Indian-born Raksha is a student of the Graduate Institute in Geneva, where she is preparing to write her dissertation. She was in Chettikulam the day after a cyclone damaged 942 shelters in Zone 1 of the Menik Farm IDP camp on March 31. News reports said the situation was under control, with all the shelters speedily built, but Raksha was there to witness the direct aftermath of the storm.

After a punishingly hot day, the skies seemed to provide some relief to the residents of Chettikulam as they opened to release heavy showers during the early evening of Saturday, March 31st. However, what was welcomed as a break from the unending heat by those ensconced in sturdy houses simultaneously proved to be a torment for the 6,022[1] residents in the Menik Farm IDP camps a few kilometres outside of town.

Redif.com's A Ganesh Nadar travelled to Rameswaram to meet fishermen harrowed by the Sri Lankan navy, which has been resorting to stone pelting to drive them away from what it claims as its territory. Sri Lankan navy's attacks on Indian fishermen sailing out from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu have been a routine affair.

The criminal justice system of Sri Lanka is in decline. Across the country numerous reports document that illegal arrests and detention continues to happen indiscriminately. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has issued several hundred urgent appeal cases over the past decade regarding illegal arrests and arbitrary detention in locations across the country.

A new chapter of politics is emerging in Sri Lanka after the UN resolution adopted at the 19th session of the UNHRC in Geneva. As this writer pointed out last week, it was a new dawn for the Island Nation to move forward in terms of real reconciliation, if the government would genuinely facilitate the restoration of the rule of law in the country.

According to a WikiLeaks cable this statement was made by Basil Rajapaksa, brother of and Advisor to the President, to then US Ambassador in Colombo Robert. O. Blake. Jnr. The cable is classified as “CONFIDENTIAL” and recounts details of a meeting Blake had with Basil Rajapaksa on October 04, 2006. Rajapaksa was referring to the murder of five Tamil students in Trincomalee on January 2, that year. (Read The Terrible Truth of the Trincomalee Tragedy by D. B. S. Jeyaraj elsewhere on these pages for a detailed account of what took place).

Amid police and military threats, about 200 mothers, wives and other relatives of disappeared persons held a protest on December 10 in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, to demand information about their loved ones. Hundreds of Tamils “disappeared” during the 26-year communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), particularly during the military offensive before its defeat in May 2009. Despite their denials, the military, police and associated paramilitary groups are directly implicated in these abductions and murders.

women in Sri Lanka’s predominantly Tamil-speaking north and east are facing a desperate lack of security in the aftermath of the long civil war. Today many still live in fear of violence from various sources. Those who fall victim to it have little means of redress. Women’s economic security is precarious, and their physical mobility is limited.

Past the Paranthan junction we drove towards Vishuvamadu where returning civilians from the Manik Farm are struggling to restart their war battered lives from scratch. They live in squalid (tent) huts, cook in the open and are being overwhelmed by thousands of men in the uniform. Name boards, one after the other stand welcoming the travellers to this less charted part of the Wanni: ‘Welcome to the area of Infantry Division,’ one greeted; ‘Area of the Artillery Brigade,’ another read. It appeared like we were in a military cantonment but in fact we were in the Wanni, dotted with camps.

Yoganathan Rathika is twenty-six years old, and has a two year old daughter. She lives in a resettlement village in Manthai West, Mannar. Like a lot of women trying to resume normal life after the war, Rathika faces several hardships.  But Rathika has one additional burden to bear. She is a widow. There are presently 89,000 widows in the North and East, including many women like Rathika, who lost their husbands to the 30 year civil war.

WHEN Shanthakumar Kamala fled the inferno of fighting in northern Sri Lanka in 2009, she was clutching a number of glossy photographs to her chest but little else. Mrs Shanthakumar holds out the pictures now—one of a smart lad in school uniform, one of him wearing a Boy Scout kit—and sobs that she wants her son, Thanuraj, back.

The sudden demise of 40 year old Pitchai Jesudasan, the main suspect in The Sunday Leader Editor-in-Chief Lasantha Wickrematunge murder case has raised many questions. Jesudasan was arrested by the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) on February 26, 2010 at his residence No. 31, Magastota Estate, Ruwan Eliya, Nuwara Eliya for the alleged involvement in terrorist activities.

11 men were arrested by the Vavuniyaa Police in Komarasankulam at 10.30 pm on 20th August 2011.  The men were severely beaten before arrest and at least two persons were tortured inside the Vavuniyaa Police Station. Another man was arrested when he visited the police station on 21st August to recover his vehicle, which had been taken into custody during the incident on the 20th. Two men who were tortured by the Vavuniyaa police received treatment at the Vavuniyaa Hospital. The rest were produced before the Vavuniyaa Magistrate on 23rd August and remanded to the Vavuniyaa Prison.  All 12 men have since been released on bail. The next hearing is scheduled for 12th October 2011.

Ranjini wakes up screaming. Her mother's body is on fire, her teenage sister is covered in blood and the mutilated, charred corpses of her relatives lie scattered everywhere. It's a recurring nightmare. "I see my mother's burning face ... she is calling me to help her, but I can't or I will be killed from the shelling also," says the 23-year-old, petite Sri Lankan woman, wiping the tears from her face with a blue and white chequered handkerchief.

The bright but aloof teenager who failed chemistry because he skipped nearly an entire semester. The bespectacled girl who consistently came to class an hour late and rarely wrote anything down because she took notes “with my mind.”

And then there was me, a Toronto Star reporter posing as a summer school student upgrading her Grade 12 chemistry mark so she could apply for nursing college. I was a mediocre pupil at best: I barely studied, never handed in homework and failed most of my tests.