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Kicking off his visit to India, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday met Indian National Congress President Rahul Gandhi for discussions on the political and economic situation of the region, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. The discussions also centred on how to safeguard navigation in the Indian Ocean and Sri Lanka’s welfare system. Several Congress officials, including Sonia Gandhi, Anand Sharma, and Dr. Manmohan Singh, were also present at the meeting. The officials on both sides also talked of the emerging importance of Asia as a global powerhouse and how South Asian nations could benefit from this growth, as well as how the future of Asian countries would be shaped by these changes. Tackling extremism in South Asia was also a topic of […]

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations asked the government of Sri Lanka on Friday to immediately repatriate the commander of its 200-strong contingent assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali following a review of his human rights background. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced Friday that the request for Lt. Col. Kalana Amunupure to leave the troubled West African nation was made “based on recently received information.” He gave no details. A report in The Guardian newspaper in July quoted a confidential report that claimed the Sri Lanka commander in Mali — who was not named — is alleged to have committed war crimes during the finale of Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels that ended in 2009. It said the […]

Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne, who is currently at the centre of the case involving the abductions and killings of 11 youth, made a public appearance with President Maithripala Sirisena at the Nelum Pokuna Theatre yesterday. Sirisena and Wijegunaratne were seen sharing the stage together at the ‘Sathviru Abhiman’ military welfare event in Colombo, attended by soldiers and their family members. The event took place a day before the case relating to the killings of the 11 youth came before the Colombo Fort Magistrate. On behalf of the CID, IP Nishantha Silva informed Fort Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne that they had sufficient evidence to arrest Admiral Wijegunaratne for helping Chandana Hetiarachchi alias Navy Sampath, the main suspect in the case, abscond the law enforcement authorities. […]

The Hindu newspaper today stood by its report on President Maithripala Sirisena’s remark at the last Cabinet meeting on RAW’s plot to assassinate him. President Sirisena The Sri Lankan government has so far issued three denials of the story and President Sirisena, in a telephone conversation, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also assured that he never made such a remark. N.Ram, the Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Limited, the publisher of Hindu, and the former Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper said this morning that ‘The Hindu’ told the truth when the newspaper said that President Sirisena accused RAW of plotting to kill him. “Another case of saying something wild & bizarre, expecting it to remain within a closed room, and then blaming the media for […]

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa abruptly ended a press conference yesterday when journalists questioned about the removal of former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake through a hastened impeachment process. At the press conference where the former President talked about the “lopsided” law enforcement process of the current government, a journalist asked how the former Chief Justice Bandaranayake was removed within three days, under the previous administration. “Everything was done according to the Constitution,” Rajapaksa responded curtly, indicating he did not wish to take further questions on the matter. However, the journalist kept asking questions about the process, especially about the inordinate haste with which the former Chief Justice was removed. Without responding to the question, Rajapaksa asked which media organization the journalist was representing. The journalist said he was […]

Armed Forces Occupy Civilian Owned Lands In North and East For Commercial Exploitation Rather Than National Security States Human Rights Watch in New Report. (Summary of Report Released by Human Rights Watch About Occupation of Civilian Owned Lands in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka by the Armed Services titled “Why Can’t We Go Home?”) On April 29, 2017, the Sri Lankan navy high command announced it would release 100 acres of land that security forces had been occupying in the Mullikulam area since 2007 to the original owners. For the displaced residents of this coastal village in Mannar on Sri Lanka’s northwest coast, the news came as a huge relief. More than one year later, however, as of August 2018, no land […]

The Northern Province added around 78,000 jobs between 2011 and 2015, a 22 per cent increase in the labour force in the Province, which is also the largest percentage increase in the country, the World Bank (WB) in a report released on 9 October said. However, the jobs added to the labour force were predominantly concentrated in the Jaffna and Vavuniya Districts, two districts with relatively low poverty rates, it said. In the Eastern Province (EP), job growth was predominantly in the industry sector (39,275 out of a total of 41,916 jobs added between 2011 and 2015), and that Province saw a net loss in agriculture sector jobs. Within the industry sector, most of the new jobs were concentrated in manufacturing and construction, in the […]

If Parliament does not approve of the Delimitation Committee report in the manner prescribed in Act, No. 17 of 2017, the Speaker has to appoint a Review Committee By C. A. Chandraprema The Sabaragamuwa, North Central, Eastern, North Western and Central Provincial Councils have now ceased to exist and the Northern Provincial Council will stand dissolved next week, bringing the number of provinces without functioning Provincial Councils to six. Under normal circumstances, we would already have had elections to the Sabaragamuwa, North Central and Eastern Provinces and been preparing for the second leg with regard to the North Western, Central and Northern Provincial Councils. The law is very clear on when elections to Provincial Councils should be called. According to Article 154E of the Constitution, […]

President Maithripala Sirisena’s absolute commitment to solve the major problems faced by the people in the North and the East and bring the hitherto undeveloped districts in the country to be on par with the developed districts is evident from the various steps taken by the government during the last three and a half years. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, he made a firm commitment that the government would continue to implement the UNHRC proposals that could be done within the constitutional framework. In these circumstances it is unfortunate that Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesperson, M. A. Sumanthiran, who was considered as a moderate by the progressive political forces in the country, come up with undue criticism over the President’s UN speech and describe […]

The Jaffna Peninsula’s Thesawalami law, which governs the inheritance of property along matrilineal lines, and grants women the right to own property; nonetheless has certain contradictions which prevents women from optimizing the exercise of such rights, a recent World Bank (WB) report said. Elaborating on the contradictory features of the ‘Thesawalami,’ it said that the control of property however is in the hands of a male guardian which translates to the fact that a woman cannot invest in the property which she owns, nor mortgage, lease, or sell it without the prior permission of her husband or guardian. Gender inequities in customary land laws have increased vulnerabilities in the Northern and Eastern Provinces where women have the sole or primary responsibility for income generation through […]

UK’s Terrorism Law Sections 11 and 13 which states that: A person commits an offence if he belongs to a prohibited group.   An offence is committed if a person wears an item of clothing or, carries and displays items that arouse suspicion that they are part of a forbidden organisation. British MPs of a pro-Tamil lobby and Tamil activists are trying to drag the Sri Lanka Government and its High Commission in London into the arrests last Monday of four Tamils demonstrating against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presence at the Oxford Union. Tamil groups claim they were detained and released the next day following complaints by Sri Lankan officials. The British MPs, in a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid and copied to the British […]

By Dinasena Rathugamage TNA and Opposition leader R Sampanthan has requested the Tamil prisoners detained under the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act to abandon their hunger strike, demanding their release, as President Maithripala Sirisena had agreed to give them a solution. Sampanthan told The Island that President Sirisena had spoken to him and promised that he would give a solution to the problem of Tamil prisoners on Oct. 17. Sampanthan said that he had discussed the problem with the President when he met the latter in Parliament last Friday. The President had promised to take up the issue with Justice and Prisons Reforms Minister Thalatha Atukorale and to provide a solution on Wednesday. He said that the President had an agreement with the […]

Northern Province Governor Reginald Cooray has focussed on developing the North on par with the rest of the country and resolving the social issues that plague the region. Recently, he visited London to meet the Sri Lankan community and convince them to invest in the region. He believes that there are a lot of opportunities for investment in the fields of solar power, wind power, fishing, salt manufacturing, milk processing, agriculture and tourism. He believes that the diaspora should be encouraged to invest in the province. Dispelling the notion that the North is plagued with violence and sword gangs, he said on the contrary, the situation in the North is far less serious than that of the South. He blamed the Tamil politicians for creating […]

Now the Sinhala People in Colombo have complained that name boards on roads and several state departments in the Jaffna district had been wrongly translated into Sinhala and urged the authorities to rectify them immediately. After 70 years the Sinhala people are realising what the Tamils in the North were going through by the successive Sinhala Government since independence. For so many years the Tamil names were translated wrongly by Sinhala government employees and these name boards were a insult to Tamil and a  joke and complaints by Tamils were totally ignored by Colombo authorities. Last month the Northern Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran is reported to have instructed the authorities to change the names of villages and other places giving priority to Tamil with Sinhala and English hence some […]

A group of Catholic priests and activists have written a letter to Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith urging him to refrain from using his position to bring the Catholic faith into disrepute, to mislead Catholic faithful and to undermine the human rights framework and discourses which have universal applicability, including to Sri Lanka, and which have been welcomed by successive Popes. Cardinal Malcom Ranjith “Instead, please support, encourage and lead the faithful, including the clergy, religious and laity, to become more aware of human rights and get involved in struggles for human rights, in line with the 2013 pastoral letter’s call to “collaborate with God in preserving the dignity and the rights of all,” not to say all the broader Catholic teachings related to human rights,” the letter says. […]

A person who had supplied swords and daggers to the controversial Aava group was arrested by the Police Special Task Force yesterday (14). The suspect was arrested in Jaffna yesterday morning on a tip-off received by the Chunnakam Police. Police said that the suspect was in possession of a sword at the time of his arrest. The Police had also been able to detect the telephone call exchanges he has had with Aava group regarding supply of weapons. It was also noted that the suspect had been previously arrested on various charges including riotous behaviour. The suspect had been handed over to Chunnakam Police for further investigations. Subsequent investigations are to be conducted under senior DIG M.R. Latheef the Commanding Officer of the STF and […]

Armed Forces Occupy Civilian Owned Lands In North and East For Commercial Exploitation Rather Than National Security States Human Rights Watch in New Report. (Summary of Report Released by Human Rights Watch About Occupation of Civilian Owned Lands in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka by the Armed Services titled “Why Can’t We Go Home?”) On April 29, 2017, the Sri Lankan navy high command announced it would release 100 acres of land that security forces had been occupying in the Mullikulam area since 2007 to the original owners. For the displaced residents of this coastal village in Mannar on Sri Lanka’s northwest coast, the news came as a huge relief. More than one year later, however, as of August 2018, no land […]