Aruliniyan Mahalingam - Jaffna Monitor (Page 7)

“Grasp Every Opportunity, Don’t Be Afraid” — Sir Nishan Canagarajah

Life can be quietly ironic. Less than a month after I interviewed Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran and titled the piece “The First Sri Lankan Tamil Knight in 50 Years,” another Sri Lankan Tamil was honoured with a knighthood. This time, it was Nishan Canagarajah, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester. At the age of fifteen, while his elder brothers were studying at universities outside Jaffna, a Grade 9 Nishan spent three days and nights at Jaffna Hospital caring for his dying fath

Exclusive Interview January 2026

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Jan 11, 2026 — 24 min read

"Prabhakaran Was Very Clear-Eyed That He and His Family May Die Fighting for Tamil Eelam” — Anita Prathap Speaks Exclusively to Jaffna Monitor

If not for the bravery and persistence of Indian journalist Anita Prathap, the Sri Lankan state might well have succeeded in burying the truth about Black July 1983. At a time when the government was determined to deny that any pogrom had taken place—and when the state machinery worked overtime to suppress every whisper of anti-Tamil violence—it was Anita Prathap who broke the silence on the international stage. Defying the odds, she travelled to Sri Lanka and became one of the first foreign jou

December 2025 Exclusive Interview

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Jan 7, 2026 — 18 min read

EXCLUSIVE: First Sri Lankan Tamil knight in 50 years — Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran on his journey from Jaffna to transforming global maternal care

There is a photograph somewhere in the archives of British medical history: a Tamil man from war-torn Sri Lanka, standing in the wood-panelled chambers of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, holding a gavel once wielded by some of the most powerful physicians in the Western world. It shouldn't have happened. Not to a boy from Jaffna. Not to someone who began his career in a country that would soon tear itself apart. Not to a Tamil doctor in an era when the world chose to see

December 2025 Interview

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Dec 23, 2025 — 24 min read

One Thousand Years of Belonging – One Mad Command of Exile: The Story of Jaffna’s Muslims

Part-1 I was only a few years old when the LTTE committed one of its most heinous crimes — the mass expulsion of Jaffna’s Muslims. Three decades later, I found myself sitting in Sonagar Theru (Moor Street), Jaffna, with a group of Muslim women who still carry the scars of that history. Their bodies and souls bear the weight of one of the greatest tragedies and injustices ever committed in the name of the Sri Lankan Tamil struggle. Among them was 68-year-old Mahroopa — fragile, elderly, yet

Cover Story December 2025

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Dec 23, 2025 — 17 min read

“Be it LTTE, Hamas, or ISIS — You Can’t Create a Country Through Terror”: UN Whistleblower Mukesh Kapila, Who Exposed the Darfur Genocide, Speaks to Jaffna Monitor

When Dr. Mukesh Kapila arrived in Khartoum in March 2003 as the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan — the UN’s most senior official in the country — he carried with him the weight of witness: Rwanda’s killing fields, Srebrenica’s mass graves, and the scarred landscapes of Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Angola, and Myanmar. An Oxford-trained physician who once stitched wounds in Cambridge’s quiet wards, he had long since traded scalpels for cables, convinced that saving a s

November 2025 Special Interview

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Nov 16, 2025 — 31 min read

The Roots of Sri Lanka’s Genocidal Mindset and Anti-Indian Sentiment Lie in the Mahavamsa: Writer N. Saravanan on His Bold New Translation

For nearly thirty-five years, N. Saravanan has been a steadfast voice in Tamil literary and journalistic circles. His journey began with Vidivu magazine, where his early writings reflected a deep commitment to social consciousness and cultural identity. He later served as one of the editors of Sarinihar, a publication renowned for its fearless engagement with issues of justice and human rights. In 2000, Saravanan migrated to Norway, where he continues to work as both a writer and activist, cont

Interview November 2025

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Nov 16, 2025 — 17 min read

JVP Still Denies the Tamil Ethnic Question: Sharika Thiranagama Speaks to Jaffna Monitor

Photos by A. Priyakumar It feels like yesterday. As a student, I remember flipping through Amuthu, a Tamil-language magazine published by Lake House. One day, I came across an article about Dr. Rajani Thiranagama—her brilliant career, and how she was cowardly and mercilessly assassinated. More than the tragedy of that brave woman, what seared itself into me was the image of her two young daughters standing beside their mother. Even as a boy, I felt a deep and overwhelming compassion for them. T

Interview September 2025

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Sep 16, 2025 — 28 min read

No Divides in Our DNA: Dr. Maanasa Raghavan on Sri Lanka’s Shared Ancestry

A recent study on Sri Lankan populations, published in Current Biology (June 2025), goes beyond science: it challenges long-held assumptions about population origins and rewrites our understanding of Sri Lankan genetic history. Dr. Maanasa Raghavan led this research alongside Dr. Niraj Rai of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences and Dr. Ruwandi Ranasinghe of the University of Colombo. Dr. Maanasa Raghavan is the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Human Genetics at the University of C

Interview September 2025

Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Sep 16, 2025 — 11 min read