FW: FW: Timezone file asia

Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] olsona at dc37a.nci.nih.gov
Thu Apr 27 12:54:43 UTC 2006


K. Sethu is not on the time zone mailing list; direct replies
appropriately.
 
                --ado

________________________________

From: K Sethu [mailto:skhome at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 12:17 AM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: Fwd: FW: Timezone file asia


On request of Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> I am forwarding to
tz at 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 at gmail.com>
Date: Apr 25, 2006 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: FW: Timezone file asia
To: Paul Eggert < eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr at pdn.ac.lk>


On 4/25/06, Paul Eggert < eggert at cs.ucla.edu <mailto:eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
> wrote:
> Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr at 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 at pdn.ac.lk >	 Mailed-By:
pdn.ac.lk	
	To: Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
	Cc: K Sethu <skhome at 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&storyI
D=2006-04-12T172228Z_01_COL295762_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-SRILANKA-TIME-DC.XML
<http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&story
ID=2006-04-12T172228Z_01_COL295762_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-SRILANKA-TIME-DC.XM
L> >.
	>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 at cs.ucla.edu >	 Mailed-By: cs.ucla.edu	
	To: Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr at pdn.ac.lk>
	Cc: K Sethu <skhome at gmail.com >
	Date: Apr 25, 2006 1:12 AM
	Subject: Re: FW: Timezone file asia
	
	
	Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr at 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 at cs.ucla.edu>	 Mailed-By: cs.ucla.edu	
	To: K Sethu <skhome at gmail.com>
	Cc: Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr at pdn.ac.lk>
	Date: Apr 25, 2006 5:40 PM
	Subject: Re: FW: Timezone file asia
	
	
	"K Sethu" < skhome at 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 <http://slt.lk/>  and sltnet.lk <http://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 at 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.



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