by UK Ambassador Eleanor Sanders on behalf of Sri Lanka Core Group, Geneva, June 16, 2026 Thank you Mr President. This statement is by the Sri Lanka Core Group comprising Canada, Malawi, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and the United Kingdom. High Commissioner, we thank your Office for its continued work on Sri Lanka. We acknowledge government… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
Action Against Hunger Calls for a New Investigation
Twenty Years On, the Killing of 17 Humanitarian Workers Remains Unpunished by Action Contre le Faim, Paris, June 15, 2026 Twenty years ago, on August 4, 2006, 17 staff members of Action Against Hunger, engaged in delivering humanitarian aid, were executed in our office in Muttur, Sri Lanka. They were wearing T-shirts and vests clearly… Read more »
TG: Sri Lanka’s First Anti-Tamil Pogrom
Remembering 1956 by Tamil Guardian, London, June 15, 2026 This week marks 70 years since Sri Lanka’s first anti-Tamil pogroms, when government backed Sinhala mobs murdered more than 150 Tamils across the island – the first of many massacres that were to take place in the decades to come. Violence first flared as Tamil… Read more »
TG: Scared of a Song
Tamil Guardian editorial, London, June 12, 2026 Sangeethsan Ganeskumar walked free on bail today, ten days after Sri Lankan police decided his music was a crime. The 24-year-old rapper from Kilinochchi, known as HipHop Sangee, had performed at a temple festival, filmed the evening, set the footage to his own music and uploaded it. For this,… Read more »
War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka
A Volatile Picture by Vindhya Buthpitiya, June 2026 PUBLISHED: June 2026 SUBJECT LISTING: Asian Studies / South Asia, Anthropology, Visual Studies BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: 304 Pages, 6 x 9 in, 30 b&w illus. SERIES: Global South Asia ISBN: 9780295754444 Publisher: University of Washington Press A Volatile Picture Photography as witness and weapon amid civil war This… Read more »
Is Power Devolution Under JVP-NPP A Political Daydream?
by Rajan Philips, Colombo Telegraph, June 7, 2026 If Dr. Vigneswaran’s assertion were to prove correct, a potential dissolution of the provincial system under the JVP-NPP government would be the consummation of the JVP’s original opposition to the introduction of the provincial council system itself. The whole system may not be eradicated, but it could… Read more »
Prabhakaran, Tamil identity and TVK
Is Vijay building a neo-Dravidian project? by Ajmal Abbas in New Delhi, India Today, May 20, 2026 Repeatedly invoking the memory of Prabhakaran and the emotional legacy of the Tamil cause, Vijay appears to be crafting a new ideological synthesis of the welfare-driven legacy of Dravidianism with cultural assertiveness of Tamil nationalism. In 2008, at… Read more »
Changing of the Guard
by Mario Arulthas, North-Eastern Monthly, May 14, updated June 10, 2026 Fifty years after the Vaddukkoddai Resolution, the Sri Lankan state’s efforts to destroy Eelam Tamil nationalism have failed. Since the end of the war in 2009, everyday Tamils have taken over from the stagnant institutions that positioned themselves as successors to the armed resistance…. Read more »
Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” and S.J.V. Chelvanayagam’s “Vaddukoddai Resolution”
Drawing parallels by Balan Kugabalan, May 13, 2026 On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed Presidential Proclamation 95, later known as the “Emancipation Proclamation,” freeing 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the Confederate States. More than a century later, on May 14, 1976, in Sri Lanka, S. J. V. Chelvanayagam led the adoption of… Read more »
The Hindu: On the 2026 Assembly Elections
Lost and found The National Democractic Alliance’s success in Bengal and Assam is partly offset by its failure in Tamil Nadu and Kerala The Hindu editorial, Chennai, May 05, 2026 The results of the 2026 Assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry highlight several factors that have a bearing on India’s direction as a secular, democratic, federal republic. In… Read more »
From Tamil Cinema Superstar to Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister
Joseph Vijay by Unni K Chennamkulath, The New Indian Express, May 9, 2026 Whether his government succeeds or falters will shape Tamil Nadu’s next political chapter. But Vijay has already transformed the state’s political landscape, emerging as the architect of one of its most significant modern political breakthroughs. ‘Thalapathy’ Vijay has scripted one of the… Read more »
Vijay’s Historic Victory
Chance for Lanka to reset relations by The Examiner, Colombo, May 8, 2026 Vijay’s two-year-old political party has redrawn the Tamil Nadu electoral map. Though he echoed the long-standing consensus on Sri Lankan issues, this fresh chapter in Tamil Nadu politics may be an opportunity to ‘reset’ Lanka-Tamil Nadu relations. Actor-turned-politician C. Joseph Vijay upended… Read more »
Amnesty: Prageeth, the Trinco 5 & 2026 Reports
by Amnesty International, London, various dates *** Amnesty Annual Report on Human Rights, April 21, 2026 Sri Lanka 2025 A new government took office in late 2024, promising transformational change. However, the new administration continued to use the draconian anti-terror law and failed to reform other laws, negatively affecting freedom of expression and rights for… Read more »
The Role of Sinhala Nationalism
In Political Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka by Louisa Steijger, Retrospect Journal, Edinburgh, Scotland, January 4, 2024 The complexities of Sri Lanka’s socio-political landscape have been deeply influenced by the ideology of Sinhala nationalism, which espouses belief in the ethnic and religious superiority of the Sinhalese majority, claiming that Sri Lanka is the primordial… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Complex Dance of Sinhala and Tamil Nationalist Politics
by Uditha Devapriya, Himal SouthAsian, Colombo July 30, 2024 With mainstream Sri Lankan parties feeling compelled to pander to Sinhala Buddhist voters, Tamil-led parties have been pushed to take more hardline positions to address Tamil voters’ frustrations – historically and today At present, the Sri Lankan government is caught in a tricky situation. Elections are… Read more »
Examiner: Will Sinhalese Nationalism Die?
by The Examiner, Colombo, April 24, 2026 Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory marked a high-water point for Sinhalese nationalism. But the NPP’s recent success in the North shows that its power is receding. Reading Rajesh Venugopal’s 2018 economic history suggests that the structural conditions which sustain this ideology are becoming weaker. The Examiner has more opinions than… Read more »
Karaitivu 1985
A Forgotten Anti-Tamil pogrom in the Shadow of Sri Lanka’s Genocide by Seelan Rasathurai, Tamil Guardian, London, April 21, 2025 It was a quiet morning on 12 April 1985 when Karaitivu, a small coastal Tamil village in the Amparai district of Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, was plunged into terror. As villagers prepared to celebrate the… Read more »
‘India’s Fiscal Federalism Must Be Reimagined’
To ensure every vote carries equal weight’ Shruti Rajagopalan, economist and professor at George Mason University, argues that any future effort to enlarge the Lok Sabha and apportion seats by population requires fundamental changes to the Indian polity by: Shruti Rajagopalan, Indian Express, Mumbai, April 20, 2026 Delimitation is the act of drawing political lines…. Read more »
Decentralise or Decline: The South’s Warning
by Nilakantan RS, Off Beat Concerns, India, April 19, 2026 Though the move for delimitation has for now, failed in Parliament, the concerns it raised about federal balance, representation, and transparency remain unresolved—especially for the southern states. In this conversation with Shahina KK, author and commentator Nilakantan RS, known for his work South vs North, examines… Read more »
Intl Crisis Group: Sri Lanka’s Bumpy Road to a Political Reset
Twin elections in 2024 transformed Sri Lanka’s political landscape, bringing to power a president and parliamentarians who pledged sweeping reforms. So far, however, the new government has made little progress toward this end. It has work to do to show it can do politics differently. by International Crisis Group, Brussels, April 16, 2026 What’s new? Almost… Read more »