Why Emphasize ‘Genocide’ Over ‘War Crimes’? Sajanthan Questions Gajendrakumar

Why Emphasize ‘Genocide’ Over ‘War Crimes’? Sajanthan Questions Gajendrakumar

Why does Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam— leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) and General Secretary of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress—choose to focus on ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing,’ but not address ‘war crimes’?” asked senior ITAK figure and Sumanthiran’s close confidant, Advocate Kesavan Sajanthan. In a televised debate featuring TNPF’s S. Kajendren and Sajanthan himself, the latter offered one possible explanation. He pointed out that during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s civil


Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

NPP’s Garden Lizard Lesson in Northern Politics

NPP’s Garden Lizard Lesson in Northern Politics

If you're looking for a metaphor to sum up the NPP’s misguided political saga in the North, look no further than the old Tamil saying: "வேலியில் போகும் ஓணானை எடுத்து வேட்டியில் விட்டுட்டு குத்துதே, குடையுதே என்றானாம்" (“They took the garden lizard headed for the fence, tucked it into their veshti, and now complain that it’s biting and scratching.”) That, in essence, is the story of Naveena Ravanan—real name Pon Suthan—a self-styled firebrand Tamil nationalist who briefly honeymooned with the NP


Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

Healing in Jaffna: What the North Taught a Southern Doctor About Empathy

Healing in Jaffna: What the North Taught a Southern Doctor About Empathy

Kondavil: A Masterclass in Compassionate Care When I first stepped into the Family Health Center (FHC) in Kondavil, Jaffna, I had no idea that this quiet, unassuming facility in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province would become one of the most formative classrooms of my career. It quickly revealed itself as a living model of what a family health center should be across the island. As a family physician from Wattala, I arrived with curiosity, humility, and not a word of Tamil. But what I lacked in lan


Dr. Shane Halpe

Dr. Shane Halpe

A Beacon Amidst the Bleeding: What Jaffna’s Doctors Taught Me About Life

A Beacon Amidst the Bleeding: What Jaffna’s Doctors Taught Me About Life

I’ve spent most of my adult life building things. Businesses, brands, homes, arguments. Always chasing—the next goal, the next deal, the next piece of validation in a world that measures worth by margins and milestones. But this past week, watching my mother fight for her life in a small hospital in northern Sri Lanka, I was reminded of something I had forgotten: not all heroes chase. It began in Kumulamunai. A heart attack. A real one. Silent but severe. My mother—diabetic, hypertensive, and un


Abbi Kanthasamy

Abbi Kanthasamy

“We’ve Funded Temples. We’ve  Funded Bullets. Maybe It’s Time  We Fund  Trauma Centres and  Teacher Salaries”:

“We’ve Funded Temples. We’ve Funded Bullets. Maybe It’s Time We Fund Trauma Centres and Teacher Salaries”:

When entrepreneur and strategist Abbi Kanthasamy published his deeply personal essay, ''A Beacon Amidst the Bleeding: What Jaffna’s Doctors Taught Me About Life'', he may not have anticipated the resonance it would spark. Yet within hours, the piece went viral across social media — striking a nerve in a nation numbed by crisis. Born in Jaffna to a Director of Education father and a university lecturer mother, Abbi spent much of his early life in the North. Today, he is a dynamic figure in globa


Our Special Correspondent

Our Special Correspondent

Last Rite

Last Rite

Translated from the original Tamil short story கடைசிக் கைங்கரியம் from the 1964 collection of short stories titled அக்கா By : A. Muttulingam Translated by: Eḻuttukkiṉiyavaṉ Cry, Thaṇigāsalam, cry. Don’t stand silently like a tree. Your own wife, that saint who bent her head to receive your thāli in a promise to share in your joys and sorrows till death do you part, now lies here as a corpse. But you stand there staring at a distance. Is your heart made of stone! Or have you petrified into a sta


Eḻuttukkiṉiyavaṉ

Eḻuttukkiṉiyavaṉ

The toll of the missing: narratives of impunity, homicides and grief

The toll of the missing: narratives of impunity, homicides and grief

People becoming unaccounted for as a direct result of, or in connection with armed conflicts and other situations of violence is unfortunately, a common phenomenon throughout the world. The continuous emotional struggle endured by families of missing persons is an incomparable suffering. Absence of credible answers on the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives drives the families to search relentlessly for meaning and for: knowledge of the exact circumstances of the disappearance; Fami


Jeevan Thiyagaraja

Jeevan Thiyagaraja