A schoolgirl died this week, after falling to death from the Lotus Tower in Colombo in what appears to be a suicide.

Image from Daily News lk

The increasing encroachment of farming lands in Pulmoddai by the Sri Lankan state has led to the arrest of two farmers, Nakeeb and Sadiq, by the Kuchchaveli Police. The farmers were detained on charges of farming in what has been deemed an archaeological area, a claim they strongly contest.

The UK government has agreed to offer Tamil asylum seekers who have been stranded on Diego Garcia a temporary move to Romania, just days after it agreed to transfer sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) to Mauritius.

Tamil asylum seekers have been protesting for 87 days in Melbourne, Australia, as they continue to demand permanent visa protection. 

The University of Jaffna Students' Union has called for a “new political culture” for Eelam Tamils, as they outlined a range of demands to Tamil political parties including “moulding Tamil nationalism into a progressive force”.

The Sri Lankan navy announced it held yet another large scale military exercise, this time in ‘Counter Revolutionary Warfare’, in the occupied city of Trincomalee this month, with the participation of the Pakistan, Maldives, and Bangladesh navies.

Sri Lanka has permitted the Chinese Navy training ship, Po Lang, to dock at its port for "naval exchanges and capacity building" activities, despite a 12-month moratorium introduced this year barring foreign research vessels, after security concerns raised by India and the US.

The Sri Lankan government headed by Anura Kumara Dissanayake has reached a decision to dismantle an “Office for the Affairs of Sri Lankans Abroad” which was specifically instituted by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe to bring in investments from the diaspora and assist with ‘philanthropy’ and ‘reconciliation’ efforts. 

Sri Lanka's new government headed by president Anura Kumara Dissanayake has taken an executive decision to reject the resolution tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which looks set to extend the mandate of a war crimes evidence gathering mechanism for a further year.

Following the election of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka has secured a $200 million loan from the World Bank as part of the second instalment of the World Bank’s Resilience, Stability, and Economic Turnaround (RESET) Development Policy Operation (DPO).

Excavations at Colombo Port have uncovered eight human skeletons, at a former High Security Zone (HSZ) in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, in yet another mass grave on the island.

Speaking to News First, Professor Raj Somadeva confirmed that two of the skeletons have already been excavated and are currently under police protection.

Sri Lanka's head of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), Kanishka D. Wijeratne, has agreed to step down after Sri Lanka's Supreme Court accepted a case challenging his appointment.