Monitor Memo

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — India's vice president has privately voiced concern about the proliferation of Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka's Northern and Eastern Provinces, urging that the crowded field be brought to "some level of order," a senior Tamil leader said on Tuesday. C. V. K. Sivagnanam, the acting president of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) , said Vice President C. P. Radhakrishnan made the remarks during a meeting with seven Tamil party representatives in Colombo on Sunday, on

Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam, daughter of a Jaffna physician and wife of Singapore’s “father of pathology,” is remembered as a quiet iconoclast who chose her own path. JAFFNA — Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam — known to her family as Ambikai, and to the Singaporean public as the mother of President Tharman Shanmugaratnam — died on Sunday afternoon at her home in Singapore. She was 99. Though she was born in Kuala Lumpur and never lived in Sri Lanka, her roots were firmly in Jaffna, and, according to

COLOMBO — India’s Vice President, C. P. Radhakrishnan, will undertake a two-day official visit to Sri Lanka from April 19 to 20, in a trip expected to highlight expanding cooperation between the two countries across energy, infrastructure and regional development. The visit, made at the invitation of the Sri Lankan government, is being coordinated through the Presidential Secretariat and the High Commission of India in Colombo, officials said. Mr. Radhakrishnan is scheduled to hold formal talk

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan government has allocated 21 million rupees for the third phase of excavations at the Chemmani mass grave site, officials said. The release of funds follows repeated postponements caused by a lack of financial approval and adverse weather conditions that left the site waterlogged. The case is scheduled to be taken up again at the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court on April 21, when authorities are expected to indicate when excavation work will resume. Chemmani, a villa

KANDY, Sri Lanka — China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Qi Zhenhong, said on Saturday that Sri Lanka would not face a fuel shortage despite mounting global uncertainty linked to the conflict in the Middle East, offering strong assurances of continued Chinese support. Speaking to reporters after attending a program to distribute dry rations to 350 low-income families at Sri Chandananda Buddhist College in Kandy, the ambassador said that while several countries were experiencing disruptions to fuel s

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan government is moving to designate Vedukunari Hill, a contested site in the Nedunkerny area of Vavuniya, as a protected forest zone, a step officials say is necessary to preserve an ancient Buddhist heritage site but one that has deepened unease among Tamil political leaders over how the island’s past is being officially defined. The issue resurfaced after the Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs, Dr. Hiniduma Sunil Senevi, told Parliament

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — April 11, 2026 — Lawmakers from the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) unanimously agreed to support a no-confidence motion against Power and Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody on Friday, but several members hesitated to take a leading role in publicly confronting the government, according to multiple party sources familiar with internal discussions. The motion, taken up in Parliament on Friday, prompted an online meeting of ITAK’s political committee and parliamentary group a