Police in Colombo have arrested 8 people for producing a documentary 'defamatory' of the army, the Daily Mirror reported.

The individuals, five of whom hail from Jaffna in the Tamil North-East, were taken into custody at a house in Narahenpita, a suburb of the Sri Lankan capital.

Sri Lanka's finance minister, Ravi Karunanayake said Sri Lanka intends to revise investment rules to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) by easing barriers of entry, Lanka Business Online said.

Delivering the keynote address at the 18th Asian Investment Conference organised by Credit Suisse, the minister said the external account is a problem and as almost half a percent of the country’s public borrowing is denominated in foreign currencies, he said he favours a stronger rupee to reduce debt servicing costs.

“Little Sri Lanka needs help to meet its people’s expectations and become the pearl of the Indian Ocean,” Mr Karunanayake said.

"Occasionally I would see the Sinhalese tour buses parked along the roadside, or Sinhalese families picnicking in the shade of a tree. In Kilinochchi, the Tigers' former capital, several buses were stopped next to what looked like a giant funnel tipped onto its side.

It was a water tank that had been toppled during the fighting, the steel rebar reaching out from the concrete husk like tentacles. The government had turned it into a war memorial, planting a tidy garden with flowers and a large stone tablet declaring that the damage had been done by rebel "terrorists in the face of valiant troops."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it remains committed to their work in Sri Lanka and to providing assistance to vulnerable individuals, including detainees and families of missing persons.

The ICRC’s director of operations, Dominic Stillhart, who just returned from a visit to the island, said in an interview the organisation discussed a proposal to set up an independent process to clarify the fate of missing persons with the government, who received it “positively”.

“During the meetings in Sri Lanka, a proposal to set up an independent process to clarify the fate of missing persons was discussed and was positively received by government officials. This is a long-term effort that requires sustained political commitment,” Mr Stillhart said.