JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: An association of families of people who disappeared during Sri Lanka’s civil war has elected a new leadership in Jaffna district. It has also announced a protest at the Chemmani mass grave site to reject an archaeologists’ interim report that found the burials more closely resembled formal interment than a clandestine grave. The Jaffna District Association of Relatives of the Enforced Disappeared held the election at the Sivaguru Aadheenam hall in Nallur. Sivanandan Jeyatha

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka: Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, the former Eastern Province chief minister who is being held on remand in several criminal investigations, has accused unnamed “fake nationalists” in Batticaloa of sabotaging an administrative settlement of the dispute over the Mayilathamadu and Madhavanai grazing lands. Subramaniyam Jeevanraj, a functionary of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal, the party Mr. Chandrakanthan leads, made his remarks public. In a Facebook post written in Tami

COLOMBO: An opposition lawmaker accused the government on Wednesday of losing a $392 million Chinese investment at Colombo Port by accepting a $17 million grant from the United States. The claim is contradicted by the Chinese company’s own stock exchange filing and by the date the American grant was announced. Mujibur Rahman, a parliamentarian of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), was speaking in a debate on regulations under the Imports and Exports (Control) Act. He said the government had inst

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam In one of Alagu Subramaniam’s stories, a woman named Mrs. Ramasamy is riding home to Atchuvely in a bullock cart. She has just left her daughter, Parvathy, at a girls’ school in Jaffna town, and she will not see her for three months. She is crying. The carter, Subbu, asks her to stop, because anyone who sees her in tears will think he has wronged her. Subramaniam gave her reply in English: “Don’t talk nonsense. You are like a father to me. You are an old man, you woul