https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/01/12/joint-letter-press-freedom-protections-sri-lanka January 13, 2025 President Anura Kumara Dissanayake Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka Re: Press Freedom Protections in Sri Lanka Dear President Dissanayake, Congratulations on your recent election as president of Sri Lanka. We, the undersigned 25 civil society organizations, are writing to respectfully urge your leadership to ensure that Sri Lanka upholds press freedom and… Read more »
Monthly Archives: January 2025
The Quandary of the National Policy on Land
Reinventing The Wheel? by Austin Fernando, Colombo Telegraph, January 12, 2025 Last week, news appeared titled ‘Inter-linked mechanism mooted for lands.’ The Deputy Minister of Lands and Irrigation Dr. Susil Ranasinghe was quoted in it. Ranasinghe rightly lamented the absence of a proper land policy that creates disorganization of institutions involved in land use, i.e.,… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 79
Acts of Compromise in Principles by Sachi Sri Kantha, January 14, 2025 Fellow MGR biographer R. Kannan’s thoughts about the contents in Part 78 of this series (received on Nov 10), were as follows: “ Part 78 of the MGR series Sachi, which I read with interest. I want to respond to the questions you pose in… Read more »
‘July and Everything After’
by Allie Nava, published September 2024 Maya’s Journey From America to Her Birth Country Was Meant to Be a Nostalgic Visit. Instead, It Became a Fight for Survival. Fans of Paolo Coelho, Amy Tan, Vaddey Ratner, and Khaled Hosseini will be captivated by July and Everything After, a modern tale of resilience and transformation against extraordinary… Read more »
No, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Question Has Not Been Resolved
by Mario Arulthas, AlJazeera, Qatar, January 9, 2025 “They’re trampling on our graves with their boots,” said Kavitha, a Tamil woman, as the torrential rain lashing our faces washed away her tears. Standing barefoot and ankle-deep in mud at the site of a former cemetery in Visuvamadu, Sri Lanka, she was lamenting the adjacent military… Read more »
All Roads Run through Tamil Eelam
New Delhi must remember that any form of connectivity with Sri Lanka inherently involves the Tamil North-East. Tamil Guardian editorial, December 21, 2024 Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s visit to India saw him receive the grandest of receptions, in a sign that New Delhi is firmly pressing ahead with its plans to increase its footprint… Read more »
Tamil Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Brutal Civil War Live in Fear
— and disempowerment, 15 years on by Krishnan Francis, Associated Press, New York, May 31, 2024 MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka (AP) — At the site of a bloody battlefield that marked the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, Singaram Soosaimuthu fishes every day with his son, casting nets and reeling them in. It is a skill… Read more »
Dead or Alive?
Parents of children gone in Sri Lanka’s civil war have spent 15 years seeking answers By Krishnan Francis, Associated Press, May 18, 2024 MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka (AP) — For 15 years, Rasalingam Thilakawathi has been trying to find out what happened to her daughter at the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war. Or… Read more »
Prabhakaran at 70 – A Tribute by Sachi Sri Kantha
November 23, 2024 Had he been living, Velupillai Prabhakaran would have reached 70, on November 26th. In my still continuing ‘From Sachi’s Files’ series, posted four years ago I had collected 90 of my published letters on Sri Lanka and Eelam in Chapter 14. Quite many among these published letters (I’d say, mangled items from… Read more »