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TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party has accused government authorities of beginning religious construction at the disputed Kanniya site in the eastern district of Trincomalee despite a court order that it says prohibits such work. Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, the parliamentary group leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi, or ITAK, said the Department of Archaeology, together with the Trincomalee district secretary and other government officials, had commenced construct

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Thuraireasa Ravikaran, a member of Parliament for the Vanni district from the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, or ITAK, has urged the government to remove Indian trawlers and other vessels that have long crowded Myliddy Fisheries Harbour, saying they are preventing local fishing families from fully using a harbour that was once one of northern Sri Lanka’s most important fishing centers. Mr. Ravikaran raised the issue at a meeting of Parliament’s Ministerial Consultative Committe

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A senior Tamil political leader has urged European diplomats to press for a separate scientific investigation into the Chemmani mass grave, arguing that establishing when the victims were buried could help determine who was in authority at the time and ultimately identify those responsible. C.V.K. Sivagnanam, acting president of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, or ITAK, said he made the request during a meeting in Jaffna with a high-level European delegation that included th

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A decision to invite M.A. Sumanthiran, the acting general secretary of the ITAK and a politician widely blamed by his critics for the decline of both Tamil politics and the ITAK’s standing in Jaffna, to the 150th anniversary celebrations of Victoria College in Sulipuram drew protests from a group of former students on Saturday — before the school announced that he would not attend after all. The former students gathered outside the college to object to the invitation extende

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Leaders of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA) met in Jaffna on Saturday to discuss a newly formed six-party grouping of Sri Lanka's Tamil-speaking parties — even as the two northern formations remain unable to forge an alliance of their own. The talks were held at the residence of C.V.K. Sivagnanam, the ITAK leader. He and M.A. Sumanthiran, the party's general secretary, represented ITAK. The DTNA delegation included Dhar

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — President Anura Kumara Dissanayake telephoned Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar on Friday morning to ask what had caused the turmoil that brought a district coordinating committee meeting in Kilinochchi to an abrupt end a day earlier, the minister said, as the fallout from the confrontation continued to reverberate across Sri Lanka’s north. “The president called me this morning and spoke to me,” Mr. Chandrasekar said at an event in Jaffna. “Yesterday’s incident had

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A governing-party lawmaker has publicly criticized a cabinet minister from his own coalition over the collapse of a district coordinating committee meeting in Kilinochchi, a rare public break in the National People’s Power that has drawn attention to tensions inside the governing alliance in the north. Rajeevan Jeyachandramoorthy, an N.P.P. member of Parliament from the Jaffna District, said it was wrong to remove the independent lawmaker Ramanathan Archchuna from Thursday’s

MARUTHAMUNAI, Sri Lanka — The motorcycle was still largely intact after the accident. Hanging from its handlebar was a packet of lunch that Thyagaraja Jayakrishna’s wife had prepared for him that morning. He had left their home in Pandiruppu as he did on other working days, heading to his job at the Kaluwanchikudy Divisional Secretariat. The rice packed for his lunch was still there when people gathered at the scene of the accident. Mr. Jayakrishna never reached his office. The government off