Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran denied that his party reached an agreement with Sri Lanka’s prime minister, in order to back him against a no confidence motion in parliament last week.

Speaking to the Sunday Observer Mr Sumanthiran said that though the TNA had discussion with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe regarding issues of concern to Tamils of the North-East, “our support for the Prime Minister was not conditional on them agreeing to any of this”.

Sri Lanka’s Minister for Resettlement has said 500 acres of Tamil people’s land will be released in Valikamam North when earlier in the week the ministry’s secretary had pledged that 650 acres would be released.

According to the Uthayan, the resettlement minister D. M. Swaminathan told journalists in Colombo that 500 acres of land in Valikamam North would be released on April 16, contradicting an announcement by secretary Ponniah Suresh who had said on Thursday that 650 acres would be released.

Supporters of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, a breakaway faction of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, protested against the election of a Tamil deputy mayor to the Kalmunai Municipal Council in Amparai.

A section of coastal land in Mullaitivu rightfully belongs to Tamil fishermen, a Mullaitivu court has ruled, defeating a case brought against the Tamils by the Fisheries and Aquatics Department on behalf of Sinhalese fishermen who contested the land rights.

The land in Kokkulai was granted to local Tamil fishermen by the Karaithuraipattu divisional council for the construction of a jetty in 2016, provoking opposition from Sinhalese fishermen who stated that the land was theirs and that they had their nets in that section.

The former head of Sri Lanka’s military intelligence has been arrested over the 2008 abduction and assault of a journalist, reports the Daily Mirror.

Former Military Intelligence Director and Chief of Staff of the Army, Major General  Amal Karunasekara, who is now retired, was arrested on charges of aiding and abetting the abduction of Keith Noyahr. Mr Noyahr was an associate editor of The Nation when he was abducted in May 2008.

The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has slammed the Sri Lankan military for deploying peacekeepers to take part in a UN mission in Lebanon, before human rights vetting of military personnel could be completed.

In a letter to the Sri Lankan president, HRCSL Chairperson Deepika Udagama said that though the military had agreed to vet 204 soldiers who were due to be deployed to Lebanon, a group of 49 were already deployed before the process could be completed. They only learnt of the deployment through a “media statement”.

Sri Lanka’s president once more reiterated that he would not allow any foreign judges to participate in an accountability mechanism to deal with mass atrocities, as he spoke with the heads of media institutions at the President’s House in Colombo on Friday.

Mr Sirisena has repeated several times that his government would not allow any foreign judges to take part in such a mechanism, since Sri Lanka agreed to set up a “credible justice process” with “Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorized prosecutors and investigators” in a 2015 UN Human Rights Council Resolution.

Tamil youth in Batticaloa will commemorate the memory of Annai Poopathy with a football tournament in her honour.

Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena declared that International Workers’ Day, commonly marked as May Day, will now be shifted from May 1^st to May 7^th, after pressure from various Buddhist lobby groups.

The decision was made as May 1^st coincides with the Buddhist festival of Vesak. Mr Sirisena announced the decision on his Twitter and told Heads of Media institutions this morning that political rallies and processions are not to be held on that date.

The move comes despite the Ceylon Teachers Union stating that it was “a total disregard for the rights of the workers and their trade unions”.

The paramilitary group, EPDP have lost their grip on power in Delft (Neduntheevu) to the TNA.

The TNA candidate for chair of the Delft divisional council (prathesa sabai) defeated the EPDP candidate, causing the EPDP’s first loss on the islet in several years.