Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make a brief visit to Sri Lanka in April this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Sri Lanka during the first week of April. Apart from bilateral meetings in Colombo, Premier Modi is expected to launch a solar power plant project in the Eastern town Sampur in Trincomalee district, coming up as a joint venture between Ceylon Electricity Board and National Thermal Power Corporation of India.

However the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said there was no decision on the visit yet, but an official added Prime Minister Modi was likely to attend the regional BIMSTEC meetings in Thailand, indicating that he will transit through Colombo before or after the event. While Sri Lanka the Indian leader is likely to have a high-level participation at the BIMSTEC summit, all eyes will be on interactions between Prime Minister Modi and Bangladesh Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, as well as Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, given the tensions in India’s ties with both countries in the past few months.

Prime Minister Modi’s Sri Lanka visit comes in response to an invitation from President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was in New Delhi in December 2024, on his first State visit abroad months after he assumed office after winning a historic election in September 2024. President Dissanayake subsequently visited China in January and the United Arab Emirates last month.

The Indian Prime Minister has visited Sri Lanka three times since 2014. He was last in the island in June 2019. Prior to that, he visited in 2015 and 2017. During President Dissanayake’s visit in December, regional security, digital infrastructure, connectivity, energy projects and the Palk Bay fisheries conflict were among the key issues discussed by the leaders. Prime Minister Modi will be the first head of government to visit Sri Lanka after President Dissanayake and his National People’s Power coalition (NPP) formed the Government late last year.

Last month, Pan Yue, director of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of China was in Sri Lanka and reportedly held talks on ethnic reconciliation and bilateral cooperation in culture and education. Neither Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry nor the Chinese Embassy in Colombo issued an official statement on the visit. However, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs Hiniduma Sunil Senevi posted on his social media page about a meeting with the visiting Chinese official. Pan also visited the University of Peradeniya, near Kandy, “to promote enhanced educational exchange and cooperation”, the institution said on its website.

In the meantime fisher folk in Jaffna were up in arms against the Indian fishermen fishing in the Lankan territorial waters. The Jaffna fishermen staged a protest march towards the Deputy Indian High Commission in Jaffna. The Jaffna fisher folk protestors handed over a memorandum to the Indian officials to stop the Indian fishing vessels infiltrating the Lankan waters.

The Jaffna fishermen along with their kith and kin thereafter went in procession to the Jaffna Governor’s office and handed over a memorandum to the Governor to flex his muscles to do anything constructively to prevent the Indian fishermen infiltrating the Jaffna waters. The ruling NPP Minister Bimal Ratnayake addressing in Parliament on Indian fishermen infiltrating in Northern waters and said that India was assisting in many ways to Sri Lanka. However Minister Bimal Ratnayake also emphasized that India must come forward to help prevent the Indian Fishermen coming into the Lankan waters.

Speaking further on the problems faced by the Northern fishermen Minister Bimal Ratnayake pointed out that India could stand by the International Maritime laws strongly and prevent the country’s fisher folk crossing the International Maritime Border Line (IMBL) between Sri Lanka and India. Therefore during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka in April, the Lankan officials are expected to take up the Indian fishermen issue with the Indian Prime Minister.

In the meantime National People’s Power Government’s Jaffna district Parliamentarian J. Rajeevan pointed out that due to the infiltration of the Indian fisher folk in the Northern waters Jaffna fishermen are very much affected and they are losing nearly Rs 35 million worth of fish daily. The North and East Parliamentarians have their differences in politics. But including the ruling National People’s Power Parliamentarians have come together in protesting against the infiltration of the Indian fishermen in Northern waters.

Therefore during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Colombo in April this year the Indian fishermen’s issue is likely to come up in a big way from all sides of the political front in the Island.