News

The decision taken to reduce the number of parliamentary seats allocated to the Jaffna electorate from ten to six is an unfair one, Spokesman for the Tamil National Alliance Suresh Premachandra stated. The Elections Department earlier today stated that it may reduce the number of allocated seats for the Jaffna electorate to six in view […]

 ”For this one needs to operate within a political framework of democracy and individual freedoms and the free and full participation of all citizens in the development process.  In the absence of this, government would soon deteriorate into dictatorship or anarchy and development into a farce, enacted to further the ends of a powerful few.”by […]

 Yoshitha Rajapaksa’s Carlton Sports Network (CSN) is fixing transmitters on the Sri Lanka Navy’s transmission tower at Piduruthalagala inorder to broadcast the matches between Sri Lanka and Australia to be played next month, an official from Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) said.It has been decided to fix transmitters on the Navy tower after the media […]

Prominent women’s rights activists in India in a statement this week said that they had stopped believing in Colombo’s periodic pledges to bring about reconciliation in the country, reports Indian Express. “We no longer believe the empty promises of the Sri Lankan government to bring peace and reconciliation, and strongly demand immediate action that will […]

Louise Arbour,As South Africa knows better than most, a country cannot begin to overcome decades of internal conflict without a sustained effort at revealing the truth of the past and a committed push for reconciliation. If only Sri Lanka could learn that lesson.It has been more than two years since the Sri Lankan military defeated […]

The TNA demands Q:    The Tamil National Alliance(TNA) which secured 18 local councils yesterday insists on the devolution of police and land powers without which they claim a political solution could not be reached, emphasizing that ‘lasting peace, justice and democracy’ in the North depends on such devolution. Then the President has a bigger mandate […]

NCC president K V Thangkabalu today appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that those responsible for alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka against Tamil civilians during the last phase of the offensive against the LTTE in Sri Lanka faced action. Calling on the Prime Minister at his residence in Delhi, Thangkabalu referred to […]

R. K. RadhakrishnanSri Lankan voters walk to polling stations as a policeman stands guard in Jaffna on July 23, 2011. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the umbrella organisation of Tamil political parties, recorded convincing victories in local body elections in Sri Lanka’s north and east.AP Sri Lankan voters walk to polling stations as a policeman […]

This report contains details some readers may find distressing.Over the last two years Channel 4 News has broadcast footage that the UN says constitutes “credible evidence of war crimes” in Sri Lanka.In the final stages of 26 years of civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, and […]

By Ifham NizamWildlife Conservation Director General Dr. Chandrawansa Pathiraja was removed from his post yesterday by Wildlife and Agrarian Services Minister S. M. Chandrasena.The Island learns that among the causes for the removal of Dr. Pathiraja were elephant drives and relocation, particularly in the Wayamba area.Dr. Pathiraja took the initiative to relocate wild elephants which […]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that all the TV channels should be requested not to telecast teledramas between 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm so that schoolchildren could devote their time to studying.The president said that the Cabinet should make a collective request to the TV channels operating in the country. At this […]

by Dayan JayatillekaThe TNA’s Northern success, running against the ruling coalition in an area with a heavy military ‘footprint’ means one thing above all else: Sri Lanka remains a functioning, competitive, multiparty democracy.All thinking and policy within Sri Lanka and about Sri Lanka must stem from recognition of that basic fact. Yet, will the critics […]

by Dr. Paikiasothy SaravanamuttuThe results of the second phase of the 2011 local government elections reveal a north/ south divide with the ruling UPFA winning comfortably outside of the north and east and the TNA capturing the overwhelming majority of local bodies in those areas.These results need serious analysis by all political parties as an […]

The 65 results disclosed in the mini election reveals a one party domination in the South (UPFA) and the North (ITAK). The call is close only in the constituencies that do not have a Tamil domination where a keen contest was seen between the UPFA and the ITAK. It is not the defeat that should disturb […]

by Harshi C. PereraAll Magistrates in Sri Lanka are legally empowered to visit and inspect the conditions of pretrial detainees in prisons. This measure is introduced to stop torturing and inhumanly treating pretrial detainees in prisons.Detaining a suspect in remand prison for over six years is a blatant form of torture.Suspect number 760, W. Manel […]

By Kelum BandaraFollowing the local government elections which ensured a victory for the TNA in the North and East, the government will have its next round of talks with the TNA next Monday as part of its plan to evolve a political solution, the party said yesterdayTNA MP Suresh Premachandran told the Daily Mirror that […]

By Shamindra FerdinandoDefence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa says the government will not tolerate any party other than the police and armed forces carrying weapons. The Defence Secretary insists any party, including those who once supported Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE will not be allowed retain weapons under any circumstances.  In an interview with The Island […]

By Sandun A. JayasekeraThe Tamil National Alliance(TNA) which swept the board in Saturday’s local council elections in the North said yesterday it would be impossible to reach a political solution and bring about lasting peace, justice and democracy in the North without the devolution of police and land powers.Jaffna district parliamentarian and TNA spokesman Suresh […]

”The Tamil people’s demand is that they exercise full powers of self-rule within their homeland consisting of a merged North and East. Once again, the Tamil people have declared that they will not relinquish their political aspirations for any amount of giveaways or on account of any level of intimidation by ensuring the victory of […]

By Jehan Perera Defeats suffered by the ruling alliance at the local authority elections in the North would have come as a disappointment to the government, which registered its accustomed victories elsewhere in the country. For the past month a formidable array of government ministers, said to be as many as 40, are reported to have […]

”The founder Editor of this newspaper was brutally killed by hired goons over two and a half years ago. The resultant investigation has been played out like a soap opera. The Cabinet spokesperson ventured as far as to give definite dates when the culprits would be brought to book”. The recent defeat of the Right […]

By Indika Sri Aravinda The powers vested with the Elections Commissioner have been slashed by the 18th Amendment and powers to issue directives have been limited, Executive Director of the Peoples’ Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), Rohana Hettiararchchi said.He said that the Elections Commissioner could only address requests made by an individual or a […]

By Indika Sri Aravinda A private radio station registered under the name of the wife of the Director General of the Media Center for National Security Lakshman Hulugalle, owes the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) over Rs. 900,000 on electricity bills.The Matale transmission station of Sath FM had not paid its electricity bills for a period of […]

By Charles Haviland/BBC News, KilinochchiThe dirt road leading south-west from Kilinochchi town is pale red, the colour of the soil of the Vanni, the northerly extreme of the Sri Lankan mainland. It is a land that lost all its people. They retreated with the Tamil Tigers as the civil war swept through Kilinochchi more than […]

”Their fears are real and almost paranoid. They are not dissimilar to the fear of the so-called high castes in Jaffna including Tamil politicians of yesterday that only they could realise Tamil dreams and not the majority of those perceived to belong to the lower strata of Tamil society.” by Pearl ThevanayagamWhen school boys from Royal, […]

 Elections in the Northern Peninsula did not meet the international standards due to certain disturbing malpractices and intimidations that took place in the Killinochchi District. The dominant presence of the military and the lack of civil administration did not aid the transparency and accountability of the first post-war local authority election.During the election day CaFFE […]

By Shihar AneezJAFFNA: Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils say President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s post-war development and infrastructure projects in the former war zone in the island’s north have yet to address their real concerns and have not excluded their participation.Sri Lanka’s northern cities held local polls for the first time in many years on Saturday amid opposition […]

Former Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga said on Sunday that she still ‘agonizes’ over not using full presidential powers or authoritarian rule to implement the then draft constitution that would have ended dictatorial presidential rule.“I still agonize over this, over and over again as to whether I should have used full presidential powers or authoritarian […]

By Kelum BandaraSaturday’s local council elections saw the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) winning the local councils in the south while the main Tamil party the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won nearly all the local councils in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.With the conclusion of Saturday’s election the local councils in the North can […]

by Professor S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole,  UGC Coordinator for Engineering, University of Jaffna The EPDP, supposedly a former armed group which continues to be represented by gun-toting cadres led by Minister Douglas Devananda, is the main Tamil ally of President Rajapakse. The violent EPDP seemed the only way in which the President can show Tamil support […]