In what feels like a repeat of Geneva 2012, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring by New Delhi may have tipped the scales in Sri Lanka’s favour in London last week, where the Commonwealth’s most powerful grouping decided an eleventh-hour venue shift of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet was simply not an option.

In exchange, will the Rajapaksa administration pursue engagement with the country’s main Tamil party on power devolution and conduct a poll in the Northern Province by September 2013? Or is India setti

 

Deputy Solicitor General, Viraj Dayaratne, informed the Supreme Court on Thursday (2) that the government is checking out samples of board to select what would be most appropriate to print National Identity Cards (NICs) in Sinhala and Tamil.

He was addressing Court on behalf of the respondents cited in the Fundamental Rights application that seeks the issuance of NICs in Sinhala and Tamil languages.

The Sabaragamuwa University would reopen for all undergraduates on May 07, Vice Chancellor Prof. Mahinda Rupasinghe said.

"We reopened the university for new students two weeks ago," Prof. Rupasinghe said adding that they delayed the re-opening the university for senior students to prevent possible ragging.

At the completion of the orientation course for freshers, the university administration had decided to reopen the university for all students, he said.

There is as yet no traction under the wheels of Canada’s efforts to have this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting moved from Sri Lanka because of the human rights abuses of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his administration.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he will boycott the summit scheduled for November unless Colombo abides by United Nations demands that it properly investigate allegations of massacres of civilians and other abuses by its armed forces in the closing weeks of the war against Tamil

While questions have been raised about the health condition of MP Duminda Silva, his family released a set of photographs to the media yesterday which they asserted had been taken after he was admitted to the Sri Jayawardanepura Hospital and later at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore and Nawalaoka Hospital in Colombo.

In a statement to the media, the family, explaining the events that followed Duminda Silva’s discharge from Nawaloka Hospital on April 28, said that they had not been anticipated by the family and the s

David Cameron is facing mounting calls to boycott an important Commonwealth meeting in Colombo amid continuing allegations that the Sri Lankan government is failing to end human rights abuses.

Mr Cameron is scheduled to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka in November. At the start of the three-day meeting, the presidency of the group is to he handed to Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

As Sri Lanka gears up to host a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in November, testimony from torture survivors, and the absence of justice in their cases, challenge government claims to making human rights progress.

“I was burnt all over my body with cigarettes,” said Kumar. “I was also kicked all over the body. They kept me in a dark cell with no windows, where I had to sleep on the floor.”

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says the Commonwealth is failing its greatest test by letting Sri Lanka host this year’s leaders summit but yet Canada has no intention of leaving the organization, the Vancouver Sun reported.

Canada has been alone in threatening to boycott November’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo unless Sri Lanka improves its human rights record and moves towards post-civil war reconciliation with the country’s Tamil minority.

Four unidentified masked individuals had appeared at the Jaffna residence of Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) Leader, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, making enquiries about his movements, informed sources said.

On being told that he was out, the four individuals, who were wearing helmets and raincoats, had proceeded to take photographs of the motorbikes of the TNPF members parked outside Ponnambalam's house, sources added.

The incident had occurred while Ponnambalam was addressing a May Day rally in Vadama

Muslim Tamil National Alliance leader and former member of the Colombo Municipal Council Azath Salley, was arrested this morning.

Salley’s media office said that officers of the police Criminal Investigations Department  (CID) and the Special Task Force carried out the arrest at his Kolonnawa residence.

Police spokesman SP Budhika Siriwardena said that the politician was arrested over some complaints lodged with the CID.