Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

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

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena  ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author MaithriPala Sirisena Official) Source- The Diplomat Author- Shannon Tiezzi While Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena is in India on his first official trip abroad, Beijing wants to make sure no one thinks China is being left out. With Sirisena in India, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera will travel to China at the end of February. As Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying pointed out, Samaraweera will be the first cabinet minister from Sri Lanka to visit China since Sirisena’s government took office. “Both sides attach great importance to the visit,” Hua said, adding China’s “hope that the visit by Foreign Minister Samaraweera will be an opportunity for the two sides to exchange views on the development of China-Sri Lanka relations under the new circumstances.” Those “new circumstances” – namely, the election of a n

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Sudath Silva) Source- The Eurasia Review Praising the Sri Lankan people for electing a new government, a top US official said it is time for Sri Lanka to return to its rightful place as a respected member of the international community. The United States Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that Sri Lankans sent a clear signal at the elections that they want a change for a step forward for good governance. “The people of Sri Lanka – from Jaffna to Galle -sent a clear signal from the ballot box: that they wanted your country to take a step forward, to realize its tremendous potential, and to finally enjoy the fruits of peace,” Blinken said. The Deputy Secretary made the remarks  this past Thursday when he addressed a gathering at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington DC at a celebration to mark the 67th Anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence. The high-ranking U.S.

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons  Source- The Eurasia Review Author- IDSA/ Avinash Godbole Mahindra Rajapaksa lost to his rival and one time ally Maithripala Sirisena in the Presidential elections held on 8 January 2015. Sirisena of the New Democratic Front (NDF) won 51.28 percent of the votes against the 47.58 percent secured by Rajapaksa of the United People’s Front Alliance. Given Rajapaksa’s popularity in the aftermath of the decisive victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the summer of 2009, Sirisena’s triumph in these elections has come as a surprise to many. But a peak below the surface brings out a different reality of the Sri Lankan political landscape. China emerged as Sri Lanka’s most benevolent friend during the reign of Rajapaksa. This friendship reached its zenith when in September 2014 Xi Jinping became the first Chinese President to visit Sri Lanka. Between 2004 and 2014, domestic changes in Sri Lanka, coupled with China’s expan

Hambantota Port, Sri Lanka ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Deneth17 ) Source- The Diplomat Author- Victor Robert Lee Democracy has taken many knocks in recent years. Russian President Vladmir Putin has twisted a supposed Russian democracy into a dictatorship. Beijing is touting its single-party autocracy as superior to democracy. And in Washington, democracy looks like a legislative train wreck. But the island nation of Sri Lanka this past week proved that democracy is alive and well in at least one corner of the world, by throwing out its own Putinesque figure. On January 8, a diverse coalition of Sri Lankan parties led by Maithripala Sirisena defeated Mahinda Rajapaksa, president since 2005, who was seeking to secure a third six-year term. Rajapaksa, whose administration in 2009 finally crushed a longstanding Tamil separatist movement in the country’s northeast, presented himself as a god-like figure and set about placing numerous relatives in key

  Colombo World  Trade Centre ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Mystic Source- The Diplomat Author- Harsh V. Pant Last week, in a stunning blow to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan voters opted for his former colleague Maithripala Sirisena to end a decade-long regime that has been increasingly marked by allegations of nepotism, corruption, and authoritarianism. Rajapaksa, after having defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), won an overwhelming mandate for himself and his party in the 2010 elections.  The LTTE had been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for minority ethnic Tamils after decades of discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority. Though the civil war in Sri Lanka, which lasted for more than 25 years and claimed over 100,000 lives, ended in 2009, the country still remains bitterly divided and reconciliation efforts have faltered. When the war ended in 2009, there was an opportunity for the ethnic commun

Mahendra Rajapakse ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ SriLanka Presidential Secretariat Source- The Eurasia review Author- By Col, R. Hariharan Any narrative on Sri Lanka would be incomplete if India’s overwhelming influence in Sri Lanka is not considered. It comes from India’s huge geographic size, economic strength and global political influence from times immemorial. After the British colonial power exited from South Asia, independent India’s dominance gave rise to anxiety among sections of Sri Lankans, particularly among the Sinhala Buddhist majority who saw their country as Theravada Buddhism’s last sanctuary. The sense of anxiety gave way to a feeling of insecurity across Sri Lanka particularly after India’s massive political and military intervention from 1987 to 90 to ensure the state redressed the grievances of Tamil minority population. Though the Tamil minority question is still unresolved, Indian intervention had a positive, but cathartic effect to impa