External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris held discussions with Mr. P. Chidambaram, Minister of Home Affairs of India on the progress of building 50,000 houses in the formerly conflicted affected areas, through grant funds from India.

Minster Peiris briefed that the allocation of State lands for the construction of 1,000 houses in a cluster format for the use of widows or single headed families, was well underway. The rest of the programme would relate both to the construction of 32,000 houses on an owner driven basis on private land, as well as to the repair of 17,000 damaged houses.

This meeting took place on 15 October when Minister Peiris was in New Delhi to accompany President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the Closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. He met several other senior Indian Ministers.

On October14, Minister Peiris met with his Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, for a very cordial and constructive review of bilateral relations. The discussion between the two Ministers served as a curtain raiser to the forthcoming session of the Indo– Sri Lanka Joint Commission that will take place, when Minister Krishna visits Sri Lanka later this year.

Later that day, Minister Peiris met with Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development of India to discuss collaboration in the education sphere, especially in relation to the assistance being received from India towards the realization of the vision of President Rajapaksa, for the coming into being of a Trilingual Society in Sri Lanka. Prof. Peiris expressed his appreciation of the ready assurance by Minister Sibal, that India would strongly be engaged in this effort.

Prof. Peiris’s third bilateral meeting on that day was the Indian Minister of Commerce & Industry, Mr. Anand Sharma. The two Ministers included in their discussion issues pertaining to the further strengthening of the trade and economic relationship between the two nations. They agreed that the forthcoming establishment of a Forum of Chief Executive Officers, which would include leading entrepreneurs of both countries, would assist both to iron out any problems and also to identify a sound and mutually beneficial path for the years ahead.

On the same day, Minister Peiris delivered the R .K. Mishra Memorial Lecture under the auspices of the Observer Research Foundation, on the theme of “Growth, Equity and Security : Constitutional Imperatives for South Asia”.

The Minister addressed representatives of leading media institutions, think-tanks and the diplomatic community in New Delhi at the Sri Lanka High Commission on October 16 morning concerning the new era of opportunities that has now dawned in Sri Lanka, with the end of the conflict situation, the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi said.