JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — When a few Vesak lanterns erected by Sinhala Buddhist students at the University of Jaffna were vandalized this week, the damage itself was limited. What followed was more unusual: student leaders, university representatives, and even Tamil nationalist politicians quickly united to condemn the act and reject attempts to turn it into an ethnic controversy. The lanterns, displayed as part of Vesak celebrations at the university’s Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, wer

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Mano Ganesan, leader of the Democratic People’s Front and a member of Sri Lanka’s opposition, has asked Parliament’s chief financial oversight committee to investigate whether funds allocated for long-delayed Provincial Council elections were diverted to post-cyclone reconstruction efforts without legislative approval. In a letter sent Monday to Dr. Harsha de Silva, chairman of Parliament’s Committee on Public Finance (COPF), Mr. Ganesan requested an inquiry into remarks at

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Jaffna Bar Association has appealed directly to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to investigate the sudden transfer of High Court Judge A.G. Alexraja, warning that the move risks undermining public confidence in the judiciary and raising concerns about interference in judicial administration. In a letter dated May 30 and addressed to the President through the Presidential Secretariat, the association expressed its "complete disbelief and shock" at the transfer of Judge