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.


"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


Our Reporter

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


Our Reporter

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


Our Reporter

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


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Sri Lanka Cricket Abandons Plan for Jaffna International Stadium, Citing Financial Constraints

Sri Lanka Cricket Abandons Plan for Jaffna International Stadium, Citing Financial Constraints

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka Cricket will build a cricket ground in this northern city, but has abandoned the international stadium it once promised, saying it cannot afford a venue of international standard. The retreat scales back what had been billed as a landmark for the country’s war-scarred north, where cricket commands the same devotion as in the rest of the island but where world-class facilities have never existed. The governing body has concluded that the project it originally appro


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Appointed Governor Removes Two Elected Officials, Testing the Limits of Executive Power
Governor Nagalingam Vethanayahan

Appointed Governor Removes Two Elected Officials, Testing the Limits of Executive Power

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The governor of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province has removed two elected local officials from office by executive order, an extraordinary use of administrative power that has reignited a constitutional dispute over how far an unelected official may go in unseating elected representatives in the country’s Tamil-majority north. In a notification published in the government’s official Gazette, Governor Nagalingam Vethanayahan declared that Sundaralingam Kandeepan, elected mayor of


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

With a Signboard, Sri Lanka's Military Reinforces Its Grip on Tamil Land

With a Signboard, Sri Lanka's Military Reinforces Its Grip on Tamil Land

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan Army has installed a signboard formally designating a military agricultural farm on privately owned Tamil land within the Valikamam North High Security Zone, underscoring the military's continued presence despite repeated government assurances that private land would be returned to its displaced owners. The signboard appeared as the Ministry of Defence prepared to discuss land release in Valikamam North at a high-level meeting expected on Thursday. Many landow


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

PHỞ - VIET NAM'S CULINARY SOUL

PHỞ - VIET NAM'S CULINARY SOUL

“If one morning dish were chosen to represent three cities across Viet Nam's three regions, Hanoi would be Phở, Hue would be Bún bò giò heo, and Ho Chi Minh City would be Hủ tiếu” - Professor Trần Quốc Vượng Deeply rooted in Viet Nam's rice-farming civilisation and passed down through centuries, phở (noodle soup) has travelled with the Vietnamese people across five continents and earned its place among the world's most beloved dishes. Though the dish has evolved and taken on countless variation


Our Reporter

Our Reporter