Neelan Unsilenced : The Life and Death of a Pluralist in a Divided Sri Lanka
Neelan Unsilenced : The Life and Death of a Pluralist in a Divided Sri Lanka

Neelan Unsilenced : The Life and Death of a Pluralist in a Divided Sri Lanka

“The way for emancipation  is to renounce language pride, national pride, religious pride, and caste pride.” – Periyar. Neelan Tiruchelvam – Unsilenced Directed by peace activist and filmmaker Pitasanna Shanmugathas, Unsilenced revisits the life and assassination of one of Sri Lanka’s most courageous liberal thinkers. The documentary traces Neelan’s relentless commitment to pluralism, constitutional reform, and democratic values at a time when both state repression and militant authoritariani


Chinniah Rajeshkumar (Ragavan)

Chinniah Rajeshkumar (Ragavan)

When the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case Almost Pulled Me In
One of the last photographs of Rajiv Gandhi, taken moments before his assassination by Hari Babu. Behind the girl in the white shirt stands Dhanu, the suicide bomber.

When the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case Almost Pulled Me In

May 21, 1991, was one of the busiest and most sensation-filled days in my journalistic career. That night, former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi died a horrific death when a suicide bomber blew him up at an election rally near Chennai. The news excitement dragged on for days as Indian investigators began to piece together the numerous fragments of the jigsaw puzzle to get to the bottom of who had ordered the high-profile assassination of a member of the Gandhi-Nehru family. I was in the AF


M.R. Narayan Swamy

M.R. Narayan Swamy

Ranil on Nepal: Buddha’s Teachings Abroad, Forgotten at Home
Ranil on Nepal: Buddha’s Teachings Abroad, Forgotten at Home

Ranil on Nepal: Buddha’s Teachings Abroad, Forgotten at Home

Sri Lanka’s former President Ranil Wickremesinghe issued a strongly worded statement this week on the unfolding crisis in Nepal. He condemned the police shootings in Kathmandu, the killing of the former Prime Minister’s wife, and the burning of Parliament and court buildings by Gen-Z protestors. He also warned of the role of American-owned social media platforms like Google and Facebook in destabilizing governments. Most strikingly, Wickremesinghe ended his statement by invoking the Buddha: “N


K.S. Lakshmi

K.S. Lakshmi

Blood, Spice, and St George’s Cross
Blood, Spice, and St George’s Cross

Blood, Spice, and St George’s Cross

There’s a smell to fear when it stalks a neighbourhood. It isn’t always gunpowder or petrol bombs. Sometimes it’s vinegar-soaked chips from the corner chippy, gone cold in a greasy paper bag carried by men who march with the St George’s Cross. A flag that, to some, means football and cheap lager; to others, a symbol that says: you don’t belong here. The red cross on white cloth has always carried more than patriotic cheer. Its origins lie in the Crusades of the twelfth century, when European ar


Che Ran

Che Ran

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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Sri Lanka’s Darkest Night: The Sathurukondan Massacre Still Awaits Accountability
Sri Lanka’s Darkest Night: The Sathurukondan Massacre Still Awaits Accountability

Sri Lanka’s Darkest Night: The Sathurukondan Massacre Still Awaits Accountability

On the 35th anniversary of one of Sri Lanka’s most horrific wartime atrocities against Tamils—where 42 children under the age of ten, including five infants less than a year old, were among the victims—justice remains elusive. The Sathurukondan massacre of September 9, 1990, claimed the lives of 184 Tamil civilians, yet three and a half decades later, accountability has still not been achieved. Marking the anniversary, families of victims and civil society leaders filed a fresh complaint demand


Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

Can Sri Lanka Really Go Mine-Free by 2028?
Can Sri Lanka Really Go Mine-Free by 2028?

Can Sri Lanka Really Go Mine-Free by 2028?

In Sri Lanka, landmines claimed countless lives and left many more—combatants and civilians alike—crippled, limbless, or permanently scarred. Yet their true infamy is often traced to one shattering moment: the first-ever landmine explosion in Jaffna on 23 July 1983, an event that many regard as the spark that ignited the civil war. On that fateful day, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) buried a landmine on the Jaffna–Palaly main road, barely two kilometers from the heart of the city.


Dr. Gamini Goonetilleke

Dr. Gamini Goonetilleke

Sixteen Years After War, Valikamam North Families Still Await Resettlement — Shritharan Raises Issue in Parliament
Sixteen Years After War, Valikamam North Families Still Await Resettlement — Shritharan Raises Issue in Parliament

Sixteen Years After War, Valikamam North Families Still Await Resettlement — Shritharan Raises Issue in Parliament

Sixteen years after Sri Lanka’s civil war officially ended, the people of Valikamam North remain barred from returning to their ancestral lands. The issue reverberated in Parliament this week when Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) president-elect and Jaffna–Kilinochchi MP Sivagnanam Shritharan demanded answers from the government on why resettlement continues to be delayed.. A Question to the House Raising a special statement under Standing Order 27(2) during Wednesday’s sitting, Shritharan


Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

Ali Uthuman’s Memory Revived: Truth and Poetry Beyond Assassination
Ali Uthuman

Ali Uthuman’s Memory Revived: Truth and Poetry Beyond Assassination

Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem sparked controversy this week when, during a condolence speech for former Deputy Minister Cegu Issadeen, he claimed that Ali Uthuman — a former member of the merged North–East Provincial Council — had been killed by the LTTE. The claim was swiftly challenged on social media by members of both the Muslim and Tamil communities. Users pointed out that the statement was factually incorrect: Ali Uthuman, a respected provincial politician and commu


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