Jaffna Monitor - Unafraid and Unbowed

Provincial Polls and Hospital Transfers Dominate Indian Envoy’s Farewell Dinner

Tamil political leaders used a farewell dinner for India’s departing High Commissioner, Santosh Jha, to voice concern that Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power government is steadily drawing powers away from the provinces. Several predicted that provincial council elections would not be held during the government’s current term. The dinner, on the night of Friday, 13 November, was held at the residence of India’s Deputy High Commissioner, Maitrey Kulkarni. It brought together about 15 representa

Our Reporter

Nov 14, 2026 — 6 min read

Mano Ganesan Says Budget Fails Plantation Workers and Weakens Devolution

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 14, 2026 — 3 min read

Colombo to Take Over the North’s District Hospitals, Reopening a Fight Over Devolution

November 2026 JM Exclusive

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Nov 13, 2026 — 6 min read

One Expressway Stretch Gets More Than Twice What Budget 2027 Reserves for the North and East

November 2026

Jaffna Monitor

Nov 13, 2026 — 7 min read

Shanakiyan Says Budget Ignores Tamil Question and Makes Struggling Families Wait

By Jaffna Monitor Staff Colombo, 14 November 2026 Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, the parliamentary group leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, told Parliament on Friday that the government was celebrating higher reserves while ordinary families struggled with rising prices. He said the 2027 budget did not address the Tamil national question at all. Mr. Rasamanickam, a member of Parliament for Batticaloa, spoke on the first day of the budget debate. He said a budget speech should do more than s

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 14, 2026 — 4 min read

A Mass Grave From the JVP’s Bloody Past Now Tests Its Government

Relatives of young people who disappeared during the state’s crackdown on a Marxist uprising in the late 1980s asked the High Court in Matale on Wednesday to revive a judicial inquiry into a mass grave of 155 bodies. The grave was found on the grounds of the town’s main hospital in 2012, and the case has been dormant since 2015. The application was filed by the attorneys Himali Kularatne and Lakmal Sooriyagoda on behalf of the Families of the Disappeared, an organisation of relatives of people

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 13, 2026 — 4 min read

Sri Lankan Doctor in Australia Suspended for Three Months for Harassing Medical Student

By Jaffna Monitor News Desk A tribunal in the Australian state of Victoria has suspended a Sri Lankan doctor from practice for three months after finding that he sexually harassed a medical student who was on placement at his general practice clinic in regional Victoria in 2021. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal imposed the penalty on Tuesday on Dr. Widana Pushkara Epa, a general practitioner in his late 50s who studied medicine in Belarus and moved to Australia in 2009, The Noti

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 13, 2026 — 3 min read

Thevakantha Sarma, former EROS member, dies in Berlin at 55

Thevakantha Sarma died in Berlin, where he had lived for many years. He was a former member of the Tamil militant group EROS who later taught mathematics, worked as a nurse in Germany, and encouraged young Tamil writers. He was 55. Known to friends as Sarma and to his family as Kantha, he was born on 10 October 1971 and grew up in Selvanayagapuram, Trincomalee. He was the second son of Shanmugaratnasarma Jegatheeswara Sarma and Sebastiampillai Jesiamma. What happened to his elder brother shape

Obituary November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 13, 2026 — 4 min read

UNAFRAID AND UNBOWED

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

JM Exclusive September 2026

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Sep 8, 2026 — 22 min read

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

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TID Questions Wife of Critically Ill Tamil Politician and Serves Court Summons

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: Officers of Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division went to the home of M.K. Sivajilingam, a veteran Tamil politician now in intensive care, questioned his wife at length and left a summons ordering him to appear before a court in Mullaitivu next month. The officers visited the family’s house in Valvettithurai, on the northern coast of the Jaffna Peninsula, on Tuesday. They recorded a statement from Mr. Sivajilingam’s wife. Then they served the summons, which requires hi

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 13, 2026 — 1 min read

Budget Skips Palaly Airport and Kankesanthurai Port, Pledges to Resettle 13,000 War-Displaced Families

By Jaffna Monitor Staff Colombo, 12 November 2026 The 2027 budget that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake presented to Parliament on Thursday sets out plans for airports at Katunayake, Ratmalana, Mattala, Sigiriya and China Bay, and for ports at Colombo, Galle and Trincomalee. It makes no mention of Jaffna International Airport at Palaly or the harbour at Kankesanthurai, the Northern Province’s two direct links to southern India. Both projects have been promised for years. In 2024, the Indian

JM Exclusive November 2026

Jaffna Monitor

Nov 12, 2026 — 13 min read

A Rare Childbirth Emergency Killed Sri Lankan YouTuber Nayomichan in Japan

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Nov. 12, 2026 — Asha Nayomi Weerawardhana, the Sri Lankan YouTube and TikTok creator known to her followers as Nayomichan, died in Japan during childbirth after amniotic fluid entered her bloodstream, her younger sister said, citing the post-mortem examination and the death certificate. She was 33. Her son, delivered during the emergency, survived and is recovering. Her sister, Ayesha Weerawardhana, a student in Japan, described what happened in a video posted on Facebook. S

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 12, 2026 — 5 min read

Monks' Hunger Strike Ends in Head Strike

ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka, Nov. 12: A protest that its organisers call a satyagraha, the word Gandhi coined for nonviolent resistance, ended in bloodshed on Thursday morning outside one of Sri Lanka's most venerated Buddhist monuments. Two groups led by clergy came to blows, and a controversial former monk was taken to hospital with a head wound. Rajanganaya Saddharathana, who was expelled from the monastic order last year but is still widely addressed as a thero, was allegedly struck with a clu

November 2026

Our Reporter

Nov 12, 2026 — 3 min read