The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly re-assured India of its commitment to implement the 13th Amendment, stated a spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) today.

Responding to a question on India’s stand on the 13th Amendment at a media briefing on Monday, spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said,

“Our stand is that any decision that has been taken by the Sri Lankan people and which their leaders have assured to us on repeated occasions (that it) should be implemented.”

“And we have been assured and re-assured by the leaders of Sri Lanka that they are committed to full implementation of the 13th Amendment and we will go by what they have told us.”

See from 42:30 onwards below.

Despite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to go beyond the 13th Amendment, Rajapaksa has repeatedly stated that he would refuse to devolve land and police powers to the Tamil North-East of the island, a key component of the amendment.

The Canadian government has denied visas to two of Sri Lanka’s leading prison department officials, due to the country's human rights violations, The Island reported on Friday.

"At the last presidential election, Western countries had a plan and they worked and funded it. It was finding a person who could give a good fight to President Mahinda Rajapaksa there by diverting the support of the parties like the TNA and JVP to that candidate. They found former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka and went according to the plan, but failed as the people had confidence in the President," he added.

A non-violent campaign to effect the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces, and other issues raised at the recent Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi convention, will be conducted if the Sri Lankan government does not address them by the end of the year, said Tamil National Alliance MP MA Sumanthiran in an interview to the Sunday Leader.

The MP said “deliberate state sponsored colonisation” was ongoing, with a view to “change the ethnic demography of the area”. Sumanthiran said that the northeast is the “historic habitation of Tamil-speaking people, and “systematic state-sponsored colonisation of Sinhalese” has been ongoing in the east.

“Sinhala settlement growth rate in East was several times higher than the birth rate of Sinhalese in the country,” he said.

“It is unethical and deliberate alteration of the demography. This has been a historic issue.”

Sumanthiran said that the TNA will carry out protests if the issues which were addressed at the recent ITAK convention are not addressed by the end of the year.

The exclusion of some NGOs from a human rights conference at the behest of the Sri Lankan government was criticised by the Sri Lanka Campaign, who say the conference, in its current form, will do damage to human rights on the island.

Lawyers who filed cases against the Sri Lankan government and a controversial Buddhist monk were threatened by armed masked men and warned that they would be killed if they continue their legal action.

“We urge this council to exert pressure on Sri Lanka to cooperate with the UN inquiry and to ensure the safety of witnesses, as the only means of achieving meaningful accountability and justice for the killing of tens of thousands of Tamils at the end of the armed conflict.”