September 2026

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Electricity failed across Jaffna at about 5 a.m. on Sunday after a brief spell of rain before dawn. Supply was not restored until about 12.30 p.m., roughly seven and a half hours later. A consumer in Kokuvil was notified of the interruption at 7:15 a.m., more than two hours after the power went out. The text message said supply had been interrupted from 6:10 a.m. for "breakdown restoration" and would not be restored before noon. Residents said the power had gone out more tha

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Buddhist monks aboard a Sri Lanka Air Force transport plane released blessed water over parts of the country on Sunday in a religious appeal for rain, an operation the service publicized on its social media accounts as a symbolic act of compassion. Photographs posted by the Air Force showed the monks aboard a Y-12 aircraft. The service said the flight was intended to carry prayers for rain, relief and renewal for people, animals and the environment. No publicly available a

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka- Sivagnanam Shritharan, a senior lawmaker from Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party, urged the government on Saturday to make an urgent effort to save Sivarasa Anojan, a Sri Lankan Tamil worker reportedly sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over a Facebook comment about the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Shritharan said the comment that landed Mr. Anojan in trouble had been written in response to another Sri Lankan social media user who, according to him, had first made a derogat

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — An opposition lawmaker has asked President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal intervention with Saudi Arabia's crown prince on behalf of a Sri Lankan Tamil man whose prison sentence in the kingdom has reportedly been converted into a death sentence. The lawmaker, Mano Ganesan, who leads the Tamil Progressive Alliance, wrote on X on Saturday that Mr. Dissanayake should bring the case of Sivarasa Anojan to Mr. Modi's urgent attention and

COLOMBO, Sept. 19 — Sri Lankan authorities have asked Interpol to help locate Basil Rajapaksa, the former finance minister and founder of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, who has remained overseas for more than a year while two magistrates’ courts have ordered his arrest. Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala said a Blue Notice had been issued in respect of Rajapaksa, enabling international law enforcement agencies to obtain information about his identity, location or activities in connectio

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — M.A. Sumanthiran said Saturday that two concerns led him to withhold his signature from a joint opposition declaration against Sri Lanka's proposed 22nd Amendment: the document had not been given to him in advance, and his party had reservations about aligning with politicians who had acted against the independence of the judiciary in the past. “The story is not different,” Mr. Sumanthiran, the general secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, or ITAK, wrote in the comme