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India's exports would go down if economic sanctions are imposed on Sri Lanka as sought by some people in Tamil Nadu, affecting farmers, manufacturers and suppliers in the State, says former President of the India-ASEAN-Sri Lanka Chamber of Commerce.

Countering China may be harder than India imagines. For one thing, regional countries aren’t willing to support any Indian moves to balance China in the Bay.

The chances of having a ferry service between India and Sri Lanka by the end of this year seem likely provided both India and Sri Lanka are clear abou

India is keen on maintaining good relations with the Maldives for the larger common good of the South Asian region

India needs to find money to put into strategic investments and projects across the IOR -- whether it is Myanmar, Iran, Sri Lanka or Mauritius. The way to do it is not governmental schemes which are all running late, but to draw strength from India's entrepreneurial class and the private sector.

The recent visit made by the Chinese Foreign Minister to Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Comoros showcases its renewed interest in the Indian Ocean Region

The subregional approach has been providing Delhi the opportunity to experiment with new arrangements in building security cooperation with its neighb

The Indian and Chinese diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka sparred on social media over the visit of a Chinese military research vessel to the island nation.

Sri Lanka has remained a fractured country for the major portion of its existence due to the ethnic divide between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. Today, it is again at the crossroads as it awaits the results of the snap general elections, due on April 2, 2004, following the dissolution of Parliament on February 7, 2004 in the wake of seemingly irreconcilable differences between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister R

Going by the Sri Lanka-related events and developments on the global arena, it looks as if the international community has not learnt any lessons from the recent past in and of the country. Be it the Indian neighbour, or the distant Norway, or whoever had attempted to help resolve the ethnic issue, had to give up after a point.

India has not turned a blind eye to the developments in its neighbourhood, nor has it stopped participating in events over there.

The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka have brought the island nation to the forefront of the global terrorism discourse. The attacks further demonstrate the change in the Islamic State from a territorial group to a sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

The global counter-terrorism measures cannot stop with fighting religious terrorism but also need to look into the basic causes that have fanned the s

If someone in Sri Lanka thought that the jail-term handed down to Jayalalithaa, until then the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, would ease avoidable political tensions across the Palk Strait, they should be sadly mistaken.

An official delegation from Sri Lankan comprising Mr. Sunimal Fernando, Advisor to the President, and Mrs. Shirani Goonatilleke, Secretary of the government's Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), visited Observer Research Foundation (ORF) on October 9, 2006, and had an interaction with the research faculty.

What Colombo and Beijing are telling Delhi is that Chinese naval presence in Sri Lanka is now routine and India should get used to it. Delhi quite clearly will find it hard to digest. But, if Delhi wants to limit or reverse Colombo's strategic tilt towards China, it should start with a comprehensive review of its policy towards Sri Lanka.

By rebelling against supremo Prabhakaran in an unprecedented way, ¿Col¿ Karuna, LTTE¿s sacked commander for Sri Lanka¿s Eastern Province, has put the clock back in more ways than one. In a way, it has also put the LTTE at the crossroad all over again as never before, coming as it does after the historic Ceasefire Agreement with the Sri Lankan Government, but how far is too early to determine.

Now, Maldives seems to be slipping steadily into the 'pressure cooker' mode. No solutions are in sight. None one knows what is going to happen next. May be, the ruling Yameen leadership should look around to learn its lessons from neighbouring Sri Lanka.

The Maldives is said to be in a brittle economic state, slowly inching closer to what Sri Lanka and Pakistan are experiencing.

There is a possibility of Maldives being at the centre of an international game.

The Maldivian authorities can now breathe easy. Now that the Cricket World Cup, played in venues across Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, is completed without any security problems, the reported Interpol alert against Maldives-based religious terrorists targeting the match venues have receded for good.

All nations, including India, would be watching for inclinations on how the ‘new Maldives’ intends to avoid a China-induced ‘debt-trap’ of the

The unresolved India-China border dispute brings China closer to the Indian Ocean in every political and geo-strategic calculation of nations like Maldives and Sri Lanka, even though they are not as close to both the 'Asian giants' as the rest of India's South Asian neighbours.

The Opposition — PPM-PNC combine — has called upon New Delhi, along with Sri Lanka and Pakistan, to help obtain freedom for Yameen.

If proof were required, the DMK-Congress spat on the Sri Lanka related vote at the UN Human Rights Council has once again provided it. Foreign Affairs will increasingly impinge on national politics.

The Nepal-India-Sri Lanka initiative could be used to pursue better people-to-people relations.

Modi in his first overseas visit in the new term, extended an early hand to the two Indian Ocean neighbours to ensure collective security.

Other than neighbouring countries, any future Indian government's principal focus will be on the vast swathe that begins in Sri Lanka and ends in Sydney, and can be described under a variety of rubrics: Look East, Indian Ocean Region, the Indo-Pacific. Countries such as Japan, Indonesia and Singapore present India big windows as it strives to become an economic and maritime power.

India's Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi, has set a healthy precedent for all of South Asia to follow by inviting all Neighbourhood leaders for his inauguration, including Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

New Indian Prime Minister and Sri Lankan President should attempt to take forward the fishers' talks, promised to be continued/revived by their respective Heads of Government at their Delhi meeting, and then have their officials create the structures and super-structures aimed at implementing those decisions.

PM Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Party has decided on retaining the Executive Presidency and ‘power-devolution’ under the existing ‘unitary State’ model

India’s recent outreach to Sri Lanka and Mauritius suggest a renewed focus on the Indian Ocean region.

It has become apparent that Pakistan is on its way to be the next Sri Lanka as it struggles to stay afloat. 

The revival of caste and community-based issues in Tamil Nadu (like in Paramakudi and Koodamkulam), the non-resolution of inter-State river water disputes and Sri Lanka-related concerns could added up to the problems of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

The demand for India¿s active engagement with the Sri Lankan peace process has been building up for the past couple of years following the gradual erosion in the credibility of Norway as an impartial ¿facilitator¿. With the election of President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is in New Delhi this week, this demand has gained momentum; more so because of the fast deterioration in Sri Lanka¿s internal peace.

Once Taiwan is taken over, it is argued, the PLA will have a freer hand to deal with India and even recover other disputed territories.

As a new government led by Maithripala Sirisena takes charge in Colombo, New Delhi has a valuable opportunity to arrest the drift in bilateral relations over the last few years. The Modi government, less constrained internally than the UPA government, is in a good position to rebuild the partnership with Sri Lanka that occupies a vital position on India's maritime frontiers to the south.

During the meeting with visiting Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Modi has indicated he would like to visit Sri Lanka in March. During the tour, the Indian PM may also visit Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles. The visit has the great potential for these nations to emerge as a collective Indian Ocean Rim voice.

India-baiting has become a part and parcel of the Rajapaksa camp-led Joint Opposition’s political attacks and protests against the ruling Maithiri-R

What is fuelling anti-India rhetoric in India’s neighbourhood despite the efforts made by the Indian government to allay such fears?

Whatever be the end-game in the ¿Karuna rebellion¿ within the monolithic LTTE, the development may have heralded a process of ¿social justice¿ or social re-engineering¿ as is understood in India ¿ and also come to stay, in a way. To the extent, the ¿Karuna factor¿ may have become unstoppable in the socio-political sense of the term, whatever be the immediate consequence of the rebellion, or its impact on the suspended peace process in Sri

Desperate to get around international isolation and seeking to co-opt new ‘friendly states’, Moscow seems ready to make allowance for the region�

SAARC conjures up an image of jamborees and no results. The South Asian Association of Regional cooperation with its seven members ( India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh) remains one of the most dysfunctional trade blocs and there is hardly any freedom of movement of goods, services and people. The next (13th) SAARC summit is going to be held in Dhaka in the beginning of January 2005.

This is an edited version of the talk given by Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne, a well known historian and archaeologist from Sri Lanka, at ORF on April 9, 2012. Prof Seneviratne, currently Professor of Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya, Colombo, has carried out pioneering research in the field of archaeology and is a widely respected speaker on the subject.

Expecting India to bail Sri Lanka out every time there is a crisis may work for some time, but it's a recipe for disaster.

In the ongoing contest between China and India for influence, New Delhi has made some gains in the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

As competition intensifies in the Indian Ocean Region, India loses touch with Sri Lanka and solidifies relations with the Maldives.