April 2026

By Sidhartha Thamby Somewhere in the ledgers of Sri Lanka's Cabinet Office, between the fiscal crisis minutes and the debt-restructuring files, sits a two-paragraph decision that will reshape rivers, forests, and livelihoods across Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, and the wider northern dry zone. Approved quietly in January 2026, it revived the Kivul Oya Reservoir Project — suspended only two years earlier because the country had run out of money — at a cost of Rs. 23,456 million. That figure is not a typ

Seventeen years after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, reconciliation remains more slogan than substance. It is invoked in speeches, embedded in policy frameworks, and repeated in international forums, but for many citizens, particularly in the North and East, it has yet to translate into meaningful, lived change. The uncomfortable truth is this: Sri Lanka does not suffer from a lack of reconciliation mechanisms. It suffers from a lack of political will, consistency, and sustained execution. R

By M.R. Narayan Swamy “The fishermen issue is an unnecessary irritant that has been allowed to fester for too long,” says Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha, a former Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, hitting the nail on the head. A diplomat who has studied the dispute from close quarters, Sinha made the comment in a just-released book on India-Sri Lanka relations. Like many other Indians, Sinha is aghast that bottom trawlers from Tamil Nadu are causing enormous and lasting environmental destruction