14 Years After Land Was Set Aside in Mankulam, Youth Office May Move Elsewhere

14 Years After Land Was Set Aside in Mankulam, Youth Office May Move Elsewhere

MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka — Young people and community activists in Mullaitivu District are opposing a proposal to move the district office of the National Youth Services Council from Mankulam to Oddusuddan, and are calling on the government to build the office on land in Mankulam that was set aside for it in 2012. The land, a plot along the A9 highway, was cleared and fenced for a district office 14 years ago, but no building was ever put up. The council's Mullaitivu office still operates from ren


Shanmugam Thavaseelan

Shanmugam Thavaseelan

Six Kilinochchi Groups Seek Fresh Police Inquiry Into Samarazhagi’s Death

Six Kilinochchi Groups Seek Fresh Police Inquiry Into Samarazhagi’s Death

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — Six community organizations in Uruthirapuram have jointly appealed to a senior police official for a fresh investigation into the death of Samarazhagi, a teenage girl whose death last week has shaken the village and prompted allegations that she had been threatened and sexually pressured by a young man living nearby. In a letter dated Oct. 5 and addressed to the Deputy Inspector General of Police for the Kilinochchi Division, the organizations said they were dissatisfie


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Police Hand Thileepan Bust to Jaffna Court; No Tamil Party Has Claimed It

Police Hand Thileepan Bust to Jaffna Court; No Tamil Party Has Claimed It

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Police on Monday handed over to a Jaffna court a bust of Thileepan, the Tamil Tiger political leader, that officers removed from his memorial eight days earlier, as investigators continued trying to answer a question that has hung over the controversy: Who put it there? No Tamil political party or group has publicly claimed responsibility for installing the bust at the memorial near the Nallur Kandaswamy Temple. The Tamil National People’s Front, which controlled the main c


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

‘They Made Me Call Eknaligoda’: Former LTTE Fighter Testifies in Court

‘They Made Me Call Eknaligoda’: Former LTTE Fighter Testifies in Court

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A former Tamil Tiger fighter has told a Sri Lankan court that military intelligence officers detained him at an army camp after the civil war and instructed him to make telephone calls to the journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, who was abducted and disappeared months later. Sumathipala Suresh Kumar, also known as Murali, gave testimony before the Homagama High Court, where seven Army intelligence officers are on trial over an earlier abduction of Mr. Eknaligoda in August 2009.


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


Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

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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Sangupiddy Bridge to Close for Five Days for Emergency Repairs

Sangupiddy Bridge to Close for Five Days for Emergency Repairs

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Sangupiddy Bridge, which carries the A32 highway across the Jaffna Lagoon and links the Jaffna Peninsula with Mannar, will be closed to all traffic for five days from Wednesday morning for emergency repairs, the Road Development Authority said. The bridge will close at 8 a.m. on Oct. 7 and reopen at 8 a.m. on Oct. 12, according to a notice issued by the authority's Northern Province office in Vavuniya. All vehicles will be barred from the bridge during the repairs, the


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

‘Beauty of the War’: A 17-Year-Old’s Death Shakes a Kilinochchi Village

‘Beauty of the War’: A 17-Year-Old’s Death Shakes a Kilinochchi Village

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — Her parents named her Samarazhagi, from the Tamil words samar, meaning war, and azhagi, meaning beauty. She was born in the final years of Sri Lanka's civil war, when Tamil families in the north were living through some of the worst violence of the conflict. On Oct. 1, observed in Sri Lanka as World Children's Day, Samarazhagi died by suicide. She was 17. Residents of her village, Uruthirapuram, and people familiar with her family say she left a letter alleging that sh


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Can Xue Leads Betting Market Ahead of 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

Can Xue Leads Betting Market Ahead of 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

STOCKHOLM — Can Xue, the Chinese avant-garde novelist whose experimental fiction has made her a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, has emerged as the bookmakers’ favorite to win this year’s award, according to odds offered by the British betting company Ladbrokes. Can Xue is listed at 10/1, ahead of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami at 14/1. Australian writer Gerald Murnane and the American novelist Thomas Pynchon are among the other writers near the top of the market.


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Rs. 5,000 for a Rs. 400 Ride: Tamil Travelers Warn of Airport Tuk-Tuk Fares

Rs. 5,000 for a Rs. 400 Ride: Tamil Travelers Warn of Airport Tuk-Tuk Fares

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —Travelers from Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority north say tuk-tuk drivers near the country's main international airport are charging thousands of rupees for a few-kilometer ride from a bus stop to the terminal. The complaints center on the 18th Mile Post junction, known in Sinhala as Dahata Kanuwa, near Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake. Long-distance buses drop passengers at or near the junction, and travelers must find their own transportation for the rest of the


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

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