Our Reporter

Our Reporter

‘Our Reporter’ is a collective byline representing a team of Jaffna- and Sri Lanka-based journalists and editorial staff who contribute to Jaffna Monitor.

Former Sri Lankan Navy Chief Arrested Over Rajapaksa Son's Recruitment

Former Sri Lankan Navy Chief Arrested Over Rajapaksa Son's Recruitment

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s anti-corruption commission arrested a former navy commander, Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda, on Friday over the 2006 recruitment of a son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa into the navy and his subsequent officer training in Britain at state expense, deepening an inquiry into how the country’s most powerful political family bent state institutions to its purposes. The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, known as CIABOC,
July 2026 Monitor Memo
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
The Pilgrim Dog That Walked Into a Religious Firestorm

The Pilgrim Dog That Walked Into a Religious Firestorm

JAFFNA — It began as a small miracle on a long road. Somewhere along the Pada Yatra, the two-month foot pilgrimage that winds from the Tamil north down to the shrine of Kataragama, in Sri Lanka’s deep south, a stray dog fell in step with the devotees and simply kept walking. Moved by the animal’s persistence, the pilgrims named him Subramani, another name for Lord Murugan, the deity to whom Kataragama is sacred. It is also the name of the puppy that Kamal Haasan and Sridevi dote on in Balu Mah
JM Exclusive July 2026
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Our Reporter
The Party at 105: China Makes Its Case to Sri Lanka

The Party at 105: China Makes Its Case to Sri Lanka

COLOMBO — China's ambassador to Sri Lanka, Qi Zhenhong, used a reception marking the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China to defend Beijing's political system, promote its global development agenda, and signal deeper engagement with Sri Lanka's political parties under the leadership of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Addressing politicians from across Sri Lanka's political spectrum, diplomats and government officials, Mr. Qi said the Communist Party of China had
July 2026
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
Exiled Sri Lankan Muslim Woman Writer Renews Calls for Inquiry Into Easter Bombing Case

Exiled Sri Lankan Muslim Woman Writer Renews Calls for Inquiry Into Easter Bombing Case

A prominent exiled Muslim woman writer has renewed calls for Sri Lankan authorities to explain why a man who arranged covert medical treatment for the brother of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombing mastermind was released without ever being brought to trial. In a Facebook post this week, Sharmila Seyyid, a novelist and activist who has lived in the United States since 2021 after years of threats from Islamist extremists in Sri Lanka, said she had filed two formal complaints — with the Criminal Inves
July 2026 Monitor Memo
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Our Reporter
"Like Anura's Mouth": Pillayan Calls Charges 'False Accusations'

"Like Anura's Mouth": Pillayan Calls Charges 'False Accusations'

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka — Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, the former state minister better known as Pillayan, was ordered held in custody on Tuesday over a separate series of killings dating to 2008, even as the terrorism investigation that has kept him imprisoned for more than a year over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings has yet to produce a single criminal charge. Mr. Chandrakanthan, a former chief minister of the Eastern Province and one-time commander of the breakaway Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pu
June 2026 Monitor Memo
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Our Reporter
Sri Lanka Sends Its Largest Force to Haiti. Its Past Goes With It.

Sri Lanka Sends Its Largest Force to Haiti. Its Past Goes With It.

COLOMBO — More than a thousand Sri Lankan soldiers and police officers are preparing to deploy to Haiti in August, the largest single contingent the country has ever sent abroad — and a return, after more than a decade, to the same Caribbean nation where its peacekeepers were once documented running a child sex ring that went unpunished. The deployment, announced by the government, comprises 900 army personnel drawn from several regiments, 189 officers of the Police Special Task Force, and, fo
JM Exclusive June 2026
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Our Reporter
Sri Lanka–India Media Fest Returns to Colombo With Focus on Journalism's Future

Sri Lanka–India Media Fest Returns to Colombo With Focus on Journalism's Future

COLOMBO — A media-industry body that works to deepen ties between Sri Lanka and India will hold the second edition of its annual Media Fest in the capital on July 11, the organizers said. The Sri Lanka–India Media Friendship Association, known as SLIMFA, said the gathering would take place at the Taj Samudra hotel under the theme “Staying Relevant in a Changing World.” It follows the association’s inaugural festival, held over two days in April last year at the same venue. The association said
June 2026 Monitor Memo
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Our Reporter
Jaffna Mourns Prasanth Sachin, a Teenage Thavil Virtuoso of Extraordinary Promise

Jaffna Mourns Prasanth Sachin, a Teenage Thavil Virtuoso of Extraordinary Promise

JAFFNA — Prasanth Sachin, a teenage thavil virtuoso from a family of thavil musicians whose self-taught command of the instrument had marked him, in the eyes of senior artists, as one of the most gifted of his generation, and some believed, a successor in the making to the great Yazhppanam V. Thedchanamoorthy, died on Tuesday night. He was 17. His death, at his home on Rasapathai Road in Kopay North, was ruled a suicide following an inquest conducted by the Inquirer into Sudden Deaths, Namasiva
June 2026 Obituary
Our Reporter

Our Reporter