Monitor Memo

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Landowners and community representatives from seven districts across Sri Lanka’s north and east met in Jaffna on Friday to form a common front seeking the return of land they say has been taken over by the military and government agencies, arguing that successive governments have failed to resolve disputes that have persisted for years after the civil war. The meeting brought together representatives from all five districts of the Northern Province and from Batticaloa and Tr

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka is drawing up contingency plans to guard against disruptions to essential food imports from India, as the anticipated return of El Niño raises fears that adverse weather could damage Indian agricultural output and prompt New Delhi to restrict exports, a government minister said. R.M. Jayawardena, the deputy minister of trade, commerce and food security, said officials were examining how the country should respond if India- -one of its most important sources of foo

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A restaurant in Jaffna that had previously drawn attention for its pricing has been fined 950,000 rupees after selling a one-liter bottle of drinking water for 200 rupees, well above the government-set maximum retail price of 120 rupees, Sri Lanka’s Consumer Affairs Authority said. The Jaffna Magistrate’s Court imposed the fine on Lavin’s Vegetarian Family Restaurant on Aug. 25, following legal action brought by investigators from the Consumer Affairs Authority’s Jaffna dist

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Harshana Nanayakkara, Sri Lanka’s justice minister, said the government would repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act by the end of this year, calling the 47-year-old law incompatible with fundamental human rights. But the government is not abandoning special counterterrorism legislation. It plans to replace the law with the Protection of the State from Terrorism Act, or PSTA, an effort that has already faced opposition from rights groups and civil society organizations that

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Two Sri Lankan cabinet ministers invited journalists to a news conference in Jaffna on Wednesday, delivered lengthy remarks and then left after taking only a few questions, angering reporters who said some of them had traveled considerable distances expecting an opportunity to question the officials. Bimal Rathnayake, the minister of transport and highways, and Ramalingam Chandrasekar, the minister of fisheries, aquatic and ocean resources, held the briefing at the National

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Eric Meyer, a career diplomat who until recently helped shape American policy across South and Central Asia from Washington, arrived in Sri Lanka over the weekend to take up his post as ambassador, ending a seven-month stretch in which the American mission here was run by an acting chief. Mr. Meyer landed in Colombo on the evening of Aug. 22, the United States Embassy said Monday. His arrival follows confirmation by the Senate in May and a swearing-in ceremony this month in

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Displaced residents of Palaly in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna Peninsula protested for a 10th consecutive week on Sunday, demanding the return of ancestral and privately owned land that remains under the control of the security forces, as representatives of nearly all major Tamil political parties joined the demonstration. The weekly protest at Palaly Junction is part of a broader campaign for the release of civilian land in Valikamam North, where demonstrations have also been

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The leader of an association representing families of people who disappeared during and after Sri Lanka’s civil war accused the government on Saturday of trying to steer relatives toward accepting death certificates and compensation instead of establishing what happened to their missing family members. Yogarasa Kanagaranjini, president of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared in the North and East, said the government was using the Office on Missing Person