Jaffna Public Library has a painful history behind its pure white walls. It was burnt down during days of mob violence between May 31, 1981 and June 2.Sri Lankan state-sponsored authorities had been ...

With retired Supreme Court Justice C.V. Wigneswaran taking oaths as the Chief Minister and as the Northern Provincial Council becomes operational, it is fitting that we also remember Yogendra ...

The destruction of a Sri Lankan library helped spark a civil war, and its reconstruction helps signal the war’s end Arunasalam Sanmugadas smiles when he remembers learning to read as a child. His ...

Rising two stories and capped by three domes, the Jaffna Public Library looks a bit like a stately wedding cake. Gleaming white under the Sri Lanka sun, the building's classical lines and beautiful ...

When the Taliban regime in Afghanistan announced and then carried out the destruction of the massive stone Buddha statues at Bamiyan, the action justifiably provoked outrage around the world. In Sri ...

The burning of the Jaffna public library in 1981 is not only a controversial subject, it is a sensitive one. Much has been written on it mainly for propaganda purposes and political advantage. It is ...

The Jaffna Public Library was recently awarded the “Swarna Purawara Certificate” on being selected as the best public library in Sri Lanka. S.D. Moorthy, Acting Consul General of India in Jaffna ...

Vasantha Sriskantharajah is dreading next summer. It’s not the Jaffna heat that is worrying her, she is used to it. What she is not used to is being away from the collection of books she has seen grow ...

A centre of Tamil learning in Jaffna was attacked and destroyed. No, not last week, but 40 years ago, in 1981, the iconic Jaffna Library, a seat of Tamil language, literature and learning was burnt to ...

Vasantha Sriskantharajah is dreading next summer. It’s not the Jaffna heat that is worrying her, she is used to it. What she is not used to is being away from the collection of books she has seen grow ...