Jaffna Monitor - Unafraid and Unbowed

Pillayan Among Four Indicted in Killing of Eastern University Vice-Chancellor

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s attorney general has indicted former Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan and three other men in the abduction and killing of an Eastern University vice-chancellor who disappeared in Colombo nearly two decades ago, bringing one of the country’s most prominent wartime disappearance cases before a criminal court. The indictments were filed in the Polonnaruwa High Court over the abduction and killing of Prof. Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, who was vic

Our Reporter

Aug 17, 2026 — 4 min read

Sri Lanka's Post-Election Optimism Ebbs as Government Approval Falls

August 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Aug 17, 2026 — 3 min read

Judges’ Retirement Plan Is a Cover for Preferred Appointments, Mano Ganesan Says

April 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Aug 17, 2026 — 3 min read

EU Sets Reform Terms as Sri Lanka Faces Fresh Application for Trade Preferences

August 2026 Exclusive

Our Reporter

Aug 16, 2026 — 6 min read

Sinhala Nationalist Monk Invokes Prabhakaran to Rebuke Sinhala Voters

COLOMBO —A controversial Sinhala nationalist Buddhist monk invoked Velupillai Prabhakaran, the slain leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to rebuke Sinhala voters for what he described as their tendency to quickly forget the past and repeatedly make poor political choices. Ittekande Saddhatissa Thera, general secretary of the Sinhala nationalist organisation Ravana Balaya, said Sinhala voters had proved correct a remark he attributed to Prabhakaran: that they remember events for only

August 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Aug 17, 2026 — 2 min read

Local Council Vice Chairman Among Five Arrested in Mullaitivu Heroin Case

MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka — The vice chairman of a local council in northern Sri Lanka was among five people arrested after police said they recovered two grams of heroin during a road check on Saturday evening. Yogeswaran Anojan, vice chairman of the Maritimepattu (Karaithuraipattu) Pradeshiya Sabha, was arrested with four others while travelling along the Semmalai-Kokkilai Road, according to Jaffna Monitor’s reporter in Mullaitivu. Anojan is affiliated with Rishad Bathiudeen’s All Ceylon Makkal

August 2026

Our Reporter

Aug 16, 2026 — 1 min read

Sri Lanka Opens a Legal Route Home for Tamil Refugees in India. The Security Check Remains.

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — In May 2025, a 75-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil man landed at Palaly airport after decades as a refugee in Tamil Nadu. He had returned with the help of the United Nations refugee agency and carried the clearances his journey required. Immigration officials arrested him at the airport. The Criminal Investigation Department produced him before the Mallakam Magistrate's Court, which remanded him after objections to bail. His alleged offense was that he had left Sri Lanka decades e

JM Exclusive August 2026

Our Special Correspondent

Aug 16, 2026 — 5 min read

Sri Lanka Moves to Oust Chennai Envoy After Government Loses Confidence in Him, Sources Say

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s government has decided to replace Dr. Ganesanathan Geathiswaran, the country’s Deputy High Commissioner for Southern India in Chennai, after losing confidence in his conduct in one of Sri Lanka’s most sensitive diplomatic postings, senior government and Foreign Ministry sources told Jaffna Monitor. Dr. Ganesanathan Geathiswaran, a political appointee who is not a career diplomat, is expected to be removed once Colombo identifies a successor, sources said. A government mini

JM Exclusive August 2026

Our Reporter

Aug 15, 2026 — 4 min read

UNAFRAID AND UNBOWED

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

Editorial July 2025

Kaniyan Pungundran

Jul 14, 2025 — 12 min read

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

Cover Story June 2025

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Jun 16, 2025 — 14 min read

Chemmani: Where Justice Was Buried

The dead do not speak - but the earth does A few years ago, I visited Cambodia. My original aim was to see the Angkor Wat temple complex. But, as always, my journalistic instincts led me deeper into rural Cambodia, where I found myself in quiet conversations with a few former soldiers of the Pol Pot regime, now living ordinary lives as toddy tappers, farmers, and small shop owners. One of them - a former henchman of the Khmer Rouge - opened up after a few glasses of toddy. In a hauntingly calm

Editorial June 2025

Kaniyan Pungundran

Jun 16, 2025 — 7 min read

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‘Cry for Justice’: Tamils Rally as Chemmani Mass Grave Excavations Pass 100 Days

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Tamil civil society activists in northern Sri Lanka are beginning a four-day campaign on Friday to demand international justice and accountability for alleged wartime atrocities, as excavations at the Chemmani mass grave continue to uncover human remains. The campaign, called “Cry for Justice — 2,” is being organise by the Homeland Task Force and will run from Aug. 14 through Aug. 17, culminating in a demonstration near the Chemmani mass grave site outside Jaffna. The organ

August 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Aug 14, 2026 — 2 min read

Sri Lanka’s Envoy to India Remembers Lakshman Kadirgamar, 21 Years After His Assassination

By: Aruliniyan Mahalingam Twenty-one years after Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s high commissioner to India has remembered the former foreign minister as the man who helped inspire her to join the diplomatic service and set a standard that continued to shape her career. Mahishini Colonne, herself widely regarded in Sri Lankan diplomatic circles as one of the country’s most accomplished career diplomats, said Wednesday that Kadirgamar was foreign minister when she e

August 2026 JM Exclusive

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aug 14, 2026 — 7 min read

Remembering Lakshman Kadirgamar: A Personal Account

In response to “Sri Lanka’s Envoy to India Remembers Lakshman Kadirgamar, 21 Years After His Assassination” (Jaffna Monitor, 13 August 2026, by Aruliniyan Mahalingam) To the Editor, I read with great interest your report marking the twenty-first anniversary of Lakshman Kadirgamar’s assassination, and High Commissioner Mahishini Colonne’s moving tribute to the standards he set for a generation of Sri Lankan diplomats. Her recollection of his insistence that “every word has meaning” in diplomacy

Letter to the Editor August 2026

Jeevan Thiyagaraja

Aug 13, 2026 — 5 min read

Malwatte Mahanayake Says President Did Not Reply to Letter

KANDY, Sri Lanka — One of Sri Lanka’s most senior Buddhist prelates said President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has not responded to a letter from the country’s chief Buddhist monks concerning the government’s proposal to extend the retirement age of senior judges. The Most Venerable Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Thera, the Mahanayake of the Malwatte Chapter, said the chief prelates had not received even an acknowledgment that their letter had reached the President. “When the Mahanayake Th

August 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

Aug 13, 2026 — 3 min read