During the Foreign secretary's call with Prime Minister Mahinda, the latter, "appreciated PM Modi's initiative to promote Buddhist ties"

Handing over of infrastructure projects, focus on the Buddha link and rights of Tamil with full implementation of 13th amendment dominated Foreign secretary Harsh Shringla's Sri Lanka visit. On Monday, he met with the top leadership of the country, including Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Foreign Minister Prof GL Peiris, and held talks with Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Admiral Prof. Jayanath Colombage (Retd).

During the Foreign secretary's call on with Prime Minister Mahinda, the latter, "appreciated PM Modi's initiative to promote Buddhist ties", a readout from Prime Minister's office said.

India has announced a $15 million grant for the promotion of Buddhist ties with the Indian Ocean island country. During the meeting, FS said that India is looking forward to receiving the first pilgrims' flights from Sri Lanka to the Kushinagar airport. Kushinagar, in India, is the place where its believed that Buddha attained Mahaparinirvana and is an important international pilgrimage center.

Later at Temple Trees, the official residence of Sri Lankan PM, he handed over 1235 houses to beneficiaries under Indian Housing Project--Phase3. The project is part of India’s biggest grant assistance project in Sri Lanka for the construction of 50,000 houses for Rs 1372 crore across the country. 4000 houses are to be built, with 3500 already constructed.

He also inaugurated Vada Central Ladies College in Vadamarachi, Northern Province, and Saraswathi Central College in Pusellawa, Kandy district. Remember, India is renovating 27 schools in Northern province, with 22 buildings including the Vada central ladies college already handed over. Calling the project as an "integral part of our development cooperation partnership", the foreign secretary highlighted that, "these projects employ local companies and invariably use Sri Lanka material and labour in their execution."

He also pointed to India's support to Sri Lanka amid the pandemic, saying, "The Indian Navy also deployed its assets for rapid delivery of medical grade oxygen to Sri Lanka in August to deal with its COVID situation".

He explained, "During the Covid pandemic period, India kept its air space open for travel for specific and urgent medical needs of Sri Lanka."

During his stay, FS also met the delegation from Ceylon Workers Congress, Tamil Progressive Alliance, and Tamil National Alliance, parties who represent the minority Tamils in the country. A tweet statement from the Indian high commission from Sri Lanka said, that he "emphasized India's commitment to protecting the rights of Tamils through full implementation of the 13th amendment, early convening of Provincial Council elections, achieving reconciliation and establishing connectivity to India."

The 13th amendment of the Sri Lanka constitution is an outcome of the 1987 Indo Sri Lanka accord signed between Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene that aims to devolution of powers to the provinces and to protect the rights of Tamil minorities in the country. This is the foreign secretary's first visit to the country in his present capacity. He started the visit over the weekend, visiting the iconic Jaffna cultural centre built with Indian grant assistance, Oil tank farms at Trincomalee, and offering prayers at Sri Dalada Maligawa, a famous temple in Kandy that houses the relic of the tooth of Buddha. He will be meeting the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa later today.