One of the best-known South Indian actresses, Gopishantha - better-known by her stage name Manorama, has died of a heart attack in the city of Chennai, her family members say.

There's been a seismic shift. The publication of the UN report on Sri Lanka in September put on record indisputably and for posterity the terrible suffering endured by Tamils in the final phase of the Sri Lankan civil war. That acknowledgement of the atrocities is hugely significant given just a few years ago the world disbelieved most of these accounts. The extent of organised sexual violence and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces in the post-war period and right up to the present day and the chilling way every medical facility was deliberately attacked is now a matter of record, to mention but a few of the crimes. Notably the Government of Sri Lanka has not challenged these accounts, even if the media has been slow to treat them as established and widely acknowledged facts.

Renowned businessman Dilith Jayaweera has been appointed chairman of ‘Derana’.

The National Peace Council says that on October 1 the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva passed a resolution on Sri Lanka titled Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka.