The Tamil Nadu opposition political party, DMK, announced today , that its MPs would meet the london envoys of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) member nations, that are scheduled to meet in London at the end of April.

The DMK intend to explain, to the CMAG, why the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, due to be held in Sri Lanka, should be held in another country, and urge them to discuss the issue at the upcoming CMAG meeting.

The Sri Lankan Navy arrested twenty-five Indian fishermen on Friday night. The navy's spokesperson Commander Kosala Warnakulasuriya said that the fishermen were arrested for violating the international maritime boundary and were caught off the coast of Karainagar.

The Navy also seized six trawlers during the arrest. See here for more.

Human Rights Watch has issued a statement calling upon the United Arab Emirates not to deport a group of 19 Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, stating that they would be at “serious risk of torture and persecution upon return”.

The Tamil refugees were part of a group of 46 who fled Sri Lanka by boat in October 2012, when their boat ran into trouble and a Singaporean ship took them to the UAE. All 19 due to be sent back are recognised as refugees by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Photograph Pathivu

Thousands of British Tamils marched through London on Friday afternoon calling for an UN referendum on an independent state of Tamil Eelam.

Rejecting Sri Lanka's LLRC, protesters called for an investigation into the genocide of Tamils by the Sri Lankan state and demanded "action, not words". Drawing attention to the Sri Lankan state's use of rape as a weapon of war, British Tamils condemned the Sri Lankan state's destruction of the Tamil nation.

Photograph Pathivu

Protesters also expressed solidarity with the protests of the Tamil Nadu students and welcomed the Tamil Nadu State Assembly's call for a referendum across the Eelam Tamil nation.

Sri Lanka's Cricket Board announced on Friday that it had written a private letter to the “Ravana Balaya” Buddhist group addressing their condemnation of the Board's decision to allow Sri Lankan cricketers to play in the Indian Premier League.

Six Indian parliamentarians will visit Sri Lanka next week, reported The Hindu on Friday.

The delegation includes Saugata Roy (Trinamool Congress), Sandeep Dikshit (Congress), Anurag Thakur (BJP), Dhananjay Singh (BSP), Goud Yaskhi (Congress) and Prakash Javadekar (BJP), along with members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) who organised the trip.

During the visit, the group will visit Colombo and Jaffna and is expected to meet senior ministers and political leaders.

Sri Lankan government Minister Mervyn Silva has warned India not to "wake the lion" in an interview given to the Daily Mirror.

in a video posted on the Daily Mirror, the Minister is seen receiving blessing from a Buddhist monk before speaking. He went on to say,

“We have a good relationship with Tamil Nadu and our president in all his wisdom will solve this issue. But I’m telling South India that it should not awaken the sleeping lion and injure itself”.

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young has slammed Australia's "shadowy process" of rejecting asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, as Australian authorities sent back another batch of 20 failed asylum seekers to the island. 

The return brings the total number of asylum seekers sent to Sri Lanka to 936, with 756 having been involuntary.

The leader of the Liberal party in Canada, Bob Rae, has called for his country to boycott the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan government will raise $44.3 million from India in order to develop Kankesanthurai Harbour in Jaffna for commercial use, reported the DailyMirror on Thursday.

“We have decided to get this loan. The interest rate is being negotiated. We believe it will be a concessionary loan,” an unnamed official at the Ports Development Ministry said.

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