President Ranil Wickremesinghe and visiting Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar have virtually declared open the Academy for Kandyan dancing in close proximity to the Dalada Maligawa in Kandy today (Jan. 20). 

Indian PM Narendra Modi has laid the foundation stone of the Academy for Kandyan dancing during his visit to Sri Lanka in 2017. The academy was built as a gift given to Sri Lanka by the Indian Government and its people, the President’s Media Division (PMD) reported.

Further, the handing over of 300 completed houses in Galle, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts under the housing project implemented in Sri Lanka with the support of the Indian Government, was also done virtually by the President and the Indian External Affairs Minister, according to the PMD.

In this project of 60,000 houses, 50,000 houses have been completed. The third phase of the project of 400 houses for the people of the upcountry estate sector is currently underway and over 3,300 houses built under it have already been completed and are ready to be handed over to the beneficiaries, it added.

The handing over of houses built in Anuradhapura and Badulla districts under the “Model Village Housing Program” implemented with the support of the Government of India for low-income families in Sri Lanka have also been symbolically handed over to the beneficiaries.