The Sri Muthumari Amman temple in Valvettithurai held its annual festival this week, with music and dance events to celebrate. 

Nadhaswaram and thavil play the famous Black Tiger LTTE song 'Karumpulikal Enna Naangal'. 

Students from the University of Jaffna travelled to Mullivaikkal on Monday to begin clearing the memorial ground ahead of commemorations of Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day on May 18. 

The Sri Lankan army stationed in North-East commenced celebrations for the Buddhist festival of Vesak on Sunday across the Tamil homeland, with prominent events in Jaffna, Batticaloa and Mannar. 

A panel event by the Congressional Caucus on Religious and Ethnic Freedom in Sri Lanka saw a lively discussion on the link between Sinhala Buddhism and extremist violence in Washington DC last week.

The panel, moderated by the co-chair of the caucus Representative Bill Johnson, saw contributions from PEARL's Advocacy Director Mario Arulthas, Associate Professor at Youngtown University Dr Michael Jerryson and Dr Robert Oberst, professor at Nebraska Weselyan University.

Sri Lanka’s president told a group of senior Buddhist monks that his government would ensure “all duties” are carried out in accordance with their advice, as he marked Vesak this weekend.

Speaking at Buddhist ceremony, Maithripala Sirisena said that “all the duties will be conducted as a government in accordance with the advices of the Maha Sangha”.

A former LTTE cadre died on Sunday from cancer, which was diagnosed after his release from 'rehabilitation' by the Sri Lankan state. 

Sunthirasekaram Piratheepan, originally from Oddusuddan, Mullaitivu, surrendered to the military after the end of the armed conflict and was forced into the 'rehabilitation' programme.

He was diagnosed with cancer in August 2016.

His parents and family wept as his last rites took place on Monday. 

Pressure on the Sri Lankan government from the international community led to the military releasing occupied Tamil land in the North-East, stated the chief minister of the Northern Province Justice C V Wigneswaran this week.

In an interview with the Sunday Observer, the chief minister dismissed remarks that the Sri Lankan military’s release of land earlier this month was a “gesture of goodwill”.

“The release of land recently is not a gesture of goodwill,” he said.

Rachel Seoighe launched her book ‘War, Denial and Nation-Building in Sri Lanka’, which explores how political discourse has been utilised to deny and re-engineer state violence in Sri Lanka, at an event in London last week.

Medical officers in Batticaloa launched a strike on Thursday demonstrating against the failure to receive authorised salary increases, previously approved by the Ministry of Health and Social Services in the Eastern Province in January 2018. 

Patients waited in empty rooms as staff walked out in protest. 

Meeting with the Governor of the Eastern Province on the issue on April 10, representatives of the Eastern branch of the Government Medial Officers Association raised objections to the delay and received assurances from the Governor that the increase would be paid before Tamil New Year on April 14. 

The University of Jaffna's Vavuniya campus was forced to close this week after Sinhala students threatened university administration staff over they stopped the students erecting a Buddhist shrine on site. 

On April 23 a group of Sinhala students attempted to install a shrine on campus grounds in view of later placing a Buddha statue inside it.