Muslim Party Leader Accuses Sri Lanka’s Opposition Chief of Breaking Coalition Promises

Muslim Party Leader Accuses Sri Lanka’s Opposition Chief of Breaking Coalition Promises

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The leader of one of Sri Lanka’s main Muslim political parties has accused the country’s opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, of breaking promises to his coalition partners and moving away from the inclusive politics he championed in the 2024 presidential election, exposing strains in an opposition already heavily outnumbered in Parliament. “We are not slaves of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya,” Rishad Bathiudeen, the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, said on Monday at a


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

The JVP’s Bloody History With Journalists Haunts Its Promise of Justice in Jaffna

The JVP’s Bloody History With Journalists Haunts Its Promise of Justice in Jaffna

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Oct. 26, 2026 — On the night of Sept. 13, 1989, six armed men entered the Colombo home of a television announcer’s parents and waited for her to return. When she arrived, they forced her to leave with them. Her body was found the next morning on a beach at Ratmalana, south of the capital. Investigators told United Press International at the time that she had been raped and stabbed to death. The announcer, Sagarika Gomes, worked for the state-run Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporati


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Sri Lanka’s Top Buddhist Prelates Step In as Monks End Sit-In for Jailed Firebrand

Sri Lanka’s Top Buddhist Prelates Step In as Monks End Sit-In for Jailed Firebrand

By Asela Kuruluwansa COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Buddhist monks who had occupied a park in Sri Lanka’s capital for 10 days to demand a presidential pardon for a jailed hard-line cleric suspended their protest on Sunday, after the country’s most senior Buddhist prelates said they had intervened with the government and cautioned that the demonstration was being used to tarnish the reputation of the clergy. In a joint letter dated Sunday, the four chief prelates of Sri Lanka’s three main monastic orders


Asela Kuruluwansha.

Asela Kuruluwansha.

Tuberculosis Cases Top 1,000 a Year in Colombo, Raising Concerns Over Urban Health

Tuberculosis Cases Top 1,000 a Year in Colombo, Raising Concerns Over Urban Health

By Asela Kuruluwansha COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Tuberculosis is spreading rapidly within the Colombo Municipal Council area, where more than 1,000 cases have been reported annually in recent years, Sri Lanka's health minister said. Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, the Minister of Health and Mass Media, said a quarter of all tuberculosis cases reported in Colombo District were concentrated in densely populated areas within the municipal council's limits. Health Ministry records show that 871 cases were repor


Asela Kuruluwansha.

Asela Kuruluwansha.

UNAFRAID AND UNBOWED

The Long Warning: Inside the Intelligence Trail That Preceded Easter Bombings
Zahran Hashim and other men pledge allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.

The Long Warning: Inside the Intelligence Trail That Preceded Easter Bombings

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam JAFFNA — On the evening of April 20, 2019, a man at his home in Puthukudiyiruppu took a WhatsApp call from an Indian police officer. The call came sometime between 5:15 and 5:45 p.m. The officer asked him an odd question: where were Sri Lanka's major churches? The man named the ones that came to mind. The Madhu shrine. St. Anthony's at Kochchikade in Colombo. The Tewatta church at Ragama. Then the officer told him that Zahran Hashim's group was preparing to strike Cat


Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Archbishop, Archbishop, why hast thou forsaken us in our hour of sorrow and slaughter?

Archbishop, Archbishop, why hast thou forsaken us in our hour of sorrow and slaughter?

"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." - Isaiah 58:1 His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo and chief shepherd of the Catholic flock in all of Sri Lanka, has recently marked fifty years in the sacred priesthood. As the highest-ranking prelate whose dominion spans the entire island, he now stands as a mighty voice crying for justice, calling upon the nations of the earth for interv


Kaniyan Pungundran

Kaniyan Pungundran

Jaffna Library Burning: The Day They Burned the buddha and his dhamma

Jaffna Library Burning: The Day They Burned the buddha and his dhamma

Why South Asia Reveres Books-and Fears Their Destruction Irrespective of religion, across the Indian subcontinent, books have long held an exalted status. In the indigenous spiritual traditions that emerged from this land-Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism-knowledge is not merely valued; it is venerated in the highest order. In homes, temples, and schools across the region, people treat books with profound reverence-never touching them with their feet, and if done accidentally, offering a


Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Read More

Explore our archive of articles, interviews, and creative projects

As Namal Rajapaksa Marks 50 Days in Jail, His Father Preaches Against the Political Revenge His Own Government Practised

As Namal Rajapaksa Marks 50 Days in Jail, His Father Preaches Against the Political Revenge His Own Government Practised

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Fifty days after he was led from a Colombo courtroom onto a prison bus, Namal Rajapaksa, the son and political heir of Sri Lanka’s most powerful postwar leader, declared from remand custody this weekend that he would remain behind bars for 500 days if it would bring relief to the country’s struggling households. His statement came alongside a letter from his father, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, 80, written from a hospital in Colombo, that set out what the elder Mr. Raj


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

When There Is No Cure, There Is Still Care: A New Hospice Opens in Jaffna

When There Is No Cure, There Is Still Care: A New Hospice Opens in Jaffna

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A hospice for people in the last stage of terminal illness opened on Saturday in Sarasalai, near the town of Chavakachcheri in Jaffna District. Its organizers said similar centres already operate in other parts of Sri Lanka, and that this one brings free end-of-life care closer to families in the Northern Province. The centre, Comfort Care Home, is a nonprofit organization near Kanakanpulyadi Junction. It cost more than 350 million rupees to build, with the money raised from


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Families of Disappeared Reject Chemmani Report and Call for International Inquiry

Families of Disappeared Reject Chemmani Report and Call for International Inquiry

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Families of people who disappeared during Sri Lanka’s civil war on Friday rejected an archaeologist’s report on the human remains recovered at Chemmani, in the north of the country, and announced a protest for next month to demand an international investigation. At a news conference at the Jaffna Press Club, representatives of associations of families of the forcibly disappeared said they would not accept the interim report that Professor Raj Somadeva of the University of Ke


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

NPP Government Said It Wouldn’t Change Prison Rules for One Monk. Four Days Later, It Did.

NPP Government Said It Wouldn’t Change Prison Rules for One Monk. Four Days Later, It Did.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — On Oct. 16, Sri Lanka's cabinet spokesman said the government would neither bend nor amend the law to accommodate any individual. Four days later, the government amended the prison rules at the center of a dispute over a jailed Buddhist monk. The changes, published in Extraordinary Gazette No. 2511/30, give Buddhist monastic chapters the deciding voice on whether an imprisoned monk is stripped of his robes. They also allow convicted monks to wear robes when taken out of pri


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Meet Our Authors

Be the first to know

Join our community and get notified about upcoming stories

Subscribing...
You've been subscribed!
Something went wrong