Former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, accused by rights groups of war crimes during the final months of Sri Lanka’s long-running civil war a decade ago, has confirmed he plans to run for the presidency in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks that have shattered …
Sri Lanka was in a deep and complex crisis even before the outbreak of the Easter Sunday attacks. Now, in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks, the country has plunged into a deeper and bigger crisis, which is more complex than it was before. …
Recalling their recent statements against violent extremism and hate speech, the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, and the United Nations Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, Karen Smith are alarmed about the growing acts of violence on the basis …
As with other occasions in contemporary Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, busy-bodies are already naming names for the nation’s presidency. The latest name to do the rounds is that of Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo the theological leader of the Catholic laity. The last …
Sri Lanka, the small island nation of South Asia, faces a new form of terrorism. With an aim to establish relevance, Islamists have chosen the country, which witnessed ethnic terrorism a decade back. The government in Colombo has taken strong measures to counter the terror …
While the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, the real story is a bit more complicated than that. To millions of Sri Lankans the Easter Sunday tragedy must have seemed a nightmare come true, a frightening déjà vu of the rampant violence this island nation has …
No significant anti-Muslim incidents have taken place since April 21, when two local Islamic State (IS) affiliates, the National Tawheed Jamaath (NRJ) and the Jamaathei Millathu Ibraheemi (JMI), carried out nine suicide attacks killing over 250 people, mostly local Christians and foreigners. Life has returned …
Robert Blake, who was US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia in the Obama Administration, has said that it was wrong on the part of the Obama Administration to have snapped military ties with Sri Lanka after …
Just days after Sri Lanka’s army chief Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake made a startling revelation that some of the suicide bombers involved in the Easter terror attack had travelled to Kashmir, Kerala and Bengaluru “for some sort of training”, Indian investigating agencies have confirmed that …
Sri Lanka has been a primarily Buddhist land since King Ashoka’s son Mahinda preached there in the third century BCE. At present 70% of the population is Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim and 7% Christian. (Surely there are secular people, atheists, Marxists, etc. but these …