PhD researcher in War Studies, King’s College London.

The Eye Over the Vanni

Inside Project Drishti and India’s hidden architecture of Sri Lanka’s final air war

Two Indians were wounded in a night attack on a radar station at Vavuniya. Both governments described them as civilian engineers. Eleven years later, a promotion dispute would reopen the story. Inside Project Drishti.

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The Eye Over the VanniTitle illustration: a fine-line map of northern Sri Lanka with the Vanni hatched, the radar at Vavuniya on its southern edge and a soft sweep of light fanning north over the region.JaffnaMullaitivuMannarKilinochchiTrincomaleeAnuradhapuraVavuniyaNo. 2 Air Defence Radar SquadronTHE VANNITiger airstripsIllustration: the Vanni, the mainland of the Northern Province, with Vavuniya on its southern edge.

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A metal sculpture of a chair with a coat hanging on its backrest, mounted on a concrete pedestal, outside on a sidewalk in a town square. ( that is fro, Van Gogh's native village Nuenan )

About

I am a PhD researcher in War Studies at King’s College London. I work in genocide studies, strategic studies and public international law. I also teach international law and work with non-profit organisations on questions of international accountability.

I studied law at National Law University Odisha, where I completed the five-year BA LL.B. The programme combined law with political science, sociology and economics. I went on to LL.M. studies at Lund University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute.

Research

My doctoral research examines the relationship between counterinsurgency and genocide. I study practices that degrade civilian life and can become organised forms of destruction.

Sri Lanka is a central case, which I read alongside other histories of mass violence. I examine the shift from attacks on an armed group’s capabilities to attacks on the social world around it, and the movement from selective to categorical and area-based targeting.

I study how genocide is organised, justified and denied.

Publications

Teaching

I am a Graduate Teaching Assistant in War Studies at King’s College London. My seminars address the legal questions raised by war, human rights and intervention. They cover war crimes and genocide, the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, the responsibility to protect, torture and displacement.

In 2026, I received a Students’ Voice nomination for excellence in teaching at the King’s Education Awards.

For academic or professional enquiries, or a copy of my CV: maxwin.rayen@kcl.ac.uk