In a significant move coinciding with the visit of a top United States official probing war crimes, the American embassy in Colombo on Thursday posted pictures of places where civilians had died allegedly during Sri Lanka's final war against rebel Tamil Tigers four years ago.
A country required two-thirds majority of 124 to win a seat in the elections.
Though dubbed as the 'war hero', the role of Rajapaksa in ending the conflict with the LTTE with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009 is quite divisive as he stands accused of violating human rights, a charge he vehemently denies.
Strongly hitting back at Pakistan for raising in the United Nations the issue of the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, India has said Pakistan "extols" the "virtues" of terrorists and uses terrorism as a state policy towards the "misguided end" of coveting the territory of others.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is conducting searches at the home of Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising -- who served as additional solicitor general during UPA 2 -- and the offices of Lawyers Collective, an NGO run by her husband lawyer Anand Grover, officials said.
The United States has welcomed the passage of United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka and said that it sends a "clear message" to the Rajapaksa government that the international community is committed to promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asian country.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has accused Sri Lanka of sabotaging a UN-mandated probe into the country's nearly three decades-long brutal civil war, drawing a sharp reaction from Colombo as it dismissed the charges.
'New Delhi and Washington are now on the same page, on dealing with growing Chinese assertiveness, across the entire Indo-Pacific region,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, Chancellor, Central University of Jammu.
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India was among the 11 countries that abstained from voting on the resolution in the UN Economic and Social Council.
As part of a global 'Orange the World' campaign, the iconic India Gate on Wednesday lit up in the colour orange celebrating the International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women.
Days after India voted against it at the United Nations, Israel on Sunday hoped the Indian decision would not impact on the robust Indo-Israel ties in strategic areas of defence and security, to which they have added some more "ingredients" in the past few months.
Assange reacted to the news by tweeting a photo of himself smiling inside the Ecuadorian Embassy
President Xi Jinping today defended the one-party rule in China saying the "world will be too boring" if all countries followed the same political system, a day after the world commemorated 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Skeletal remains of 80 bodies have been dug out of a mass grave in a former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stronghold in Sri Lanka, fuelling speculation that the bodies are of Tamil civilians who disappeared during the war with the rebels.
The UN General Assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution which calls for counter-terrorism measures, including the use of remotely-piloted aircraft or drones, to comply with international law.
A ceasefire deal has been struck between the pro-Syrian government forces and the rebels for them and the civilians still living there to evacuate the city safely.
The expert said the mission "lacked a holistic human rights approach'.
'Shaheen Bagh is no longer a mere ghetto of lower middle class Muslims.' 'Now, it is a metaphor for resistance, secularism and struggle,' notes Md. Zeeshan Ahmad.
More than 6,000 people have died in the nearly one-year-old Ukraine conflict; the United Nations human rights office said on Monday and warned that "deliberate targeting" of civilians may constitute a "crime against humanity".
In a goodwill gesture, Pakistan freed 59 Indian fishermen of the eve of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to India to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi.
India has for the first time abstained from voting on a resolution on Palestine adopted at the UN rights body that calls for accountability by parties involved in last year's conflict in Gaza.
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday warned Sri Lanka that "true reconciliation" with Tamils will take time, even as he praised the "openness" of the new government in efforts to boost democracy, human rights and reaching out to the minority community.
Emotional embraces, tears of joy and an overwhelming message of equality washed over Australia after a majority of 61.6 per cent voted in favour of legalising gay marriage. Thousands of 'Yes' advocates erupted at the designated areas throughout the country.
Lives "will once again be at risk" if funding is not urgently secured, United Nations officials have said on the eve of the first anniversary of a military crackdown that forced them to flee their country.
One shocking finding of the investigation was the extent to which sexual violence was committed against detainees, often extremely brutally, by the Sri Lankan security forces, with men as likely to be victims as women.
This is for the first time the UNHRC has issued a report on the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and PoK.
New Delhi is approaching Gota with an open mind, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Unlike Trump, who has an isolationist approach, Bolton would like to roam around the world, trampling upon any sign of dissent,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Colombo has once again put the focus on alleged cases of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
Rejecting a UN panel recommendation for halting Posco's port-to-steel plant project, both the Republic of Korea and the Odisha government on Monday exuded optimism to go for the ground-breaking ceremony of the proposed facility near Paradip early next year.
Raising the issue of Balochistan for the first time before the United Nation, India on Wednesday accused Pakistan of widespread human rights violations there as well as in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Rajmohan spoke with rediff.com, sharing his thoughts on what ails East Delhi, the future of AAP and his plans for strengthening the party.
The fact that known terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin have been able to hold huge rallies in Pakistan's main cities is a reflection of the state of affairs in Pak, said India.
Indian diplomatic sources said that India abstained from voting on the resolution in line with its traditional approach that it does not mix humanitarian issues with political issues.
'It will be foolhardy to overlook that this stunning shift in China's stance comes as the culmination of the severely damaged India-China relationship under the present government,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
In the year since Modi cast the spotlight on Pakistan's human rights violations in Balochistan, India has not done much more than raise the issue at the UN a few times.
Bloodbath in Gaza continued unabated today with Israel and Hamas refusing to back down in the conflict that has killed over 660 Palestinians and 31 Israelis, even as US Secretary of State John Kerry said his ceasefire negotiations in Jerusalem were making progress.
'Secretiveness and the element of surprise in announcing decisions marks the Modi style of diplomacy. From being a voluble politician, he became a reticent statesman... But the diplomatic dance is performed on thin ice and his adroitness is still to be proved,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Thousands of people have lost their lives and thousands more displaced in the violence in South Sudan. The United Nations mission and humanitarian agencies are under strain to protect camps and to provide internally displaced persons with water, food and other emergency relief. What flared up as a political conflict in South Sudan is now assuming an ethnic character.
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