Human rights lawyer and former leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), Kumar Ponnambalam, was remembered today in Jaffna and Batticaloa, 19 years after his assassination in Colombo.

A Sinhala Buddhist monk called for Sinhalese people in Mullaitivu to receive rights over the land which they illegally occupy, and said that military forces should not be removed from the North, during a visit to flood-affected families in Mullaitivu.

Seelarathana, a monk from the Colombo suburb of Battaramulla, made the remarks while visiting families in the areas of Kokkilai and Nayaru, where local Tamils and representatives have been contesting ongoing Sinhala colonisation and land-grabs, especially under the Mahaweli scheme.

<p>Former Chief Minister of the Northern Province and Supreme Court judge C V Wigneswaran has criticised the Sri Lankan army commander for saying that those who were in hiding from the LTTE now criticise the army’s activities in the North.</p> <p>Asked to respond to the jibe by Tamil press, Wigneswaran emphasised that it was always state forces that the Tamil people lived in fear of, and that current militarisation activities could not suddenly redeem the forces of their atrocities.</p> <p>“In 1983 I investigated the deaths caused by [Sri Lankan] army atrocities in Mallakam, when nobody else would,” Wigneswaran said. “I had no reasons to hide.”</p>

<p>The Indian ministry of external affairs (MEA) has not yet approved plans to prepare a report on developing Jaffna’s Palaly airport, with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) citing political instability as a reason for the delay.</p> <p>The AAI has completed a detailed project report for developing an airport in Kalay in Myanmar but the MEA is yet to give the required permission for a similar report to be produced on Palaly.</p>

<p>Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed a $1.85 billion loan to Sri Lanka to build a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system.&nbsp;</p> <p>The agreement was put on hold in November in response to the country's political turmoil which followed the president's sacking of the prime minister and attempt to dissolve parliament.&nbsp;</p> <p>JICA will also provide technical assistance for the project.&nbsp;</p> <p>The LRT, aimed at reducing congestion in Colombo, will run for 17km between Colombo Fort and Malambe.&nbsp;</p>

<p>After weeks of political crisis and a falling rupee due to foreign outflows, Sri Lanka announced this week it intends to further limit foreign holdings of government securities to 5 percent, down from the current 10 percent.&nbsp;</p> <p>"In view of the increased volatility in global financial markets, we also intend to reduce the threshold for foreign investment in rupee denominated government securities from 10 percent of the outstanding government securities stock at present to 5 percent," the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy was quoted by Reuters as saying.&nbsp;</p>

The Mullaitivu district government agent said 2300 houses had been damaged by the extreme flooding last month within that district, with 86 homes completely destroyed and 2297 homes partially damaged. 

Speaking to journalists on Friday, Roopavathy Ketheeswaran said that 10,118 families had been affected and 24,293 acres of plantation destroyed. 

More than 120,000 people were affected across the Vanni due to the floods, according to data released by the government’s Disaster Management Centre (DMC).

United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MP M. L. A. M. Hizbullah, who entered parliament as a national list MP after failing to win a seat from Batticaloa in the last election, has been appointed as the governor of the Eastern Province.

Hizbullah assumed his seat in the current parliament as a national list MP after the UPFA failed to secure any seats in the Batticaloa District in the 2015 general election.

Muslims in Vavuniya protested on Friday for the release of their lands which are still occupied by the Sri Lankan army.

Owners of land in Ramayankulam and Cheddikulam protested outside the mosque in Andiya Puliyankulam after lunchtime prayers on Friday.

 Public bus drivers in the North engaged in strike action on Friday in protest of the Sri Lanka central transport board’s failure to address their complaints about mismanagement and corruption in the board’s regional management.

Bus services from all seven bus depots in the Northern Province ground to a halt during the strike.