Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister GL Peiris has told media that the Indian Prime Minister’s no-show at the Commonwealth summit was not a set-back for the event.

"It will not affect the success of CHOGM. The Indian Prime Minister was invited. Sri Lankans would have been happier if he came," he said.

Conservative MPs who received all expenses paid trips to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) have been banned from traveling amidst growing concerns over the regime’s lobbying activities in the UK.

Investigations by The Daily Telegraph found that many of the MPs that actively uphold Sri Lanka’s rhetoric on reconciliation and human rights progress, had already been on all-expenses paid trips to Sri Lanka.

The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Baroness Warsi, during parliamentary debates on Friday, outlined her discontent at the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group’s  negation of Sri Lanka from its activities.

Baroness Warsi asked the government whether it intended to call on the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group to formally place Sri Lanka on its agenda.

In its editorial Monday, the Financial Times newspaper urged British Premier David Cameron not to attend the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka later this week.

“Britain should have joined Canada in taking a principled stand” and boycotted the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka this week,” The Independent newspaper said in its editorial Monday.

Titled “The Commonwealth should not be conferring legitimacy on a regime with blood on its hands,” the editorial (see full text here) urged Mr. Cameron to take up Sri Lanka at the CHOGM summit.

British Premier David Cameron should have boycotted the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka, the New Statesman magazine said in its editorial Monday, titled 'Sri Lanka is a rogue state'.

Photographs DailyMirror.lk

The Channel 4 News team was met by Sri Lankan protesters demonstrating outside the airport and their hotels, including one notable one by the 'Movement to Promote National Harmony', as they arrived in Sri Lanka ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), today.

"Four years on and still the Sri Lankan state has not been held accountable for these war crimes, crimes against humanity and most importantly crimes of genocide. Instead, they are being given time and space to commit more atrocities in the name of ‘reconciliation’, through which the Tamil nation is continuing to face structural genocide."

The Sri Lankan government has hardened its stance on a lease agreement with the Indian Oil Corporation.

The Indian company is trying to set up a bitumen plant in the northeast, however Sri Lanka has not signed the 10-year old agreement.

Foreign media who have arrived in Sri Lanka to cover the Commonwealth summit, will be restricted to reporting on CHOGM related events only, said Media Secretary Charitha Herath.

“There will be no restrictions on travel within Sri Lanka for foreign media personnel who arrive in the country for CHOGM, but only as tourists,” he said.

“However, those who come as part of the official delegations of various countries, can carry out media related activities and will get accreditation to cover only CHOGM related events.”