Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena is to issue 10,000 deeds to settlers this week under the Mahaweli development project, a controversial scheme that Tamils have criticised as Sinhala colonisation.

According to the official President’s Media Division, deeds are to be issued to settlers in Walawa zone and Mahaweli ‘’H’’ Zone in ceremonies on Friday and Saturday.

Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister took part in a Buddhist ceremony last week, presenting religious items to a senior Buddhist monk who has been appointed head of the Amarapura Nikaya order.

Seven Tamil youths including a key suspect in the Kokkuvil sword attack case will be remanded until 22nd August, the Jaffna Magistrate court has ruled.

Jaffna acting magistrate judge, V. T. Sivalingam, ordered for the seven men to be kept in detention until the 22nd August when they will be subjected to an identity parade.

The seven youths were arrested on Monday by Terrorism Investigation Department officers and were subjected to extensive questioning.

The Sri Lankan navy reported it had arrested at least 9 people in Point Pedro this week, claiming that those held had been engaged in “illegal sand mining”. 

The “9 civilians and a tractor” were reportedly held along the Point Pedro – Manatkadu road on Monday. They have since been taken to the Point Pedro Police Station for “further investigations,” according to an official navy website.

The arrest comes as part of a crackdown and a spate of arrests by Sri Lankan security forces in the peninsula.

The Sri Lankan military held a Buddhist ceremony as their Eastern province headquarters “to invoke blessings on troops,” reports an official military website.

Thunnalai residents have filed a complaint against STF and police round-up operations, that resulted in 24 arrests in the area, to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.

Thunnalai locals, including mothers of some arrested youths, filed a complaint at the HRCSL regional office in Jaffna on Wednesday.

The residents have said that the search and round-up operations which lasted three days were carried out inhumanely and led to wrongful arrests.

The 24 young Tamil men arrested in Thunnalai and neighbouring villages were charged with violent infractions related to protests following the killing of a local man by Sri Lankan police.

Tamil war widows from the Northern and Eastern Province are being trafficked as slaves to the Gulf regions finds a feature report by Reuters.

Reports suggest that at least 1000 war-widows from the northern province may have been coerced into illicit job opportunities abroad which often puts them at risk of traffickers who sell them as slaves overseas.  

Security staff at the Eastern University in Batticaloa were attacked by Sinhalese students when a protest against the university’s administration turned violent on Tuesday, reports Battinatham.com.

Two of the security staff were hospitalised, including one female member of staff.

The Sinhalese students had reportedly protested for several days demanding accommodation and for academic suspensions to be revoked.

The Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) on Tuesday said the government should hold a referendum before the 20th Amendment to the constitution allowing provincial council elections to be held on one day was implemented. 

"One clause of the proposed amendment says the election for all provincial councils should be held in one day and that the day should be decided by parliament. Perhaps, after the amendment, an election for a provincial councils may never be held," he was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying at a news conference.

The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday condemned what he described as the Sri Lankan navy's "unwarranted display of military might against poor innocent Indian fishermen" as "unacceptable". 

In his latest letter to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Palaniswami urged that the matter be taken up with the Sri Lankan government.