The United National Party candidate for Jaffna Vijayakala Maheswaran has released a poster with her photo appearing alongside the image of a Tamil Eelam map, as part of her campaign ahead of next week’s parliamentary elections.

Earlier she had declared that if elected, Ms Maheswaran would allow Mahatma Gandhi’s 1927 visit to Jaffna to be commemorated in the North-East.

The Indian leader visited the peninsula on the 26th and 27th of November, coinciding with important dates in the Eelam Tamil calendar - the leader of the LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran's birthday on the 26th and the national day of remembrance Maaveerar Naal on the 27th of November.

Sri Lanka will need “international scrutiny” and “pressure” to rebuild the damage caused by “40 years of insurgency, civil war and ethnically biased centralisation,” concluded the International Crisis Group in its report on Sri Lanka’s new government.

Sri Lankan police have confirmed that a dead body has been found in the Batticaloa lagoon on Monday.

The body was identified as that of a 37 year old male resident of Eravur, according to the Police Media Unit. He has not yet been named.

The finding comes after three dead bodies were recovered from the lagoon last month.

The Federation of National Organisations (FNO) demanded that Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reiterate his stance on whether an international investigation into reports of war crimes would be allowed to take place.

The FNO’s Representative of expatriate Sri Lankans Nuwan Bellanthurawa told The Island that the postponement of the release of an OISL report into mass atrocities until September, was part of a strategy to increase international pressure on former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the event he was elected as prime minister later this month.

Mr Bellanthurawa went on to state that a leaked document from the United Nations named 47 people, who he described as “war heroes”, as responsible for violations of international humanitarian law, including Mr Rajapaksa.

The National Freedom Front's Wimal Weerawansa also warned this week that the United National Party, led by Mr Wickremesinghe, would allow an international war crimes probe to take place.

Earlier this year the UNP declared that it would protect Mr Rajapaksa from any potential war crimes probe.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena praised government minister and general secretary of the JHU Champika Ranawaka, calling him an “intellectual” who would “take the country forward”.

Speaking at the launch of Mr Ranawaka’s book last week, Mr Sirisena thanked the minister for his support in the presidential elections and in helping “make the transformation required by the country and usher in a new era”.

The president went on to say “the knowledge and experience of the intellectuals such as Minister Champika Ranawaka would help take the country forward”.

Mr Ranawaka is currently the minister of technology and research in Sri Lanka and general secretary of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a Sinhala nationalist party led by Buddhist monks.

A senior military official has confessed to interrogating the abducted journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, the first admission by a member of the security forces that the cartoonist was detained.

The sergeant major, who was arrested on Sunday, told CID interrogators that Mr Eknaligoda was questioned on one of his publications and on his alleged connection to former army general Sarath Fonseka, the Daily News reported.

He had said a senior Army officer, a major, who was also at the camp in Girithale, took Mr Eknaligoda away after the interrogation, saying the journalist had to “go somewhere”. The suspect told the CID that he did not receive any news about him thereafter.

The Sri Lankan government has decreased its foreign debt since the beginning of the year, while maintaining the foreign reserve at US$ 7.5 billion.

Sri Lanka has borrowed Rs43bn in the first 6 months of this year from foreign countries, which, according to the Ministry of Finance, is due to the efficient manner in which reforms introduced by the new government to public administration and financial management.

According to the treasury, the total outstanding government debt increased by 8.8% to Rs7,390bn by the end of 2014, from Rs6,793bn in 2013.