Sushma Swaraj To Arrive Today

External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Swaraj will arrive today on a two-day trip in preparation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit later this month.

Modi is scheduled to visit the island nation between March 12 and 15, and Swaraj will hold discussions on arrangements for the PM’s visit, a statement from the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said. She will call on President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Minister’s last visit here was in 2012, as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Leading a parliamentary delegation, she also handed over the IRCON’s railway project in Sri Lanka.

Modi’s is the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister since Rajiv Gandhi visited the island in 1987, to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord. He is scheduled to travel across the island, covering Jaffna in the Tamil-majority Northern Province, Trincomalee in the Eastern Province, where India is helping build a power plant, and the ancient city of Anuradhapura.