A court in Chennai has refused to revoke a non-bailable arrest warrant for Sri Lankan Minister of Traditional Industries & Small Enterprise Development, Douglas Devananda.

Douglas is wanted in India for the shooting and killing of a lawyer in Chennai in 1986 and has been wanted for murder in the country since.

He has recently approached the court and requested a cancellation of the warrant and said thare may be a risk to him if he enters the Tamil Nadu for the trial.

The JVP reiterated their stance that the 13th Amendment to the constitution will not provide a solution to the 'ethnic issue', reports Colombo Page.

Vijitha Herath, named as the Propaganda Secretary by Colombo Page, stressed that the country should not accept any solution imposed on them by another country, and argued that the 13th Amendment had exacerbated the ethnic issue.

The Sri Lankan government has planned to introduce new laws that will monitor non-governmental organisations in the country, reported ColomboPage.

The Director General of the Media Center for National Security (MCNS) Lakshman Hulugalla was quoted as saying that existing legislation was not adequate enough to monitor these organisations and NGOs were also guilty of supporting “terrorists”.

It is unclear what the new legislation will enable, but ColomboPage stated that it would,

110 families from Kepapilavu are to be resettled permanently in the Suriyapuram forest areas where they are currently staying, despite being promised that they could return to their own homes within two months, reported Jaffna newspaper Uthayan.

As the Suriyapuram forests belong to the government, procedures have begun to divide the land between the families, according to Mullaitivu’s District Government Agent, N Vethanayagan.

In a meeting with a senior Sri Lankan Government official, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the need for a political solution that addressed the underlying factors behind the country’s civil war, despite the Sri Lankan official’s attempts to highlight that ‘progress’ had been made by the Sri Lankan government on resettlement issues.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March, called on the Government to take “all necessary additional steps to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans.”

The US Embassy in Colombo has expressed concern over Sri Lanka’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) resettlement programme.

A press release by the embassy welcomed the government’s speedy resettlement of a large number of IDPs, but noted concern about resettlement on land “without adequate shelter, water and sanitation”.

The Tamil National Aliance met with Chinese Embassy officials in Colombo and discussed Tamil concerns about China's support to the government.

Speaking to The Hindu, TNA member Mavai Senathirajah, said,

Under the code name 'SLINEX', the Indian and Sri Lankan Navy will continue to hold joint exercises, but do so away from India's four southern states, reports the Press Trust of India.

Speaking to PTI, an Indian Navy official reportedly said: "The Defence Ministry has advised us to hold the SLINEX-series exercises with our Sri Lankan counterparts away from the coasts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka."

The Sri Lankan government has announced that its annual Independence Day celebrations will be held in Tamil-dominated Trincomalee next year, reported the Defence Ministry’s website.

It said the decision was made “under the direction” of the president, Mahinda Rajapakse.

The UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee has released a report calling on the British government to do more to assess the risk of asylum seekers who are removed from the UK, particularly highlighting removals to Sri Lanka.

The report examined a case covered by the Guardian earlier this year which followed a deported Tamil asylum seeker (see here).

It also noted the UN Committee Against Torture’s report which detailed “allegations of widespread torture, secret detention centres, enforced disappearances and deaths in detention in Sri Lanka”, and Human Rights Watch’s comments to the committee that they had "documented many cases of torture and ill-treatment (including rape) of failed asylum-seekers at the hands of security forces".

The report stated that,

“In addition, the Government failed to give a direct answer to our request for an assurance that it was content that its policy on deportation of Sri Lankans was not putting people at risk of torture.”

“We find it unsatisfactory that the Government has not been more forthcoming to Parliament about its efforts—in general and in specific cases—to assess the level of risk to the safety of those who are removed from the UK.”

“However, the routine air of the FCO's initial responses to our questions has not given us particular confidence that the FCO is being as energetic as it might in impressing upon the UK Border Agency the degree of risk.”

“We encourage the FCO to be energetic in evaluating reports by non-governmental organisations and media sources of torture of deportees from the UK, including in Sri Lanka, and in spelling out the risk to the UK Border Agency.