On request of Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> I am forwarding to tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov herewith my email to Paul Eggert and Nimal Ratnayake. Furhter Nimal's first message, Paul's response to it and Paul's response to my following message are also copied in that order for reference below the following forwarded message K. Sethu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: K Sethu <skhome@gmail.com> Date: Apr 25, 2006 11:12 AM Subject: Re: FW: Timezone file asia To: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> Cc: Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr@pdn.ac.lk> On 4/25/06, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr@pdn.ac.lk> writes:
Actually although the time offset is the same as IST, we call it Sri Lanka Time. I am tryinng to get some authoritative info from organizations like the Meteorological Department, Sri Lanka Standards Institute or ICT Agency of the government.
Thanks. I'm also interested as to when this name came into common use.
(Presumably it was not called "Sri Lanka Time" back in 1920. :-)
I think the abbreviation LKT originated from the world of computers at the time of or subsequent to the time zone changes by SL Government twice in 1996 and probably SL Government or its standardization /ict agencies never decalred an abbreviation as national standard. I recollect before the recent change the government annoucemments mentioning it as simply changing Sri Lanka Standard Time or Sri Lanka Time and no mention was made about the abbreviation. If we look at Sri Lanka Department of Government's "Official News Website of Sri Lanka" - for current page at http://www.news.lk/ we can see that they use SLT as abbreviation in time stamp at the beginning of each news item - for example: Tuesday 25-04-2006 SLT 09:30 (+05:30 GMT). For an example before the recent change, look at: http://www.news.lk/news_2006_04_072.htm - this has the news item on cabinet decision for changing of time and the time stamp then was Friday 07-04-2006 SLT 06:30 (+06:00 GMT). So question arises whether SLT was at any time adopted as standard abbreviation by the government. Within Sri Lanka I think LKT is well known among computer users and adminsitrators. In my opinion SLT may not be a good choice because the nation's largest telcom / internet operator Sri Lanka Telcom is well known by that abbreviation - simply as SLT (there IP domains are slt.lk and sltnet.lk). But if indeed our government has adopted SLT as standard abbreviation (that we have not known so far) then it is better that it be used for all computers. Hope Nimal gets more authoratative information in his investigations ~Sethu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previous messages> From: *Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr@pdn.ac.lk>*Mailed-By: *pdn.ac.lk*To: *Paul
Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>* Cc: *K Sethu <skhome@gmail.com>* Date: *Apr 24, 2006 9:44 PM* Subject: *Re: FW: Timezone file asia*
Hi,
It was "IST" from 1906 (when Colombo switched from Moratuwa Mean Time to India time) through 1996 (when Colombo switched away from India time), so I thought, it more consistent to revert back to the old abbreviation.
But perhaps this isn't correct. What do English-speaking people typically say when they want to talk about the time zone used in Colombo nowadays? If they say "Sri Lanka time" then LKT would be more appropriate.
One possibility is that we wait for a bit for the dust to settle down and then see what people actually say in practice.
Actually although the time offset is the same as IST, we call it Sri Lanka Time. I am tryinng to get some authoritative info from organizations like the Meteorological Department, Sri Lanka Standards Institute or ICT Agency of the government.
While we're on the subject of Sri Lanka time, Peter Apps and Ranga Sirilal reported on April 12 that the Tamil Tigers "never accepted the original 1996 time change and simply kept their clocks set five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in line with neighbor India." See < http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=20... . They also report that Buddhist temples and astrologers' offices stuck with India time, but that's of less importance to us, since we focus on civil time.
As luck would have it, though, people who live in regions under Tamil control (or who live in Buddhist temples etc.) can simply use TZ='Asia/Calcutta', as that zone has been correct for these regions since our cutoff date of 1970. However, I suppose I should add a comment to this effect in the Sri Lanka part of the database.
Yes. I think that would be appropriate.
Nimal Ratnayake
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: *Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>*Mailed-By: *cs.ucla.edu*To: *Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr@pdn.ac.lk>* Cc: *K Sethu <skhome@gmail.com>* Date: *Apr 25, 2006 1:12 AM* Subject: *Re: FW: Timezone file asia*
Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr@pdn.ac.lk> writes:
Actually although the time offset is the same as IST, we call it Sri Lanka Time. I am tryinng to get some authoritative info from organizations like the Meteorological Department, Sri Lanka Standards Institute or ICT Agency of the government.
Thanks. I'm also interested as to when this name came into common use.
(Presumably it was not called "Sri Lanka Time" back in 1920. :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: *Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>*Mailed-By: *cs.ucla.edu*To: *K Sethu <skhome@gmail.com>* Cc: *Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr@pdn.ac.lk>* Date: *Apr 25, 2006 5:40 PM* Subject: *Re: FW: Timezone file asia*
"K Sethu" <skhome@gmail.com> writes:
Within Sri Lanka I think LKT is well known among computer users and adminsitrators. In my opinion SLT may not be a good choice because the nation's largest telcom / internet operator Sri Lanka Telcom is well known by that abbreviation - simply as SLT (there IP domains are slt.lk and sltnet.lk).
But if indeed our government has adopted SLT as standard abbreviation (that we have not known so far) then it is better that it be used for all computers.
Thanks for your discussion; it has convinced me to use either LKT or SLT in the next update. Could you please send a copy of your email to <tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov>? Thanks.
Hope Nimal gets more authoratative information in his investigations
Yes, I'd also like to know about SLT versus LKT.
Thanks.