For years in the Tamil homeland, Maaveerar Naal commemorations were forced underground. Lamps were lit behind closed doors, portraits of the fallen hidden from the state and gatherings broken apart by armed soldiers. Not today.

The 71st birthday of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabhakaran was marked by local residents in Nallur, Jaffna, today. 

Pongal, sweets, cakes and coconut saplings were distributed outside a memorial shrine in Nallur that is dedicated to fallen LTTE cadres. 

Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge delivered a statement in the Australian Senate on 25 November marking Maaveerar Naal - or Great Heroes' Day - describing it as “one of the most significant events in the Tamil calendar” and honouring those who gave their lives in the struggle for dignity, justice and human rights.

Tributes were paid at the Maaveerar Memorial in Nelliyadi, where Miller’s mother lit the flame of sacrifice and floral honours were offered

Commemorations were held in Valvettithurai on Wednesday to mark the 71st birthday of Veluppillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with dozens of locals gathering outside his ancestral home to pay tribute.

More than sixteen years after the genocide at Mullivaikkal, the Tamil homeland is witnessing its most widespread Great Heroes’ Day preparations in years.

Sri Lankan police in Jaffna have seized sound equipment used to play commemoration-related songs at the Mallakam junction on Tuesday evening, as the Sri Lankan state continues its efforts to suppress remembrance activities across the Tamil homeland.

Throughout October 2025, the Sri Lankan military further entrenched its militarization over the Tamil homeland through a dense calendar of activity that reached into classrooms, clinics, religious spaces, and everyday civilian life. From opening bank accounts for pre-schoolers and distributing school supplies to installing reverse osmosis plants in schools and running football camps for hundreds of children, the military worked to normalise its presence among Tamil youth and families, framing occupation as care and charity.

SriLankan Airlines is set to suffer losses exceeding US$230 million after a fleet of Airbus A320neo aircraft acquired with CFM LEAP engines was grounded for years due to design defects, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Ports and Civil Aviation Anura Karunathilaka has revealed.