Valikamam North Council Chief Accuses Police of Threats Over Effort to Reclaim Road Occupied by Thaiyiddy Vihara

Valikamam North Council Chief Accuses Police of Threats Over Effort to Reclaim Road Occupied by Thaiyiddy Vihara

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Tensions are escalating in Jaffna after S. Sugirthan, chairman of the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha, accused police of attempting to obstruct efforts to reclaim a public road allegedly occupied by Tissa Rajamaha Viharaya, a Buddhist shrine constructed on disputed civilian land in Thaiyiddy. Mr. Sugirthan said he was summoned by Palaly Police and warned to abandon efforts to recover Bhavani Veethi, a road legally belonging to the local council but currently enclosed within


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Sri Lanka's Unfinished Promise on Language Rights
Tamil Federal Party leader S.J.V. Chelvanayakam leads a peaceful protest against the Sinhala Only Act in 1956, as Sri Lanka’s post-independence language conflict began to reshape the nation’s future.

Sri Lanka's Unfinished Promise on Language Rights

By Jeevan Thiyagaraja From the riots of 1958 to a Charter that awaits— the long arc of a promise made, deferred, and still owed. Language is never merely a tool for communication. It is the vessel through which a person experiences dignity — or its absence. It was this question, left dangerously unanswered, that ignited the riots of July 1958. Decades of armed conflict followed. The path to healing has, in fact, been laid — in Parliament, in the Constitution, and in a Language Charter that n


Jeevan Thiyagaraja

Jeevan Thiyagaraja

The Dam They Can't Account For

The Dam They Can't Account For

By Sidhartha Thamby Somewhere in the ledgers of Sri Lanka's Cabinet Office, between the fiscal crisis minutes and the debt-restructuring files, sits a two-paragraph decision that will reshape rivers, forests, and livelihoods across Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, and the wider northern dry zone. Approved quietly in January 2026, it revived the Kivul Oya Reservoir Project — suspended only two years earlier because the country had run out of money — at a cost of Rs. 23,456 million. That figure is not a typ


Sidhartha Thamby

Sidhartha Thamby

Sri Lankan Think Tank Seeks Closer Ties With Indonesia in Indian Ocean Push

Sri Lankan Think Tank Seeks Closer Ties With Indonesia in Indian Ocean Push

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Milinda Moragoda, founder of the Colombo-based Pathfinder Foundation, met this week with Indonesia’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Dewi Gustina Tobing, to explore avenues for collaboration as Sri Lanka seeks to strengthen strategic ties with Southeast Asia’s largest economy. According to a statement released by the foundation, discussions focused on Indonesia’s growing geopolitical and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific, including its status as the world’s fourth most populo


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Unafraid and Unbowed

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


Kaniyan Pungundran

Kaniyan Pungundran

Chemmani: Where Justice Was Buried

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


Kaniyan Pungundran

Kaniyan Pungundran

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Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Enough Promises, Time for Proof

Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Enough Promises, Time for Proof

Seventeen years after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, reconciliation remains more slogan than substance. It is invoked in speeches, embedded in policy frameworks, and repeated in international forums, but for many citizens, particularly in the North and East, it has yet to translate into meaningful, lived change. The uncomfortable truth is this: Sri Lanka does not suffer from a lack of reconciliation mechanisms. It suffers from a lack of political will, consistency, and sustained execution. R


Colonel Nalin Herath

Colonel Nalin Herath

Chemmani Mass Grave Probe Hinges on Fresh Forensic Evidence

Chemmani Mass Grave Probe Hinges on Fresh Forensic Evidence

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The future of ongoing excavations at the Chemmani mass grave site in northern Sri Lanka will depend on the results of a fresh round of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) scans after currently identified human skeletal remains are fully exhumed, according to a lawyer representing families of the disappeared. Attorney Ranitha Gnanarajah, who appears on behalf of relatives in the long-running Chemmani mass grave case, said investigators are presently focused on excavating areas wit


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Indian Lawmaker Seeks to Bar Perarivalan From Legal Practice

Indian Lawmaker Seeks to Bar Perarivalan From Legal Practice

CHENNAI, India — A sitting Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu has written to President Droupadi Murmu demanding that A.G. Perarivalan — convicted in the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and released by India’s Supreme Court in 2022 after more than three decades in custody — be barred from practicing law, days after he was enrolled as an advocate by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The seven-page letter, dated April 29, 2026, was written by Adv. R. Sudha, w


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Our Reporter

Sri Lankan Fisherman Taken Hostage and Assaulted by Indian Fishermen, Renewing Palk Strait Tensions

Sri Lankan Fisherman Taken Hostage and Assaulted by Indian Fishermen, Renewing Palk Strait Tensions

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A Tamil fisherman from Jaffna was severely beaten after being detained at sea by a group of Indian fishermen, according to Sri Lankan fishing associations, Indian police accounts and widely circulated video footage, in an episode that has once again exposed the volatile maritime tensions of the Palk Strait. The fisherman, a 29-year-old man from Vallai in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna District, is being treated at Nagapattinam Government Medical College Hospital in Tamil Nadu, where doc


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Our Reporter

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