Two Sinhalese men were arrested for possession of cannabis in Vavuniya on Monday, according to Vavuniya police.

The police said the two men, aged 33 and 29 and hailing from Mahiyangana, Badulla, were arrested around noon with 4.2 kilograms of ‘Kerala ganja’ on a private bus heading to Colombo from Jaffna.

The Sri Lankan army took a group of Tamil pre-schoolchildren on a tour of the Palaly airport last week, whilst the region remains occupied by the military and off limits to local Tamils.

Accompanied by Buddhist monks and a senior leader from the extremist Jathika Hela Urumaya party, Sri Lanka’s president addressed an event at the side lines of the United Nations General assembly on Monday.

Maithripala Sirisena delivered a speech at the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit, which was organised in memory of the first black South African president who led the struggle against Apartheid.

The Sri Lankan army’s 62 Division celebrated its 8 year anniversary by building a holiday bungalow for soldiers at its Vanni headquarters, consolidating its presence in the region, despite calls for demilitarisation.

Hindu temples in Batticaloa have been attacked at least eleven times in the last three years, an MP for the district has said.

TNA MP S Viyalenthiran said that attacks on Hindu temples went underreported but that they were taking place at a worrying rate across the North-East, with Batticaloa no exception.

The parliamentarian said that temples which neighboured different communities were most vulnerable to attack and that the Sri Lankan government had failed to promote reconciliation in the three years it had been in power.

Around 3000 acres of privately-owned land in Amparai remains under military or other state occupation according to activists in the district.

Sri Lanka's former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa accused the current coalition government of mismanagement which has allowed for an inflation crisis. 

"[There is] no confidence in this government and they can’t control it," Rajapaksa said. "They are not doing anything. I mean we want to defeat this government. We want to have elections. The first thing is to have elections, so we are fighting for it."

The government has rebuked his claims and assert that it was his administration that has caused the problem. 

Sri Lankan police on Friday filed an injunction in an attempt to prevent an event commemorating Lt Col Thileepan's fast unto death. 

The event is currently being planned for September 26 to take place in Nallur, Jaffna. 

The police allege the event is for a member of a 'terrorist organisation banned in Sri Lanka and many countries' and have also sought a court order to remove red and yellow banners and a photograph of Thileepan placed at his memorial site in Nallur. 

The court hearing is due to take place on September 25. 

Another protest took place today demanding that all Tamil political prisoners be released. 

The protest, which took the form of a symbolic hunger strike, in solidarity with the eight political prisoners at Anuradhapuram prison who have been protesting for their release, took place outside the Government Agent Office. 

The Sri Lankan military has once more held events with Tamil schoolchildren at schools in the Vanni last week, as it continues with its militarisation of the North-East.