Wednesday, 23rd July 2014
A group of members from India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including the Chairman of BJP's Committee on Strategic Action and Former Union Minister Dr. Subramanian Swamy, met Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa at Ministry premises on July 22.
Following a warm welcome, matters of mutual interests and economic development programs were discussed during the meeting between Minister Rajapaksa and BJP representatives.
The other BJP members who participated in the meeting with Minister Rajapaksa include Dr. Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Dr. Chari Seshadri Ramanujan, Dr. Swapan Dasgupta and Prof. Madhav Nalapat.
During the discussions, the Economic Development Minister focused attention on the expanding Sri Lanka-India economic cooperation and expressed his appreciation of India's contribution to the development of the island's infrastructure among other fields.
Pointing out that Sri Lanka's security is important to India, Dr. Swamy told Minister Rajapaksa that the end of the war has benefited Indian security as well.
In particular, they commended the Government's initiatives in the North and East towards improving infrastructure, bringing better educational opportunities to students and implementing programs to make Sri Lanka a trilingual nation.
Environment and Renewable Energy Minister Susil Premajayantha, Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development Minister Douglas Devananda, Parliamentarian Thilanga Sumathipala, Northern Provincial Council opposition leader S. Thavarasa, Ministry Secretary Dr. Nihal Jayathilake and Presidential Advisor Dr. Sunimal Fernando also participated in the discussion.
From: http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=local/india-wants-excellent-relations-lanka-says-bjp-delegation
