Infectious disease expert and the first healthcare official to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Sri Lanka has resigned from the Covid Prevention Technical Committee, as he claimed  that the vaccination program in Sri Lanka is not being implemented as per the recommendations of the experts.

^{Deputy High Commissioner - Vinod K. Jacob}

The Indian High Commission in Colombo has facilitated a visit of 39 Sri Lankan military officers to New Delhi, in a visit aimed to promote India's "Neighbourhood First" policy. 

In his first speech to parliament, Sri Lankan finance minister, Basil Rajapaksa, admitted that coutry was facing a foreign exchange crisis and had lost an estimated Rs. 1.6 trillion in revenue across the pandemic, but maintained that the country would not borrow from institutions which would “attach conditions that impact the country’s sovereignty”.

A new generation of young Tamil men are being picked up and tortured by the security forces in the north and east for exercising their legitimate peaceful political rights. As Frances Harrison writes, parents, teachers, politicians and community organisers need to be more aware of the risks.

In advance of the 48^th session of the UN Human Rights Council, leading representatives of the Tamil National People’s Front and All Ceylon Tamil Congress, have written to the Core Group on Sri Lanka urging the countries to go beyond UN resolution 46/1, which they slam as “highly problematic”.

“Six months have lapsed since the passing of resolution 46/1 on Sri Lanka. In these six months, every single warning that we alluded to have been proved to be true” they wrote.

 Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, a Tamil schoolgirl who was kidnapped, gang raped and brutally murdered by Sri Lankan soldiers in 1996, was remembered yesterday in Jaffna by former Northern Provincial Councillor M K Shivajilingham. 

Krishanthi was an A Level student at Chundikili High School who was kidnapped, gang raped and viciously murdered by Sri Lankan soldiers and police officers on September 7th 1996.

The Vavuniya Tamil Journalists Association held a memorial for 26-year-old journalist Pragas Gnanapragasam, who died last week after contracting COVID-19. 

With the district of Vavuniya facing serious threats from the coronavirus pandemic, health officials have expressed their concerns over the indifference of the people towards the virus. 

This comes as forty-five deaths have been recorded in the district in the first week of September alone. 

When inquired about the spike in cases, one official said, “Deaths from coronavirus in Vavuniya are rising at great speed day by day.”

2 brothers from Batticaloa. Mahendiran keerthiseelan and Mahendiran Anujan, were brutally beaten and hosptalised by Sri Lankan police when fuelling their motorcycles at a petrol station in  Thandiyadi on Sunday night.

The incident follows the assult of a Tamil resident of Kokuvil who was summoned to Batticaloa police station on Sunday over a personal dispute. He was tortured to obtain a confession and hospitalised.

In a new report, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) highlight cases of abduction, torture and rape of Tamils in the North-East for participating in commemorative events, protests or for receiving funds from abroad, over the last year. 

The report, which was published today ahead of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session later this month, contains testimonies from 15 Tamils who had been abducted, detained and tortured by Sri Lanka security forces, since Gotabaya Rajapaksa took office as Sri Lanka's president in 2019. The witnesses have now fled the island and reside in the UK.