The Supreme Court will hear a case filed against the Tamil National Alliance election manifesto, later this month.

The decision was taken after when summoned to court today, the TNA failed to argue why the case filed against the manifesto was illegitimate.

"When the President came here to Kilinochchi to open a railway, he said in Tamil, 'from now on, the Tamil people should not vote for policies, they only should vote for development'.

What kind of thoroughly dishonest person must he be?! *crowd cheer loudly*

How unfortunate a country must this be? That this country must have a leader, dishonest enough, who tells people they must not vote for policies?! *crowd cheer loudly*

This is a leader, who doesn't realise that we are a people - that for our policies - gave our lives... relinquished all our possessions... and that we are a people who are yet still prepared to give more!!

Was it just for development that we came this far?!

Was it just for development that for over sixty years we gave up everything apart from our self-respect? There is nothing else left to give now! But he [Rajapaksa] did not know that. Perhaps if he had been Tamil, he would have known that to Tamils value self-respect above life itself! But he isn't, so he doesn't have that feeling!

The US State Department has said in a press release on the outcomes of the 24th UN Human Rights Council Session in Geneva that it welcomes High Commissioner Navi Pillay’s report.

It highlighted restrictions on freedom of expression, attacks on human rights defenders and journalists, and interference with the judiciary as areas of concern and said the US “also noted the High Commissioner’s assessment that, absent meaningful progress on post-conflict accountability, calls for an international inquiry will persist.”

Two Tamil journalists of the Yarl Thinakkural have been harassed by individuals claiming to be from the Terrorist investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lankan security forces, reported TamilNet.

The chief editor of the paper, V Atputhananthan complained to the regional branch of the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission in Jaffna, saying that Punitharuban Vinslow and Tharmabalan Vinojith were being inquired about by the individuals, who visited the office of the paper and the areas where the journalists live.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, GL Peiris, stressed today that his government has no obligation to answer for the reported deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians at the end of the 2009 conflict.

The Madras High Court has called upon the Indian Government’s Cabinet Secretary to answer three queries, regarding the sale of two war ships to Sri Lanka.

The Madurai bench of the High Court wanted further details on the "mechanism and arrangement" of the sale, and also questioned as to why the deal was being made at a time when there were strained relations between the two governments.

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a member of the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka, accused demands of the TNA as a violation of the Sri Lankan constitution.

Commenting on recent calls by the TNA to change the governor of the northern province, the legal advisor to the JHU and Western Provincial Council Minister, Udaya Gammanpila, said,

The Sri Lankan government has reiterated their rejection of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay’s March 2014 deadline for the government to credibly investigate and prosecute those guilty of human rights abuses.

Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunatilaka Amunugama however stated,

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid met at the UN in New York and discussed developments in several countries in India’s periphery, including Sri Lanka and Burma.

Ban Ki-moon is reported to have stressed India’s regional role and the importance of dialogue, inclusiveness and reconciliation, reported the Colombo Gazette.

Read more here.