NEW DELHI // Sri Lanka’s new president will arrive in New Delhi on Sunday, marking the beginning of his efforts to pivot his country away from China and towards its traditional ally, India.
The four-day trip will be Maithripala Sirisena’s first state visit since a surprise victory over the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in the January 8 presidential election.
During his campaign, Mr Sirisena had criticised the pronounced tilt of Mr Rajapaksa’s government towards China.
In his manifesto, Mr Sirisena promised “equal relations” with Sri Lanka’s neighbours, and described his proposed policy towards India as “neither anti-Indian nor dependent”.
Since the end of the civil war, China has financed nearly US$4 billion (Dh14.7bn) in infrastructure and energy investments in Sri Lanka — projects that include the port of Hambantota, a new motorway, and scores of hotels, office complexes and apartment buildings.
Sri Lanka’s monetary debt to China is so large that Mr Sirisena warned during his campaign that his country could “become a colony, and we would become slaves” to China if Mr Rajapaksa’s policies continued. India remains Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner, with $4bn in bilateral trade.
But Sri Lankan economist Saman Kelegama noted, in an Asian Development Bank working paper published last year, that “a number of impediments” still prevent a 1999 free-trade agreement from reaching its full potential. Mr Kelegama cited a lack of market access in India for Sri Lankan products as key among these impediments.
Mr Sirisena will spend Monday in official talks with prime minister Narendra Modi. The talks will be accompanied by discussions between national delegations, according to a statement from India’s ministry of external affairs.
On Tuesday, Mr Sirisena will visit the town of Bodh Gaya in Bihar, an important pilgrimage site for Sri Lanka’s Buddhists, because the Buddha is said to have obtained enlightenment here. Mr Sirisena will also visit the Hindu temple at Tirupati, in Andhra Pradesh, before returning home on Wednesday.
Both religious locations are traditionally on the itineraries of Sri Lankan leaders in India.
Ahead of the state visit, Sri Lanka has rolled out a brace of measures designed to ease existing tensions between Colombo and New Delhi.
Last Wednesday, the Sri Lankan government ordered the release of 84 Indian fishing boats, which had been held after straying into Sri Lankan waters over the last several years.
The issue of Indian fishermen working in Sri Lankan waters has long been a thorny one. Sri Lankan authorities have arrested and detained dozens of such fishermen in the past. Fishing rights are likely to feature into talks between Mr Modi and Mr Sirisena, according to Peer Mohamed, a Chennai-based political analyst.
Last October, Sri Lanka sentenced five Indian fishermen to death, accusing them of drug smuggling. They were transferred to an Indian jail in late November after Mr Modi personally intervened.
Sri Lanka also announced last Thursday that thousands of acres of land in the north and east of the country, which is currently held by the defence forces, will be released back to Tamil civilians.
Much of this land will be used to resettle families who remain displaced since Mr Rajapaksa ended Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war by defeating Tamil insurgents, who had wanted an independent state.
“Under this project, each family will receive 20 perches [roughly 0.125 acres] of land and financial assistance to build a house,” D M Swaminathan, Sri Lanka’s minister for resettlement, said.
Under Mr Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s treatment of its Tamil minority has been a bone of contention in its relations with India, which has a large Tamil population of its own.
“Sirisena won the elections because he got all those Tamil votes that Rajapaksa did not,” said Mr Mohamed. “And I think these Tamil votes accrued to him, in part, because he promised to reorient his country towards India.”
Nearly 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed by army shelling in the final few months of the war, according to UN estimates. Thousands remain displaced.
Nearly 100,000 Tamil refugees live in India, and their repatriation will be on the agenda during Mr Sirisena’s visit as well.
When Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera visited New Delhi in mid-January, India called for “political reconciliation” between the Sri Lankan state and its Tamil minority.
Mr Sirisena has already moved in this direction. Soon after Mr Samaraweera’s visit, the government appointed a new governor to the Tamil-majority Northern Province — a diplomat, who replaced a retired army officer.
Mr Sirisena’s government has also promised to implement the constitution’s 13th amendment, neglected under Mr Rajapaksa, which promises to devolve more powers to the country’s provinces.
The new president is also lobbying to delay the March release of a UN report on war crimes, arguing that his government should first be given a chance to institute a new domestic probe.
“He needs India’s support in this matter,” Mr Mohamed said. “That could be among the reasons he is courting India so strongly at this moment.”
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
What you as a drone operator need to know
A permit and licence is required to fly a drone legally in Dubai.
Sanad Academy is the United Arab Emirate’s first RPA (Remotely Piloted Aircraft) training and certification specialists endorsed by the Dubai Civil Aviation authority.
It is responsible to train, test and certify drone operators and drones in UAE with DCAA Endorsement.
“We are teaching people how to fly in accordance with the laws of the UAE,” said Ahmad Al Hamadi, a trainer at Sanad.
“We can show how the aircraft work and how they are operated. They are relatively easy to use, but they need responsible pilots.
“Pilots have to be mature. They are given a map of where they can and can’t fly in the UAE and we make these points clear in the lectures we give.
“You cannot fly a drone without registration under any circumstances.”
Larger drones are harder to fly, and have a different response to location control. There are no brakes in the air, so the larger drones have more power.
The Sanad Academy has a designated area to fly off the Al Ain Road near Skydive Dubai to show pilots how to fly responsibly.
“As UAS technology becomes mainstream, it is important to build wider awareness on how to integrate it into commerce and our personal lives,” said Major General Abdulla Khalifa Al Marri, Commander-in-Chief, Dubai Police.
“Operators must undergo proper training and certification to ensure safety and compliance.
“Dubai’s airspace will undoubtedly experience increased traffic as UAS innovations become commonplace, the Forum allows commercial users to learn of best practice applications to implement UAS safely and legally, while benefitting a whole range of industries.”
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
Central Bank's push for a robust financial infrastructure
- CBDC real-value pilot held with three partner institutions
- Preparing buy now, pay later regulations
- Preparing for the 2023 launch of the domestic card initiative
- Phase one of the Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FiT) completed
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
Company profile
Company name: Tuhoon
Year started: June 2021
Co-founders: Fares Ghandour, Dr Naif Almutawa, Aymane Sennoussi
Based: Riyadh
Sector: health care
Size: 15 employees, $250,000 in revenue
Investment stage: seed
Investors: Wamda Capital, Nuwa Capital, angel investors
The Specs
Engine: 1.6-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 118hp
Torque: 149Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Price: From Dh61,500
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 620hp from 5,750-7,500rpm
Torque: 760Nm from 3,000-5,750rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch auto
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh1.05 million ($286,000)
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre 6-cyl turbo
Power: 435hp at 5,900rpm
Torque: 520Nm at 1,800-5,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Price: from Dh498,542
On sale: now
3 Body Problem
Creators: David Benioff, D B Weiss, Alexander Woo
Starring: Benedict Wong, Jess Hong, Jovan Adepo, Eiza Gonzalez, John Bradley, Alex Sharp
Rating: 3/5
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Developer: Big Ape Productions
Publisher: LucasArts
Consoles: PC, PlayStation
Rating: 2/5
Top tips
Create and maintain a strong bond between yourself and your child, through sensitivity, responsiveness, touch, talk and play. “The bond you have with your kids is the blueprint for the relationships they will have later on in life,” says Dr Sarah Rasmi, a psychologist.
Set a good example. Practise what you preach, so if you want to raise kind children, they need to see you being kind and hear you explaining to them what kindness is. So, “narrate your behaviour”.
Praise the positive rather than focusing on the negative. Catch them when they’re being good and acknowledge it.
Show empathy towards your child’s needs as well as your own. Take care of yourself so that you can be calm, loving and respectful, rather than angry and frustrated.
Be open to communication, goal-setting and problem-solving, says Dr Thoraiya Kanafani. “It is important to recognise that there is a fine line between positive parenting and becoming parents who overanalyse their children and provide more emotional context than what is in the child’s emotional development to understand.”
All or Nothing
Amazon Prime
Four stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Znap
Started: 2017
Founder: Uday Rathod
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: FinTech
Funding size: $1m+
Investors: Family, friends
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: SupplyVan
Based: Dubai, UAE
Launch year: 2017
Number of employees: 29
Sector: MRO and e-commerce
Funding: Seed
FINAL SCORES
Fujairah 130 for 8 in 20 overs
(Sandy Sandeep 29, Hamdan Tahir 26 no, Umair Ali 2-15)
Sharjah 131 for 8 in 19.3 overs
(Kashif Daud 51, Umair Ali 20, Rohan Mustafa 2-17, Sabir Rao 2-26)
Sukuk
An Islamic bond structured in a way to generate returns without violating Sharia strictures on prohibition of interest.
