Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, alongside the Federal Liberal Caucus, held a virtual Thai Pongal and Tamil Heritage month celebration, showing their gratitude for Tamil frontline and essential workers on Thursday. 

A report by the United Nations human rights chief warns of the “seeds of future violence and conflict” in Sri Lanka, as she called for member states to consider “asset freezes and travel bans” on Sri Lankan officials accused of human rights abuses.

Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary has slammed a UN report just hours after it has been released, labelling it “unsubstantiated” and rejected calls for an international accountability mechanism for war crimes.

The European Union (EU) received criticism after a meeting with Sri Lankan officials where it stated that trade concession would continue and referred to the Office on Missing Persons, the Office for Reparations and the Human Rights Commission in Sri Lanka as “independent institutions”, despite officials in these bodies being directly nominated and appointed by the president.

Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has caved to Indian demands over the development of the Eastern Container Terminal (ECT) at Colombo harbour.

This follows a visit by India’s External Affairs Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is reported to have laid down “unequivocal terms” for the ECT. The agreement reached enables Sri Lanka to retain a 51% stake whilst the Adani Group, an Indian business with ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will hold 49%.

Indio-phobia

Sri Lankan soldiers beat and tortured a Tamil man from Keppapulavu in Mullaitivu yesterday after one of his cows accidentally broke through a weak fence and entered an army camp.

Sri Lankan soldiers walked past when the cow entered and asked Azhagaraja Rajarupan if the cow belonged to him and whether he had broken the fence. Rajarupan denied breaking the fence, following which the soldiers called more troops and a commander.

Famed music composer A.R. Rahman has teamed up with Oscar and Grammy-nominated artist M.I.A. and an array of Tamil artists around the world to launch 'maaja', a project to support and amplify the voices of independent artists. A.R Rahman hopes to 'elevate the world class talent' to a global stage.

Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary has hit out at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United States and the Tamil diaspora in an interview on Monday, claiming that organisations were “bullying” Sri Lanka and revealed that his regime is awaiting a draft of a consensual resolution from the Core Group in Geneva.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary Admiral Jayanath Colombage said the UN Human Rights Council was being “unfair and unjust.”

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has slammed Sri Lanka’s newly established commission to investigated human rights violations, describing it as a “travesty of justice”.

The three-member commission which was appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 21 January comes in advance of the UN Human Rights Council’s 46^th session and has been described the ICJ as an attempt to “deflect robust action”

Tamil farmers protested against the occupation of their grazing land by the Sri Lankan army by going on a march from Kokkadicholai to Paddipalai Divisional Secretariat office in Batticaloa on January 20^th