The Sri Lankan government plans to recruit youth volunteers to monitor and report political, criminal and social activities to police across the country.

The Daily Mirror reports, that the Sri Lankan government plans to recruit at least two youths for each 'Grama Nildhari Division' who will directly report to and assist police officers in obtaining individual and community participation in various activities within their respective 'Grama Niladhari' (GN). There are currently 14,022 GN's across the country, which are a sub-unit of a divisional secretariat, in which there are 331.

The Ministry of Public Security in collaboration with the State Ministry of Community Police Service and the Sri Lanka Police has taken steps to deploy two full-time "community assistants" to each GN division under the Community Police Service Programme.

Young people over 18 years of age residing permanently in the relevant GN division who have held School Prefect positions and active in youth clubs and other voluntary services could apply for Community Assistants positions, a memo to the cabinet prepared by Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekara had noted.

A Sri Lankan soldier was seen videoing locals signing the 'repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act' (PTA) petition in Kodikamam this morning. 

Ignoring the soldier's intimidation tactics, locals bravely continued to sign the petition which was initiated last month demanding the Sri Lankan government to repeal the PTA. The PTA has been widely criticised for its disproportionate use against Tamils and Muslims and for suppressing civil society on the island.  

Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary has slammed a United Nations resolution which calls for an evidence gathering mechanism to be set up and collect evidence of mass atrocities, stating that his government would not allow it to operate.

“We are not going to allow that to be operating in Sri Lanka,” said Foreign Secretary Admiral Jayanath Colombage, as he also criticised a recently released report by the UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet.

Poet Ahnaz Jazeem, who was detained for 19 months under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) before being released in December 2021, signed a petition against the PTA in Mannar over the weekend.

Jazeem, joined by his family and hundreds of other locals, signed the petition launched by TNA MP Sumanthiran earlier this month, calling for the notorious PTA to be repealed. 

^{Ukrainian tourists protest outside the Russian Embassy in Colombo}

The National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) has released a statement standing in "solidarity with the Ukrainian people,” highlighting that the “current Russian government's unprovoked attack on the Democratic state of Ukraine… must be condemned by the strongest terms possible and stopped.”

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris claimed that UN resolution 46/1 creates "disharmony" and is "unhelpful" to Sri Lanka in his address to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) this morning. 

Commenting on Resolution 46/1 which was passed last year, Peiris said: 

A handball tournament was held in Vejle, Denmark over the weekend in memory of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)'s chief negotiator and political strategist, Anton Balasingham.

The tournament commenced with the lighting of a candle and a floral tribute in honour of Anton Balasingham.

As states around the world announced a host of wide-ranging sanctions on Russia, in Sri Lanka a different set of discussions was taking place in Colombo, with deepening trade links on the agenda a ministerial meeting.

Russia’s Alexey Gruzdev, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, reportedly arrived in Sri Lanka and met with the regime’s State Minister for Regional Co-Operation Tharaka Balasuriya in Colombo earlier.

Sri Lanka's fuel crisis exacerbated by its depleting foreign reserves is affecting daily transport services, as providers are finding it increasingly difficult to to keep their buses and vans running. 

As the fuel crisis takes a grip on the country, petrol stations have been reported to be rationing the amount of fuel they are providing. Speaking to the EconomyNext several transport providers noted,

Sri Lanka's official remittances in January 2022 were down 61.6 per cent from a year earlier, as overseas workers sent money through unofficial channels at higher parallel exchange rates.