Obituary

Deepthi Attygalle, the Sri Lankan anaesthesiologist whose work on magnesium sulphate became an important reference point in the treatment of severe tetanus, died on June 1, 2026. She was 86. For much of the twentieth century, severe tetanus was managed by heavily sedating patients and supporting them on mechanical ventilators for weeks at a time, a regimen that consumed intensive-care resources often unavailable in many developing countries. At the General Hospital in Colombo, Dr. Attygalle and

By M.R. Narayan Swamy The world of Sri Lankan journalism will never see another D.B.S. Jeyaraj. Forced into exile by extremists among Tamil nationalists, Jeyaraj braved death threats and persistent danger to keep the world informed about the twists and turns during the long years a horrific separatist war raged in Sri Lanka. There were many journalists at work during those turbulent years, but few enjoyed the kind of access he had to virtually all the Tamil actors, and fewer still earned the