Natarajan pulls up FICCI for Sri Lanka proposal

Environment minister and member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu Jayanthi Natarajan has taken on industry body FICCI for proposing a parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka for track-two diplomacy.

Environment minister and member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu Jayanthi Natarajan has taken on industry body FICCI for proposing a parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka for track-two diplomacy.

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FICCI wanted to take a group of MPs to Sri Lanka for talks with Sri Lankan MPs and also to promote Indian companies there.

Expressing her anguish over the move, Natarajan told FICCI president to "desist from continuing with business as a usual scenario" with regard to the visit.

"This will give rise to an avoidable impression that the anguish and turmoil being felt by Tamilians and indeed, the whole country over the human right violations against Sri Lankan tamils, by the Sri Lanka government has not been supported, or taken seriously by FICCI," she said in her letter, recalling how Tamilians in Sri Lanka had been tortured.