Modi assures on-arrival visas to Lankans

13 March 2015 06:54 am

The visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today announced that beginning from the National New Year on April 14, India would grant visas to Sri Lankan tourists on arrival.


According to ‘The Hindu’, he also said that the complex fishing crisis between India and Sri Lanka involved livelihood and humanitarian concerns and both sides would need to find a long-term solution to this festering matter.


This morning, Prime Minister Modi and Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena inked four agreements including agreements on currency swap arrangements and on customs cooperation.


Meanwhile, the New Indian Express said PM Modi had also pledged to help Trincomalee become a regional energy hub.


“I see this visit as an opportunity to further strengthen our relationship in all its dimensions – political, strategic, economic, cultural, and above all, people to people contacts,” he had said in his pre-departure statement.


Modi will also address the Sri Lankan Parliament during his visit. He will be the first Indian Prime Minister and only the second foreign leader after British Premier David Cameron to visit Jaffna in the once war-ravaged Northern Province, where he will hand over homes built with Indian assistance.


Some 20,000 such homes were built in Jaffna described by India as “a flagship cooperation project currently in Sri Lanka”. He is also expected to meet leaders of the Tamil National Alliance and other political parties.