M A I N   N E W S

Rajapaksa  to grace CWG closing 
Ashok Tuteja/TNS

New Delhi, October 11
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa will be visiting New Delhi for the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on Thursday as “an honoured guest” of India.

According to diplomatic sources, Rajapaksa will arrive here on October 14 and fly back to Colombo the next day. India was quite keen on having the Sri Lankan leader present at the closing ceremony as that would signal New Delhi’s support for the island nation’s bid to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. It is still not known whether Rajapaksa would have indepth talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders  on the situation in the island nation.

However, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G L Peiris will be arriving here on Wednesday on a four-day visit that was worked out by the two sides sometime back. Peiris is expected to discuss with New Delhi the issue of political settlement of devolving power to the North and the East that Sri Lanka has already agreed to implement.

India has been pressing Sri Lanka to take speedy steps for the rehabilitation of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who have been facing hardships ever since the Sri Lankan Government launched the military offensive against the LTTE, which led to the annihilation of the terrorist outfit early last year.

Peiris is expected to brief the Indian leadership over the issue of resettlement of the IDPs and the initiatives taken by Colombo to expedite their political settlement.