Sri Lanka celebrated the 5oth Anniversary of the world’s and its first female Prime Minister yesterday (July 21).

Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, three times Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, was the first woman in the world to hold the office of Prime Minister. She entered politics after her husband, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the former PM, was assassinated in 1959.

Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was first appointed Prime Minister as a member of the Senate in July 1960. She contested her first seat to Parliament in March 1965 from the electorate of Attanagalle. She became the Leader of the Opposition in that Parliament. She became Prime Minister again from 1970 to 1977, being elected on a coalition of left and centre-left parties. In 1994, she was appointed as the Prime Minister for the third time.

She gave leadership to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the party founded by her late husband.

An illustrious stateswoman, she brought credit to Sri Lanka at many international fora, including the United Nations Organization and the Non Aligned Movement. She brought a resolution before the UN asking that the Indian Ocean be made a Peace Zone. Mrs. Bandaranaike's greatest achievement was perhaps, the holding of the 1975 Non Aligned Movement's Conference in Colombo, and her election to its Chair.

After four decades in politics, the veteran Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, resigned on 10th August, 2000. She passed away on October 10, 2000.

Mrs. Bandaranaike was the mother of Sri Lanka's fourth Executive President, Chandrika Kumaratunga and late Anura Bandaranaike, former speaker and cabinet minister.