Australia's Immigration and Citizenship Minister Brendan O'Connor said he had made it "very, very clear" during talks with Sri Lankan leaders of the need to pursue reconciliation after the crushing of a Tamil rebellion in May 2009.

"The Sri Lankan government is serious about responding to these concerns in a practical way," O'Connor told reporters in Colombo after meeting Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris.

He said Australia wanted Sri Lanka to fully deliver on promises to ensure accountability following allegations of widespread rights abuses during the final phases of its 37-year ethnic conflict.

Mr. SJV Chelvanayagam QC was the founder leader of the Federal Party and the undisputed leader of the Tamil people.We welcome all those who have come here.

The Theme of the lecture today is ‘ Whither the Sri Lankan Tamils’.The theme would signify the uncertainty that prevails in regard to the future of the Sri Lankan Tamil people. The future is clearly challenging.

The JVP has decided to take legal action regarding the rights of those who said to have been buried after torture in the mass grave at Matale says the JVP coordinator for Matale Gamagedera Dissanayake.

He said details necessary to take before the court are being collected at present assuming on reports presented to court by Prof Raj Somadewa and Judicial Medical Officer Dr. Ajith Jayasena that the buried in the mass grave are those who were tortured and killed and disappeared during the 88 – 89 period.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is among dozens of prominent Australians calling on the federal government to consider boycotting a major Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka this year.

Mr Fraser has added his name to a petition calling on Australia to join with Canada in avoiding the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the Sri Lankan city of Hambantota in November.

The recent vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva was upsetting, and it would make sense for Sri Lanka to assess what happened and work towards ensuring that such a situation does not occur again. However there seems little chance of that, since the same was obvious a year ago, but nevertheless nothing was done, except to sit back and hope disaster would not strike twice.

The Bar Association Union has written to President Mahinda Rajapaksa expressing ``concern and apprehension’’ regarding the impeachment and removal of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.

The Lawyers Collective yesterday released the text of the February 25 letter of Mr. Anil Divan, President of the Bar Association of India which is the premier voluntary association of lawyers in that country.

Leader of the Democratic National Front (DNA) and former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka last week said that 90 percent of  government MP’s  were not happy with the dicatatorial manner in which the country was being run and would defect if they were assured of forming an alternate administration.

Asked during an interaction with the Foreign Correspondents Association in Colombo last week how he viewed his political future since his civic  rights would be restored only in 2019,Fonseka replied "President Rajapaksa was planning to keep me in jail for 30 years, but I came out in two. Similarly I will find a way to obtain my civic rights ahead of the scheduled date. We have to keep  up both the local and international pressure to reverse the injustices that have been meted out to me."

Hours after M Karunanidhi led DMK party announced their withdrawal, Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram says the UPA government is stable and it enjoys majority.
 
“There is absolutely no crisis. The consultation process with other parties has begun to find a resolution to the problem,” he told the Indian Parliament.
 
Meanwhile, the President of the Janata Party of India Subramaniam Swamy has however rubbished the DMK pullout saying if the party was indeed serious, why didn't they write to the President. 

The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) yesterday condemned a spate of attacks on Sri Lankan pilgrims, particularly the Buddhist clergy in Tamil Nadu.

UK based GTF spokesperson Suren Surendiran told The Island that violent acts of a few should not be allowed to overshadow, what he called, genuine and sincere protests and peaceful demonstrations, held all over Tamil Nadu, calling for an international independent investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and continued persecution of Tamil speaking people by the Sri Lankan government.