Sri Lankan cricketers will not be featuring in any Indian Premier League (IPL) matches that are to be played in Chennai, reports the Hindu.

Chennai's security services told the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) that they would not be able to provide adequate protection for the cricketers if they were to play in Tamil Nadu, given reports of massacres committed by the Sri Lankan state provoking protests in India.

Talks held in Singapore this weekend between Tamil and Sri Lankan groups on promoting reconciliation and strengthening democracy in Sri Lanka, faced criticism this week over a lack of transparency over the process.

"The fact that the above initiative is shrouded in secrecy raises serious concerns whether the legitimate aspirations and long term interests of the Eelam Tamils will be addressed by the above initiative," said the International Council of Eelam Tamils (ICET), a network of 14 Tamil diaspora groups worldwide, on Tuesday,
stating that the meeting also lacked proper Tamil representation. See full statement here.

"[It is] important to note that we did not try to get a full comprehensive representation of Tamil diaspora to the meeting," Ivor Jenkins of the South Africa based dialogue promotion group, In Transformation Initiative (ITI) which organised the meeting in conjunction with the Swiss government, told Tamil Guardian on Tuesday, when asked which organisations were present at the meeting.

Highlighting that the former ruling coalition and opposition parties were now both in the new government, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)  said  that it was the largest party in parliament outside of government, on Sunday.

“The UPFA is part of the government now. So we are the largest party in the opposition,” the TNA leader R Sampanthan, told journalists.