Former Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena vowed to “dedicate himself towards developing the country and building a prosperous economy as part of the new government under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s leadership” at a media briefing in Polannaruwa, last week.

Sirisena said that he would work “towards creating a civili[s]ed society as part of the new government” and that he was “thankful towards all officials of the Election Commission, officers of health authorities, police and other officers who committed themselves towards ensuring a peaceful election in the country.”

^{Photograph: Ministry of Foreign Relations, Sri Lanka}

The Ambassador-Designate of Sri Lanka to Russia, Prof. M.D. Lamawansa visited Russia’s Moscow Clinical Centre to gift 46 boxes of Ceylon tea as gratitude from Sri Lanka to the medical staff combating COVID-19 and congratulated Russia for “being the first country in the world to produce a vaccine against the coronavirus.”

Sri Lanka’s former president Chandrika Kumaratunga declared that she “doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry” when looking at the state of the  Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), in post-election comments where she praised Mahinda Rajapaksa as a “strong leader”.

Reacting to Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections last week, where Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) swept through the South and gained a two-thirds majority in parliament, Kumaratanga bemoaned the demise of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

Elected parliamentarians from the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) and Thamizh Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK) paid tribute at Mullivaikal this week, in poignant ceremonies ahead of the lawmakers taking up office.

TMTK leader and former Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran paid his respects at the site last week, where tens of thousands of Tamils were killed in a Sri Lankan military offensive in 2009. 

In memory of the 53 Tamil schoolgirls who were killed in the Sencholai massacre, a private tuition centre in Mullaitivu has christened its classrooms after their names. 

As the anniversary of the bombing by the Sri Lankan air force of a building that housed a children’s home is being commemorated across the Tamil homeland and abroad, the tuition centre conducted the event of opening up the name boards of each class on Friday. 

Sri Lanka’s State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Sarath Weerasekara pledged to strip the 13th Amendment of clauses that would be crucial to establishing local control and provincial councils, just days after he assumed office this week. 

Weerasekara, who is a retired rear admiral in the military, took his position as State Minister in an elaborate Buddhist ceremony, alongside the rest of Sri Lanka’s cabinet.

A woman's skeleton and clothes have been found in Jaffna. The discovery was made on Friday morning when a pit was being dug to set up a tent at the ground of the fishery factory in Jaffna.

Local witnesses reported the sighting to the police and the Jaffna municipal health department were informed.

A woman has been found dead with serious injury wounds in a salt marsh in Mannar on Thursday. 

Photo of Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi,

Following the appointment of reappointment of Dinesh Gunawardena as Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, congratulated the Minister on his successful reappointment and called for a strengthening of ties between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, despite human rights concerns.

The statue of former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and human rights lawyer, Nadarajah Raviraj was vandalised on Sunday. The decorative pottery placed in front of the statue was broken and the cloths that were placed across the statue was removed.