The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday said it would be postponing the planned review of its $1.5 billion three year loan, until after Sri Lanka had instituted further reforms. 

The IMF urged Sri Lanka to tighten its monetary political and continue fiscal consolidation. The review is now to scheduled to take place after the government submits its 2018 budget. 

In the latest round of arrests, eight Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested by Sri Lankan navy personel on Tueday. 

The fishermen were allegedly fishing off the coast of Thalaimannar. 

The arrest comes just days after representatives from the Indian and Sri Lankan government held talks in an attempt to resolve the issue. 

Tamil Nadu Information Technology Minister M Manikandan said the state government would raise the latest arrest with New Delhi, PTI reported. 
 

Students at the University of Jaffna held a hunger strike demonstration today to show their solidarity with the detained political prisoners who have been hunger striking in protest at their ongoing detention by the Sri Lankan authorities. 

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is to put foward an adjournment motion calling for the immediate release of Tamils detained under Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

“The Sri Lankan State has made several commitments both domestically and internationally that the said Law will be repealed, and that a new Law will be enacted in keeping with acceptable domestic and international norms. The Sri Lankan State is yet to fulfil this commitment, but that does not derogate from the Sri Lanka State’s commitment that the said Law should not remain on the Statute Book," the motion reads. 

Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Department has reissued a summons to a Mannar civil society leader.

V. S. Sivakaran, who heads the Federation of Community Organisations in Mannar was served a summons at the end of last month to appear for questioning in Colombo in relation to a letter he had sent to the Sri Lankan president criticising the president’s plans to attend the opening of an illegally constructed vihara in the environs of Thiruketheeswaram Kovil.

In the letter Mr Sivakaran had warned that if the President chose to ignore local concerns and attend the opening, Mannar locals would protest his visit.

A Swiss Tamil was arrested at Colombo airport on Sunday night.

34-year-old Devan Kamaleesan fled Sri Lanka with his parents as a 7-year-old child and sought asylum in Switzerland.

He was arrested by CID at Banadaranaike International Airport on his arrival which is the first time he has returned since fleeing the country, 27 years ago.

The Sri Lankan President is to meet the families of the three hunger-striking political prisoners in Anuradhapura prison, alongside students from Jaffna University who have been campaigning on their behalf.

The Student Union of the University of Jaffna wrote to President Sirisena, warning that failure to address the demands of the political prisoners would lead to further protests and unrest among the Tamil people.

The Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) rejected Tamil calls for the release of political prisoners stating that there were no 'political prisoners' in Sri Lanka, describing them instead as 'LTTE members. 

Criticising the TNA's call for the release of Tamil political prisoners, the PHU leader MP Udaya Gammanpila was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying, "there is no other group in the world which is more duplicitous than the TNA."

"It is with great responsibility we say that there are no ‘political prisoners’ in the country as claimed by them,” he said. 

Sri Lanka's former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa urged the government not to bring in what he described as the "destructive" proposal for a new constitution. 

"The vast majority of Tamil and Muslim people lived outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces and therefore the carving out of federal units based on ethnicity or religion and the conferring of sweeping powers on such units should never take place in this country," he was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying. 

A Tamil woman that has been searching for her disappeared family members died from a heart-attack on Saturday.

55-year-old Jesintha Peiris is the seventh protester to die since families of the disappeared began protesting, eight months ago.

She was searching for her son Rosanly Leon and husband Amalan Leon, all from Mannar, who were abducted by white van in Colombo in 2008.