Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has come under criticism for his defence of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his governments' close relationship with the Sri Lankan regime.

Mr Abbott wrote in an essay this week how he was “sure that the Sri Lankan president was pleased that Australia didn’t join the human rights lobby against the tough but probably unavoidable actions taken to end one of the world’s most vicious civil wars”.

The remarks triggered a spate of criticism, reports Guardian Australia.

Australian Tamil Congress national spokesperson Sam Pari said “it is disappointing that rather than upholding human rights, Abbott chose instead to please the Sri Lankan president who failed to protect and promote international human rights law and international humanitarian law”.

Human Rights Watch Australia director, Elaine Pearson, said his comments were “a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of victims of wartime atrocities and their families”.

Sri Lanka has increased government spending to boost 'aggregate demand' after coming to power in 2015, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe admitted in parliament, as a policies are now being devised to rescue the country from a 'stimulus' fallout.

"In 2015, when we built the government, there was a collapse in aggregate demand," Prime Minister Wickremesinghe told parliament.

"In that situation in April we raised (state worker) pensioners' payments by 1000 rupees, we raised state workers' salaries, private sector salaries were raised.

"Gas prices were reduced by 300, milk powder 68, wheat prices by 12.50 rupees sugar 10 rupee, green gram 40 rupee, sprats 15. Sustagen 100 rupees. Tinned fish 60 rupees. Maldive Fish 200, Chillies 25, kerosene 06 rupees."

"In this way we put more money in the hands of consumers to increase aggregate demand."

Sri Lanka's government and the country's construction industry have struck a compromise on the controversial plans for the construction of 65,000 houses for war displaced in the Tamil-majority Northern Province.

The leader of the Tamil National Alliance R Sampanthan said he would take up environmental concerns around the building of a coal-power power plant in Sampur with the Indian High Commission.

“The people of the area have been telling me about the substantial pollution and environmental damage which will be caused and have accused me of not taking any action on it,” said Mr Sampanthan. “A solar powered plant in place of the coal-fired one is very much in my mind.”

Concerns around the environmental impact have been raised for years, ever since the proposal to construct the plant was first floated. In 2011 civil society groups condemned the project as environmentally destructive due to the devastating impact of mercury leakage into the local ecosystem and the wider impact on global warming.

The Sri Lankan Minister of Parliamentary Reforms and Mass Media visited Jaffna this weekend, as part of a government organised trip to the northern peninsula. Though Colombo claimed the project would build “professional solidarity” amongst journalists, the minister’s visit instead fueled fears that Sinhalisation of the North-East looks set to continue.

“The whole event was carried out under a Sinhala name,” said a Tamil journalist who was invited to the event. “There was no consideration given to the Tamil language at all.”

He was referring to the visit’s slogan “Enna Ekata Husma Ganna”, a Sinhala phrase which roughly translates to “let us breathe together”. It was printed on T-shirts using Tamil characters and distributed to journalists who were invited to accompany the minister across Jaffna.

T-shirts distributed to journalists in Jaffna

“It means nothing in Tamil,” said the journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The neglect of the Tamil language was also highlighted in the construction of a memorial pillar for murdered journalists in Jaffna. The memorial, a proposal put forward by members of the Jaffna Press Club, the Working Journalists Association and Operational Group for Press Freedom last week, has been built with an inscription written in Sinhala only.

The inscription on the memorial written in Sinhala only using Tamil characters.

The Sri Lankan navy released a tranche of land that it had occupied for almost a decade in Sampur last week, but pledged not to let the move affect troop deployment in the area.

The military base, which was established in 2007 as the Sri Lankan government launched a major offensive on the North-East, spans across 237 acres in the Eastern Province.

Commander of the Sri Lankan navy, Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne, handed the occupied land over to the Governor of the Eastern Province Austin Fernando, in a ceremony also attended by Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has decided to bring several ministries under his supervision, saying that they were subjected to bureaucracy during the Rakapaksa regime and have not been able to achieve the targets set for the first two quarters, the Daily Mirror reported.