Sri Lankan opposition MP and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya General Secretary Udaya Gammanpila warned that the Sri Lankan government had agreed to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India next year, in an address to a Young Entrepreneurs’ Conference in Colombo.

Mr Gammanpila claimed that an agreement had been reached for the trade deal to be signed in May 2016, and warned that Sri Lanka would “definitely become an Indian colony”.

A former Sri Lankan ambassador has renewed efforts to construct an India Studies Centre (ISC) in Colombo in order to “avoid any confrontation with the regional superpower,” reports The Hindu.

Former Ambassador Kalyananda Godage told The Hindu that “it’s now more than ever necessary to understand what India plans for South Asia as the world seems to be making space for India in the high tables of international diplomacy”.

“As India finds a new and more intense international role, smaller neighbours of India too will have to understand New Delhi’s behaviour in order to avoid any confrontation with the regional superpower as cooperation is in mutual interest,” he added.

Mr Godage was Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Malaysia, before he was recalled abruptly by Colombo after he was accused of sympathetic involvement with Tamil organisations in Malaysia.

Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena assured an all-party meeting on Tuesday that he would ensure the “the dignity of the country is safeguarded” in regard to action on a UN Human Rights Council resolution on accountability for mass atrocities.

In the second all-party meeting to discuss the resolution passed earlier this year, the Sri Lankan president reassured the island’s political parties that his government would ensure “every action in relevant to Geneva Proposals will be taken in accordance with the Constitution of Sri Lanka”.

Updated 1530 GMT

The Tamil National Alliance called for the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UN WGEID) to continue their involvement in Sri Lanka, in a meeting in Colombo on Monday.

The President’s Counsel in Sri Lanka has lashed out at the government over reported plans to scrap the much criticised Prevention of Terrorism Act, reports The Island.

Manohara de Silva said Sri Lanka “was still vulnerable to terrorism” and slammed the Sri Lankan government over plans to scrap the law, after sustained international pressure.