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Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 06.30 GMT |
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India announces
further donation |
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The Indian Foreign Secretary announced a donation of another Indian Rs.15 million for the India-Sri Lanka Foundation during her meeting with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama yesterday (08 Mar).
The present corpus fund of the Foundation consists at present of Indian Rs.60 million on the basis of equal contributions by India and Sri Lanka.
The Foreign Minister welcomed this initiative which would add to the capacity of the Foundation to undertake more activities. He stated that Sri Lanka deeply values the help rendered by India for the post-conflict recovery and rehabilitation, which extends among other areas to housing and livelihood related assistance for the internally displaced.
Visiting Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao stated that she had brought with her an invitation for President Mahinda Rajapaksa to visit India. She appreciated the acceptance of the invitation and noted that the forthcoming visit would give further important impetus to the bilateral collaboration including in areas such as economic and trade co-operation, the promotion of investments and scientific and cultural exchanges.
Minister Bogollagama said that Sri Lanka is thankful for the support and co-operation extended by India during Sri Lanka’s tenure as the Chair of SAARC, which commenced at the August 2008 Colombo Summit and will terminate when Bhutan assumes that responsibility, at the forthcoming April 2010 Summit in Thimphu. It is indeed welcome that SAARC is now moving from a phase of declaration to implementation, with many key regional projects due to be shortly operationalised, the Minister stated.
The need for continued vigilance against allowing terrorism to threaten the South Asian region, was underlined at this meeting.
The Minister mentioned that Sri Lanka has successfully eliminated the terrorist menace that lasted almost three decades. Nevertheless, there were signs of the residues of the LTTE operating in overseas locations, attempting to revive this scourge. The Minister added that the overall vigilance against terrorism should extend to such endeavours as well.
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