The BJP’s Tamil Nadu state secretary warned that if citizenship was granted to Eelam Tamil refugees then Sri Lanka would become a “a complete Buddhist land” and claimed that the DMK was conspiring with Sri Lanka’s prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka said it “highly appreciates” a statement from Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who declared his government would not renegotiate a deal over the Hambantota Port, which was handed to China on a 99-year lease in 2017.

Rajapaksa stressed that the deal was a commercial agreement and though his government would not renegotiate it, they would be examining the security of the port to see if additional clauses are needed in their agreement.

On February 20 2017, Tamil families of the disappeared started their roadside protest across the North-East, starting off in Kilinochchi, followed by Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Mullaitivu and Maruthankerny.

Families of the disappeared marking 1000 days of their protest in Vavuniya

A Tamil man from Jaffna who had been summoned to Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) has been reported as missing by his family.

38-year-old Paramu Vijayakumar was summoned to the TID office in Colombo on the 6th of December. His wife said that Vijayakumar had left for Colombo but has not been seen since.

When she went to file a missing persons complaint at her local police station in Valvettithurai, they reportedly told her they had been in contact with the TID and no summons had been issued for her husband.

Tamils in Jaffna staged a protest in the city centre last week, demonstrating against illegal sand mining that has stepped up across the North-East in recent months.

The Sri Lankan government has criticised Fitch Ratings after the agency downgraded the Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) of Sri Lanka from ‘Stable' to ‘Negative’, directly citing new Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s actions.

The ratings agency had blamed a “significant shift in fiscal policy” in Colombo for the downgrade but Sri Lanka’s finance ministry claimed “erroneous assumptions” had been made, reports Xinhua.

"Taking all into consideration, the best estimate of the budget deficit would be around 5.5 percent of GDP in 2020, as against the Fitch's projection of 6.5 percent of GDP," the ministry said.

An attempt by a Sri Lankan government body to install a statue of a Buddhist historical figure in Jaffna town failed after local residents and council members opposed the unveiling.

Sri Lankan police threatened residents of a Mannar village including the local priest when they protested against Sinhalese people illegally extracting sand from the village.

Residents of Thottaveli have for several years complained of illegal sand mining causing environmental damage to the area and leaving villages prone to flooding and soil erosion.