As a wife of a rice farmer and mother of two children aged nine and two, Sanjeevani Bandara’s days are packed with chores. Yet while she used to be able to keep up with all she has to do in a day, this Sri Lankan mother now finds herself struggling to accomplish even the most basic tasks. Blame it on the weather, which has been causing water shortages that force Bandara to spend more and more time fetching water for her family, farther away from home.

The arrest a month ago of Sri Lanka's former army chief and defeated presidential candidate, Gen Sarath Fonseka, along with some of his supporters, has raised fears among rights groups in the country. The authorities accuse the general of having worked with what they call anti-government forces.

Two hundred and fifty four Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking refugees have been trapped on a tiny boat in the port of Merak in Indonesia for almost 150 days. They have been detained as a direct result of a request by the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, to the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The refugees are threatened with being incarcerated in a horrific detention centre or sent back to Sri Lanka where life had become unbearable during the war.

The People's Tribunal on Sri Lanka which conducted preliminary findings on the war which ended in May 2004, declared that the Sri Lankan government was guilty of war crimes . The findings listed that the Sri Lankan Government was guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, requires further investigation on charges of genocide and the failure of the International Community, particularly the UK, and USA to share the responsibility for the breakdown of the peace process.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has warned UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon of the consequences of appointing a panel of experts to advise him (the UN chief) on alleged violations of international humanitarian laws and human rights during Sri Lanka’s military campaign that ended the separatist war by Tigers.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has summoned parliament on Tuesday - a month after its dissolution - to allow for the extension of the state of emergency. The president was acting well within the ambit of the constitution which states that he may summon parliament after dissolution if he is satisfied that “an emergency has arisen of such a nature that an earlier meeting of Parliament is necessary”.

The controversy surrounding the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Sri Lanka presidential election over combined opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka, refuses to die down. World attention is focussed on the detention of General Fonseka, the former Army Commander and once-wounded war hero who led the action against the LTTE. So far, except for general statements hinting at a coup attempt and a broad conspiracy, the Sri Lankan government has chosen to remain silent about the real reasons behind Fonseka’s confinement and impending trial.

Whereas the Tamils democratically gave the mandate for the independence of their own country Tamil Eelam by endorsing the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976, in the 1977 general elections, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) calls upon the international community, governments, leaders and the UN to conduct a UN monitored referendum in the North-East region of Sri Lanka...........

Journalism is not typically viewed as a field of work where people have to fear for their lives. But that’s not the case in Sri Lanka, where journalists are not nearly so safe. “No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism,” said Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge in an editorial published by The Sunday Leader, Sri Lanka’s most widely circulated independent weekly newspaper.

With the result of next month’s parliamentary election almost a certainty, the focus has shifted to the floods of candidates overwhelming voters at the ballot box. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling party is expected to romp to victory in the poll, which will see a total of 7,520 contestants vying for just 225 seats – the highest number in the country’s history.

While Colombo plans allotting lands for ‘retired’ Sinhala army personnel in the so-called 'resettlement' schemes of Tamil North and East of the island of Sri Lanka, China and India compete in proving who is the best facilitator of Colombo in its demographic onslaught, Eezham Tamils circles said.

Local and foreign non-governmental organisations have had a liberal existence in Sri Lanka, but this may not last for much longer under the government’s plans to amend a 1980 law that would tighten control over them. But if activists have an ominous feeling about the proposed law, government officials like Newton Perera, additional secretary to the Ministry of Internal Administration that oversees non-government organisations (NGOs), says the amendment would just bring the country’s laws in line with modern developments.

Over the past year, events have moved quickly in Sri Lanka. At the end of the war, less than ten months ago, the Sinhalese people appeared united and triumphant. Army Commander Sarath Fonseka often appeared alongside President Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya.

Newly re-elected President Mahinda Rajapaksa is proceeding full speed ahead towards the April polls, aiming for a two-thirds majority in parliament that would give him a free hand to change the constitution. He won the presidential election by a margin of 18 percent over former army commander General Sarath Fonseka, and the opposition is yet to recover from the defeat.

I read with concern reports of the arrest of General Sarath Fonseka. As a Sinhala Buddhist, I had voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa at the last presidential poll. Mahinda had after all done a commendable job at synchronizing foreign policy, the military policy, the India policy and domestic policy to ensure a complete rout of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, something no president before him had accomplished.