BOSTON — The Buddha taught that tanhā, the Pali word for craving, is the origin of suffering. Police in Massachusetts allege that one Sri Lankan monk may have taken an unusually hands-on approach to studying the doctrine. Mahayaye Vineetha Thero, 32, a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who served as the Buddhist chaplain at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was among seven men arrested on Saturday during an undercover Boston police operation targeting alleged purchasers of commercial sex, according to

By M.R. Narayan Swamy Sri Lanka’s former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay, detailed for alleged links with Islamists who unleashed the Easter bombings in 2019, refuses to give up his indefinite hunger strike or return to CID custody, which he dubs a “hellhole”. Sallay made this clear to his lawyer, who called on him at the National Hospital in Colombo, where he was admitted on June 7, two days after he launched a fast in protest against his degrading treatment, his wife Manori said on Tuesday.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The organizers of a Bharatanatyam performance that set a Guinness World Record in the Sri Lankan capital recently have found defenders among people familiar with how the event was arranged, who say that the costs borne by participants and the process for obtaining official certificates were spelled out well in advance and accepted in writing. The pushback follows criticism from social activist Rajkumar Rajeevkanth, as well as several parents and activists, who argued in a s

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka — The Criminal Investigation Department told a magistrate’s court in eastern Sri Lanka on Monday that Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, the former Eastern Province chief minister widely known as Pillayan, is one of three suspects in a string of shootings that left five people dead in Batticaloa District in 2008. According to details presented before Batticaloa Magistrate Annathurai Darshini, investigators are examining a series of fatal shootings carried out in 2008, several