Sri Lankan envoy calls on Indian Finance Minister Sitharaman

Sri Lanka High Commissioner to India Kshenuka Senewiratne called on Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday (12) in New Delhi.

Upon meeting Sitharaman, the Sri Lanka High Commissioner also extended felicitations on her reappointment as India’s Finance Minister.

“Sri Lanka High Commissioner Kshenuka Senewiratne together w/DHC Priyanga Wickramasinghe called on Hon @nsitharamanoffc today to extend felicitations on her reappointment as India’s Finance Minister,” the High Commission of Sri Lanka in New Delhi wrote in a post on X.

“SriLanka looks fwd to enhancing the enduring friendship & cooperation b/w &” the post read.

In a second stint, Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday morning formally assumed charge as Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs.

Sitharaman was greeted at the office in North Block by Finance Secretary TV Somanathan and other Secretaries of the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs.

Nirmala Sitharaman, who is among a few who have been Union Minister in both the 2014 and 2019 Modi cabinets, took oath as Union Cabinet Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new Union Council of Ministers on Sunday evening in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan, along with another 70 Council of Ministers.

She will soon present the full Budget for 2024-25, but the dates are yet to be announced.

In the 2014 cabinet, she served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs and later the Minister for Commerce and Industry with Independent Charge. In 2017, she was appointed as the Union Defence Minister.

In 2019, Sitharaman assumed charge as the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs.

She was the first woman appointed as the full-time Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs. Earlier, Indira Gandhi had held finance as an additional portfolio for a short duration when she was the prime minister of India.

Source – ANI
--Agencies