Colombo: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to sign a major defence deal with Sri Lanka on Saturday that will involve joint maritime surveillance, drills and equipment support. Modi was accorded a grand welcome at Colombo in the morning. This is his first visit to the country since Anura Kumara Dissanayake took over as president of Sri Lanka in 2024.
The teardrop-shaped island nation, close to the southern tip of mainland India is of great strategic importance, given China’s efforts to create infrastructure there. China already controls a part of the Hambantota Port along Sri Lanka’s southern coast that it helped build. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) already has a logistics base there, much to India’s concern.
China continues to send it’s research vessels to the Indian Ocean, primarily to keep tabs on the testing of missiles and rockets by India. Sri Lanka, on India’s behest, denied such ships to operate in its waters for a year. The moratorium has now ended.
India believes that deeper ties, economic and otherwise, with Sri Lanka, will help in keeping it away from China’s clutches. Sri Lanka passed through a major economic crisis in 2022 and India helped in stabilizing the situation to a large extent.
During Modi’s visit, the supply of cheaper fuel to Sri Lanka is likely to be announced. A joint venture between India’s National Thermal Power Corporation and Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Electricity Board for a 120 Megawatt solar power plant at Trincomalee is also expected to be signed.
Several other memoranda of understanding concerning bilateral trade are also in the pipeline. India is also likely to raise the issue of its fishermen in Sri Lanka’s custody. Most of these fishermen are from Tamil Nadu, which passed a resolution recently to retrieve the Katchatheevu island, around which most of the Indian fishermen were arrested, from Sri Lanka.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar, who is accompanying Modi in this trip, along with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, had recently informed the Rajya Sabha that 97 Indian fishermen are in Sri Lankan custody. As many as 83 of them are serving sentences. Jaishankar had said that the Indian government will continue to do its best to ensure Sri Lanka adopts a humanitarian approach on this issue.
