Sri Lanka's Easter Inquiry and the Limits of Parliamentary Allegations

Sri Lanka's Easter Inquiry and the Limits of Parliamentary Allegations

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s public security minister accused the country’s detained former intelligence chief on Wednesday of trying to bury evidence in the Easter Sunday bombing investigation, telling Parliament that retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay had refused to surrender the passwords to an iPhone and a laptop seized by investigators. In a special statement to Parliament, the minister, Ananda Wijepala, said investigators had confiscated a “modern Apple mobile phone” from Mr. Sallay at the time of


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Japan Funds Debris Removal and Service Restoration After Sri Lanka Cyclone

Japan Funds Debris Removal and Service Restoration After Sri Lanka Cyclone

COLOMBO — Japan and the United Nations Development Programme signed an agreement with the Sri Lankan government on Wednesday to fund disaster waste clearance and the rehabilitation of community facilities in areas devastated by Cyclone Ditwah, which struck the island in late November and affected an estimated 1.7 million people. The project will focus on the Central Province — the districts of Kandy, Matale, and Nuwara Eliya — where the cyclone caused some of the worst damage to infrastructure,


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Justice Minister Says Protest Aims to Shield Easter Bombing ‘Mastermind’

Justice Minister Says Protest Aims to Shield Easter Bombing ‘Mastermind’

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The opposition figures staging a sit-in for a detained former intelligence chief are not defending him out of concern for his welfare but are trying to halt the investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings before it reaches the people who planned them, Sri Lanka’s justice minister told Parliament on Tuesday. Harshana Nanayakkara, the minister of justice and national integration, said the campaign on behalf of Suresh Sallay, a retired major general and former head of t


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

One Month of Vijay: Tamil Nadu's Post-Dravidian Experiment Gets Its First Report Card

One Month of Vijay: Tamil Nadu's Post-Dravidian Experiment Gets Its First Report Card

By M.R. Narayan Swamy “One month is too short a time to be disappointed!” The comment from a middle-aged Chennai resident, who voted for cinema star-turned-politician Vijay and remains one of his loyal supporters, neatly sums up the mood on the ground as Tamil Nadu’s first coalition government in decades completes its first month in office. As Chief Minister, C Joseph Vijay retains much of his personal popularity that propelled millions in Tamil Nadu to vote for his two-year-old Tamilaga Vett


M.R. Narayan Swamy

M.R. Narayan Swamy

THE EASTER SUNDAY FILES Part One: What the FBI Found

THE EASTER SUNDAY FILES Part One: What the FBI Found

Colombo — More than seven years after eight suicide bombers tore through three churches and three hotels, killing more than 260 people, Sri Lanka is still arguing about what really happened on Easter Sunday. The country’s search for answers has produced thousands of pages of testimony, evidence, and analysis spread across seven major investigations. Yet those inquiries did not always pursue the same questions, nor did they always reach the same conclusions. The debate has now burst back into p


Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

With E.U. Backing, Sri Lanka Moves to Operationalise Green Finance Taxonomy

With E.U. Backing, Sri Lanka Moves to Operationalise Green Finance Taxonomy

COLOMBO — More than 200 officials from Sri Lanka's central bank, licensed financial institutions, corporate entities, and public sector bodies have completed training in applying the country's Green Finance Taxonomy, part of a European Union-funded effort to direct more financing toward environmentally sustainable projects. The taxonomy, developed by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and published in May 2022, sets out a framework for classifying which economic activities count as environmentally s


Our Reporter

Our Reporter

Government Wants Ex-Intelligence Chief Dead, says Lawyer

Government Wants Ex-Intelligence Chief Dead, says Lawyer

By M.R. Narayan Swamy The Sri Lankan government wants former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay, whose health has become precarious after launching a hunger strike in custody, to die because it cannot prove that he was in any way involved in the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 269 people, one of his lawyers alleges. This is the reason the retired Major General has been forced to undergo “inhuman treatment” in CID custody so that he breaks psychologically and commits suicide, one of Sally’s lawy


M.R. Narayan Swamy

M.R. Narayan Swamy

The Diaspora’s Dangerous Nostalgia

The Diaspora’s Dangerous Nostalgia

by Kumulan Every time I see Khalistan rallies in Canada, the UK, Australia, or some comfortable Western suburb with clean pavements, I feel like I am watching political cosplay with a blood-soaked backstory. Flags. Slogans. Martyr posters. Angry men with microphones. Boys born in Mississauga, Southall, Surrey, or Melbourne shouting about liberation with the confidence of people who have never had to live through the consequences of the liberation they are selling. It is all very heroic when t


Kumulan

Kumulan