India maintains strong ties with neighbours; country helping crisis-hit Lanka: Rajnath Singh

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday that India is trying to help Sri Lanka “as appropriately as possible” to deal with the unprecedented crisis that the island nation is facing.

He said that the country has maintained strong and friendly relations with all its neighbours, whether it is Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Maldives or Bangladesh, and has undertaken various endeavours to keep ties intact.

“India is trying to help friend Sri Lanka as appropriately as possible despite having also been affected by COVID-19 and Ukraine crises,” he said. Sri Lanka is going through an unprecedented economic and political turmoil, which has plunged the country into a state of chaos.

Speaking at the launch of stealth frigate ‘Dunagiri’ on river Hooghly, built by defence PSU Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Singh said that India provided medical and other emergency assistance to Nepal, Maldives and other countries amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Dunagiri is the second of the three stealth frigates that the GRSE is building for the Navy, with the first Himgiri having been launched in December 2020.