The anti-government protests near the presidential secretariat in Colombo resumed on Sunday after the authorities lifted the nation-wide curfew to celebrate the Vesak -- what we call Buddha Purnima in India -- festival.
It was Prime Minister Modi's first such virtual bilateral engagement with a leader of a neighbouring country. For Rajapaksa, it was the first diplomatic engagement with a leader of a foreign country after he was sworn in as prime minister.
Delhi finds itself between the rock and hard place in the coming Sri Lankan election, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Rajapaksa and said he looks forward to further deepen relations between the two nations.
Though dubbed as the 'war hero', the role of Rajapaksa in ending the conflict with the LTTE with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009 is quite divisive as he stands accused of violating human rights, a charge he vehemently denies.
Polls opened at 7 am local time and would close at 5 pm with some 12,845 polling stations being set up throughout the country for 15.9 million voters, who will choose a successor to President Maithripala Sirisina.
'Rajapaksa's victory poses a serious foreign policy challenge for the Modi government,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'We should expect a cold-blooded, transactional relation that requires a lot of engagement and mutual trust to sustain,' says Constantino Xavier, Fellow, foreign policy, Brookings India.
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