Monitor Memo

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The future of ongoing excavations at the Chemmani mass grave site in northern Sri Lanka will depend on the results of a fresh round of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) scans after currently identified human skeletal remains are fully exhumed, according to a lawyer representing families of the disappeared. Attorney Ranitha Gnanarajah, who appears on behalf of relatives in the long-running Chemmani mass grave case, said investigators are presently focused on excavating areas wit

CHENNAI, India — A sitting Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu has written to President Droupadi Murmu demanding that A.G. Perarivalan — convicted in the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and released by India’s Supreme Court in 2022 after more than three decades in custody — be barred from practicing law, days after he was enrolled as an advocate by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The seven-page letter, dated April 29, 2026, was written by Adv. R. Sudha, w

JAFFNA — The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka on April 26 marked the fifteenth anniversary of the American Corner Jaffna at its premises on Athiyady Road in Nallur, and inaugurated a new outdoor structure it has named the “Freedom 250 Pavilion.” The pavilion forms part of a global State Department initiative built around the 250th anniversary of American independence, which falls on July 4, 2026. The American Corner Jaffna was established in 2011 in partnership with the Jaffna Social Action Center, in

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Ramanathan Archchuna, a controversial Member of Parliament from Jaffna, is again facing scrutiny after he was seen brandishing a handgun during a land dispute, according to video reviewed by Jaffna Monitor and interviews with witnesses — an episode that has also raised fresh questions about the authorities who authorized him to carry a firearm. The episode occurred on Saturday in the Periyavilaan area of Jaffna, where the property at the center of the confrontation is curren

COLOMBO — Douglas Devananda, a former minister and leader of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, has sharply criticized fellow Tamil leaders for what he described as a missed opportunity during a recent meeting with C. P. Radhakrishnan, saying they failed to effectively press the needs of the Tamil people. Mr. Douglas Devananda said the discussions appeared to focus more on internal disagreements among Tamil politicians than on substantive demands affecting their constituents. Speaking to rep

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — On the eve of a Tamil Nadu election that could reshape the southern Indian state’s political landscape, one of the most closely followed Tamil-language commentators has described the contest as a volatile three-way race with no clear frontrunner, as the entry of actor Vijay’s new party challenges the long-standing dominance of the state’s two Dravidian heavyweights. The assessment, first aired in a televised interview and later distilled into a social media post by Samas, ed

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