Khurshid on 2-day Lanka visit from today

Lanka has formulated a national masterplan as per which every Tamilian will have to learn Sinhalese.

External Affairs minister Salman Khurshid who will head for Sri Lanka on Monday on a two-day visit,will sign a crucial agreement to bridge the linguistic divide in Sri Lanka and another pact to produce more electricity in the rapidly-developing island nation.

Ahead of Khurshids visit,Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Prasad Kariyawasam told The Indian Express,The two countries will sign a Memorandum of Understanding to support the 10-year national plan for a tri-lingual Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has embarked on a first-of-its-kind multilingualism approach involving Tamil,Sinhalese and English,launched last year. Colombo sought help of Indian government to implement the policy.

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The HRD ministry,Central Institute of Indian Languages,Mysore,and the Lankan government have been working on this for long. Lanka has formulated a national masterplan as per which every Tamilian will have to learn Sinhalese,and it is mandatory for every Sinhala to master Tamil. India hopes this will bridge the ethnic divide.

Apart from this,Kariya-wasam confirmed that the two countries will sign an MoU on Sampur coal power project,which will produce 500 MW.

NTPC and Ceylon Electricity Board will work on this. The project is located near the strategic port of Trincomalee, the Sri Lankan envoy said. Khurshid will hold talks with top leadership on key issues,including Indian fishermen in jails there and devolution of powers to provinces. This is his first visit to Sri Lanka as External Affairs Minister and comes immediately after provincial polls in Tamil-dominated Nort-hern Province last month.

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