India’s Chief of Naval Staff Admiral DK Joshi has arrived in Sri Lanka to attend an international maritime security conference in Galle. Admiral Joshi was welcomed at the Katunayake airport by Sri Lanka’s Chief of Staff of the Navy, Rear Admiral Jayantha Perera. The Sri Lankan Navy said that his participation in the Galle Dialogue is a symbolic gesture of goodwill between the two friendly navies.
Sri Lanka’s external affairs ministry announced today that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, will visit Sri Lanka next week. The Special Rapporteur, Dr Chaloka Beyani, is due to commence his visit to the North-East on 2 nd December and is scheduled to meet Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister, GL Peiris alongside several other ministers.
Sri Lanka's opposition, the UNP, has slammed the President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government for allowing the country to be brought up in front of an international inquiry. In a special statement, the UNP condemned the government's signing up to the 39th sentence of a declaration signed by all leaders of the Commonwealth during the summit held earlier this month, which said all nations would adhere to the Vienna Declaration.
Police in the area of Velvettithurai have recently had to destroy posters and stickers on walls in support of a separate state for the North-East of Sri Lanka. Explaining their actions, the police told press that they were stopping elements that had, with the support of Northern politicians, attempted to revive the LTTE.
The Deputy Minister S.M. Chandrasena, who organised the protests in Anuradhapura during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet which mobbed the Channel 4 news team who were on board a train towards the North , has been appointed a Cabinet Minister by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, reports the Colombo Telegraph. Photograph Colombo Telegraph Chandrasena was sworn in on Saturday, as the Cabinet Minister responsible for Special Projects.
Speaking to Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) on the arrest of the Norwegian Tamil poet Jayapalan , a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Jaffna, said that the arrest “ was part of the ongoing campaign of witch-hunt against Tamils journalists, university students and academics ”. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the lecturer added, “ The military and police intelligence operatives are closely monitoring every movement on a daily basis. The level of their activities and interruption in routine life under heavy-military presence in the peninsula are...
The acclaimed poet and actor, Jeyapalan, was arrested in Maankulam on Friday by the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) at taken to the TID office in Vavuniya. Jeyapalan, who resides in Norway having fled the ethnic conflict, had returned to pay his respects at his late mother's grave in Maankulam. According to reports , at approximately 5pm, security forces arrested him stating he had violated visa regulations. He is understood to have entered Sri Lanka on a tourist visa. However, according to PTI, the Sri Lankan police spokesperson Ajith Rohana said that Jayapalan had been arrested for holding seminars in Jaffna .
The Sri Lankan military has seized 3200 acres of land in Odduchuddaan DS division in Mullaitheevu district, reported TamilNet, citing sources in Vanni. See here for more.
Photographs News.lk The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa received blessings from the Buddhist clergy at the Scared Tooth relic in Kandy on Friday, for assuming the post of Commonwealth Chair.
Jet Airways, India's largest domestic airlines, is due to cancel it's daily service from Chennai to Colombo, reported ColomboPage. The daily service from Chennai is due to be stopped from the 3rd of January 2014, although flights from Mumbai will still serve Colombo.