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Showing posts with the label India- Sri Lanka Relations

A New Era for India-Sri Lanka Relations? ( Source- The Diplomat, Author- Sudha Ramachandran)

Image credits- President of Sri Lanka Source- The Diplomat Author- Sudha Ramachandran Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s recent visit to India was aimed at mending bilateral relations that had deteriorated under his predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, on account of the latter’s close embrace of China. During Sirisena’s visit, India and Sri Lanka signed four agreements that are expected to strengthen bilateral co-operation. However, whether these can counter effectively China’s enormous presence in the island seems doubtful. India is still a long way from matching or reducing China’s role in Sri Lanka. Of the four agreements, the most significant is that on civilian nuclear co-operation, which envisages an “exchange of knowledge and expertise, sharing of resources, capacity building and training of personnel in peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” Other agreements deal with co-operation in the fields of culture and agriculture, and will enable Sri Lanka to participat

A Game Changer for China and India in Sri Lanka? ( Source- The Diplomat, Author- Kabir Taneja)

Image credits- Flickr / MEA Official Source- The Diplomat Author- Kabir Taneja On January 18, a Reuters reported claimed that Sri Lanka’s now former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had expelled the station chief of India’s intelligence agency in Colombo after accusing him of working against his government and supporting the opposition. India denied the claim, but the report serves as an example of Rajapaksa’s thorny attitude towards New Delhi, irrespective of the face presented by public diplomacy. The docking last September of a Chinese naval submarine in Colombo turned heads in New Delhi, just as the new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still getting up to speed. The event underlined the magnitude of Chinese influence in Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa, despite assurances from Beijing that the docking was a routine stopover to re-stock on supplies before heading to the Gulf of Aden to participate in anti-piracy operations. A month later in October,