Activists in Tamil Nadu, India held a protest this week in Bangalore condemning the Sri Lankan president's visit to the country to speak at an event organised by The Hindu newspaper. 

Protests continued today in Vavuniya as families of the disappeared demanded action from Tamil politicians on the issue. 

The families, who have expressed increasing frustration towards the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance's (TNA), who they argue are in the hands of the United National Party, protested today outside the Road Development Authority's office. 

The protest was held to mark two years since the families met with the UNP leader and Sri Lankan prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe and he pledged to find a solution. 

Continuing months of protest, families of the disappeared today held a demonstration outside the Jaffna District Secretariat's Office. 

Mothers wept holding photos of their disappeared children as they demanded answers and justice. 

<p>Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner for Pakistan has thanked Pakistan for “taking a stand with Sri Lanka against the resolution presented in UNHRC to investigate the alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan government,” Pakistan newspaper The News reports.</p> <p>“Sri Lanka will never forget when Pakistan clearly stated in UNHRC that any such attempt would be a clear violation of the sovereignty of Sri Lanka,” the High Commissioner Noordeen Mohamed Shaheid said at a conference about the ‘Enduring Friendship between Sri Lanka and Pakistan’.</p>

The United Kingdom is providing £49 million of funding for a British firm to build 250 bridges in rural parts of Sri Lanka.

The project has been designed to accelerate Sri Lanka’s development through improvements in its rural transport infrastructure, UK Export Finance (UKEF) said in a press release.

The department claims that families and businesses would benefit directly from the project thanks to reduced distance to reach essential services and lower transport costs.

<p>Sri Lankan military forces are reported to have released lands in different districts across the North-East this year, although they had already failed to meet the Sri Lankan president’s highly publicised deadline to release all occupied lands by December 31, 2018.</p> <p>On January 22, the Sri Lankan army announced it had released 40.74 acres of state land and 13.64 acres of private land in Vavuniya.</p> <p>In Mannar, the army handed over documents to the district’s government agent (GA) on January 29, confirming the release of 4.5 acres used by 54 and 61 divisions.</p>

<p>A Tamil mother of two was released on bail this week after being imprisoned for four years.&nbsp;</p> <p>The release of the 31-year-old political prisoner came after repeated intiatives by the Mannar Citizens' Committee calling for the release of the woman, whose family live below the poverty line.&nbsp;</p> <p>Mathani Ravinthiran was arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) in March 2014 in Visvamadu, Mullaitivu. Welimada Police filed a case with Padaviya Circuit Magistrate Court against her under sections 443, 369 and 394 of Penal Code Act. Another case was filed against her for handling demining equipment.</p>

<p>The Sri Lankan government has made “empty promises” on transitional justice and its willingness to tackle impunity, which is “evidenced by a litany of failures”, write Yasmin Sooka and Frances Harrison for the London School of Economics’ South Asia blog this week.</p>

The history of the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka after Western colonisation is a history of oppression by the chauvinist Sinhala-Buddhist state. Because of strength and resilience, the Tamil people acted against this oppression with resistance. This goes from peaceful protest for equal rights to a militant fight for a separate state. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians and combatants lost their lives throughout the armed conflict.

A former Northern Provincial Council (NPC) minister has written to Vavuniya’s government agent (GA), querying how a Buddha statue was allowed to be placed at an archaeological site in the district.

Former health minister and NPC member P Sathiyalingam wrote to the GA after visiting the wooded land in Kachal Samanankulam where a Buddha statue and huts that are allegedly to make way for a Buddhist vihara and Sinhala settlement were erected recently.