Sri Lanka observed a nationwide three-minute silence Tuesday to pay homage to more than 300 people killed in the gruesome Easter Sunday bombings, the country's worst terror attack blamed on a local previously little-known Islamist outfit.

Michelin-star chef Vikas Khanna has been named brand ambassador of a leading cultural organisation which will organise the annual New York Indian Film Festival next month that showcases the celebrity chef's film 'The Last Color' and Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer 'Photograph'.

Colombo: Seven suicide bombers were involved in a series of eight devastating blasts that tore through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing 290 people and wounding 500 others in the worst terror attack in the country's history, authorities said on Monday.

Sri Lanka will enforce a state of emergency from midnight Monday in the wake of the deadly Easter blasts that killed 290 people and wounded more than 500 others, enhancing the counter terrorism powers of of the security forces.

Washington: The US on Monday is set to ask five nations, including India and China, to completely end their imports of Iranian oil or be subject to US sanctions, a media report said, a decision that comes about a year after America quit the Iran nuclear deal and imposed toughest ever sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation.

A local outfit identified as the National Tawheed Jamath is suspected of plotting the deadly Easter blasts that killed 290 people and wounded 500 others in the worst terror attack in the country's history, a top Sri Lankan minister said on Monday.

Colombo: Police in Sri Lanka said Monday the investigation into the Easter Sunday bombings will examine reports that the intelligence community failed to detect or warn of possible suicide attacks before the violence.