Sri Lankan media organisations were reportedly excluded from covering Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high-profile state visit to Colombo earlier this month, with reports highlighting how the President’s Media Division (PMD) took exclusive control of all media coordination and access.

Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake has defended an ongoing corruption investigation involving an elderly female relative of the Rajapaksa family allegedly connected to a high-profile corruption case, declaring that no one, regardless of age, will be exempt from scrutiny if they are implicated in the misuse of public funds.

Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, commonly known as Pillayan, former State Minister and leader of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), has been arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for an ‘abduction and disappearance’, said Sri Lankan police today.

Pillayan was taken into custody in Batticaloa yesterday and is currently being transported to Colombo for further questioning. 

Sri Lankan opposition MP Harsha de Silva has claimed that the recent release of a 22-year-old youth detained under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was timed to coincide with the upcoming visit of a European Union delegation.

Pro-Sri Lankan government paramilitary leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, widely known as Karuna Amman, has claimed that the UK’s sanctions against him are politically motivated and driven by elements within the Tamil diaspora.

 In a recent interview with BBC Tamil, the former paramilitary leader and deputy minister rejected allegations of human rights abuses and accused the British government of acting under pressure from the British Tamil diaspora.