D. B. S. Jeyaraj

David Jeyaraj
Born	David Buell Jeyaraj May 21, 1954 (1954-05-21) (age 57)
Occupation	Journalist
Title	Mr
Ethnicity	Sri Lankan Tamil
Nationality	Canadian
Religious belief(s)	Christian

David Buell Jeyaraj (born: May 21, 1954) is a freelance Canadian journalist. His articles appear under the name D.B.S Jeyaraj, the initials stand for David Buell Sabapathy.

Biography

Jeyaraj is an ethnic Tamil Christian, a native of Udupiddy town, northern province Sri Lanka. He began his career as a cub-reporter of Virakesari Tamil weekly. Subsequently, he became bilingual and contributed his news reports and commentaries to the Colombo-based English dailies, owned predominantly by Sinhalese publishing moguls. Later, Jeyaraj became a reporter of Chennai-based Hindu publications - The Hindu, and Frontline magazine. He also has published in the Sunday Leader, The Nation, and The Bottom Line.

Jeyraj's critical reporting of Indian Peace Keeping Force had resulted in him being reportedly fired from The Hindu.^[1]It is rather funny that the same Hindu group had rehired him subsequently, and Jeyaraj's latest contribution on the 2010 Presidential elections in Sri Lanka, did appear in the Hindu daily on January 29, 2010.

Career in Journalism

He has appeared on both the BBC and CBC to discuss politics in Sri Lanka and among the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. He now lives in Toronto, Canada.

Neutral observer

Jeyaraj's journalism is critical of both sides in the Sri Lanka civil war; the government and the LTTE. For this, he has been the target of death threats and beatings from hard-core LTTE supporters.^[2]

However D.B.S Jeyaraj says that he empathizes with LTTE's struggle for a Tamil state at the same time he sees necessity for closer introspection of some of its activities^[3] Though pretending to be a neutral observer, Jeyaraj smears his critics with a pejorative 'acolytes' of LTTE in his commentaries. He is often viewed as a fervent Tamil Protestant by his fans, a small community closely associated with the politics of Tamil secessionism and thus at times attacked by both Buddhists and Hindus for a purported religious bias^{[citation needed]}.

Currently, Jeyaraj reports regularly for the independent Sunday Leader newspaper and publishes on a number of news sites including Transcurrents.com, Tamilweek.com and Uthayam.net.

External links

• D.B.S. Jeyaraj home page
• CBC profile of Jeyaraj

References

• ^ The Hindu fires him
• ^ Beating of Jeyaraj
• ^ CBC feature

Persondata
Name	Jeyaraj, David
Alternative names
Short description	Journalist
Date of birth	May 21, 1954
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death