The Sri Lankan government is to apparently pay incentives to state employees to learn ‘local languages’, such as Tamil, to “reduce the communication gap with people of Tamil origin,” the Indian Express reported.

The move "aims to reduce the communication gap between those in the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern parts and the rest of the Sinhalese-majority country.” 

Al Jazeera has obtained photographs that appear to show Sri Lankan army atrocities against Tamil civilians and captured or surrendered Tamil fighters in the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war in early 2009.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say that the new photographic evidence warrants an independent, international, investigation.

Sri Lanka rejects outright any probe of its military's conduct.

Amid the newly enhanced ties between the United States and India, the contours of a shared approach to Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis by the two states appeared in little reported comments last month by Indian National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon.

Speaking in Washington, he outlined a twin track Indian strategy, which he said was supported by the US: first, restoring normalcy in the war-shattered Tamil areas, and, second, “creating an order [in Sri Lanka] within which, not just the restoration of democracy, but … an order within which all the communities feel that they can determine their own futures.”

News that Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has had it mandate extended by another six months was always expected, but there is an assumed logic behind Colombo's actions. The commission is the Sri Lankan state's attempt to fend off critics, buy time and forestall an independent, international inquiry.

The IMF recently praised Sri Lanka for bringing inflation under control. But on the streets, the price of food has been rising relentlessly.

Increases are seen in the price of wheat flour, bread, rice, vegetables, coconut, coconut oil, big onions  and red onions.

The cause? A combination exposure to global prices in the wake of IMF reforms, and the Sri Lankan state's ham-fisted efforts to fix prices in favour Sinhala producers and consumers at the same time. 

Just the other day, this newspaper raised doubts as to who India’s aid intended for the Tamil areas will actually go. As if on cue, the point was made. In Sri Lanka it seems not even the International Committee of the Red Cross can guarantee aid will be delivered to the right beneficiaries.

As the date for President Mahinda Rajapaksa to be sworn in for his second term approaches, the public service has been called upon to undertake a new task – making the country beautiful. Thus the police are instructing residents in their areas to keep the streets clean, to prune branches and to put flower beds outside their homes, reported the Sunday Times.