Fwd: FW: Timezone file asia

[K Sethu]

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> 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&storyID=2006-04-12T172228Z_01_COL295762_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-SRILANKA-TIME-DC.XML
> >.
> >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 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 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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