happy new year from Colombo friends!

wishing everyone a very happy Christmas from Colombo 🎄

wishing everyone a very happy Christmas from Colombo 🎄

‘This isn’t innovation—it’s institutional auto-cannibalism.’ | AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

A total of 70,055 people from 22,522 families are currently sheltered in 762 relief centres across Sri Lanka www.themorning.lk/articles/Qqt... #CycloneDitwah

giving a rare (these days) lecture online in the spring (6th March 2026): Studio Ilankai: A Tamil Photographic History of Sri Lankan Citizenship. Info and registration: www.byforcollective.com/programs/vin...

Severe weather conditions in Gaza have claimed the lives of 13 people, including babies who froze to death, as Israel continues to block the entry of aid that could provide shelter to 1.5 million Palestinians living in worn-out tents. mondoweiss.net/2025/12/pale...

More than 1,800 people have died as floods have ravaged Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

the figures charting the destruction to infrastructure presented in this UNDP / DMC rapid assessment are truly staggering. | Mapping the Initial Impact of Cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka geosmart.undp.org/arcgis/apps/...

Sri Lanka declares emergency as floods wreak havoc across Colombo - More than 25,000 homes destroyed, 147,000 displaced, as Sri Lanka faces its deadliest flood since 2017, affecting the capital. www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025...

wrote about Trincomalee's long history of occupations not long ago. Relevant given the current discourse on the state's insidious, colonially-rooted practice of archaeological claim-making everydayphotography.org/journal/stud...

‘Picturing the Disappeared,’ which is focused on the protests of the Tamil families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka, making up ‘Images rémanentes de la disparition forcée’ at the Mural Alexei Jaccard-Droits Humains, Geneva will be on view until 15th February 2026 www.unige.ch/cite/eveneme...

surprising no one who has been living with the stress of this mess every time they need to verify ID. | Home Office eVisa failures leave thousands 'unable to work or leave UK' inews.co.uk/news/home-of...

Enforced Disappearances, Civil Resistance and the Rule of Law - this Wednesday in Geneva

(Universities cutting literature programmes) are robbing future generations of the capacity to determine what constitutes “good” art, take pleasure in it, and create their own—thereby leaving it to the elite, and to machines owned by the elite, to decide for them lareviewofbooks.org/article/lite...

excited to get started on this one in time for Halloween 🎃

More mass graves at Chemmani and Sri Lanka’s old failures of justice: an observer of the 1999 Chemmani exhumations reflects on newly uncovered mass graves & Sri Lanka’s continued failure to deliver justice for Tamil victims of war-time crimes www.himalmag.com/politics/sri...

I see that anthropology has returned to some truly wtf writing on war.

it's end times all round isn't it? | Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

do people in the global north realise just how much they actively obstruct the movement/mobility of those from the global south? At least stop downplaying/pleading ignorance about what your governments demand of us for trying to live, work & travel like the rest of you get to do.

my book (!) ‘A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka’ encompassing a decade of research on Tamil photographic practices set against a backdrop of ethno/nationalist conflict & the island’s turbulent post/war out Spring 26 uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

The growing dangers of Sri Lanka’s Israel nexus: Pro-Israel groups & Buddhist extremists are expanding Israeli influence in Sri Lanka, stoking anti-Muslim sentiment as the government maintains ambivalence around Palestine and the Gaza genocide www.himalmag.com/politics/sri... @himalmag.bsky.social

🙃 Ministers are to give police new powers to target repeated protests, aimed particularly at cracking down on demonstrations connected to Gaza, the Home Office has said. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

'Images rémanentes de la disparition forcée' feauturing a video adaptation of my 2022 article (rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....) on the political uses of photography by the Tamil Families of the Disappeared in Northern Sri Lanka opens in Geneva this evening www.unige.ch/cite/eveneme...

Far-right London rally sees record crowds and violent clashes with police: More than 110,000 people join Tommy Robinson-organised protest featuring racist conspiracy theories and hate speech www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

@vindi-b.bsky.social on how Trincomalee, a port city on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka, has been shaped through photography everydayphotography.org/journal/stud...

v happy to be working on new projects, in ‘new’ island places, fortutiously intersecting in one of my favourite towns, Trincomalee: on the conflated histories/present of militarisation & leisure in Ceylon/Sri Lanka + the making of place through photography everydayphotography.org/journal/stud...

happy day.

delighted to have received a print copy of fLIP’s ‘imperfect issue’ feat my review of Sabes Sugunasabesan’s haunting exhibition ‘kunkumam’ www.londonphotography.org.uk/upcoming/fli...

"After my father & the others were killed by Sinhala prisoners, the government deliberately hid that crime. How did they die? How were they cremated? Where were they buried? They didn't say anything. We are still in shock, even today" lankaleader.lk/news/15200-t... #SriLanka #BlackJuly

😍 Kovilpatti: the Town that Papered India - In the mid-20th century, the heyday of printed imagery in India, a group of artists in a tiny town in southern Tamilnadu became a creative force (that defined print/visual culture) www.tasveergharindia.net/essay/kovilp...

sanctioned former Sri Lankan navy chief Wasantha Karannagoda’s memoir published by Penguin India contains potential admissions relevant to alleged crimes committed during the civil war www.himalmag.com/politics/kar... damning, important review @himalmag.bsky.social #SriLanka

Arundhati Roy on her fugitive childhood: ‘My knees were full of scars and cuts – a sign of my wild, imperfect, fatherless life’ www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Former Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested: Police say the former leader is accused of misuse of public funds in relation to a trip to London. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/...

Thursday (21) marks the 12th day since excavations recommenced at the Colombo port mass burial site where over 85 bodies, haphazardly buried without clothes, were unearthed. The site was first found in July 2023 during construction work for the Port City Expressway entrance.

Sri Lanka: ICJ urges international oversight and victim-centred investigation into Chemmani mass grave in compliance with international law and standards www.icj.org/sri-lanka-ic...

Edinburgh University had ‘outsized’ role in creating racist scientific theories, inquiry finds: the university benefited from transatlantic slavery and was haven for white supremacist theories www.theguardian.com/education/20...

people who have been explaining away, rationalising, defending, and outright enabling a genocide for nearly two years now 'gently' changing tune like they had no hand in - have some shame?! Are you not embarrased? What good are your words of condemnation? We haven't forgotten.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the islandwide State of Emergency declared on July 17, 2022 by then Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was unconstitutional and violated fundamental human rights. www.newswire.lk/2025/07/23/s... #SriLanka

An open letter from the presidents of Gaza universities: Our campuses may have been razed, but our universities continue to exist. www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Greater Manchester Friends for Palestine (GMFP) and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which both organise peaceful protests and vigils, have had access to their funds cut off indefinitely by Virgin Money and Unit Trust bank respectively. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

A mass grave site in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna district,which has drawn domestic and international attention, is putting to test the Anura Kumara Dissanayake government’s pledgeto address Tamil people’s grievances. www.thehindu.com/news/interna...

Krishanthi Kumaraswamy tragedy and mass graves in Chemmani www.ft.lk/columns/Kris... #SriLanka

‘When the settlers moved in on the Palestinian village of al-Mu’arrajat, we all knew what was coming next. It has happened again and again throughout the West Bank. Encroachment, harassment, theft and terror, until the unhidden goal is achieved’ www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ju... via @lrb.co.uk

Ban on Palestine Action to take effect after legal challenge fails: Being a member of, or showing support for, the direct action protest group will be a criminal offence after judge’s decision www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Krishanthi Kumaraswamy case and Chemmani mass grave : a prosecutor’s call for accountability www.dailymirror.lk/news-feature... #SriLanka

🙃 UK MPs vote to proscribe Palestine Action as terrorist group - 385 votes to 26 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Archaeologists have identified 38 skulls from the mass grave in Sittuppathi, Chemmani, Jaffna. At least 10 of them are suspected of belonging to children or minors. The site has been designated as a crime scene by court order. www.newswire.lk/2025/07/02/c... #SriLanka

Excavations at the Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna took a grim turn on Sunday with the discovery of skeletal remains, believed to be that of a child, found alongside a blue school bag, imprinted with the English alphabet, fragments of clothing, and small glass bangles. island.lk/bone-fragmen...