opposite shore. October–November brings island-wide inter-monsoon thunderstorms.
Power users: open the >_TERM tab for a small terminal — help, fx,
links, zscore (the Z-score explainer in 10 lines), line coastal (stations of any
railway line) and clear. All figures are for information only; official sources are always authoritative.