Diaspora Tamils are providing assistance to families across the North-East who are struggling under Sri Lanka’s lockdown.

On March 20, the Sri Lankan government imposed an island-wide curfew to curb the spread of coronavirus, but this brought hardship to many families in the North-East.

Former TNA MP, M.A. Sumanthiran has requested that Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission advise the government on the legality of their state-imposed curfew.

During this coronavirus pandemic, Sri Lanka’s army commander and accused war criminal, Shavendra Silva, has issued a statement that the military can arrange hotels for returnees from abroad to stay at during their quarantine period.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has come under fire for being the only major opposition party to attend a meeting convened by Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, after all other major parties boycotted it.

The leaders of a extremist Sinhala Buddhist organisation claimed that the chairman of telecommunications company Lycamobile funded the LTTE and is now looking to take over Sri Lankan media channels, at a press conference in Colombo this weekend.

^{Photograph: Sri Lankan soldiers spray disinfectants in Mullaitivu}

Sri Lanka has taken on a dangerous coronavirus containment strategy. Faced with a public health crisis, the state has driven through authoritarian measures and deployed a military accused of systemic rights abuses. The response so far has been deeply troubling. Thousands have been forcibly sent to military-run quarantine centres, whilst an arbitrary curfew has seen thousands more arrested and livelihoods threatened – particularly in the war-torn North-East. The free hand given to the armed forces has already seen gross abuses of power. This is not how a pandemic should be handled.

The Economist Magazine has ranked Sri Lanka amongst its most vulnerable states that have been worst affected economically by the coronavirus pandemic, as Colombo faces massive debt repayments this year.

With many schools in Mullaitivu, considered to be among the most deprived districts on the island, celebrating the success of their students in national exams, one student in Thunukkai paid tribute to her widowed mother for her top results.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s President is “exploiting the novel coronavirus pandemic to undermine the few checks and balances remaining against authoritarianism and sharpening tensions” writes J S Tissainayagam for the International Policy Digest.

Amidst the losses caused by the coronavirus crisis, the passing of much loved miruthangam teacher and artiste Kandiah Anandanadesan on April 16 has shocked and saddened the Tamil community in London.

Born in 1961 in Thellipalai, Jaffna, Anandanadesan attended Union College and Mahajana college, and trained in miruthangam under Guru K P Sinnarajah. His father was a teacher at Union College, and his mother one of the first women to teach at Mahajana.

(Photo Credit: Solvency Ii Wire)

Following the Fitch Rating’s annual review of the Sri Lankan Insurance Corporation Limited’s (SLIC), Fitch has downgraded Sri Lanka’s Long-Term Foreign- and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings from “B” to “B-” indicating the potential risks to investors.