Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the release of the six fishermen, arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy on Tuesday.

In a letter to Modi, Jayalalithaa said that it was “inhumane” of Sri Lanka to detain the fishermen, who were in distress, due to a technical issue with their boat.

"These boats in distress and Indian fishermen on board are being apprehended and remanded to custody in Sri Lanka. This is a totally inhumane approach and completely against the ethics of maritime search and rescue operations," she said according to PTI.

The Sri Lankan strategy of keeping the apprehended fishing boats of the fishermen in its custody had "snatched away" the source of their meagre livelihood and "is also fuelling despondency and great unrest amongst the fishermen," Jayalalithaa said.

UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Hugo Swire stated Britain “will continue to give full support” to the upcoming United Nations investigation into mass atrocities in Sri Lanka.

Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Swire said the UK welcomed the resolution which established an investigation, adding,

A 15-year-old Tamil school girl has been reported missing in Wattagoda, Madakumpura lower division estate in the island's hill country, reports Uthayan.

Sakthivel Niththiya, a student at the Wattagoda Tamil Institution, has been missing since September 5. Despite the girl's family and neighbours searching for her, there have been no signs of her whereabouts.

A missing persons complaint has been filed at the Thalavakkalai police station.

Human Rights Watch urged the new UN Human Rights Commissioner to “not let victims of abuse down as it did in Sri Lanka,” in its opening statement at the 27th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

“Governments are primarily responsible for protecting human rights but when the fail the UN and its member states must act decisively and unequivocally to prevent abuse. Often the UN intervenes too late when a crisis is already underway or it fails to adequately confront perpetrators to secure the protection of civilians,” Human Rights Watch added.

Sri Lanka's prime minister D.M. Jayaratne accused western countries of trying to breach the peace on the island.

"Western countries are attempting to divide the peace achieved by Sri Lanka," he told the Cuban foreign minister, reports the state's news cooperation, SLBC.

The Chinese President Xi Jinping is to make an official visit to India, as well as the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan, the country's foreign ministry said Tuesday.

The trip will commence in Tajikistan, where he will be attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security coalition including Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, later this week.

The Sri Lankan government announced that it has banned the import of potatoes, in a bid to protect local farmers from going out of business this week.

The move comes after Sri Lanka announced that it would increase import taxes on both potatoes and onions last month, in a bid to increase vegetable prices.

Traders had complained that the falling prices of vegetables had left many of them unable to make a profit. Sameera Gurusingha, a potato grower from the South told the Sunday Times,

“We mortgage our properties to buy the components that we need for potato cultivation but we don’t get enough profits to pay the mortgage and regain our belongings. We have to use the income to begin the next cultivation.”

The government has made efforts to try and protect the Southern farmers, purchasing potatoes through state-owned Lanka Sathosa retail network as well as declaring a guaranteed price of Rs. 80 per kilo in March this year.

The Sri Lankan government is trying to change the ethnic demographics of the Tamil North-East said the leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF).

Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, in an interview with the Sunday Leader, accused the government of using land appropriation, militarisation and Sinhala colonisation to change the ethnic demographics of the region.

“They are building towns within their military bases. Over time, when they take the military boundaries away there will be an entire Sinhala colonised village within that area,” he said.