The Sri Lankan army continues to occupy a village in the North-East, having driven out its inhabitants in 2011, reports James Ross, Legal and Policy Director for Human Rights Watch.

One of the villagers told Mr Ross “the army started by taking our maize and other crops”. “Then they blocked our children from going to school,” she said. “They said the land belongs to them.”

Stating that the 69 families were evicted “literally overnight,” he added that the Sri Lankan police “did nothing to stop their eviction”.

Sri Lankan Minister of National Dialogue Mano Ganesan said the government would not be granting an amnesty to Tamil political prisoners who had gone on hunger strike earlier this month.

"There will be no common amnesty for over 200 prisoners, mostly Tamils, who staged a hunger strike in jails throughout the country," said Mr Ganesan.

Notorious paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda will stand trial for a killing that happened in Chennai in 1987.

The leader of the EPDP, a state-affiliated armed group accused of several crimes, will be tried remotely, and will be video conferencing from the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

Justice C. T. Selvam of Madras High Court said: "At every instance when the petitioner is required to appear before the trial court in person, the state shall afford him appropriate protection."

Joint exercises by Sri Lanka's and India's navies commenced off the coast of Trincomalee today.

Six naval ships and six fast attack boats from the Sri Lankan navy, alongside three ships of the Indian Navy are taking part in this year’s joint training, which will carry on until November 1.

The recent findings of two inquiry commissions in Sri Lanka underscore the need for a formal process to investigate and prosecute those responsible for grave crimes during the armed conflict that spanned three decades.

The submission of the reports in Parliament should be welcomed, although it could also be interpreted as a signal to the international community that the domestic mechanisms are strong enough. The Maxwell Paranagama Commission, mandated to probe cases of missing persons and allegations of war crimes, has established that there were significant civilian casualties caused by Sri Lankan Army shelling in 2009 and that there may have been many individual acts of war crimes.

The three-member Commission has, however, mainly blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the civilian deaths, noting that it used civilians as human shields, placed weaponry in their midst and prevented them from leaving war zones.

The Tamil Nadu government says Sri Lanka has agreed to release 86 fishermen from the state, all arrested by the country's navy over the past two months.

"The Union government was informed that Sri Lanka would release 86 fishermen (hailing from Tamil Nadu) on October 28," an official release said.

The release of fishermen was the outcome of Jayalalithaa's "continuous efforts", the press release further said.

The fishermen, hailing from the Nagapattinam, Pudukottai, Tuticorin and Ramanathapuram districts, were arrested and kept in jails in Sri Lanka between September 22 and October 14 this year.