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Sri Lanka is calling on farmers to grow more rice as it faces its worst economic crisis in more than 70 years, BBC reported.

The country's agriculture minister made the appeal as he said the country's "food situation is becoming worse".

It comes as severe shortages of essentials, including food, helped to push inflation, the rate at which prices rise, to a new record high.

Also on Tuesday, the government raised taxes to help pay for critical purchases, including fuel and food.

The island nation of 22 million people has been hit hard by the pandemic, rising energy prices, and populist tax cuts.

A chronic shortage of foreign currency and soaring inflation has also led to a shortage of medicines, fuel and other essentials.

Agriculture minister Mahinda Amaraweera told journalists "it is clear the food situation is becoming worse".

"We request all farmers to step into their fields in the next five to ten days and cultivate paddy [rice]," he added, according to BBC.

Sri Lankan officials have been looking for ways to boost food production, as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has warned of severe food shortages by August.

The country is also applying for assistance from a South Asian food bank, which has supplied rice and other goods to countries in need, the Financial Times newspaper reported.

Food commissioner J Krishnamoorthy told the newspaper in an interview that her department had "just started the process" of asking the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for "food bank assistance".

Ms Krishnamoorthy added that Sri Lanka was seeking around 100,000 metric tonnes of food in the form of donations or subsidised sales.

The SAARC is a grouping of eight countries in South Asia. It includes Sri Lanka and India, which is emerging as one of Sri Lanka's biggest providers of aid, BBC reported.

Sri Lanka's Food Commissioners Department and the SAARC did not immediately respond to BBC requests for comment.

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan government announced an immediate increase to value added tax (VAT) from 8% to 12%. The move is expected to boost government revenue by 65bn Sri Lankan rupees ($179.9m; £142.7m).

It also said corporate tax would rise in October from 24% to 30%.

Earlier this year, then-Sri Lankan financial minister Ali Sabry told the BBC that he saw a need to raise VAT.

He added that the nation needed $4bn (£3.2bn) over the next eight months to pay for imports of daily essentials.

Also on Tuesday, official figures showed that Sri Lanka's rate of inflation rose to a record 39.1% in May, from a year ago. It had reached a previous high of 29.8% in April.

Inflation reduces the purchasing power of money since more money is now needed to buy the same items.

High rates of inflation mean that unless income increases at the same rate, people are worse off. This may cause them to spend less as they make fewer purchases from businesses.

Last month, Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt for the first time in history, when grace period to come up with $78m of unpaid debt interest payments expired, according to BBC.

Defaults happen when governments are unable to meet some or all of their debt payments to creditors.

It can damage a country's reputation with investors, making it harder for it to borrow the money it needs on international markets, which can further harm confidence in its currency and economy.

A gunman carrying a rifle and a handgun killed four people Wednesday at a Tulsa medical building on a hospital campus, police said, the latest in a series of deadly mass shootings across the country in recent weeks, Associated Press reported.

Tulsa Police Department Deputy Chief Eric Dalgleish confirmed the number of dead and said the shooter also was dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

The spate of recent gun violence across the country, including the killing of 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school eight days ago by an 18-year-old gunman carrying an AR-style semi-automatic rifle, has led to Democratic leaders amplifying their calls for greater restrictions on guns, while Republicans are emphasizing more security at schools.

The divide mirrors a partisan split that has stymied action in Congress and many state capitols over how best to respond to a record-high number of gun-related deaths in the US

It was unclear what prompted the deadly assault in Tulsa, Dalgleish said, according to Associated Press.

“It appears both weapons at one point or another were fired on the scene,” Dalgleish said. “The officers who arrived were hearing shots in the building, and that’s what led them to the second floor.”

Police responded to the call about three minutes after dispatchers received the report at 4:52 p.m. and made contact with the gunman roughly five minutes later, at 5:01 p.m. Dalgleish said.

“I was very happy with what we know so far regarding the response of our officers,” Dalgleish said. 

The length of time it took police officers in Uvalde, Texas, to engage the gunman during last week’s deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School has become a key focus of that investigation. Officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom where the gunman attacked.

Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg also said multiple people were wounded and that the medical complex was a “catastrophic scene.” The exact number of wounded was not immediately available.

Police and hospital officials said they were not ready to identify the dead.

St. Francis Health System locked down its campus Wednesday afternoon because of the situation at the Natalie Medical Building. The Natalie building houses an outpatient surgery center and a breast health center. Dalgleish said an orthopedic clinic also is located on the second floor where officers discovered the shooter and several victims, Associated Press reported.

“This campus is sacred ground for our community,” said Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum. “For decades, this campus has been a place where heroes come to work every day to save the lives of people in our community.”

Bynum added: “Right now, my thoughts are with the victims. If we want to have a policy discussion, that is something to be had in the future, but not tonight.”

Philip Tankersley, 27, was leaving his father’s room at nearby Saint Francis Hospital around 5 p.m., when hospital staff said there was an active shooter in the building across the street, locked the doors and warned them to stay away from the windows.

Tankersley said he and his mother sheltered in his father’s hospital room for more than an hour, trying to learn scraps of information from the TV news and passing nurses. He said they heard “code silver” and “level 1 trauma” announced on the hospital speakers and wondered if they were safe in the room.

“I wasn’t particularly worried because the two people that I need to look out for were in that same room as me,” he said. “But it was definitely a ‘this is happening here’ moment.”

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also at the scene, a spokesperson said. A reunification center for families to find their loved ones was set up at a nearby high school, according to Associated Press.

The shooting Wednesday also comes just more than two weeks after shooting at a Buffalo supermarket by a white man who is accused of killing 10 Black people in a racist attack. The recent Memorial Day weekend saw multiple mass shootings nationwide, including at an outdoor festival in Taft, Oklahoma, 45 miles from Tulsa, even as single-death incidents accounted for most gun fatalities.

Tsering Angmo and her brother Tsering Lama attend a private school in Gorkha Bazaar, the district headquarters of Gorkha. The siblings hail from Nyaku village of Chumanuwri Rural Municipality, and they visit their parents once every year. 

“We visit our parents once every year after the end-term exams are over, spend time with them for 10-15 days, and return for a new academic session,” says Angmo.  She joined the school as a nursery-level student, and is currently a tenth grader. “I haven’t spent much time in my village. Not that I don’t want to, but my parents want me and my brother to get a good education,” she says. 

Angmo and her brother are not the only children in Chumanuwri who are staying away from their families for the sake of education. Nearly all children of school-going age in the rural municipality share the similar fate.  One can hardly see any children in the rural municipality, as most of them have been sent away by their parents so that they can go to school.   

Nima Wangyal of Lahi village has six children. Except for his three-year-old son, all five children are either studying in Kathmandu or in India. 

“Three of my children are in Kathmandu and two others are in India. They are there for their studies because there is no school in our village,” he says. 

Wangyal has to pay for the schooling of his two children in India, while the education of his three children in Kathmandu is being sponsored by foreigners.  

If he didn’t send his children to school, he says, they might end up like him stuck in a remote village raising cattle and not doing much with their lives. 

“Those who got a chance to get an education are doing well.  That’s why I decided to send my children away,” says Wangyal. 

In many cases, children in Chumanuwri have foreign sponsors to fund their education. Wangyal says these sponsors usually come through their Lama (spiritual leader). 

Lhakpo Tsewang says since there are no schools in the rural municipality, most of the children are sent to the city areas for education. 

“The only children you see in villages these days are infants. It has been this way for about 10 years now,” he says. 

This flight of children from their homes was prompted by the absence of schools in Chumanuwri—though the local government records show the rural municipality has 21 schools in operation. 

Until a couple of years ago, Chumanuwri used to have a school, Juung Primary, but it was closed down for reasons unknown to the villagers, says Tsewang.  

“An organization called Hope Alliance had built classrooms for the school. It even ran a free lunch program,” he says. “But after the organization left, the school also closed down. We don’t know what happened.” 

Namgyal Lama of Syo village says there are dozens of settlements and villages in Chumanuwri Rural Municipality where it is hard to find children of school-going age these days. 

“It’s just me and my wife at home. Like most other children, ours too are in the city for education,” he says.

Two persons have been arrested for murdering their friend for drugs in Kirtipur.

The Metropolitan Police Circle, Kirtipur on Monday got information that some youths were fighting on the road to Dhalpa in Kirtipur.

DSP Purushottam Pandey of the Metropolitan Police Circle, Kirtipur said that two youths were beating Arun Khatri (29) of Tamilcha-8, Udayapur.

He said that police rounded up Ajay Napit (26) and Santosh Maharjan (22) of Baghbhairav, Kirtipur for murdering Khatri, a permanent resident of Tamilcha Municipality-8, Udayapur currently residing at Bosigaun in Kirtipur Municipality-10.

Critically injured in the incident, Khatri, who sustained injuries in his head and chest, breathed his last during the course of treatment at the Kirtipur Hospital.

Police said that they recovered controlled pharmaceutical drugs-31 ampoules of Diazepam, 64 ampoules of Phenergan and 72 ampoules of Norphin-from the bag of Khatri.

DSP Pandey said that they are investigating the case.