Narayanan, Menon to meet Lankan Prez

National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon arrived in Colombo on Wednesday for talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa following end of the war against LTTE.

Relief for the lakhs of displaced Tamils and their rehabilitation would top the agenda for discussion when President Mahinda Rajapaksa meets two of India’s top bureaucrats over breakfast on Tuesday.
National security advisor MK Narayanan and foreign secretary SS Menon arrived in Colombo on Monday a day after the Rajapaksa announced to the world that the separatist LTTE had been wiped out from Sri Lanka.

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India has decided on an Rs 500 crore package for the relief and the rehabilitation of the refugees who are a now housed in 19 camps across north and east of Sri Lanka.

Naryanan and Menon are also likely take up the issue of bringing back the lakhs of Tamils in Sri Lanka to the political mainstream.

The top Indian delegation’s visit coincided with a damning report from the German Red Cross in Colombo, which said the “refugees are facing ‘very critical’ circumstances in northern Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the recent war.’’

Camps have counted at least 9,000 cases of hepatitis A and 2,600 cases of chicken pox.