Mahinda-Modi summit to be held on Saturday

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, September 21: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have a virtual summit with his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday (September 26). This will be his first with any leader in the neighbourhood.

With this, India’s immediate neighbourhood is coming into focus again.

The summit could be right on the heels of Modi’s address to the UN General Assembly, which will be delivered virtually this year, during the UN’s high-level segment which begins this week.

At month-end, External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is expected to hold a meeting of the India-Bangladesh consultative mechanism to take forward the relationship, and a roadmap for two years, with a political leadership pushing the agenda.

Also on the cards are India-Myanmar foreign office consultations. Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla was supposed to travel to Yangon with Army Chief General Naravane, which had to be postponed due to the China crisis. That may be resumed.

India reached out to the Afghan government, standing by it as the intra-Afghan talks began last week. Sources said a series of high-level visits from Afghanistan is expected in the coming days.

Interestingly, there is no outreach planned with Nepal. The last time Nepal and India interacted at a high level was when Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli called Modi on Independence Day.

On Sunday, the Maldives received $250 million in budgetary support from India after a request by the Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to Modi for financial assistance to overcome the difficult economic situation as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Given on favourable and transparent terms, the assistance is without conditions, according to an official readout. The Maldives Government can use it for whatever they deem important.