The Sri Lankan army continued with its militarisation of the North-East as fully uniformed soldiers in camouflage gear, attended a Hindu ceremony at a temple in Mullaitivu on Thursday.

Lake House, Sri Lanka’s oldest major press house, has hoisted up banners of Ranil Wickremesinghe, as the UNP leader was sworn in again as prime minister on Sunday.

The banners were displayed just days after UNP supporters attempted to storm the building on Thursday, leading to clashes that ended with the deployment of Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force.

Sri Lanka’s newly reinstated prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pledged that his party will “have discussions” to bring about a political solution to the island’s ethnic conflict within a unitary state, in a statement released on Sunday.

“We have created an environment in which different ethnic groups can live together in harmony and co-existence,” Wickremesinghe claimed in the statement.

Families of the disappeared from all eight districts of the Tamil homeland participated in a rally in Mannar on Wednesday.

Demonstrating outside the Mannar government agent office, the protesters demanded action to identify the victims found in the Mannar mass grave.

Thirty-one complaints of torture have been registered against police in Jaffna this year, the Human Rights Commission (HRCSL) regional official T Kanagaraj said last week.

The number of claims of torture by police had gone up compared to last year, Kanagaraj said.

The commission had also received 13 complaints of unlawful detention he said.

While the commission’s numbers covered the period up until November 2018, more than two instances of torture carried out by police departments in Jaffna have been reported in December.

<p>Responding to Rajapaksa's resignation as Sri Lanka's prime minister and Ranil Wickremesinghe's re-appointment to the post, India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said it "welcomes the resolution of the political situation in Sri Lanka".&nbsp;</p> <p>The re-appointment of Wickremesinghe comes after almost two months of political turmoil which saw the dissolution of parliament, widespread reports of bribery and parliamentary violence.&nbsp;</p> <p>The crisis resulted in a declining rupee, downgrading of the country's sovereign by credit agencies and a suspension of international funds.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Sri Lanka's Election Commission said according to their assessment a presidential election should be held before December 9, 2019 and a general election by October 2020.&nbsp;</p> <p>The EC chairman said this week they would be seeking a Supreme Court judgement on the holding of Provincial Council elections.&nbsp;</p> <p>Rejecting assertions that the EC was responsible for delaying the polls, the chairman, Mahinda Deshapriya, was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying, they were not responsible for the delay.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Sri Lanka's former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa warned the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) "holds the remote control in parliament", adding that the United National Party "has been taken hostage by the TNA".&nbsp;</p> <p>"If they do not adhere to the diktat of the TNA, the UNP minority can lose their parliamentary majority at any moment," Rajapaksa wrote in his resignation letter, as he stepped down from his disputed appointment as prime minister.&nbsp;</p>

Following almost two months of political turmoil, the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was today sworn back in as Sri Lanka's prime minister at the Presidential Secretariat. 

Wickremesinghe was sacked by President Sirisena on October 26, who appointed the former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace him. Rajapaksa yesterday said he would be resigning as prime minister following the Supreme Court's ruling that Sirisena's action were illegal.