The US military will join hands with the Sri Lankan Air Force and conduct a military exercise next week, despite ongoing human rights abuses and a history of atrocities.

The Montana National Guard, US Pacific Air Forces, Sri Lanka Air Force and members of the Maldives National Defense Force, are scheduled to conduct a joint military exercise which according to the US mission in Colombo is to be better prepared and respond to "natural and man-made disasters".

India's biggest budget airline IndiGo has announced that it would begin daily direct flights between Chennai and Jaffna next month, as it praised the Northern city’s “vibrant Tamil heritage”.

The move will significantly increase connectivity between Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam, with a flight time of just 75 minutes between the two cities. Jaffna will be the second destination in Sri Lanka after Colombo for IndiGo, the airline said in a statement.

There has been mounting pressure Britain’s Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, to airlift more than 60 Tamil asylum seekers on Diego Garcia, to the UK after reports of a mass suicide attempt on the island.

The group, first stranded on the island in October 2021, are facing extreme challenges and are “extremely vulnerable”, according to their lawyers.

Sahadevan Nilakshan, a promising young Eelam Tamil journalist who was shot and killed by suspected Sri Lankan military intelligence personnel was remembered today by fellow media workers, 17 years after his murder.

The Jaffna Press Club held a special remembrance for the budding journalist, where they lit candles, laid floral wreaths and offered their condolences. 

Nilakshan was 22 years old when he was gunned down outside his home in Jaffna, on August 1, 2007. 

An officer attached to Sri Lanka's intelligence unit threatened the families of the disappeared who were protesting at the Mullativu Bus stand yesterday, by harassing them and taking photographs of each person. He went on to chase the protestors demanding they go home. 

Tamil families of the disappeared gathered in Mullaitivu and rejected the Sri Lankan government’s offer of death certificates, as they demanded justice for the forcible abductions of their loved ones.

The protestors demanded to know why the Sri Lankan government-run Office of Missing Persons (OMP), was in haste to provide the protesting women with death certificates.

"If the death certificate is the answer to why our children are still missing, then who are the murderers?" they demanded.

Days after Sri Lanka's Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon, whose appointment was tainted with controversy, has been forced to step away from performing his duties as the Inspector General of Police, following a Supreme Court decision, Sri Lanka continues to function without a sitting IGP, which according to sources poses a security concern as the country prepares to head to polls in September this year. 

Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) has filed a case in the Supreme Court calling for action against the procedural violations and abuse of public trust by officials in the procurement of VFS, an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) system for the issuance of visas for tourists visiting Sri Lanka.

An event was held in Vavuniya this week to commemorate Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) leader and Tamil Eelam supporter Dr. Wickramabahu Karunaratne, who passed away recently.

A portrait of Dr Karunaratne was decorated with garlands while Tamils lit candles and offered their condolences. The event in Vavuniya was organised by a group of civil society organisations.

Former JVP MP Ramalingam Chandrasekar, a member of the Marxist National People's Power (NPP) urged Tamils to bear in mind it was Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government that was the main architect of the anti-Tamil Black July pogrom in 1983. 

“Ranil has been the Prime Minister five times yet he has not done anything for this country in 47 years of his political career,”  Chandrasekar told reporters in Jaffna.