The pitched battles follow two days of air raids by government troops triggered by the killing of 64 bus passengers in a suspected rebel landmine attack on Thursday in Anuradhapura.
The ATR 72-600 aircraft was accorded water salute as it landed at the Jaffna airport, about 400-km from capital Colombo.
We present to you a special series that we had done 10 years after the IPKF withdrew from the island nation
Sherine Xavier, a Sri Lankan Tamil filmmaker from Canada, is happy. After months of struggle with the Indian censor board, she has finally obtained approval to screen her film Muttrupullia?, which deals with the post-war situation in Sri Lanka's Tamil areas.
Political analysts said Sirisena's move to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th amendment to the Constitution would not allow the sacking of Wickremesinghe as the premier without a majority.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'We believe that one of the suicide bombers studied in the UK and maybe later on did his post-graduate in Australia, before coming back to settle in Sri Lanka'
Seven persons had been arrested in connection with the blasts.
His debut novel The Story of a Brief Marriage, set in the backdrop of the civil war.
In the endlessly entertaining and absorbing soap opera that is India-Sri Lanka relations, wait for the next episode, Aditi Phadnis reports.
On a day of high political drama when the ruling coalition of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa suffered serious defections, the election commission on Friday set January 8, 2015 as the date for a snap presidential election.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi on Friday said Narendra Modi's invitation to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for his swearing-in was "not acceptable and unwelcome" by Tamils all over the world and urged the BJP leader to drop the initiative.
A major fire at one of Sri Lanka's largest ammunition depots triggered a series of explosions, killing one soldier.
Rescuers pulled out more bodies from the muddy debris of disastrous landslide taking the toll to over 80.
Over 15 million voters are eligible to vote in the election being held under electoral districts-based proportional representation system.
Nearly 200 people were feared to have been buried alive in Sri Lanka after a devastating landslide triggered by rains destroyed the homes of mostly Indian-origin plantation workers, as heavy machinery was deployed on Thursday in rescue operations involving the army.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya questioned the president's decision to suspend parliament till November 16, saying it will have "serious and undesirable" consequences on the country.
Sirisena's sacking of Wickremesinghe was the culmination of an year of bitter relations between them on several policy matters. The president has been critical of the prime minister and his policies, especially on economy and security.
-- Seven suicide bombers believed to be members of an Islamist extremist group carried out the series of explosions. -- Police have so far arrested 24 people - mostly members of an Islamist extremist group - in connection with the blasts
The prime minister should have visited Sri Lanka, armed with a critique of the Rajapakse government based on nuance and fact, says Sreenivasan Jain
Cassandras and Congressis may sneer at the findings, but the Times Now poll indicated that the Modi government was very much on its way to a second term.
The Indian contingent of more than 300 navy personnel was assisting in the relief, with divers searching the brackish waters and medical teams seeing patients in makeshift tents set up at shelters.
'As I went around Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar, my mind went back to my visit in January 1990 at the fag end of the IPKFs mission in Sri Lanka,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
"Just a handful of Indian youth have joined the ISIS. Some have also returned after being persuaded by their families," asserted the home minister.
The country has a fiendishly complicated electoral system that is a combination of population-based proportional representation and party-based national lists, says Aditi Phadnis
Despite the indisputable facts demonetisation and its pain is yet to have a quantifiable political backlash. But this is provided the government can limit the damage to the next one week.
Colombo's enduring interests suggest the relationship between the Sri Lanka and China will only strengthen, says Nitin Pai.
Sri Lankans on Thursday voted in large numbers in the bitterly contested presidential election in which incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking a record third term against his friend-turned-foe Maithripala Sirisena, with an unusually high voter turnout in Tamil and Muslim areas.
Dealing with the Sirisena government in Sri Lanka, says G Ganapathy Subramaniam, is a lot easier for India than engaging with the Rajapaksa regime.
In a conversation with R Ramasubramanian, Xavier said, "My documentary attempts to find answers to those frequently asked questions from Tamil refugees who are still in India."
'Sri Lanka has a large military presence in the north and east, where it is very difficult for the war-affected civilian population to move forward.' 'Right now the military is doing jobs that should be for the civilians. I would like to see Sirisena consider demilitarisation.'
'What we have heard from the Sri Lankans is their desire to have a foreign policy that allows Sri Lanka to best advance its own interests rather than a foreign policy that relied solely on one relationship.' 'We think this is an attitude that makes a lot of sense. India and Sri Lanka have many areas of shared interests, and it's certainly welcomed by us to see that deepening of those ties.'
65,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees still live in Tamil Nadu. Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar discovers the challenges for the refugees to return home.
