Vital Sri Lanka - India relations on sound footing as never before - Arvind Gupta

1 September 2015 12:43 pm

Indian Deputy National Security Advisor Dr Arvind Gupta said that the ever increasing India - Sri Lanka relations were now on a sound footing and Sri Lanka was a vital component in the periphery as regional development was taking root.

He expressed these views contributing to the Session 1 on the theme ‘Nature of Threats Affecting the National Security of a Nation’ of the ‘Defence Seminar - 2015’ at Colombo Galadari Hotel

Dr Gupta basing his address to the session on five major areas of Role of Economic Powers, Reforms in Security, Terrorism, Fragile Economy and Competition for Resources, added that considering emerging trends, one need to reform the effectiveness of the emerging economic powers.
 Similarly, maritime security such as piracy, safety and communication are new facets which we need to look at closely if we were to keep our economies as well as Indian Ocean stable.

Dr Gupta  said terrorism still remains a major challenge as young crowds are getting more and more radicalized with the speedily growing cyber space with ample openings for training and added that without ignoring good old methods of terrorism, cross-border unified preparedness and alertness need to be strengthened.

He said crash of stock markets and financial crises were common elsewhere while a lot of economic growth was taking place in Asia.
As development went on water resources have emerged as another challenge. More and more crises could be expected in the future as the need for cooperation was fast growing, he said.

He also underlined the significance of fostering Sri Lanka - India relations further which of course took place with the arrival of Sri Lanka’s President in India and Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka.(Army.lk)