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COLOMBO — Several physicians have raised concerns about the nutritional management of Suresh Sallay, Sri Lanka’s former intelligence chief, who has been on a hunger strike since June 7 and was later admitted to the National Hospital of Sri Lanka. The physicians question the reported use of intravenous nutrition rather than feeding through his digestive tract, saying the approach may have exposed him to complications that might otherwise have been avoided. The physicians, who spoke on condition

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

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A social activist has challenged the way credit was assigned for a Bharatanatyam performance that set a Guinness World Record in Colombo over the weekend, arguing that the thousands of students and teachers central to the achievement were overlooked while recognition went to the event's private organizers and a single instructor. The activist, Rajkumar Rajeevkanth, laid out his objections in a series of social media posts on Monday, a day after more than 5,000 dancers perfo

By M.R. Narayan Swamy A Tamil pastor arrested in 2006 at age 30 in Sri Lanka spent over 16 agonizing years in prisons undergoing such severe torture that even today he walks with a distinct limp and suffers from multiple body pains, presiding over a family which is physically and mentally broken both by the war and his imprisonment. Edward (Sam) Sivalingam was no Tamil Tiger sympathizer and led a mundane life far removed from a brutal war that raged between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam