ICRA Lanka, a credit rating agency and a subsidiary of Moody's Investors Service, has downgraded its GDP growth projection for Sri Lanka to 3.4% and for state revenue to weaken to 9.1% of the GDP as the country struggles in response to a third wave of the pandemic.

The report further warns that Sri Lanka’s trade would continue to deteriorate despite import restrictions due to rising commodity prices. The ICRA notes:

The Mannar Chancellors’ and Professors’ Union organised a protest in the district earlier yesterday demanding higher wages and an end to militarisation of free education through the Kotelawala National Defence University (KNDU) Bill. 

Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has filed a petition seeking to void the recommendations made against him by the President’s Commission on Political Victimisation.

^{File photograph: Eelam refugees in Tamil Nadu, 2012. Courtesy EC/ECHO Arjun Claire}

The Indian central government has appealed to the Madras High Court challenging the June 17, 2019 order which stated that the plea of 65 Eelam Tamils seeking Indian citizenship, some of whom are descendants of Malayaga Tamils, should be considered. 

German Tamils held a protest at Frankfurt Airport today to stop the deportation of torture survivor and asylum seeker Sasi K, after he was taken into immigration detention on Friday. 

The flight which was set to deport Sasi K. has been temporarily delayed by 1.5 hours. 

More than 20,000 Tamil war-affected families in Jaffna have been left out of a Sri Lankan government run housing scheme due to “allegations of administrative flaws” and “political influence”, according to the Sunday Times.

The families are from various Divisional Secretariats from across Jaffna, which has been under Sri Lankan military occupation since 1995, with the highest number of displaced families from Chavakachcheri, Tellipalai and Kopay.

The massacre of up to 64 Tamils in Valvettithurai by Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) on August 2, 1989 was marked in an event by former Northern Provincial Councillor M K Shivajilingham. 

Yesterday marked 32 years since IPKF officers, led by Brigadier Sankar Prasath, entered homes in the region after imposing a curfew and shot and stabbed residents to death.

Some young men were dragged to the local junction where they were shot and killed. 

An undetonated mortar shell was recovered at Mullaitivu District Hospital on Wednesday, more than 12 years after it was subjected to intense Sri Lankan military bombardment.

The Sri Lankan police removed the device after workers uncovered the mortar shell during road construction on the hospital premises.

Sri Lanka’s new High Commissioner to India, former cabinet Minister Milinda Moragoda, is reported to be preparing for a visit to India in mid-August to restore trust between the countries.

According to Moragoda, whose appointment was announced in August 2020, “in recent years, the Indo-Sri Lanka bilateral relationship has been increasingly dominated by a transactional approach.” He adds that this is because “of the changes in the geopolitical equilibrium in the region” and has resulted in a “growing trust deficit”.

On this day 32 years ago, up to 64 Tamil civilians were killed by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Valvettithurai in a massacre that was termed “India’s My Lai”.

The massacre, which saw dozens killed, came on the background of escalating violence and rights abuses committed by Indian forces across the Tamil homeland. As Tamil militant groups continued hostilities with the IPKF, the Indian forces imposed a curfew on August 2, 1989, following an ambush attack.