A boost to strained ties
It is a good augury that Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse accepted the invitation of the Madhya Pradesh government to lay the foundation stone of the University of Buddhist and Indic Studies at Sanchi, near Bhopal, along with Bhutan Prime Minister Jigme Thinley.
Relations between New Delhi and Colombo hit a trough earlier this year when India voted on a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission criticising Sri Lanka for its treatment of the minority Tamils in the north of that country following revelations of cold-blooded murder of civilians in the final assault against the LTTE three years ago. Colombo had then failed to appreciate that but for India’s intervention, the resolution would have been harsh and might have led to follow-up measures.
Mr Rajapakse had meetings in New Delhi with President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before he proceeded to Sanchi. The visit of the Sri Lankan leader was originally planned as a private sojourn but New Delhi raised it to the official level. The visiting dignitary would have noted that neither Bhopal nor New Delhi gave any quarter to sundry Tamil Nadu parties that had hoped to disrupt his trip. Commercial relations between the two countries have warmed of late. If Colombo moves to re-establish the disrupted conversation with his country’s Tamil National Alliance for autonomy for the minority community within a united Sri Lanka, as India hopes, the full restoration of mutual confidence will be an assured corollary.
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