Jaffna Monitor - Unafraid and Unbowed

Ailing Sivajilingam's Appeal Touches a Nerve

JAFFNA — When former parliamentarian M.K. Sivajilingam stood before reporters recently, his voice unsteady as he appealed for financial assistance to treat kidney failure, the moment resonated far beyond a routine public plea. It triggered a deeper reckoning within sections of the Tamil community — including both those aligned with his Tamil nationalist politics and those who are not. A veteran of Sri Lanka's turbulent Tamil political landscape and the current chairman of the Valvettithurai Urb

Our Reporter

May 24, 2026 — 4 min read

Tamil Leaders Lash Out After Tilvin Silva Says Provincial Polls Will Not Be Held This Year

Guest Column May 2026

M.R. Narayan Swamy

May 24, 2026 — 3 min read

May 18: The Day the Clowns Come Out

Guest Column May 2026

Che Ran

May 20, 2026 — 4 min read

Seventeen Years Without Prabhakaran

May 2026 OP-ED

Jathindra

May 19, 2026 — 6 min read

Sri Lanka Needs a New Republic, Not Cosmetic Reform

(Dr) Jayampathy Wickramaratne, President’s Counsel Sri Lanka’s constitutional journey remains marked by unresolved dilemmas: entrenched executive dominance, fragile fundamental rights, unfulfilled reform promises, and the persistent national question. These challenges have deepened inequality, strained ethnic relations, and weakened democratic accountability. The writer argues that constitutional supremacy must be firmly secured above transient political majorities, with judicial review extend

Guest Column May 2026

Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne

May 24, 2026 — 7 min read

May 21, 1991: The Day the LTTE Began to Lose the War

By M.R. Narayan Swamy AFP photographer R. Raveendran and I were in a taxi in the Tamil Tigers-held zone of Sri Lanka’s Batticaloa district in the mid-1990s when a young man with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder emerged from behind a tree and waved us down. When we said we were headed to Vakarai to try to meet Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, the LTTE’s powerful eastern regional commander, he let us proceed. But he told a teenager to jump into the front of our cab. After realising we

Guest Column May 2026

M.R. Narayan Swamy

May 21, 2026 — 4 min read

Sumanthiran Turns Batticaloa Library Ceremony Into Call for Power-Sharing

BATTICALOA — President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Wednesday inaugurated the newly constructed three-storey public library building of the Batticaloa Municipal Council, an event that became the occasion for a pointed public reminder from former MP and ITAK General Secretary M.A. Sumanthiran that meaningful power-sharing remains an unfinished obligation of the state. The library — a modern three-storey structure funded jointly by the central government and the Eastern Provincial Council — was or

JM Exclusive May 2026

Our Reporter

May 20, 2026 — 3 min read

D.C. Aravintharaj Named Jaffna Municipal Commissioner

JAFFNA — D.C. Aravintharaj, a senior Sri Lanka Administrative Service officer, was appointed Commissioner of the Jaffna Municipal Council on Tuesday during an official appointment event held at the Governor’s Secretariat here. Northern Province Governor N. Vethanayahan handed the official letter of appointment to Mr. Aravintharaj during the event, which was also attended by the Governor's Secretary, S. Sathiyaseelan, and other senior officials. Mr. Aravintharaj entered the Sri Lanka Administra

May 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

May 20, 2026 — 2 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

Kaniyan Pungundran

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

Explore our archive of articles, interviews, and creative projects

The Boy We Never Answered For

By Che Ran Sri Lanka has a strange relationship with accountability. We adore the theatre of justice. The press conference. The dramatic raid. The minister standing behind a microphone, sleeves metaphorically rolled up, promising to finally hunt down the untouchables. Every election, another government arrives carrying a moral broom the size of Adam’s Peak, vowing to sweep corruption out of the republic. And every few years, we discover the same depressing truth. The truly powerful rarely g

Guest Column May 2026

Che Ran

May 19, 2026 — 3 min read

Batticaloa Opens Long-Delayed Library as President Tours Eastern Province

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka — President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is scheduled to visit Batticaloa on Wednesday to inaugurate what the government describes as Sri Lanka’s second-largest public library after the Colombo Public Library, before attending a series of development and administrative events across the Eastern Province. The new Batticaloa Public Library, built at a reported cost of 435 million rupees, is scheduled to open at 9:30 a.m. The facility replaces one of the country’s oldest public l

May 2026 Monitor Memo

Our Reporter

May 19, 2026 — 1 min read

ITAK’s Senior Leadership Descended Into Disorder at Central Committee Meeting

What had long been carefully cultivated as the polished public image of M.A. Sumanthiran, the gentleman politician, constitutional moderate, self-styled peace advocate within Tamil politics, and outspoken critic of violence committed in the name of Tamils, was dramatically shaken during yesterday’s explosive Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) central committee meeting in Vavuniya, according to multiple senior party sources who spoke to Jaffna Monitor. Behind closed doors, the meeting reportedl

JM Exclusive May 2026

Our Reporter

May 18, 2026 — 3 min read

Could Prabhakaran Have Ever Succeeded?

By M.R. Narayan Swamy When Velupillai Prabhakaran walked into Chanakya cinema in Delhi in 1985, no one packing the air-conditioned hall could have guessed that this man would soon become one of the world’s most feared and powerful insurgents. But for his stocky build, there was nothing to distinguish him from the three other Sri Lankan Tamils with him who, away from the war theatre, had decided to see an English movie. The young men were in Delhi to meet Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his of

May 2026 OP-ED

M.R. Narayan Swamy

May 18, 2026 — 6 min read