Sri Lanka is among the three economies that the World Bank has classified into a lower category than the previous year in the 2020-21 report published this week, amidst an economic crisis on the island.

The move, which comes only a year after Sri Lanka was upgraded to an upper-middle-income country, reflects the dire financial straits the island faces. 

A candidate with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has filed an official complaint against the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) Sivagnanam Sritharan this week, claiming that he had committed voter fraud in the 2004 parliamentary elections.

Stanislaus Celestine, a lawyer who is a candidate for the SLFP in the Jaffna District, lodged a formal complaint at the Jaffna District Elections Complaint Unit and with the Sri Lankan police against the former TNA parliamentarian.

The leader of the Tamil National Alliance heaped praised on Sri Lankan prime minister and alleged war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa last month, in a lavish tribute to mark Rajapaksa’s 50 years in parliament.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister and leader of the SLPP, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has called for a two-thirds majority in upcoming general election, to repeal the 19^th amendment (19A), which limits the powers of the executive presidency.

Rajapaksa claims that the 19A was “brought in to take personal revenge” upon him and that it made the constitution “a joke”. It is only by repealing the 19A, Rajapaksa maintains, that Sri Lanka will be able to address the shortcomings of the previous administration and deliver a “strong government”.

Following the publication of their report on the impact of Chinese investment and the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) in Sri Lanka, Chatham House held a wide reaching and informative discussion on the economic, political, and geopolitical role of China in Sri Lanka.

Effigies of former parliamentarians and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP’s Sivagnanam Sritharan and M A Sumanthiran were burnt in Jaffna yesterday. 

A young Tamil man was assaulted by army soldiers in the Alangulam, Eruvil area and has been hospitalised at the District General Hospital in Killinochchi following his extensive injuries from the attack. 

Speaking at 44^th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, a delegate for Sri Lanka responded to the Core Group’s (UK, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia and Montenegro) expression of “profound disappointment” by insisting that Sri Lanka would only commit to purely domestic process aligned with the government’s policy framework.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has the defended much criticised decision to dissolve parliament for over 6 months as he claims, “the hostile Parliament was not inclined to support the President”.

Rajapaksa defence of the President’s actions came a speech in which he maintained that the “global community will need to come forward to assist all developing nations”. He further requested IMF and World Bank to provide a debt standstill to all developing nations for two years, claiming that such relief will allow for a rapid recovery.

^{Photograph: FT.lk}

Sri Lanka’s state-owned Bank of Ceylon entered a long-term facility with the China Development Bank, the largest development financial organisation in the world, for USD $140 million this week, as Colombo’s economic crisis worsened amidst piling debt repayments.