After a break of three years, thousands of people travelled to Mannar to attend the annual festival to mark Feast of Our Lady of Madhu this week.

Local Tamils in Mannar celebrated the famed Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar this week, in a festival organised by the Mannar District Art and Culture Council and District Secretariat.

Sri Lankan security forces fired teargas and water cannons once more in Colombo, as they arrested at least 20 activists on Thursday.

Hundreds of university students were demonstrating in Colombo at a rally organised by the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF), as police with riot shields and batons pushed back protestors.

The party of the former Sri Lankan president has sought assurances from the government to pave the way for his return to the island, officially submitting a request for “the necessary security and facilities” required.

Methagu opened to both praise and controversy when it premiered last year, an inevitable situation due to the complex leader it depicts. The first film shows Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in his youth and the political state of the nation, as well as the oppression faced by the Tamils at the hand of the Sinhalese. We watch as an angry young boy decides to act boldly, rather than stand by and watch the genocide of his people.

Methagu 2 is a sequel, continuing a few years from where the first film concluded.

British Prime Ministerial candidate Rishi Sunak reaffirmed his commitment to justice for mass atrocities committed in Sri Lanka and discussed the possibility of applying targeted sanctions on Sri Lankan officials just as the UK has on Russians, in a meeting with British Tamil conservatives earlier today. 

Dulquer Salmaan has stirred controversy after the poster for his latest Telegu-language film ‘Sita Ramam’ features a fictional newspaper headline which states ‘Eelam group opens fire on City crowd’.

Mithran Jawahar started his career on a high note. Remaking his mentor Selvaraghavan’s only Telugu film ‘Aadavari Matalaku Arthale Verule’ in Tamil as ‘Yaaradi Nee Mohini’ starring Dhanush, Selvaraghavan’s brother, Jawahar benefitted from the solid and nuanced screenplay. Jawahar has since remained in the rom-com lane, his other film of note being another Dhanush starrer ‘Uthamaputhiran’, a riotous sequence of laughs which bolstered Jawahar’s reputation for comedy. However, I was not a fan of Jawahar’s ‘Kutty’, causing some apprehension entering this film. 

The Sri Lankan navy boasted of its participation in the world’s largest multinational maritime exercise, led and organised by the United States.

The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise 2022 was hosted by the US Pacific Fleet in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.

Hundreds of Tamil fishermen rallied through Mullaitivu this week, as they demanded an end to illegal fishing by Indian trawlers and support with a crippling fuel shortage that has left many livelihoods at risk.

The Sri Lankan government’s move to lift a ban on a handful of Tamil diaspora organisations whilst hundreds of political prisoners remain imprisoned is a “deceitful drama”, according to human rights activist and Anglican pastor Rev. Marimuthu Sakthivel.

Indian navy helicopters were seen conducting sorties and flying low across the Palk Strait this morning, as they stepped up surveillance in the Rameswaram area, following the docking of a Chinese ship in Sri Lanka yesterday.

Training exercises were seen being carried out by the navy, with a reported increase in navy and coast guard patrol ships and helicopters in the region.

The Sri Lankan government de-proscribed a handful of Tamil diaspora organisations and individuals in a move dubbed “cynical” and “a farce” by activists, as it continues to have hundreds more banned under a terrorist designation law.

Under the latest update from Sri Lankan authorities, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), British Tamils Forum (BTF) and Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) have been removed from the Sri Lankan government’s list of banned organisations. Though a few organisations and individuals have been removed, major diaspora organisations such as the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) which has branches across the globe and the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) remain listed.

We spoke to some of those impacted by the latest move.

Sri Lanka’s war crimes accused former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to return to the island on 24 August, claims former Sri Lankan ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga.