30th April 2016

Investigations by Police have revealed that three out of the ex-LTTE cadres who were arrested recently had been working with the Army intelligence at the time of arrest. Police Media Spokesman, ASP Ruwan Gunasekera added that the trio, Ram who was arrested in Ampara, Nagulan (Jaffna) and Thalayan (Trincomalee), who were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the detection of suicide jackets in Chavakachcheri, had been working with military intelligence. They were arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID). Gunasekera also pointed out that all three of them had not been rehabilitated for one year, the minimum stipulated period. While the three are presently under TID custody and are detained on detention orders, a fourth suspect, Subramaniam Sivakaran, arrested on April 27 on suspicion of […]

Text and pix by P. D. De Silva 13-year-old A. Vinodhani a grade six student lives with her family on Meeriyabedda Tea Estate in Koslanda. She saw the devastation that was caused by the landslide that took place a few hundred metres from her home on the morning of 29 October 2014. She also knows that the area where her house is has been recognised as a high risk zone and that her parents have been asked to move to a safer place which they have been unable to do for almost a year! Today, Vinodhani’s family together with 86 neighbouring families live in fear each time it rains hard not knowing at what moment the floor they stand on will slide or sink under […]

By Manekshaw Forty years ago unfavourable conditions emerged not only from the South but even from the Tamil militants in the North to the first Tamil Opposition Leader late Appapillai Amirthalingam to discontinue from his representation in the Parliament. Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), emerging as a formidable political force at the Parliamentary polls in 1977, became the main Opposition Party in the United National Party Government led by J.R. Jayewardene. However, following the rise of Tamil militancy in the North and the East as well as with the introduction of the 6th Amendment to the Constitution demanding the TULF Parliamentarians to swear an oath unconditionally denouncing support for a separate state alone had prompted Amirthalingam to relinquish his position as the Leader of the […]

By Ruba Ratnasingam – As has been reported in Colombo Telegraph Dr. S. Dharshanan, Head of the Department of Music and a close relative of Jaffna VC Vasanthi Arasaratnam, was suspended from service without pay following numerous accusations of sexual harassment by his students and staff colleagues at the Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts (RAFA). These accusations had been there from 2011 but the Council inquiries had asked the accusers to cooperate with their accuser. Action was forced only when numerous students complained in writing and were ready to riot, and one student was on the verge of committing suicide. Prof. Vasanthi Arasaratnam The four years of licence to do anything with the women under his authority that the Council effectively gave Dr. Darshanan is […]