A World Bank Report entitled ‘Sri Lanka: Ending Poverty and Promoting Shared Prosperity’ found that the Tamil North-East stood out as regions with high concentrations of poverty.

The report found that Sri Lanka’s Tamils “had the highest rates of poverty among ethnic groups,” with double the poverty rate of the ethnic Sinhala community on the island.

A Northern Province councillor with the Tamil National Alliance was attacked in Vavuniya by unidentified assailants on Thursday night.

Ramanathan Indrarajah, a councillor for he Vavuniya district, was on his way home on a motorcycle, ridden by NPC Councillor Pichchaimuththu Nadarajah, when the assailants rode up to them and hit the councillor on the back of his head with a metal bat.

A resolution passed by members of the Northern Provincial Council as well as Sri Lankan government representatives on Thursday called for the urgent resettlement of displaced persons in Valikaamam North who have remained displaced for over 25 years.

The resolution was adopted at an emergency meeting held at the Jaffna District Secretariat on Thursday, which included the chief minister of the northern province, C V Wigneswaran, the state minister of children's affairs. Vijayakala Maheswaran, the northern provincial council chairman, C V K Sivagnanam.

The Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), a constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), was taken to Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Thursday, over charges of espousing ‘separatism’.

The Supreme Court heard a petition filed against the Secretary General of the party, Mavai S. Senathirajah, claiming that since the ITAK constitution did not explicitly reject a separate state for the Tamil people, it was supporting separatism. TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran appeared for Mr Senathirajah.

Tamil detainees released from imprisonment under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) have been refused identity documents by Sri Lankan government officials in the North-East.

"Regional officers have prevented this and this prevents these detainees from re-integrating with the social mainstream," the executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Research (CHR), Rajith Keethi, was quoted by Ceylon Today as saying in an interview.

The US Congressional Caucus on Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka was given an update on the current situation in Sri Lanka and on developments in the UN Human Rights Council, during a briefing in the Longworth House Office Building in Washington DC earlier this month.

The briefing, attended by staff from the State Department, Congress, the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as interested members of the public, started with caucus co-chair Congressman Bill Johnson's introductory remarks, who said it was critical that the international community remained vigilant about Sri Lanka's new government's progress on accountability and political reform.

Mario Arulthas, advocacy director for PEARL, a DC-based NGO, spoke about his recent trip to Sri Lanka's North-East and shared his experiences speaking to survivors of the armed conflict, families of the disappeared and victims of landgrabs. Mr Arulthas said he was able to document ongoing violations of human rights in all 8 districts, especially around security forces harassment.