Families of the disappeared decried the surveillance and intimidation they endure at the hands of Sri Lankan security and intelligence forces, while Sri Lankan intelligence officers came out in force to photograph and carry out surveillance of a mass rally in Mullaitivu on Tuesday.

A Sri Lankan brigadier who had been previously removed from a posting due to links with military-backed gangs causing unrest in Jaffna, has been appointed the head of State Intelligence Service (SIS) by Sri Lanka’s new president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The lower house of the Indian parliament, Lok Sabha, passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) on Monday which lets India grant citizenship to non-Muslim minorities fleeing persecution in neighbouring Muslim countries.

After 12 hours of deliberations, the bill was approved 311 to 80 votes by the Lok Sabha and moves onto the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, where a favourable vote will ratify the CAB to be recognised as law.    

The heavily disputed bill will be established to give citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Tens of thousands of people have been affected by heavy floods that have struck this North-east this month, leaving homes devastated, and several dead or missing.

Official Sri Lankan government figures state that 42,782 have been affected by the floods in the Northern Province, and 88,011 in the Eastern Province, making it the hardest hit across the whole island.

Sri Lanka’s United National Party (UNP) joined other senior Sri Lankan politicians in condemning the Conservative Party manifesto in Britain, calling for it to be amended just days before the UK’s general election.

UNP National Organiser and Member of Parliament Navin Dissanayake claimed that the “Conservative party should understand that Sri Lanka was one of the few countries which backed the UK in its war against Argentina in the 1980s”.