After the worst floods in almost a century,

“The average ten-year-old in eastern Sri Lanka has lived through conflict, the tsunami and now risks facing a food crisis in the coming weeks.

"As the people of Jaffna seek to resurrect their lives after years of armed conflict, the Government and the people of India remain committed to facilitate development in the region."

"There is a special place in this relationship for age-old and time-tested bonds between the Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka and India."

- Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka Ashok K Kantha. (See PTI’s report here).

"RSF finds it highly disturbing that literature is being celebrated in this manner in a land where cartoonists, journalists, writers and dissident voices are so often victimised by the current government."

“The failure of [Sri Lanka's] policing system to protect victims and witnesses - and its tendency to undermine rather than reinforce their rights - precludes the development of public trust in law enforcement, the judicial system, and the state.”

Singapore will introduce a new Tamil-language elective next year for high-ability secondary and junior college students who want to go deeper into the language, its literature and culture, the Straits Times reports.

The National Elective Tamil Language Programme (NETP) will be similar to the existing Chinese and Malay language electives, but will not be amongst examined options.

The all-pervasive climate of terror being engineered in the Jaffna peninsula is intended to stifle the revival of Tamil political and economic activity there.

The brutal killings, abductions, ‘disappearances’ and intimidation are not random or manifestations of ‘lawlessness’, but a deliberate campaign of targeted violence with specific political and economic goals.

The wave of terror in Jaffna by Sri Lanka Army-backed paramilitaries serves to undermine planned international efforts to restore normalcy in the peninsula.