The case of five Tamil Nadu fishermen in Sri Lanka custody was pushed by India's newly appointed External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Friday.

Speaking to GL Peiris on the sidelines of the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation meeting, Khurshid is understood to have stressed that the issue be addressed "expeditiously" before it becomes an "irritant" in India-Sri Lanka relations.

An official sourse told OutLookIndia,

The body of the brother-in-law of TNA MP for Vanni, Selvam Adaikalanathan, has been found dead reported the Daily Mirror.

53-year-old Sinnathurai Inthireswaran’s body was found by police on Thursday who stated that he had been robbed prior to having been murdered.

Sri Lankan journalists received interest free vehicle loans, courtesy of President Mahinda Rajapakse, according to the Department of Government Information.

Over five hundred journalists had been selected for the scheme, with the first phase inaugurated earlier today.
The president is behind the implementation of the plan, as a relief loan scheme for senior journalists.

Tamil undergraduates at the Eastern University of Sri Lanka (EUSL) have faced physical attacks from Sinhalese students at the university, reports TamilNet.

The students were attacked on a campus bus after a picture of the Buddha was found torn at the front of the vehicle. The Sinhalese undergrads that were culpable for the attacks are yet to face repercussions for their actions.

As the torrential rains and gusts, caused by Cyclone Nilam, battered the North-East, the recently uprooted families have been hardest hit. The 178 families from Keppapulavu, who were forced to move in September from a camp to what was little more than a clearing in a forest, have had their makeshift shelters battered, reports Uthayan.

Not having received any food aid since being forced out, the families are now unable to prepare food, having had their makeshift roofs and walls swept away by the rain.

The President of the Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA), Benedict Ulluwishewa, has reiterated that they would support a repeal of the 13th Amendement.

Speaking to The Island, Ulluwishewa said that the body was to discuss and propose an 'alternative mechanism to the hotly disputed piece of legislature'.

To mark May 18th this year, the OPA passed a resolution that called for the repeal of the 13th Amendment.

Last week, the defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, defended his calls for the repeal and highlighted the widespread support he had, including within the OPA, which has over 50,000 professionals as members.

A group of 26 people who had arrived at Cocos and Christmas islands by boat have been deported, announced Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

Bowen said of the deportees:

"They did not make any case, any claims, which meant Australia had any international obligation to them.”

Tamil diaspora organisations have condemned Sri Lanka’s “abysmal lack of progress” in implementing recommendations made by the UN’s Universal Periodic Review process in 2008, and demanded "decisive action".

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a body of 60 eminent judges and lawyers across the world condemned the lack of justice for victims of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka and the "climate of impunity" in a report released on Thursday - 'Authority with Accountability: The Crisis of Impunity in Sri Lanka'.

Speaking ahead of Sri Lanka's UPR, ICJ's Asia Director said,

The ruling party of Sri Lanka has begun procedures to impeach the Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake for allegedly violating the country’s constitution.

117 signatures have been collected from across President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) against Bandaranayake after she ruled against a parliament bill.

She ruled that the provincial councils in the country, including in the Tamil dominated Northern and Eastern provinces, needed to approve needed to approve development budgets before they came to parliament.