Sri Lankan troops have been deployed at the Nallur Kandasamy Temple in Jaffna this week, as the temple’s annual festival – thiruvizha – began last month.

Another parent who was involved in a series of protests by the families of the disappeared has passed away in Mullaitivu.

Based on a tip-off that a youth group in Araly, a town north of Jaffna, was in possession of guns and swords, Sri Lankan police conducted a search in the town yesterday and arrested at least ten people.

The initial search yielded an indigenous gun and a sword in an area that is reportedly populated by Tamil youngsters. The police confiscated the weapons and arrested two persons in relation to the incident. The arrested have been detained in the Vaddukoddai Police Station and are reportedly being interrogated by the police. 

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered his congratulations to newly appointed Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, following the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) election victory in parliamentary elections last week, as Beijing looks to expand ties with the regime.

The two leading Tamil nationalist parties in the North-East announced the appointment of parliamentarians through Sri Lanka’s National List, as the new parliament gets ready to convene later this month.

The Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) appointed its General Secretary Selvarajah Kajendren.

Kajendren is a former MP and veteran Tamil activist, who was first elected in 2004. In 2010, he and other parliamentarians left the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to form the TNPF.

Sri Lanka’s newly appointed ministers are to be sworn in at the ‘Temple of the Tooth’ in Kandy this week, in what looks set to be another overtly Sinhala Buddhist ceremony for Sri Lankan politicians.

Sri Lanka’s newly-appointed prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa claimed that his government had done a “great deal” for the Tamil people during his previous tenure, as he spoke of livelihoods and irrigation for the Northern Province but not of devolution.

"A great deal was done under difficult circumstances [in the Northern Province] during the tenure of my last government,” claimed Rajapaksa in an interview to Frontline magazine. “This work, which was unfortunately disrupted in the last few years, will be resumed and expedited.”

After a dismal showing in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections, securing just one National List seat, the United National Party (UNP) vowed to “accept responsibility for failures and shortcomings” with the party facing an uncertain future ahead.

The party, one of the island’s oldest, failed to win any districts with veteran party leader and three-time Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also losing his seat. It secured just over 2% of the island's votes, losing more than 100 seats from the previous parliament.